Nanny and the Facts of Life
EXCERPT #6 TALES OF A RABBIT TOWN BOY
(Tales of a Rabbit Town Boy was written by my late father LeRoy Soper, born in 1935 in St. John’s Newfoundland. This is the 6th excerpt from the book.)
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Known as “Aunt Amy” to others in Lady Cove, my Nanny had her own way of telling us about sex: she didn’t. In Nature’s own time we learned how it all worked — not from Nanny. Somewhere along the way these animals reproduced. For some reason we never saw it happen: we saw only the product, not the process.
I think the goat had a boyfriend at Uncle Billy Sharpe’s homestead. The sheep had all kinds of boyfriends. They wandered around the island and strangely found their way to Nanny’s house for shearing time. Then we saw the wonder of little lambs skipping around her tiny plantation. “Where did they come from?” we would ask.
Nanny always said, “The Lord sends new ones every year.” Never did we ask any more questions. We just accepted the fact that God had his way of sending them. That was that and it was simple enough to satisfy us small folks for now.
Then there was the cat. Only once do I remember witnessing the growth of this cat family of Nanny’s. Carrying the cat gently in her arms or cradling it in her apron, she walked out of the house in the direction of the little brook between Bald Head Hill and the mystery ponds to the left in that beautiful valley.
She returned about an hour later. I can see her now in my memory as plain as if looking at a movie. When Nanny walked she swayed from side to side. The proud mother cat seemed attached to Nanny’s skirt, prancing like a queen announcing the new family’s arrival. This family of a dozen kittens warmly cuddled in Nanny’s apron soon found their home in a corner of the small barn.
“Where did you get those kittens?” we would ask.
“Oh, the Lord always has a new family for my cat up at the creek. I go every year, and there they are.” This answer always came with her tongue clicking a snapping sound out the side of her mouth in what was her punctuated period to end the sentence.
I’m sure Nanny knew how to speak in the language of that cat because they demonstrated such a bond at this sensitive time as if to equally share this moment of the miracle of birth.
Nanny died at the age of 92. In 1998, I visited her gravesite and those of other long-gone relatives. The plots are not well cared for anymore, but the ground is covered with wild berries and beautiful flowers. I stooped to pick a wild rose and taste a few large blueberries that grew near her headstone. It seemed as if her wonderful life is still living. She is now lying in the peace she has so well earned, for time and eternity.
The whale at Random Sound
Soon after my first trip to Lady Cove, we heard about the whale. Someone had said, “You can set your watch by dat whale, boy,” At six o’clock in the morning a whale passed Random Sound. I had heard about Moby Dick and the drama that accompanied the whalers who hunted down this monster of the deep, but never dreamed that someday I would come face to face with one of these creatures.
So most every morning before breakfast my brothers and sisters and some of the neighbours’ kids raced down to the shoreline of Random Sound.
The rock formations and small sandy beach areas were a feast for the eyes. The water was crystal clear enough to view herring and connors, a boney and prickly fish, dangerous to handle because of their sharp spines. But all we wanted to do was see the whale.
We saw him rise clear out of the water several times and then repeat the breathing exercise down the coast a few hundred yards. The bellowing and the drama of this surfacing whale surpassed any show at a theatre and we were not sorry to be away from the city with adventures like this in our daily activity.
A few days later, I joined Mack Burt and another boy at daybreak to haul a trawl not far off the wharf at Lady Cove. A trawl is a long line that droops between two buoys anchored to keep them from drifting. At intervals of several metres other lines hang and from these lines hooks and bait. There may be as many as one hundred of these hook and bait lines to daily check for fish that have been captured.
As I watched these seasoned fishermen, who were a mere 14 years old, I was hardly aware of the time of the day, and hardly aware we were close to where the whale gave us a show each morning. This one day we may have captured at least fifty good-sized codfish, but I don’t remember. Something else happened that day that I will never forget.
Not more than fifty feet away from our small punt, the whale came out of the water with a roar and a wave that I have to say gave me the biggest fright of my entire life. I was quite sure this was my last minute of existence. My two buddies laughed at me and my new facial colour. If I had gripped the gunwale any harder I would have ripped it clear off the boat.
Though these guys saw the whale every morning and told me the whale knew we were there and always kept a safe distance from the boat, their reassurance was not enough to satisfy me. I could not haul that trawl fast enough to shore. You need not wonder why my small lunch went uneaten that day!
Climbing Bald Head Hill
One day I ventured to climb Bald Head Hill. I had to find a pathway behind the Pelley house which was not so well-trodden because no one else took such fascination with this adventurous hill as I did. Several attempts to scale it failed but after a while I found my own way and was soon viewing Nanny’s homestead and the surrounding terrain like it was never seen before.
At the height of this rock I was amazed at how much and how far I could see. Nanny’s house, barn, garden, root cellar is as clear in my mind today as when I saw them over fifty years ago. To my left lay several houses belonging to the March, Hart and Reid families. Winding its way through is the road that passed Nanny’s house. Sheep and goats kept the grassy ridges well-trimmed while horses grazed in the meadows.
If I were a painter this would make the most beautiful scene I could portray on a canvas. Just beyond this, the waters of Random Sound revealed small boats and rolling waves on the rocky far-off shores. I could see all the way to Deep Bight about eight kilometres away and not far from where the train dropped us off. So, you have to imagine such a beautiful and almost mystical panorama from my perch on Bald Head Hill.
But what I saw was only one-half the discovery. What I heard was just as fascinating. As I feasted my eyes, I discovered something unusual about acoustics. Only the gravel sounds of a cawing crow and the joyful melody of a bird broke the volumes of silence surrounding me. While sitting there I spied my younger sister Diane, dear to me then and dearer now, coming out of the house and standing at the end of the veranda, or “bridge.” She had come out looking for me and I was nowhere to be found.
At the top of the hill I was about a quarter-mile away from her, but I did not even have to shout. I spoke her name in normal conversational volume. “Hello, Diane,” I said, to her alarm. She heard me but could not see me. Disoriented, she turned several times to see where my voice was coming from. I called her again and now she was really confused.
“Is that you, LeRoy? Where are you?” she asked. I said, “Look up to the hill and wave.” After finding each other across this distance we proceeded to carry on a conversation as if standing side by side. I reluctantly climbed down and joined the family for lunch.
