house, there he was in the porch wiping the blood off himself. I started to apologize and he said ‘that’s all right, Billy, you slowed her down some.” But back to Uncle Billy’s account of the Boughton Island story.

“After the smell of your grandfather‘s socks went up the chimney, we moved back in. We had another hooker of whiskey to take away the taste of the burnt wool; no arguments from Paine this time. Instead, he started lamenting about how worried his wife would be. ‘She’s in Montague hospital for sure by now.’ he says. This got your grandfather going. ‘What are you worrying about her for? She’s in her nice comfortable bed and you’ll be sleeping on that bare steel bedspring. Worry about us if you want something to worry about.’

I could see they needed some diversion so I figured I better tell them a Boughton Island story. I knew a few things about the place because the landing was on our shore and anyone coming or going would stop at the house. Unless, of course, they went by boat to Georgetown."

‘This was some years ago when there was ten or twelve families on the Island. Old Mrs. MacPherson had just died suddenly and that always called for a community effort. The old lady had to be washed and dressed ready to be transported to the mainland for the funeral. Some of the men had to go to Georgetown by boat for a coffin and all the other stuff; black arm bands for the men and a pair of white gloves for the departed.’

“Why the white gloves?” | asked.

“I don’t know”, said Uncle Billy. “Maybe living showed up in their hands and they wanted to forget the hard life they had. But that was the custom. When a woman was laid out there had to be white gloves and her rosary twined around the fingers. In this case the boys got back from Georgetown a little on the wrong side of sobriety, what with the sadness of the errand and the great amount of Demerara in Georgetown. They gathered around the kitchen table and the women brought out the tea and biscuits.

You know" continued Uncle Billy, “there’s never one death in a community but there’s three. I’ve seen it many a time. l guess they fly up in a vee formation like geese in the fall. Always three. Number one died three days before. Mrs MacPherson was number two. The third was ready to go for some time. She was Anastasia

McCormack better known as Stasha. Stasha was prepared for 44