Emily Carr As I Knew Her

by Carol Pearson

  This little story I really should start for you in Emily Carr’s own manner, it seems to fit so well! But then, everything she ever said, according to my standards, always did fit well! I am sure you remember how all our stories started when we were small: “Once upon a time . . .” Well, not so Emily Carr. The beginning had to fit what we were speaking about, and according to her standards it always did. If the story was about me, it would begin, “Once upon a horse, there . . .” In the case I am going to tell you about (remember, please, that Emily Carr was one of several sisters but much the youngest, only half the years of the older girls), she started her story with, “Once upon a quarrel, when Small again came out second best . . .”

  Mothers often have a hard time settling quarrels between the youngsters, and it very often happens, what with potatoes boiling over or the supper nearly ready to be put on the table (quarrelling gets more heated when tummies are empty!), that there just is not time to hear both sides of an argument. Very often, it is not the guilty party who is told to sit on that chair! So it was with Small. Her Mother was not aware of what had taken place, but to restore peace quickly she spoke severely to Small, sending her to her room. According to the light Small had on the whole affair, it was in no way her fault and was very unfair. Her heart was broken, as she was sure they no longer loved her. When found by her Mother a little later, she had a small box on her bed. Into it she was carefully putting her cherished patty-pans, paints, and three small monkeys, “Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil,” and an empty, treasured, still-smelly perfume bottle. It was quite evident what was in her hurt little heart and mind. Mother said nothing for a minute or two, while Small went right ahead with the serious business at hand! Finally Mother said (after what must have been very serious thinking, for she knew her little girl very well, and her love of food!), “Emily, if you are able to wait a few minutes, Cook will fix you a few sandwiches. It is a shame you will miss dinner, as it is one of your favourites, but you know best, dear. Call at the kitchen for them when you are ready.” After a time of silent thinking, the treasures were very slowly put away again. The usually closed door at the top of the back stairs had been mysteriously left open, and the dinner did smell very good. Anyway, she was not so mad any more.

  Child psychology has quite recently been thought of, they say, yet this incident took place over seventy years ago.

  Here is another happening of long ago, but this time the laugh was on me.

  I had been boarding at a girls’ school in Victoria, till Miss Carr and I had become so friendly. When I went to stay with her I continued my schooling there as a day student. I was usually good, simply because I had a horror of being kept in. As soon as school was over, I would race off, exercise my horse, then go to Miss Carr’s for the day’s real excitement. The painting lessons, walks, talks with Miss Carr all were events. There was sure to be something pleasant on the day’s programme. It is funny how children can so easily put their whole soul into whatever they are interested in at the minute and concentrate with their entire being. That is the hold Art had on me at the time. I had loved it always, but with Miss Carr as my teacher, each lesson was a joy; the variety was so great from day to day there was never any monotony. Always, as I mounted the studio steps, a feeling of expectancy would grow, till, on the top step, I would nearly burst! It was the way it used to be when, as a small child, I neared the tree on Christmas morning!

  I have a great love for music, though I am not at all musical myself; my singing, I know, leaves a lot to be desired, but I love to sing. When I was a child, if I concentrated very hard about anything at all, I would start to sing. The harder the problem, the louder I sang. When it happened in school, it was awful. The teacher in this particular class was a dear little old maid, very homely, but as nice as she was plain. I thought a lot of her, to make up a little, I think, for the way some of the very pretty girls snubbed her. Still, when I was doing work I liked, or was having trouble with, as soon as I started to concentrate I would start to sing. It must have been very exasperating for her. She liked me too, I know, but of course it had to stop. One day she said, “Miss Williams, if you sing again I am afraid you will have to come up before the class.” Everyone fairly gasped. That meant only one thing, and after all we were in high school, and things like that just did not happen, not there, not to girls our size! The shock of the thought of it kept me quiet for some time, then there was a Latin question that had me completely stumped; and so I sang!

  “All right,” she said, “Miss Williams, come up please.” It seemed a mile to her desk, but I made it. Did you ever have a dream that you were trying to walk, that your feet stuck to the floor, each step taking all your strength to manoeuvre? Well, it is worse when it is no dream! She slowly unlocked the bottom drawer of her big desk, slowly took the big strap out (it was the first time we had ever even seen it), and as slowly stood up. She looked at me a minute. Then she turned the strap about, and handed me the handle, saying as she did so, “Let us be true to each other; I am too fond of you to strap you, my dear; it will do as much good, I think, if you strap me. Three on each hand, please. Hard.” I nearly died. There was an audible gasp from the class, then you could have heard a pin drop. I felt as if I were sinking into the floor, and hoped it was so! My face was so hot, I was sure I would weep. The little teacher stood there; she was not over five feet tall, but she seemed to be towering above me then. “Well?” she said, “I am waiting.” Still I stood. Finally, she reached out, gently took the strap from me, and put it away. “I think that will be all,” she said. Believe me, it was. I never sang in school again. Indeed, it was years before I could sing anywhere and not think of her standing there! Not a word was ever said to me about it by the class, but they understood, and were much nicer to her ever after.

