church; he christened me when I was a small girl, performed my marriage nearly twenty years later, and christened my first baby, although my home was many miles away.

During the week—long Communion Services each year, people attended from miles away. I remember my mother having as many as twenty extra people sit at her table for meals on Sunday — and she always had a few extra during the whole week. When I was about fifteen, I became a member of the choir in that same church. There is only one person living today, besides myself, who was a member of that choir long ago — Mrs. Malcolm MacPhee, who still lives in Heatherdale.

When I was quite young, we began attending singing school once a week. It always amused me to see the singing master place a long sheet of wallpaper containing notes, on the wall, and although I’m afraid we attended mostly for fun, in after years, many a good bass or alto singer could thank their old singing master for the training he gave them. My first pie social stands out in my memory. My brother had made a fancy wood stand for my apple pie. The highest bidder turned out to be a young man from Brooklyn who later became a member of the Legislature. Pie socials were lots of fun, but many a lad paid far too much for the pie of his choice because his friends kept bidding him up.

When my oldest sister married, we thought nothing of walking the fifteen miles to visit her. One trip stands out in my memory because we missed a turn in the road on our way back home, and walked miles out of our way. I was about ten and my brother and I started out carrying our shoes. When we came to Rona Springs, we had a cold drink from the spring, ate our lunch and had a little rest, after which we started along the dusty road. When we thought we were getting close to my sister’s house by the shore, we sat by the side of the road and “squeezed” our bare feet into our shoes, for we wanted to be dressed up when we arrived for our visit. It was on our way home the next day that we missed our turn in the road and darkness overtook us before we reached home. The roads were so narrow and overgrown with trees that everything looked black.

I remember of my father leaving home one afternoon to pick up some knobs he was having “turned”, about five miles away. He had been asked by people who lived in the States to place a fence around their cemetery plot, and he intended using the knobs on the corner posts. He decided to go on foot by a path which led through thick woods for the whole distance, but planned to be home by nightfall. As darkness came and Father had not returned, I well remem- ber the worried look on Mother’s face as she went to the door, time after time, to peer in the direction of the wooded path. My aunt, whose namesake I am, was visiting us at the time and tried to tell my mother that all was well — that the trip just took longer than he thought. My father did come home finally, and with a look on his face that told even me, young as I was, that something was wrong. Throwing the knobs on the table in our kitchen, he said, “these things nearly cost me my life this night”. Upon being asked what in the world had happened, his answer was, “The only reason I’m here is that I promised to keep the secret. They were all around me, and strong as I was I couldn’t break away”. Then it was bedtime for me and I heard no more, but the feeling that something very strange had happened to my father remained with me, and made quite an impression on me, A few years afterward when I was older, I asked my mother about this, and what father had meant that night. Her reply was that Father had never told her what happened that night, and knowing that he did not want to be questioned about it, she never pressed him to explain. My mother knew that father did not believe in anything ghostly or supernatural, and this made the happening all the more strange. But he never broke his promise — and so, no one ever knew what brought that look of horror to my father’s face.

Perhaps life eighty years ago was harder in many ways than it is today, but it was without the

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