Flaming Youth The chief blacksmith was Donald MacDonald, a brother of Norman. His shop turned out iron work of various kinds and did a great volume of trade. Big Donald always had four or five apprentices, and these lads gave a tone to the life of the village such as one finds imparted in a university town nowadays by a group of lively students. James MacPherson, Antigonish, learned his trade with Big Donald, and was one of the boys who used to set The Forks by the years sixty years ago. The dressmaker, it is said, once had a rooster of which she was very proud. The bird possessed a voice which could be heard from the "Big Clearing" to the top of the "Highoes", and his coat of feathers was a gorgeous one. With Satan in their hearts the apprentices fell upon him one night, and the rooster became the chief feature in a banquet held in a clump of alders by the river bank. After completing this atrocity the lads took the rooster's head and the well-known tail feathers and placed them inside the fence that separated the dressmaker's yard from that of the tailor. A gentleman of a very peppery type indeed, the tailor resented being called a chicken thief by his angry neighbour the next day. He came back with some descriptive terms of his own, and by the time the question had been threshed out thoroughly the rooster was almost forgotten. Gaelic is a very expressive language. A few yards from the corner, now the Antigonish road, dwelt the shoemaker, an old country man named Campbell, who was known to the community as "Pike". Pike Campbell's religious convictions were different from those of the majority of his neighbours, and he was filled with zeal and easily aroused wrath. His Bible was a very precious possession, and it became very dog-eared during his life at The Forks. Many times daily, his hands sticky with cobblers' wax, Pike would get the book and quote, to settle an argument with some neighboring theologian. His opponents always listened patiently and then remarked that Scottish Bibles had no authority in Nova Scotia. From that point on the conversation would take on a personal note. Fit Guaranteed Campbell made shoes to measure but very often they did not fit. If they were too large he would tell the complaining customer to rub on sheep's tallow which would make things right. If they were too small, then tallow would make them bigger. Tallow in those days seemed to have some of the magic powers possessed today by beer, which makes one cool in summer and warm in winter. Pike had two sons, Duncan and Dougald. Duncan was very small in stature and was good-naturedly called "Tom Thumb" by his friends. In time, the corners wore off this name and Duncan became known to the countryside as "Tomb". Dougald went on the bench with his father, but Duncan had other ideas. There is a man like Tomb in every community and always will be until the trotting horse becomes extinct. He loved to drive horses, to trade horses, and to talk horses. Usually he owned a fine stepper on whom he practiced the arts which today would qualify him to open up a beauty parlor. Tomb had a mail contract, and that gave him some standing in the neighborhood, despite his lack of heroic size. Three times a week, snugly seated in his sulky, he would appear in the village post office to await the arrival of the Lochaber post from Antigonish. Presently the mail would be assorted and with a flourish of whip and a scattering of gravel - or mud - Tomb would set off on his route through the Keppoch. One day he learned he was to have a passenger, the good looking apprentice at the dressmaker's, who was returning to her mountain home for the weekend. It was an occasion of some importance. In the same situation today a young man would check up on his oil and gas, and see that his tires were no where near the blow-out stage. Tomb shined up the brass on his harness, and took the fancy stepper down to Big Donald's for a new set of shoes. Jim MacPherson was told to handle the job and, after a consultation with the other apprentices, he put the whole set on backwards. Tomb failed to notice and set off for the mountain road, his horse tracking in reverse, like Queen Maud's as she escaped over the ice from Winchester. It was the practice of the day as mailtime approached for runners from the various farms along the way to go out and look for Tomb's tracks in the dust of the highway. The Keppoch was a badly puzzled community that evening. Some unknown traveler in a sulky went down the road, but nobody went up. It was only when Tomb made the return trip after a comfortable evening at the home of his passenger that conditions were restored to normal. To be continued . . . -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marleen & Jim Hubley Rose & Thistle B & B 4143 South River Road Antigonish, NS B2G 2L4 Phone: 902-735-2225 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~