Ten Lost Years, 1929-1939 by Barry Broadfoot

Author:Barry Broadfoot [Broadfoot, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-504-5
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 1997-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

The Five Kids Barter Plan

“I call my kids vegetables and pork babies. My oldest boy, he was traded off for doctor service for a sack of onions, two jars of pickled eggs and enough pork to feed a good-sized family for a week.

Doreen, she was born in August so we swapped her for vegetables, right out of the garden. I picked them myself before we drove in the wagon to the hospital.

So it went. Five kids, and that doctor all he got was vegetables, pork, eggs, firewood. That’s the way things were done up there. No one had a dime. Just enough for shells, for a moose, and like as not you borrowed the neighbour’s rifle. If you had a neighbour. Some of the ones that hung on in that country they made it. Rich. Land. Big cars. Trips to Mexico, London. Not us.

That last winter, 50, 60 below, was one winter too much. God didn’t mean man to live like that. The Sisters of Providence, the priest in town, they said pray. Pray to the Lord. That wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. You have to have six gears’ worth of guts and we only had three.”

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