When she was finished, Emily put down her pencil. She felt light and happy.
Miss Woods walked around the room, looking carefully at each of the children’s drawings. She held up one that a girl named Bessie Nuthall had done. The picture of a girl with a basket was very neat and carefully drawn. The winner for sure, Emily thought. But then Miss Woods put the drawing down and walked on. She picked up Emily’s. She seemed to be frowning at the smudged lines, and Emily sank down in her seat. Her happy feeling seeped away. It was hopeless. She would never be good at anything.
“This is the winner!” Miss Woods announced with a big smile.
It was Emily’s picture.
“It’s not the neatest,” said Miss Woods. “But it’s got the most life in it.”
18
The Lily Field
When Emily walked home from school she felt so light her feet barely touched the ground. The road was muddy from spring rain, so she ran along the wooden sidewalk and jumped off at the gate in front of the Carr house. First, she went to Carlow’s kennel and crouched down to pet him. His muddy paws left marks on her pinafore, but she didn’t care. His tail wagged happily, and Emily felt that if she had a tail it would be wagging too. Then, she ran into the house.
Dede was just coming out of the kitchen.
“Quiet!” she snapped. “Mother is resting.” Emily stopped as suddenly as if she’d bumped into a wall. Dede was never happy with anything she did. She probably wouldn’t like Emily’s new drawing. She’d think it was messy like the Carlow drawing. She probably wouldn’t care about the contest. Slowly, Emily held out her picture.
“Look,” she whispered. “My drawing was picked the best in the whole class.”
“It’s not nice to be boastful,” Dede scolded. But she took the drawing and looked at it.
“You won a contest?” she asked. Did her voice soften? Were the corners of her mouth turning up? Emily wasn’t sure.
“Yes,” Emily said.
“Well, well,” Dede said. “Very good.”
Had Dede actually said “very good”? Emily wanted to leap into the air. She, Emily, had done something good. But Dede’s voice stiffened again, and her face went back to being stern.
“If you’d try to be less messy, you’d do better,” she added.
“Yes, Dede,” Emily answered. For once, she didn’t care about Dede’s scolding. She held tight to the important words, “very good.”
Emily hurried up the stairs to her room. She propped her picture up on the cherry branch easel. Then she went back out to the landing. First, she leaned over and checked to see if Dede was gone from the hallway and no one else was there. Then, she lifted up her skirt, flung one leg over the banister and slid down to the bottom of the stairs. She skipped out of the house, careful not to bang the door.
For once, no one called after her. No voice scolded, “Be good, Emily. Behave, Emily.”
Emily walked to the cow yard, singing out hello to the cow, the rooster and the chickens. But she didn’t climb the fence and go in. Instead, she walked past the cow pasture and on to the picket fence that surrounded the lily field. She didn’t try to lift the picket gate. She just climbed over.
This time she did not have to imagine the lilies as she had during the winter. They were in full bloom. Emily stood in the middle of the delicate white flowers and looked up to the sky with them.
“I’m going to be an artist,” she said out loud.
She had won a contest today, and even Dede had said she’d done well. Maybe it was just a little contest, and maybe her picture had been a bit smudgy, but it was a start. It meant she could be good at something, something that she, Emily, wanted to do. And she could do what she wanted. She could be an artist. She would keep telling herself that — no matter what other people said.
Emily drank in the perfume of the lilies and looked up through the tall pine trees. She felt that same strange, wonderful feeling she always felt in this spot. It filled her up and overflowed. She felt like she could float on her happiness right up over the lily field and fly like the wind out over the wild forest of Beacon Hill Park and the ocean beyond.
Afterword
Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1871. She grew up at a time when people expected girls and women to behave only in certain ways. Emily didn’t always fit people’s expectations — when she was a girl or when she was grown up. Instead, she learned to follow her heart and believe in herself (even though it wasn’t always easy). She studied art in San Francisco, England and France. Eventually, she began painting the wild places of the British Columbia west coast that she loved so much.
Even Emily’s paintings were not what people expected. Instead of painting all the details of a landscape with tiny careful brush strokes, she used color, movement, light and space to show the feeling of life in the places she visited. She also painted things people had not seen painted before. She traveled all along the British Columbia coast, sketching and painting First Nations villages and wild places.
Emily continued to love animals, but she didn’t get a dog of her own until she was grown up. After that, she always had lots of animals around her, including birds, dogs and even a monkey.
When Emily’s health began to fail and she could no longer paint as much as she wanted to, she began to write. Even people who didn’t understand or like her paintings liked the books she wrote about her life. If she were still alive today, Emily Carr would be pleased and surprised to know she is one of Canada’s most famous and well-loved artists.
Emily’s father did not live to see her become a real artist and to tell her she’d done well. But years after his death, Emily found the old drawing of Carlow saved in a drawer in his desk. He really had liked it, and he had been proud of her even then.
Jacqueline Pearce is the author of several books for children and teens, including The Reunion (Orca, 2002). She lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Author’s Note
Although this story is about a real person, the artist Emily Carr, who lived from 1871 to 1945, it is fiction. My main sources for Emily’s experiences are her own descriptions of episodes in her childhood, which are found in her books, Growing Pains: an Autobiography (Irwin, 1946) and The Book of Small (Irwin, 1942). In some cases I changed the order or timing of events to make them work together as a story (Emily Carr sometimes did this herself in her writing, so I don’t think she would mind). I also invented some scenes and details to fill in gaps. I have tried to remain true to the spirit and character of Emily Carr and her life in early Victoria, British Columbia.
I will tell about the next years of Emily’s life in Emily’s Dream, due out in 2005.
Renné Benoit has been drawing pictures for a living for several years, a dream come true for her. For Discovering Emily, she researched the setting and characters with great care. Renée lives and works in Leamington, Ontario.
Illustrator’s Note
The illustrations of the house and of the yard are from the actual house where Emily Carr grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, at 44 Carr Street (now 207 Government Street). The illustrations of Emily’s family are also drawn from historical photographs.
Orca Young Readers
Orca Young Readers Series
Max and Ellie series by Becky Citra:
Ellie’s New Home, The Freezing Moon,
Danger at The Landings, Runaway
TJ series by Hazel Hutchins:
TJ and the Cats, TJ and the Haunted House,
TJ and the Rockets
Basketball series by Eric Walters:
Three on Three, Full Court Press, Hoop Crazy!
Long Shot, Road Trip, Off Season, Underdog
Kaylee and Sausage series by Anita Daher
Flight from Big Tangle and
Flight from Bear Canyon
Read more about Emily Carr’s
life in Emily’s Dream,
coming in spring 2005.
“Emily Carr, you get in this hou
se this minute!” Dede’s order rang across the cow yard. “Or do you expect your brother to take your punishment for you?”
Emily sat up, hay cascading off her. Through a hole between the boards in the side of the loft, she could see Dede standing on the back porch of the house. Richard stood beside her, looking at his feet. Dede had a firm grip on his ear. Hay dust drifted up, and Emily sneezed.
Well, that was it. She’d have to go in. She couldn’t leave Dick to take the punishment on his own. Playing tag had been Emily’s idea, after all. Dede was so unfair.
Emily climbed slowly down the ladder from the loft. The family’s old cow lingered by the barn door, waiting for Emily. Emily gave her an affectionate scratch on the head, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and headed for the house.
Discovering Emily Page 5