  I was so quiet at my painting lesson that afternoon that Mom asked me what was wrong. I always told her everything.

  “I would like your little teacher,” was all she said.

  THE GUEST ROOM

  THERE is no need to describe here the care, pride, and joy that boil up inside every young bride when the first guest is due and his room is being made ready.

  The first year of my marriage, I was lucky that my family lived near me and I could see them often. My luck continued, because the first visitor to spend some time with me was Emily Carr. She was coming all the way from the Coast. Was I the proud one! The fact that a west coast show was being held here in the East, and Miss Carr had been invited to exhibit and to come East to meet the members of the Group of Seven, did not slow me up at all!

  A great box had arrived from her when I was married. It was a Treasure Chest such as we all dream of but few see. This was in the old days, when she was still well, and she made most of the things herself. There were several oddly shaped cream jugs (she knew so well my love for, and taste in, china!), a lovely, soft, brown rug, made by her, beautifully done, a supply of her own Mother’s table silver, and a lovely water colour, mostly blue, of a spot I was very fond of along the coast. There was a dear little pewter mug (I wept over this one; it had been given to her, when she was eighteen, by the soldier who had been killed.) There was also the fine nightie she had had for years; she loved it just for the vacant spot in her life that it represented, I think. I was proud, glad, and at the same time sad to have it. If I had had a little girl, it would have been one of the things she would have had.

  There was a common can-opener, all wrapped up as fancy as you please, with a great big card tied to it. The card had a drawing of me, painting at an easel in the corner of a small kitchen, with a big clock on the wall, the hands pointing to twelve-thirty, and the face of the clock was drawn in, with eyes and so on, representing a “you’ll be sorry!” look! At the table sat a man, in overalls, the picture of disgust, as he stared at the clock, his elbows on the empty table! At this time Miss Carr had never met my husband. I had not referred in any way to his attitude toward my painti
ng because we had been married only a month or so, and at that time there was no reaction to refer to. When, years later, I asked her how she knew in advance, her reply was only, “Human nature, Child, and different environments.” At that time this hardly made sense to me at all. But painting had stopped in the third year!

  In another separate box was a little ginger-coloured Griffon. He was only a small pup, the sweetest little thing! The beautiful Sugar Plum was his mother. There had been five puppies. Miss Carr said that they were such heavenly little things, “there were no two ways about it!” and so she promptly named them Cloud, Sun, Moon, Planet, and Star. This was just like her! She sent me Sun, because, she said, he was the warmest and the brightest! Her easy way of tying things together, having the right thought in her heart and the right word on her tongue, was a gift, I think, even more valuable than her gift of painting. Indeed, in my heart I am sure it was because of this understanding of hers that her paintings are so loved today.

  Sun was a dear little fellow; even when full grown he was no bigger than a small cat. The people of our northern country had never seen that particular breed before. He was a great favourite, and the butt of many jokes, with his funny little pop eyes and turned-up nose. I had had him only a little more than a year, when some tourists, going by, stopped, and put him in their car. That was the last time we ever saw him. Having to break the news to Miss Carr hurt me nearly as much as the actual theft.

  Only a little more than a month after these things arrived, Miss Carr received the invitation to come East for the show. But we pretended she came to visit me; the exhibition would be “seen to,” later on, if time permitted. Her imagination worked all the time; in this case she wished to help a girl still not too sure of the road she had chosen. So we made a joke of her trip, and we laughed together, almost ready to cry because we were able to laugh together!

  Miss Carr had so many sides to her nature that it seems impossible to describe even the smallest detail without getting involved in the biggest descriptions. Do you remember the story of the seven blind men and the elephant and how different their descriptions were? Well, if Miss Carr was being discussed by a group of people who had met her casually, in various circumstances, their impressions would be just as varied! It is because I loved her so, that it is hard for me to get my point across, with words alone; it is as if I need gestures very often to help me!

  In the week before Miss Carr was to arrive, the menus were a great delight for me to ponder over. I had all sorts of delicious things in mind; her tastes were so familiar to me. Miss Carr, as well as my Mother, were both very good cooks; both had taught me a great deal, and I, too, loved to cook.

  As it turned out the meals, for the first few days, were only snacks! We had so much to say to each other!

  Among my horses at that time was a wild little buckskin mare that my husband had given me when we were married. Her main joy in life was to see how far, and how often, she could travel on her hind legs while waving her forefeet in the air. In Kinmount, where we were living then, the snow was quite deep, so we did our travelling in a cutter, complete with robes and bells, plus the little mare with the gay hind legs! Miss Carr, then about fifty-four, had not been in close contact with horses for nearly twenty years! But this fact did not daunt her at all. She would jump into the cutter, grab the robes gaily, and call, “All aboard, little Fly, wave bye bye!” Miss Carr would laugh aloud, as up would come the little mare. She would balance a minute, then the sudden jerk, as she plunged forward, to be off like a shot! She was a Standard bred mare, but a trotter, and speed was her middle name. Miss Carr remarked, after her first ride, that our Fly was very aptly named! There was never a word from Miss Carr about going too fast, and it did tickle me when she asked, “Baboo, do you think she would mind if I drove, it has been so long—” And did she drive? Of course, just as well as she did everything else. I do not think I was even surprised. I do remember being so happy that she enjoyed it. After being on the West Coast for so long, where the weather is so mild, and never enough snow for a cutter in the part Miss Carr came from, I had wondered what she would think of our means of transportation.

