The one thing that can be said for certain about Dead Creek in 1965 is that it was something of a dying community.My Uncle Clifford's tractor was far from the only relic that was decaying by the roadside.Down the road and on the opposite side there was an old threshing machine abandoned by the end of Fred And Anna English's driveway.It was a big hulking thing with peeling gray paint and big patches of rust,and it was nearly impossible to know how old it was.For certain,I've never seen one working,either out there or anywhere else.In my mind,it's the one iconic symbol of farmland left to go to seed.It sat there for as long as I can remember,and the only thing that was ever said about it was the short story my grandmother used to tell of how,one day the men with the threshing machine,the "threshermen" she called them came by,catching her unprepared,thinking that they wouldn't be there until the next day.I never could tell why that was a problem from the telling of the story,whether it was an intrusion that required her to direct some hospitality towards them,or whether she was being kept from other errands,or if perhaps she did not wish to be alone with them.She just said they came by surprise and never elaborated.
Farther up the road there was an old abandoned house,set back a long way from the road.It was a bit closer in towards the town of Canterbury,past where the Deadwater Creek crossed the road.this was where the Smith family lived,my grandmother,before she was married and her brothers and sisters.I know these people,or at least most of them,but for as long as I can remember the house was abandoned.Some had moved off into town and some farther afield,to Fredricton or Toronto and two of my grandmother's brothers had moved off to live in Portland,Maine.We used to pick wild strawberries there when I was very young.My mother used to say how I got stung by a bee there picking berries,and how she packed mud around the sting.I have a vague recall of the mud,but not of being stung.There were other hazards there as well.The place was all grown over with briars and thorns and in the late summer a child the size I was then could get lost in the towering goldenrod.My mother always kept us close when we went there,either for berries or apples,because she said there was an old well somewhere in all of the underbrush,and you could fall in.In fact,I believe there was likely more than one well,and the only way you would ever have found it would have been the wrong way.
One time when I was maybe three or four we went into the house and a floorboard gave out under my feet.I found myself knee deep in a hole with cold moist earth at the bottom,but I wasn't hurt at all.The old house scared me some though.It was a huge old farmhouse,very imposing and I think I had some innate idea as to the concept of a haunted house even before I heard the term or knew what it meant.The house must have been painted at one time.Or perhaps not.I really can't say for certain,but it didn't have tar paper or asphalt shingles,and most everyone I knew had something of an aversion to unpainted houses.But by the time I was old enough to remember it,it was just a weathered,washed out gray,water stained in places and covered with spots of lichen.When you went inside,there were things there,furniture and such,as though the people had lived there had for some reason left in a hurry,maybe intending to return,but never doing so.There were things in the kitchen,like those tins in which sugar or flour might be kept,everyday items that make up an inhabited house.Later,I found a bunch of old school books in one of the rooms,and they were filled with neatly written but faded notes and algebra equations.It always seemed to me that there were persons still living there,though the house was always vacant and nobody worked the land.The land just kept reclaiming the old farm year by year.
Out on the road,in front of the old house,there was a bit of a low spot across the road.When the air was clear enough,you could see a long ways to the west,and you might be able to see Mount Kathadin,over in central Maine.All of the hills about Dead Creek were low,rough patches of ground,but Kathadin was a real mountain.It sometimes had snow on it's top when nothing else around did.You couldn't see it very often,but it was impressive when you did.
Maine was only a few miles away,and it didn't look so different from that part on New Brunswick where my mother came from.It was all just bush and trees and low hills,with a lake or two here and there.You could easily have wandered into The United States without knowing it if you were out hunting,and it's likely that the Americans lived lives pretty much like those of their counterparts a few miles away in Canada.From as far back as I can remember people all around knew and visited people on both sides of the border,were likely related to one another,and certainly married on either side of the line.
Farther up the road there was an old abandoned house,set back a long way from the road.It was a bit closer in towards the town of Canterbury,past where the Deadwater Creek crossed the road.this was where the Smith family lived,my grandmother,before she was married and her brothers and sisters.I know these people,or at least most of them,but for as long as I can remember the house was abandoned.Some had moved off into town and some farther afield,to Fredricton or Toronto and two of my grandmother's brothers had moved off to live in Portland,Maine.We used to pick wild strawberries there when I was very young.My mother used to say how I got stung by a bee there picking berries,and how she packed mud around the sting.I have a vague recall of the mud,but not of being stung.There were other hazards there as well.The place was all grown over with briars and thorns and in the late summer a child the size I was then could get lost in the towering goldenrod.My mother always kept us close when we went there,either for berries or apples,because she said there was an old well somewhere in all of the underbrush,and you could fall in.In fact,I believe there was likely more than one well,and the only way you would ever have found it would have been the wrong way.
One time when I was maybe three or four we went into the house and a floorboard gave out under my feet.I found myself knee deep in a hole with cold moist earth at the bottom,but I wasn't hurt at all.The old house scared me some though.It was a huge old farmhouse,very imposing and I think I had some innate idea as to the concept of a haunted house even before I heard the term or knew what it meant.The house must have been painted at one time.Or perhaps not.I really can't say for certain,but it didn't have tar paper or asphalt shingles,and most everyone I knew had something of an aversion to unpainted houses.But by the time I was old enough to remember it,it was just a weathered,washed out gray,water stained in places and covered with spots of lichen.When you went inside,there were things there,furniture and such,as though the people had lived there had for some reason left in a hurry,maybe intending to return,but never doing so.There were things in the kitchen,like those tins in which sugar or flour might be kept,everyday items that make up an inhabited house.Later,I found a bunch of old school books in one of the rooms,and they were filled with neatly written but faded notes and algebra equations.It always seemed to me that there were persons still living there,though the house was always vacant and nobody worked the land.The land just kept reclaiming the old farm year by year.
Out on the road,in front of the old house,there was a bit of a low spot across the road.When the air was clear enough,you could see a long ways to the west,and you might be able to see Mount Kathadin,over in central Maine.All of the hills about Dead Creek were low,rough patches of ground,but Kathadin was a real mountain.It sometimes had snow on it's top when nothing else around did.You couldn't see it very often,but it was impressive when you did.
Maine was only a few miles away,and it didn't look so different from that part on New Brunswick where my mother came from.It was all just bush and trees and low hills,with a lake or two here and there.You could easily have wandered into The United States without knowing it if you were out hunting,and it's likely that the Americans lived lives pretty much like those of their counterparts a few miles away in Canada.From as far back as I can remember people all around knew and visited people on both sides of the border,were likely related to one another,and certainly married on either side of the line.
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