Papergirl

by Melinda McCracken

  PAPERGIRL

  PAPERGIRL

  Melinda McCracken

  with Penelope Jackson

  Roseway Publishing

  an imprint of Fernwood Publishing

  Halifax & Winnipeg

  Copyright © 2019 Melinda McCracken & Penelope Jackson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names of characters, incidents, and places, including organizations and institutions, either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copy editing: Brenda Conroy

  Cover design: Andrew Lodwick

  Printed and bound in Canada

  eBook: tikaebooks.com

  Published by Roseway Publishing

  an imprint of Fernwood Publishing

  32 Oceanvista Lane, Black Point, Nova Scotia, B0J 1B0

  and 748 Broadway Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 0X3

  www.fernwoodpublishing.ca/roseway

  Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund,the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of Nova Scotia and the Province of Manitoba for our publishing program.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Papergirl / by Melinda McCracken with Penelope Jackson.

  Names: McCracken, Melinda, 1940-2002, author. | Jackson, Penelope, 1980- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190048506 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190048611 | ISBN 9781773631295

  (softcover) | ISBN 9781773631301 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773631318 (Kindle)

  Classification: LCC PS8625.C72 P37 2019 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  FOREWORD

  I was young when my mother wrote Papergirl, and I didn’t think to ask her why exactly she wrote this story. She passed some sixteen years ago now, so there’s no way to know for sure. Her life and times, however, contain some clues.

  A creative person, Melinda received a music scholarship to go to university, graduated with an English degree and went to England to study as a visual artist. While there she wrote a biweekly column for the Winnipeg Free Press entitled “Melinda McCracken’s letters from England.” In one, she described a new popular musical act, The Beatles, to those back home!

  Her formative years were spent in Montreal and Toronto in the countercultural 1960s, when many young people questioned the establishment values of their parents, the war in Vietnam and the problems of capitalism and patriarchy. Melinda was one of the voices of this new generation of hippies. She wrote about music and the arts and from a “woman’s lib” perspective.

  She became a mother in the early 1970s and returned to Winnipeg several years later. Seeing Winnipeg with new eyes and countercultural thought, I imagine she became interested in a major event in her hometown’s history: the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. She decided to write a fictional feminist story set during this pivotal event in local and international history. As a mother of a young girl, she wrote the story for children like me, her daughter.

  I remember her writing Papergirl on her typewriter in the early 1980s, both in the little red house by the water at the Lake of the Woods and in the basement of our house in Riverview. She and my grandmother talked about what it was like to live in the early 20th century: ice delivered by horse for the icebox and the joys of homemade biscuits. And they also discussed the hardships many experienced during the strike. Melinda’s story was completed but never published.

  The manuscript was dug out of the archives and is being published to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike. Through the eyes of Cassie, we experience the risk and promise of working people’s collective struggle for a better future.

  A huge thank you to Penelope Jackson for editing and enhancing the story. It is improved thanks to your thoughtful contributions. Thank you to Dennis Lewycky, Jim Naylor and Doug Smith for providing historical accuracy. Thank you Brock Brown for creating a teacher’s guide. Thank you to the University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections for housing Melinda McCracken’s fonds. Thank you to Wayne Antony and Roseway Publishing for bringing this story for all to read.

  Melinda would have been proud to be part of the events acknowledging the 100th anniversary of the strike and people’s enduring struggle for justice, peace and freedom.

  Molly McCracken

  CHAPTER 1

  Tuesday, May 6, 1919

  It had been a long, hard winter, and though the snow had been gone almost two weeks now, you could still see the occasional dirty patch in shady corners. The sun was finally warm on Cassie’s face, but the ground was still brown and bare, and there were no leaves on the trees. Cassie always marked the change between winter and spring by the sound of horses’ hooves. In the winter, they went squeak-squeak and the harnesses jingled with bells, but when spring came, the bells were put away and the hooves made a clean clop-clop sound. There was clopping coming from nearby Portage Street.

  “Look, Mary!” exclaimed Cassie.

  Her best friend looked to where Cassie was pointing.

  “Crocuses! That’s our fourth patch this spring. They’re so late this year,” Mary said. The girls always kept count of the signs of spring together.

  “Better late than never,” said Cassie. “And I definitely thought it might be never this year.”

  The girls opened the wooden gate at the Hopkins family home, a small frame house on Langside Street in Winnipeg. Langside ran all the way from near the river to Notre Dame Avenue, but Cassie lived on the part that was just off Portage Avenue, the main street where all the department stores, banks, and office buildings were. Cassie’s house was squashed fairly tightly against the house next to it, where elderly Mrs. Watson lived with her equally old tomcat, Rodney. The front porch of Cassie’s house took up most of the front yard, and the shed took up most of the back. But still there was enough space for Cassie’s family to plant a row of flowers in the front and a square of vegetables out back when summer came. There was also room enough for a robin, all by himself, to land and peck by the front steps for a worm.

  “That’s three robins now! And our first worm!” Mary paused. “Does the worm count if it’s just been eaten?”

