UNUSUAL WEATHER This years late Spring calls to mind other late springs of former years. About 1910 I called on the late William H. Campbell of Irishtown and speaking about the lateness of the season, he said that several years before the turn of the century he, John S. Cousins , William MacNeill and Bernard Paynter were goose shooting in and they saw six sleighs cross the bay to Malpeque on May 24th keeping a long space apart. A few days later I asked Mrs. David Johnstone at the mill if she could remember people crossing river ice late in May, she said "I was visiting my sister, Mrs. Hugh MacEwen , in North River and I crossed the ice to Charlottetown in a wagon on May 24th — I took the train to Summerside and at the station there was an American horse dealer, a Mr. Hussey , talking loud and swearing about the weather, he had arrived early in April and bought a car load of horses, expecting to get them away by boat in a few days. The weather changed next day and the farmers were on the land by June 1st." Both Mr. Campbell and Mrs. Johnstone reported the same day and year. W.E.J. In 1907 we had a bad snow storm May 11th, three days later Dr. F. W. Jardine had trouble getting his wagon through the snow banks to Norboro to see a patient. And in 1961 we had several bad storms late in the Spring block¬ ing rail and road traffic, we received twelve Guardians the first time the mailman could get around. June 18th the last snow bank in Lucy Campbell 's field on the hill disappeared. The opening of the Lobster Season was delayed from May 1st to May 24th on account of ice conditions in 1961 and 1967. MYSTERIOUS BELIEFS Good ghost stories are hard to come by in Long River , some ridicule the idea while others thought they would be demeaned in the eyes of their neighbors if they repeated one. Some people think their work should be planned to to take place in the right phase of the moon, while others went plodding on all oblivious of the ways of the moon. Anything that blossomed should be planted on the increase of the moon, beef and pork should be killed at the full of the moon so the meat would not shrink. If the moon controls the tides, why should it not have some effect on growing crops? William Manderson was a skilled ventriloquist he only used his art on rare occasions, he had a warped sense of the sublime and the ridiculous. Strangers who were not aware of his art were reluctant to repeat to others what their ears had heard. 55