the couples lined up, as many as could get on the floor, for the old four-hand reel in which the women step-danced as well as the men. And, if the fiddler was a little late coming, my oldest sister "jigged" for the dance - and she could jig any tune that was known! I was always allowed to watch for a while - "a little longer" - , I would coax my mother. But the next day, with my sister "jigging" for me, I would dance the steps danced the night before! How I longed to grow up so that I could have a partner in the reels too! In those days the people were very close to each other - they had no entertainment except what they made for themselves; they had to help each other in order to get along at all; they worked together; they enjoyed the simple pleasures together; they laughed together, and cried together in time of trouble. As children we had no skiis or toboggans - but on the long winter nights with a full moon shining and a hard crust on the snow, we would take the shaves out of the old wood-sleigh and coast down the long grade from our house to the river. Once I was left hang¬ ing on a picket as the crowded sleigh shot over a snow-bank and past the old picket fence! I shall never forget my first store-bought doll! How I delighted in it! She had beautiful flaxen hair. An older sister had brought it home from for me. The first sewing I ever did was when I was eleven, and I made a dress for that doll. Mother gave me two dozen eggs to take to the store to buy the material. Eggs were then worth about six cents a dozen, and I walked the two miles to the store, carrying my little basket. I remember the material was paisley and cost exactly 12 cents for the yard that I needed. Having the treasured "yard of goods" safely in my basket, I hurried home by a short-cut across the fields for Mother to give me instructions on cut¬ ting out the dress. Then in the evening, I would take my sewing and my books to a big stump where I herded the cows, studied, and sewed on my dress. A big event in my life was my first trip to Charlottetown when I was about eight or nine. I remember my father bought me a pair of new button-shoes. This trip made me the envy of my school chums! Going to Charlottetown then meant driving by horse and truck-wagon to the , and my father often left home the night before and stayed overnight with friends, in order to take the boat, " Heather Belle " early in the morning. The trip was wonderful for me - and those new shoes made it perfect for me. Quite a change in travelling has taken place in these last eighty years! School was a mile and a half away. I never had a woman teacher - those days we always had a "school master"; we sat on long benches which on cold winter days were always drawn up around the stove. We had no desks and used slates with "scratchy" pencils. But there was a long high desk built along the wall and seven or eight pupils would sit there when it came time for writing in our "copy books". A favourite pastime during dinner hour was getting balsam off the trees on the end of a long stick which we hurried to dip in the stream below the school; the balsam made beautiful rain¬ bow colours in the water. Sometimes we played "catch" with a yarn ball, which was of little use with a bat. On the way home from school I often lingered to eat "lady-berries" - a sweet little red berry which grew in the damp mossy places in the woods. Another place we lingered at was at the grist-mill on the day oats were being ground for oatmeal. We loved to eat the piping hot kernels as they came from the hopper and many a time the owner chased us away! On Sunday I went to church with the rest of the family, and more often than not we walked the four miles as the horses would be tired. I sat beside my mother through the hour of English service followed by the hour of Gaelic. No one left the second service. I would swing my feet in their button shoes which were far from reaching the floor - but too afraid to wriggle lest the gimlet eye of the old Scotch minister might pin-point me from the pulpit. I remember only one minister being in that 486