Page 57 - A Visit With the MacLeods at Belfry

ISSUE : Issue 74

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1999/6/1

no. You went to a pie social, you'd bid on somebody's cake, you know. The neighbours knew how much money you made, and the only money that you made was two months in the lob? ster cannery, that's all. If you took a couple of hundred dollars out, "Where'd you get that?" Roy: Did you have to go to the bemks to cash the cheques? Jimmy: Oh, no. It was cash. Cash. Cash on the barrelhead, boy. Flora: The MacCormicks were involved in that.... Jimmy: Yes, Hector, Hector. Flora: And the Mounties would come every second day. The Mounties would be out and coming over and looking around and questioning and filially, they had this--was it a garage they had there by the gate? Jimmv: Yeah. Flora: And it was covered with black tarpaper and they wrote "Police Headquarters" in white paint on the roof. So the next time they came, they looked Lena: I know what prompted that--a five-gallon keg, I guess. Down at Fourchu, he'd got a 5- gallon keg of rum emd it was getting on to the fall emd the frost was on the round, you know. He didn't have it home but he had it hid here and there and somewheres else below the field. And the Mounties' d see his tracks go down like this through the ice, through the snow, going down to fill his little bottle for the day. Jimmy: I remember the old man, you know.... Flora: Your father or your grandfather? Jimmv: He was kind of the head of it out here, you know. Flora: Oh, your father. Jimmv: Yeah, but he never had nothing. He was just being the (head) man. The guy would come from Glace Bay emd he'd give the orders, "One come in to? night ." And we'd just start. Malcolm and I and Hector were down at the Gut and we had ninety kegs out. Ninety kegs out. Three cars coming. They could tedte thirty with the back seat out, five-gallon kegs. The old mem come down, he says, "Put it all back," he said. "There's 300 kegs coming ashore at Steering Beach tonight," he says, "at half past eleven." Flora: That was down to? ward MacKay's. Jimmv: MacKay's there, down by the Gut. "Put evezrything back emd go up, drive up." Didn't drive, walked. We couldn't drive, had nothing to drive. So we went up anyhow and went down there. There were three cars there. They were all • I don't know who they were. They helped imload emd everything, and I can still remember the two trucks that come. One was a '36 Ford and the other was a '36 (33C. One had no muffler on her or nothing. What a racket she was making! Three hundred kegs --a hundred and fifty in each one. Threw a canvas over Gipe Breton A Warm Welcome Awaits You in HISTORIC LOUISBOURG Cape Breton, N.S. at the Home of Mrs. Greta Cross 48 Pepperell St. • (902) 733-2833 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.gdlewis.ed.net.ns.ca /capsite/GRETA.HTML COMFORTABLE ROOMS FULL BREAKFAST • HOME COOKING KITCHEN & LAUNDRY PRIVILEGES AMPLE PARKING SPACE OFF MAIN STREET QUIET AREA • SCENIC VIEW Double: $45.00 ? Single: $35.00 C CHILDREN WELCOME ) . Bienvenue! Ciad Mile Failte! '

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