David and the Truckers
by Greet Macdonald as told to David Ferguson
When Dad left [Inverness], it was February of ’52. and he stayed for our anniversary, but I don’t know when after that he left, shortly after. We had a bad winter. We were snowed in; they had to shovel us out one time.
I was there two or three months, and I used to worry about the stove, because we had a big stove in the living room. It was called a Warm Morning; that’s what it was called. And Freddie used to say, now, bank it at night so it won’t go out. And every day I used to call him. “How do I bank it?” And you would put coal in, but then you put ashes in on top of the coal, from below the stove.
I was always so worried about that. I was so afraid. I would lie in bed at night and think, if there’s going to be a fire, now I could put the kids out on the — there was a porch in front, you know, from your bedroom, I could put the kids on top of the porch. This is what I used to plan at night.
Anyway, the time came, Freddie had no housekeeper for the three kids. And I had to sell that house anyway, before I’d leave. So he talked me into selling the house and moving over there [with him]. And I did that. Sold the house for eighteen hundred dollars. That’s what we paid for it, can you believe it?
And we moved over there, stored some of my furniture at Pa’s and took a little bit with me. I suppose I took the bed, I don’t know.
But anyway, we moved in. We had six kids. I don’t think Frankie was seven yet. Three in diapers — you, and Jackie, and Art. But the kids got along great.
If you remember, Freddie’s street was the next street to the main street. This was Campbell Street. And the back yard of Freddie’s was at the back yard of this restaurant, the Greek’s restaurant. Harry the Greek’s.
And you would go down there — you were kind of a loner. You would go down there and go in. You made great friends with the truckers; they’d be in there. You must have been — I think you were two and a half, maybe, but you could talk like a lawyer.
And these truckers would give you money. And you would buy candy, and you never waited for change. You’d take the bag of candy and you’d come home and you’d treat all our little kids — you were generous, you’d treat them all with the candy. And you did that over and over and over again.
And sometimes you’d go down and there wouldn’t be truckers there, you know. But the girl in the restaurant had a glass, and she would put your change in the glass when you didn’t wait for it. So you could go in and order candy, and she’d take the money out of the glass pay for it.
And you’d bring it — oh, you did that so many times, and you’d bring it home and treat the kids.
Just wander down there by your self. But you know, at that time in Inverness, you didn’t worry. You couldn’t get lost. Everybody knew everybody’s kids.
One day you didn’t come home, and I got worried. And we started looking, and we couldn’t find you. We looked, oh god, we even looked down by the mine. Going crazy. And coming back, I walked up the side of — I don’t know if it was Harry the Greek’s place or the next building — and there you were, asleep on the grass.
You got tired and you laid down.
Dad: Hughie Ferguson, Greet’s husband
Freddie: Freddie Macdonald, Greet’s brother; a widower with three children
Pa: Jack D Macdonald, father of Greet and Freddie
Characters • Ferguson, Art • Ferguson, David • Ferguson, Hughie • Macdonald, Frank • Macdonald, Freddie • Macdonald, Greet • Macdonald, Jackie • Stories • Storytellers • told by David Ferguson • told by Greet Macdonald | Dave Ferguson March 14, 2006
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By Rose Abril, March 14, 2006 @ 7:51 pm
I would like to buy a house for $1800.
Six kids under the age of 7? It’s amazing Grandma lived to tell about it.
By Frank, March 16, 2006 @ 8:31 am
David,
When we moved away from Inverness five years later my father sold the house he had built on Campbell Street where you and your mother stayed with us. It was a new home and the best he could get for it was $1800. That seems to have been the going rate for real estate in Inverness at the time.
I live only three doors down from the house where you and your family lived when you were here. It’s in sad shape but still occupied. The front porch is gone, though, and it is the porch that I remember visiting and playing when you and John and were there.
The house has an odd roof now.
About twenty years ago the man next door to that house hired the man across the street from him, who earned his living working in the woods, to cut down a large white poplar he felt threatened his house. (The white poplar is a terrbile nusance of a tree but we in Inverness have snobbishly upgraded it and call it a silver oak or a silver maple.)
The woodsman cut the tree down but miscalculated and it fell through the roof of your old house causing a lot of damage. The family living there at the time, Beatons I believe, was eating breakfsat and the father Beaton came running out to see what had happened.
That’s when the whole street learned that one neighbour had hired another neighbour to cut down that belong to a third neighbour, the man who lived in your house.
Another roof has been added to the flat roof that was pretty well flattened and crushed by the falling tree, and still sits on top on the original roof looking like a head wearing two hats.