To Plant in the Moon

This store was built by Mathurin d’Entremont. It was a general store. Mathurin cultivated strawberries around the year 1906 and sent them to Yarmouth to be preserved; he even had his own labels. This store was located at the edge of the main road between the residence of Mandé d’Entremont and that of his son Augustin (“Tin”) d’Entremont. It had a telephone, a rare thing at the time. Between 1925 and 1926, this building was transported behind Mandé’s house, the location of the house of Marguerite (daughter of Mandé) and her husband, Sheldon d’Eon. Mathurin and his sons were wet coopers. It is here that barrels were made. The store, having become cooperage, later became a henhouse and was demolished during the 1940s. – Translated from Les oubliés de notre patrimoine written by Roseline LeBlanc (page 30).

Old Mathurin à François d’Entremont was a man born before his time. He would read a lot of newspapers and would keep up to date with what was going on in the world. You could say that he had great interest in “progress”. During a certain number of years he had a tannery and with the leather he manufactured he produced work shoes, yoke belts for oxen, and other such articles. He was also well-versed in agriculture.

It was used to label the jars of strawberry jam. – Translated from Les oubliés de notre patrimoine written by Roseline LeBlanc (page 31).

Mathurin was also a merchant. The men of the village would customarily gather at his store at night. One of these men was old Etienne Duon, better known as Kékaine, who lived with Alfred Bourque. No one in the village could produce better strawberries than Kékaine. He would spend most of the summer tending to them; and it was well worth it. One night Mathurin told Kékaine he was going to import strawberries from Ontario to plant in his garden, and asked him if he wanted some as well. Kékaine ordered some.

At their desired times, the two gardeners planted their strawberries. A few months later, when Kékaine was in his garden, two or three young boys passing through stopped and asked Kékaine why his strawberries looked better than Mathurin’s (they liked to egg him on and make him talk). Kékaine replied: “It’s simple, Mathurin planted his strawberries in the moon and I planted mine in the ground. That’s the reason”.

Apparently, Mathurin did not believe in planting during certain phases of the moon like many other villagers.