Goose Island Tragedy

Another time, [Barney] was going over to something around Goose Island.  Of course, his mother wanted me to go--she didn't want him to go alone.  But if he had fell overboard, I couldn't have got him in!  Oh, dear!

There was a man from here drowned over there at the island.  They were duck shooting.

Russell Burke?

Well, that was...they were after geese.  Now, one of them boys went with Aunt Nita.

Yes, Shirley told me.

Did she?  I wondered if she knew.  Yes.  He was drowned, and his brother was drowned, and another...

Named Jarvis?

Yes.  And that man used to drive me in a wheelbarrow.

Well, in the fall of the year there'd be a vessel come from Prince Edward Island with turnips, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and all kinds of vegetables.  And that's how they got their vegetables, see, in the fall of the year for the winter.  And there would be an ox-cart, or a horse-cart, going to the breakwater in Drum Head, and the people would get their groceries in bags--there was all burlap bags then.  And they would get this team, hire the team, to bring them to their yard, and carry them.  But Hal had to drive his around in the wheelbarrow, because his cellarway, where he kept it, was around the back of the house.  

And I partly lived at their place--they had no children.  But Grace--that's Cole's sister--was married to this Jarvis fellow.  And they had no children, and they kind of thought I was theirs, I guess.  He was so good-natured!  And he would take me in the wheelbarrow, and wheel me back to the gate where the vegetables were bought.  Ah, dear.  Anything now I should remember, I don't.  But...them's the things that come back to you.

Yes, I can remember that man so well.  Yes, there was two brothers, and him.  They found two of the bodies...I think the third one they didn't.  Whatever happened, I don't know.