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Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 39
(The Life of Mike Pelletier)
Mike: "Well, my name is magloire Pelletier. I suppose that
sentence ought to be at the first end of the story instead of the
last end, but it's better late than never. Mike is a nickname that
they call me for short. My last name is Pelletier, but sometimes
I spell it Pelky. Mitchell is just the English way of sayin' my first
name.
Bill Rioux: "They'll think mike is Chinese, puttint the first
part of his story last."
Mrs. Pelletier: "'Nell, I guess I was to blame for that. We
thought that mistake was very funny."
Mike: "It was funny, all right. Now that social that was given
for Father Ouillette was given to mark his twenty years as a priest.
There must have been seventy-five or a hundred people there and be-
sides those speeches T spoke about, we had a little piano music and
my wife and I played the accordians. We had a lunch of coffee, cake,
and sandwiches. That stuff was all made by the women of the parish.
"A few weeks ago we had a whist party over there in the convent
to raise money for the school. Besides the card playin' we had some
movin' pictures. There was a priest there from Lewiston, where Father
Ovillette came from, and he had one of those home projectors and some
moving pictures he'd taken in different places. There were some real
good colored pictures of Montreal. One of the scenes showed a parade
of priests. That was narrow film, of course. The pictures on the
screen were only about four feet square. But they were good.
"That wasn't a clam chowder we had at that grange meeting: it was
an oyster stew."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 41
Mike: "I don't think they'd allow a powder mill right in the
city. The best place for one of those is out in the country. Out
Greenville way would be a lot better. I don't know anything at all
about airplanes, and whether that would be a good place or not for
an airplane factory, I couldn't say. You can tell them, though, I
said the people in this town don't care what kind of business starts
up there as long as something does start.
"None of my children learned to play the accordian except Bernice.
She could play a few pieces on it. The girls all learned to play the
piano, though. Clara, Bernice, and Alberta.
"That French Settlement is two miles west of Old Town. There's
just a few farms there and a mall school. That was called French
Settlement because just French lived there. The Merciers, Paradis,
Cotes, Martins, and so forth. They broke the ground and made that
little settlement a good many years ago. Hogtown, out back of Still-
water, is another little place. A woman that used to live out there
used to raise a lot of pigs, and they've called the place 'Hogtownt
ever since.
"Do you know how they came to call that lower end of Great Works
1Picketville?' Some people think it must have been because some one
named Picket must have lived there, but that's not the case. It's
because a lot of the old houses down there were built with pickets
instead of havin, boards nailed to the studdinl. You know ordinary
pickets like they use in fences about three inches wide and one inch
thick. Of course they were square on the end instead of pointed, and
they broke the joints when they nailed them on.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 42
"Then there's the 'Gold Mine Road' out between Milford and
Greenville. It comes out on the county road. That got its name
because some people found gold there. Not very much, but they were
nuggets and gold sure enough. Baker Brook, out on the Greenville
road, was named for a fellow named Baker that used to lumber a lot
out that way. Otter Stream, on the Bradley road, was called that
because a long time ago there used to be otters there. An otter is
something like a seal. There's only one stream there but you cross
it three times goin' along that road, and they call them 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd Streams. They're all the same one.
"A lot of birch grew along Birch Stream up near Pea Cove. How
Sunkhase Stream, out beyond Milford, got its name I don't know. They
have a story that a fellOw named Hayes was drowned there a long time
ago and an Indian brought some whites up to show them where the place
was, and he pointed to the water and said, 'Sunk Hayes.' Of course
you can't tell how much truth there is in stories like that. Maybe
it's an Indian name. There's the Jo Pease Rips between Milford and
Indian Island, and the 'Cook' (another rips) between Indian Island
and Old Town. That 'Cook' was named for a fellow named Cook who used
to tote wangan stuff up that way to the booms and drives. How they
came to name one of those booms 'Nebraska' I don't know. It must be
an Indian name. (I pointed out to Mike that the word 'Nebraska'
didn't sound like a local Indian name, and he agreed with that. Per-
sonally I think it was called that by river men, in a facetious mood,
to signify a place far away.) "Nebraska is on the upper end of the
island, and the Argyle boom was on the lower end. There's no doubt
that state out west has an Indian name."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 43
(I mentioned the similiarity of the names of the old Indian
game 'Spin the Pan' and the one spoken of by Mike, "Spin the Plate,"
and how Henry Mitchell said how one of the forfeits was "measuring
ten yards of ribbon. "Yes", said Mike, "and they used to pay that
forfeit here, too. Sometimes it was 'twenty-five yards of ribbon'
and they'd have to kiss each other every time they measured a yard."
The George Gardner mentioned in connection with maple sugar is
the local postmaster. He has been prominent in politics here, as a
democrat, for a long time. He used to run a store where trunks, suit-
cases, horse blankets, harness, etc., was sold: One of his boys runs
his harness and leather goods repair shop now. George was the tax
'collector for a long time. He is French, and always signs his name
1Desjardins.')
Mike: "Gardner has about 400 trees out there. He sells a lot
of maple syrup every year, but I couldn't say just how much he gets
from those trees. He doesn't make any sugar to sell, but I guess he
makes a little for his own use. He has a sugar house out there,
though, and there's no doubt he could make plenty of it if he wanted
to, but he gets more sellinl the syrup. Louis Mercier and he lives
out in French Settlement does some sugar makin', and his father did
before him. I can't tell you much about his business, but I know he
used to sell maple sugar around here in little birch bark containers.
Mercier has about 300 trees out there, but Gardner or Mercier could
tell you a lot more about what they do than I could.