from the pamphlet in the Archives of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

First remembrance of myself. How old? Don’t know. Mother puts pantaloon on me. What a great man I was on that day! As children, we had to work during the day. We have no short days and long nights as you have in North America. Days, 12 hours long. Nights the same.

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That pantaloon? Well, I remember when father gave me a little gun. I loaded it. Went out one day; rested it on a fence; fired at a pet camy (first cousin to a nightingale) and shot it. As I saw it fall, I threw the gun down, jumped over the fence; ran through the tall foxtail grass, and took it up! How did I feel? I felt that I was a great hunter like the mighty nimrod that we read about in the Scriptures.

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It is raining. We children are running about in old clothes. Now we are in the fields; now in the pond disturbing the ducks. What sport! Now we are carrying cane to the sugar cane mill. We carry everything on our heads. It is night. What little reading or studying we do, is done by candle light. Many a candle have I made. How? Take a bamboo joint. Fix your string so as to have it in the middle. Pour melted wax into it. Let it become cold. Split the joint open and behold your candle ready for use. Now you have “your dim and flaring light.” Of course, it is not electric light, but you have had the pleasure of making your own light - a pleasure that you can never get out of your use of electricity.

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Besides sugar cane, we planted ginger. When I was about 12 years old, in my spare time, I peeled enough ginger with which a horse was bought for me. Again I was a great man, riding on my own horse. We raised our own horses, cows, mules and donkeys. There was much pleasure in caring for them. But was it always pleasure? No. Life is not made up in that way. It would be monotonous if it were so. We enjoy light because there is darkness. Many a fall I have had from a donkey; many tears I have shed because of a stubborn mule or donkey.

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There was hard work and plenty of fun in selling ginger or sugar. The parish of Saint Elizabeth, where we lived, was some distance from any seaport town where we had to take our produce. Horses or mules took them in hampers. We may start one afternoon; travel half the night; unload; rest; reload and enter town in the morning. Returning had more fun for its, because we could ride home. Rum? We made plenty of Jamaica ruin, but I am not a “rummy.’’ Teetotaler then? Oh, no. I simply have no taste for liquor. Hence I hesitate to judge one who has. I am not tempted as he is. I must be careful how I judge.

  ‘‘Judge not and you shall not be judged.”

the worthy frog

  Joy Lumsden 2007