  The barn was about a hundred feet from the house, and due to the number of animals we had there, it was a more even heat, warmer, than was our old farmhouse, heated as it was by stoves. My Springer spaniel bitch, a beautiful, well-bred animal, had been moved out there because she was nearly due to have puppies. She had come from the Avondale Kennels, in the West, and for that very reason, I think, Miss Carr loved her at once. Springers are, to me, the very tops in dogs, just as the big, hairy Bobtails were to her. But the spaniels have the same soft eyes and lovely disposition and, to my mind, are the closest thing to the Bobbies. Anyway, Miss Carr loved my Raggedy Ann. During the day Rags was in the house with us, but she went to the barn at night. She was very fond of the horses, and was very content there. She loved little Sun and was very good to him.

  Often at night, especially if there was a storm blowing up or if the wind started to howl, Emily Carr would get up, put her coat on over her nightie, my husband’s over-shoes on over her slippers, then go out to the barn, through the snow, to sit with Rags for a while. I think she visited with the horses, too; often in the morning, after one of her busy nights, we would notice the oat bin open, and the horses would have a very self-satisfied air about them, and a gleam in their eyes!

  There are several old Dutch families in Kinmount, whose parents or, in some cases, grandparents, had settled there many years ago. Nearly all of the old generation are gone, now, but they were great friends of our family. They had farms, and the usual livestock, though theirs was generally much fatter than that on most of the farms in the district. The homes of those I had come to know very well glowed with the warmth only genuine antiques can give. I had told Miss Carr of these lovely treasures many times, and of the gentle people, just as I had told them of my Artist friend, in the West. It seemed too good to be true that now these friends should meet. Not wanting to embarrass the kindly old people, by pointing out their treasures, I had told Miss Carr where to look, in the nice clean homes, for the lovely things. Their only value to the owners, who were in no way mercenary, was the fact that they had come from their homeland, with their parents. There were sterling silver articles, and cut glass, that would make any dealer itch to get his hands on, and a lover of fine old things sorry for them, that they were not loved for themselves alone. They were high on shelves, half-hidden, or in behind cheap china in a corner cupboard, when they should have had a prominent spot of their own. There were also some very fine pieces of old pewter; I knew Miss Carr would be especially interested in these.

  Their own handiwork was beautiful too. The window blinds had the nicest pieces of work, not lacey, or frilly, but a panel of good, strong crochet, pictures of pastures, trees, cows and horses, all worked in with those strong, steady fingers, on the long winter evenings, and by lamp light. Their beds were covered with lovely, hand-made bed spreads, made of string, but long-wearing and beautiful to see. The floors, like Miss Carr’s, were covered with hand-hooked rugs, each design different. Miss Carr was as impressed as I had hoped she would be. She knew too well it would be an insult to offer to buy any of their treasures, though there were many I know she would have loved to have had. The old pieces are gone now, as are most of the dear old people. As very few ever married, I often wonder what became of the memories!

  Just after we had moved into the big farmhouse my father-in-law had given us as a wedding present, quite often at night we would hear funny, high, squealy noises. We were unable to identify them. They were like the wind at times, but they sounded when there was no wind, like canaries singing in the night. We became used to them, and soon forgot them. Not long after Miss Carr came, the noises started again. She listened a minute. “O Baboo, what lovely mice you have!” she said. I was very surprised. Mice? We had seen no traces of them; they evidently stayed in the walls, which
were very thick. And I had never heard of mice singing. I was sure she was fooling us, but she explained that mice always sing, but in a tone so high that our ears are usually not able to hear them. These little Kinmount mice must have been the basses. We got a great laugh from our singing mice! Later, people came from all around, just to hear them. And, as is generally the case, on these nights the mice never sang!

  There was never a dull moment during her visit; our only grump was that the time went so quickly, it was over too fast. But I think you know now how nice my guest was to get along with. Rearing horses, howling winds, inexperienced housekeepers, and singing mice, none of these daunted Emily Carr.

  Her next visit was in the summer about two years later. My son Joe was the attraction then, and we had fun then too, though not nearly as much as we had had in the country. At that time we lived in Oshawa. We had had on our list, for years, several things that we must do, if ever we were in Toronto together. One was to visit the Art Gallery, and the Museum and, of course, the Zoo. We got to the Zoo just at feeding time one afternoon, and because I knew Dr. Campbell and some of the officials there, we were allowed to stay and follow along. The animals were eager for their food and worried lest they miss their share, and at times the keeper was completely mobbed. Miss Carr asked him, when he stepped out into the aisle to refill his basket, “Can you tell me, please, are they following you, or chasing you?” He did not seem to have an answer, but Dr. Campbell laughed.