The Honest Working Man

May Elizabeth Albright was a hulk of a woman, nigh onto 200 pounds and just shy of 6 foot tall in her stocking feet. It was said she could out work, out drink, out shoot and out fight anyone on either of the islands. An early widowhood had left her with precious few options - she had four sons to provide for when her husband was lost at sea during a hurricane – and she became the only female captain in the fishing fleet by necessity. She was, as the old men who gathered at Curt’s store liked to say, “….an imposin’ figure of a woman…” and not one to be trifled with.

After the second hurricane, when she had to bury all four of the boys she had birthed and raised,

the loss was incomprehensible and the entire village went into mourning with her. It was a full six weeks before she emerged from the battered house overlooking the passage. She spent the remainder of the summer repairing and rebuilding the roof and the fences and the barn. She worked mostly alone, a solitary figure in overalls and hip boots turned down to the ankles with only an old hound dog and a yoke of oxen for company. Every few days, Nana would send me to her house with a fresh apple pie or a plate of biscuits and May Elizabeth would nod and thank me but she never stopped whatever work she was doing.

“She needs to be done by Labor Day,” Sparrow said, “Afore the winter gits here and the weather turns.”

“Ayuh,” my grandmother agreed, “If anybody can do it, May Elizabeth can.”

And she did. It took working from dawn to dusk, 7 days a week, through the rain and fog as well as the fine days. The village marveled at her energy and persistence and sheer stubborn spirit. Help was offered but she most always turned it down – she wanted to heal in her own way and her own time.

“Grief,” Sparrow said once, “is a private place. Ain’t no way out ‘cept straight through. And there be times when you got to go alone.”

So when there was a knock on the back door the day before we were to leave for home, nobody was more surprised then we were to see May Elizabeth. She looked tired and there was more gray in her hair than I remembered – also there were flecks of paint here and there in her hair and on her flannel shirt and overalls – but she stood tall and straight and even managed a hesitant half-smile.

“I’m beholden to you, Missus,” she told my grandmother, “You and the little ones been right kind to me these past weeks and it ain’t like I ain’t noticed. I been thinkin’ I might oughta come round and thank you ‘fore you head out. Mebbe see if you needed any help packin’ up or what not.”

It took a lot to render my grandmother speechless and to her credit, she recovered quickly, assuring May Elizabeth that though she appreciated the offer, we were fine and not in need of anything and she declared, where were her manners, would she come in for coffee and a sweet roll. May shook her head immediately, mumbled something about having to finish whitewashing the fence, and then produced a bakery box tied with twine, placed it in the woodbox and before Nana could even open the screen door, was half way down the front path and out of sight.

Opening the bakery box, my grandmother could only laugh. May Elizabeth had packed us a bag of dulse, two Jersey Milk bars, a tin of aspirin, a box of crayons and several coloring books, a book of crossword puzzles, a glass canning jar crammed with beach glass and assorted shells, a pair of dice in a tiny velvet drawstring bag and a slightly ragged stuffed bear wearing a t shirt with “I Love Digby” written on it. Resting on top of this odd collection of gifts was a clearly well worn record album – “Diane Oxner Sings the Helen Creighton Traditional Songs of Nova Scotia”.

Here’s the chorus to one I still remember, “The Honest Working Man”.

Do you want to buy the mitt, the sock, the ganzy frock,
The juniper post, the mussel or the clam,
The blueberry, the foxberry, the huckleberry, the cranberry,
The smelt, the pelt, the forty-foot ladder.
The thousand of brick or the sand.

Some of the best gifts are tied with ribbons of memory.