I was born in New Harmony in 1928. I went to school in Little Harbour which was only about a little better than a mile. We walked, except in the winter we went by horse and sleigh. I started putting the fires on in the school when I was about nine. I'd take the wood in and take the kindling with me then go to the spring to get a couple buckets of water. Then I'd go in to do my work - arithmetic, geography and history .The school was on the main road at the top of the hill across from the MacPhee's. I went until I was in grade eight.

After that I called it quits and went workin' farming potatoes, plucking turnips, and milking cows for Sept MacPhee. I finished up there and went up with George MacPhee, his brother. We done his potatoes, we finished them up and started with Shady Power, plowing and grading potatoes. We'd fork the potatoes up on a hand grader made out of boards which were separated by different widths to let the various sized potatoes through. We'd bag them and hand sew the burlap bags. We'd put the seconds and bad ones in other bags. We'd put the bags on the scales to weigh them. When the trucks came in we'd load them. Then back to Sept's and done some plowing and started to grade potatoes. I was there that winter fixing grain, and next year I went back to Sept's again.

I went to the woods when I was 13. I went to Fountain Head to cut wood for Sept and his mother and Jimmy, his brother. Then we went to help out George, another brother. We'd take the wood home, get it all piled up and the kindling in the house. Then George MacAulay came and he sawed the wood so I went splitting wood for him.

We would milk the cows in the morning, come in the house for something to eat, then back out splitting wood until dinner time and back to splitting wood. Sept and I split two, three piles of wood and left it out to dry and then put it in the wood house. We made kindling, put it in the box behind the stove, take off to water the cows, clean out the cow and the horse stables, then clean out the pig pen. Sep had six pigs and a sow. He killed two and sold the other four to Jim Grant in Souris. Jim used to run the meat plant.

I was around there one day and Jim and Johnny Grant come up with an oxen. Sept said, "Fatten him up and I'll come up to buy the oxen". When the time came we went to load the oxen on the truck and he got away. We got him back in the barn. The next day we done the milking and Sept said, "We'll try to get him in the truck". He weighed 1500 pounds but we managed that time.

I lived at Sept's and we started building lobster traps. With the traps all ready we got them to the wharf with the truck. We started milking early in the morning and then I'd go lobster fishing with Sept. At dinner time we'd get home for something to eat and go out to harrow the potatoes. I'd harrow, then come home and get a bite to eat, then harrow until 11:00 and go to bed. I'd get up the next morning to go fishing at 4 AM in Little Harbour with Sept, J.C. McKinnon, Ronnie Johnson, Michael Foley. Shady Power with Syl Morrison fished below us. There was no hauler; it was all done by hand. I was at the bow of the boat and Sept was at the stern. I would slide the trap down to the stern of the boat and Sept would take the lobsters out and put bait in the trap and throw it back. He dropped me off one morning at 10:00 and he run the rest with a hauler. Alex Mooney put it in for him. After fishing he always put me off to start the harrowing, for Arthur Mooney was coming to plant potatoes. We had 20 acres in. We had planted two acres of early potatoes before that by hand.

One time when I was 16 I visited Nellie Campbell out on the Glen Road. She asked what I was doing and I said we were getting ready to cut hay. "Who with"? I said I was working with Shady Power. When I was going out the door she said, "Watch out for your hay cutter. Watch out for your hands and feet". When I was cutting hay it got wound up and I cleaned it out and it got wound up again. When I was cleaning it out the second time, a bee stung the mare. When the mare jumped my two fingers got crushed in the cutter. I hollered to Billy but he took the turn down at the corner of the field. Louise came running and she said, "Wait Jimmy, hang on". and she got the horses out. She got an old rag and she wrapped my fingers up and we went in the house and I said, "Give me an aspirin". She went to the fridge and got some ice and wrapped them all around and took me to Dr. Gus. Dr. Gus said, "I can't do anything so I'll call Kenny Grant in Charlottetown". He told him to send me right in and he cut them off at the knuckles. I was in there for four days and Louise came in to get me. I sure remembered Nelly Campbell's warning then. She was a good fortune teller.

I went aboard a sixty footer, a dragger. There were four of us and the skipper. I fished three trips with him. We'd be out about seven, eight days then back in to get some grub and back out again. Art Peters was doing the business then. There was a plant there and he built another up the street. He always made sure we got paid. The next trip I went out with Kryn Keus and we caught codfish and hake and flounder fishing two days and two nights. Kryn knew his business. He'd fished with his father when he was 13 in Holland. When the weather got too bad for the small boats, I made three trips with Jerry Campbell at Red Point and later with others around Newfoundland.