Ah gosh, that was a tough man. He’d be on that river, no matter how cold it was, all night long, soaking wet. Strong as a horse. Go home and get another fresh horse and a sleigh and start for Montague Bridge with a sale.

[The smelts] were packaged and a lot of them went for food, human food, and a lot of them went in them days for fox feed. But ah, the price. Course, everything else was low too. It was as good as anything else at that

time.

Going to Market

There was a lot of stores here that I remember. [The merchants] had pretty near power of life and death over the vicinity and some of them weren’t any too nice about it either. In them days, business was done pretty much on the fall business, see? You charged all your groceries through the summer. Then you shipped your produce in the fall.

There was an awful lot of produce shipped. Schooners [left], loaded with oats, and with potatoes and turnips, every fall... . And there was a lot of stock shipped. Them days, we butchered our own pigs at home. It was all dead pigs. We’d drive to Charlottetown with them. But we didn’t mind it. We’d go to town, Frank MacDonald and I, more times than enough... .

He’d drive across, get clear of the pigs — pretty cold going in — put the horse in and give him a rest, and do a little business, get a quart or two, start home. By the time you got home you were high as hell and you didn’t give a damn.

I have left home with seven and eight dressed pigs, froze as hard as hell, across the Big Icel to Charlottetown with them. In Charlottetown I’d get up in the square and sell them to the highest bidder. There was two companies in Charlottetown then buying hogs. And then once in a while there’d be an outside buyer come in and sometimes you would, if you happened up there the right day, you might get a few cents more. I remember shipping them for four and five, six cents a pound. It was bitter.

That [Charlottetown] Market Building was a gathering [place] for the farmers. They could hire stalls in there and they sold their produce there, cut up meat and all that. It was a gathering place. My God, if you wanted to see a friend or anything, go down to the Market Building... .

l. The hard, thick ice in the Hillsborough Bay across to Charlottetown. 122 BELFAST PEOPLE