My Life In the Maine Woods by Annette Jackson

Author:Annette Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11—THE FAMILY GROWS AGAIN

During summer there were many parties of fishermen and my husband was kept very busy. He had, of course, to continue his night patrols all through summer and fall. Nevertheless, he took me along on a good many one-day trips and night patrols. With only a young girl looking after the children, we didn’t feel like leaving them alone too long at a time. Little Arlene was quite a girl now and Bobby was creeping and very noisy. We just couldn’t keep him on the porch, so I made him three pairs of overalls with padded knees and little cotton mittens and we let him play in the sand, where he would have the grandest time creeping back and forth on his hands and knees. One day he crept away unnoticed. I had gone into the cabin to get a book to read while he was playing outside, and when I came out there was no Bobby in sight. I decided that he might have set off in the direction Dave had taken a while earlier and sure enough, there he was at Willie’s camp. He had gone there all the way on his hands and knees. We often wondered why he was so full of energy and yet was so slow to walk. He didn’t walk until he was fourteen months old.

Almost before we knew it, we received a fair warning from Tom on his return trip from fishing at the head of Umsaskis that the raspberries were ripe in clearances on the old landing and we best be gathering all we could for canning. I have seen Maman Pacquet put away as many as a hundred gallons of raspberries at one time. Her family was large, she frequently had company during the winter, and Maman was determined not to be caught short. My thirty quarts seemed like a spoonful next to her huge supply.

During the month of July we used to take a day off to go to Lac-Frontière to buy what strawberries we needed for our winter’s canning. We also went in August to buy honey. We scouted several towns at first and finally settled on a place in Daaquam where the honey was of the best quality. I recall the big roll of money the old gent who sold the honey had in his pocket. Perhaps they were all one-dollar bills; nevertheless, his smooth, fat roll, more than three inches in diameter, was the biggest and most impressive I have ever seen. You could tell by the expression on his face that he loved to take it out. He would pat it with great contentment as he added to it the money he had just been given for the honey he had sold. We have often wondered if this was his whole life’s savings.

The honey man had a nice farm, a good house, and a grown, married family. After a couple of years of honey purchasing we got to know each other well and his wife always had tea for us.

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