Page 85 - Allan MacLeod: Stories and Gaelic Songs

ISSUE : Issue 74

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1999/6/1

going from house to house. He lived alone all his life. And he'd build a cabin wher? ever the fall caught him. He'd build a cabin there, in the woods himself.... But you'd see him hitchhike on the road, see. He'd get tired hitchhiking one way, and if he couldn't get a drive, whichever way a drive'd go, then, that's the way he'd be going. It didn't matter which way you were going. Long as he got a drive out of that spot any way at all! That's the kind he was, see. (Nobody really afraid of him?) Oh, no. I mean, everybody'd take him in and feed him, and keep him for the night if you could, I mean. Oh, nobody • no, not even I the kids I weren't I afraid of I him. He I wouldn't I harm a soul, I I mean. (These lit? tle gather? ings at your home • would Sandy Mac? Neil ever come to something like that?) No. He had lots of songs, they claim, but he wouldn't sing or any- 'vanB Q-penifK' July 16pm continuing to August 28,1999 Monday to Saturday 10am-7pm Sunday 12-6pm The Creamery Granville Street Port Hawkesbury Waterfront Cope Breton Nova Scotia BOE 2V0 For Information: (902)625-0207 or (902) 625-2591 http://www.capebretonet.conn/Strait/Quilt (fflHusqvama _- _'_ TT -id, Enterprise ,., llT 01'' jir c:?. • r Canada s'?s?="' thing. He was just by himself in his own.... And he'd never sit at the tsd3le and have anything to eat, if you were having supper or dinner or anything. Suppose there was only two or three or two at the table • lots of room • but he'd never sit at a ta? ble. You could give him a plate or give him a cup of tea, whatever you'd give him, but give it to him on a chair • chair to sit on, and put a chair in front of him. Away from the crowd, like; away from whoever was in the house. If you euid I were sitting here having tea, give him this down there. Put a chair in front of him, if we were at the table here. He'd eat that. It went for years and years. Then finally he got--age and all--he got the Old Age Pension, and he was pretty good then.... Finally, he got so weak. I mean, he'd drink and he'd be all over the road, you'd be finding him. So he had to go in a boarding house then. And (then) he moved in with this (family). He was there till he died, I think. He was old, too, when he died. He got so weak that when it came to the point where he couldn't get out, he had to stay home. And he died there. I don't know. I don't think anybody knew too much about how he got (the way he was)--because he wasn't a fellow that would tell you anything. No, he wouldn't. He'd never sit down and tell you a story about anything that involved him or any? thing. And if anything was going on, like, that he ficnired he shouldn't talk about or tell anybody about • supposing he was there, and you asked him. Have you seen [SraJ&ATV; uuu;.a/1pebre+OTe + .dO'/S-l-r/1/-(-/6-r/lTv///e6-reeT July 4 July 11 July 18 July 25 August 1 August 8 August 15 August 22 August 29 Kilt Dougie MacDonald Men of the Deeps Sons of Maxwell Natalie MacMaster Rita Rankin Jennifer Roland The Mahones MacKeel The Accents Gordie Sampson John Allan Cameron iv;//e frreeTA OKj-rx>ooi coNt'Ti-r Stv'-itS fK't* .< • ? >c eastern'' SIOTE' Dining Room • jjC' Enterprise -ilfe Cape Breton imV Corporatio, '

Cape Breton's Magazine