you’d go. It was all right; it was great fun on horseback. Mostly everyone had a driving horse. He didn’t do anything, only drive. Smaller horse. He had to be smart, had to cover 25 or 30 miles at night, return. And they’d have heavy horses for farming, ploughing and harrowing.

A nice big blood horse about twelve hundred pounds is a nice horse. He could clip anywhere. He could pull four or five in the wagon. Pile them in.

If you had a good horse, don’t let nobody pass you. If you didn’t, stay behind and keep quiet. I had lots of races with fellas in wagons. I got smashed up a few times but that didn’t bother me. Young fellas out for the first time in their lives, you know, that have an old horse that the guts was worked out of him, they’d get him in a wagon and they’d have a stake on his back trying to make him run. They were only killing the horse. If they didn’t go without a whip on them, stay home.

I used to go up to Orwell; I had uncles up there. We used to go to church. Coming home from church at noontime we’d have a race with some of the fellas that thought they had good horses. I always beat them, yeah; I had a nice mare there and she could travel as well as the rest of them.

I and another fella left Wood Islands down at Wood Island Church. Do you know where Wood Island Church is? I lived down there right back of it before I moved up here. And I had a nice mare down there. I sold her in 19 l 8, I guess, or 1920. We left home at six o’clock in the morning. In three [hours], we were in Wood’s Livery Stable in Charlottetown. And we put her in the stable there and give her her dinner and went and done our business. We hitched her up in the evening around four o’clock and we were home around half-past six. I took her out of the wagon and she just went [clapI] through the fields. That was a good one.

We had lots of sleigh drives; we used to go sleigh driving sometimes to the island. I had an uncle that lived down on the island down there where the ferries is now and we used to go down there, a whole bunch of us, on horse and wood sleigh. Go to visit them at night, moonlit nights in the winter, you know, ’cross the ice, horse and sleigh. Get home at three or four o’clock in the morning.

Horse Trading

I used to buy them here and there; used to buy from Wel (Wellington) MacNeill in Charlottetown. He used to buy horses, sell horses. Risdon Gillis*, the Eldon undertaker, he dealt in horses too. And Harry Coulson*. Did you ever hear tell of Harry Coulson...? Anything to get a trade.

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