  Cassie, whose full name was Catherine Hopkins, was ten and a half that spring of 1919. She and Mary were in Grade 5 at Carlton School, which was behind Eaton’s department store at Hargrave and Portage. Carlton School was for children who lived downtown, like Cassie and Mary. Most of them were poor, or working class, also like the two friends. But some of them came from big houses down by the Assiniboine River, near the new Legislative Building, a few blocks south of Portage Avenue. Their fathers were doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. Cassie didn’t like the wealthy children very much. They acted so superior, like they were smarter and better than the working-class kids, and the teachers always seemed to agree, playing favourites with the richest children. They always looked clean and never had runny noses or dirty faces. It was as if they were born clean. And they never wanted to play baseball or marbles with the other children.

  Mary lived farther north on Langside, near Notre Dame Avenue. Mary and her mother didn’t have a whole house. They lived in a small apartment without a back yard at all. Mary loved helping Cassie’s family with their garden.

  Cassie’s father, David Hopkins, was a police officer, and so was her nineteen-year-old brother, Billy. With two men in blue in the house, Cassie and her mother felt well protecte
d. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and Billy had come from England before Cassie was born. Everybody in the family had an English accent except Cassie, although Billy was losing his. In the wintertime, the house always seemed very full. Both Billy and Mr. Hopkins wore big fur coats made out of buffalo hides because it got very cold in Winnipeg, and police officers spent a lot of time outside. They also wore big, furry hats, so when they took off their coats and hats and hung them on the hooks by the back door, it was almost as if there were two extra people in the house. Mr. Hopkins worked in the North End Police Station, and Billy, being young and hardy, directed traffic at the corner of Portage and Main, Winnipeg’s biggest intersection.

  Once, when her mother was taking Cassie to the doctor, Cassie saw Billy directing traffic in his buffalo coat. He looked like a big teddy bear leading an orchestra. He loved his job, though, and was proud to be following in his father’s footsteps.

  Billy and Mr. Hopkins had put away their buffalo coats with summer coming. Now they wore high helmets, which Mr. Hopkins said were the same as the ones worn by the police in his hometown of London. They also wore blue jackets with a row of shiny buttons down the front, blue trousers, lace-up boots, and swirling capes that made them look very dashing.

  Everybody in Cassie’s family came home for their big dinner at noon, and Cassie usually brought Mary with her. The girls had from twelve till two for dinner, and Mary’s mother was at work all day in a factory. It was much nicer for Mary to come and have a hot meal with the Hopkinses than to go home to her drafty flat to try to scrape together whatever food she could find.

  Mrs. Hopkins stayed home and did the laundry, cleaned the house, and baked. For their big daily dinner, she would cook beef and cabbage, or sometimes chicken or fish, with a dessert like rice pudding or bread pudding or some of her preserves, which she put up in the autumn and kept in the cellar cupboard. The Hopkins family used a gas stove and had recently bought an icebox, which kept food cold with a block of ice in the top compartment. The ice was delivered by a man from the Arctic Ice Company, whose wagon was pulled by a large horse. He was an expert at chopping off just the right sized piece of ice and he would carry it dripping over his shoulder with big black tongs. While he was stowing it in the icebox, the horse, who was held back by a weight on a leather strap, made manure in the middle of the street. There was always manure in the middle of the street. “Horse buns,” the kids called it. They were so used to the smell they barely noticed it.

  Before they bought the icebox, Mrs. Hopkins had kept food in the cellar. They still stored all their potatoes, parsnips, beets, and turnips down there in the dark where they would keep, but with the new icebox, they could keep milk and eggs for several days without them going bad. They also had an indoor toilet — which not many of their neighbours had. Cassie did not miss scurrying to the frigid outhouse during the bone-freezing Winnipeg winters.

  Cassie knew her family was lucky; she only had to look at Mary and her mother, Mrs. Smith. Mary’s father had gone to fight in the Great War in 1915 and had been killed the following year. Since his death, Mary and Mrs. Smith had become even poorer. They received a tiny pension, but nowhere near enough to let them stay in their old house. They’d moved to a grim flat that had no icebox, no cellar, certainly no indoor toilet. That’s why Mary’s mother had to work so much, but even working fourteen hours every single day except Sunday, Mrs. Smith always looked hungry. Tired, too. Mary kept offering to stop school and find work herself, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Mary still had to do most of the cooking and cleaning at her house — when there was anything to cook. And so she came home with Cassie for dinner.

  “We’ve not much to spare, but a few good meals a week might keep that girl alive,” Mrs. Hopkins would say.

  The Great War had been terrible for many more than just Mary’s family, Cassie knew. Billy and her parents discussed the war around the dinner table, and from their expressions and the tone of their voices, she had decided it was the most serious thing in the world. Millions of people had been killed, and many more millions had been injured. A lot of police officers had gone to fight in the war, and some, including many of Mr. Hopkins’s friends, had died. But Cassie’s father had a gammy leg, which he’d received in a scuffle with a criminal on the job. He worked at a desk now and wasn’t eligible to fight in the war. Billy had been too young to go.

  With the war over, thousands of soldiers had returned to Winnipeg to look for work. Some of them had been badly injured. The soldiers had been expecting to be welcomed like heroes, but they couldn’t find jobs. Most people who had jobs didn’t have enough to live on. Some men made only fifty dollars a month. Women who worked for the telephone company made fifteen dollars a week, and Mary’s mother and other women working in factories made only seven dollars every week. And prices had gone up very fast. Eggs, bacon, shoes, clothing, beef, and coal were all very expensive. Billy said that prices were going up because the men who controlled the money pushed them up to get richer.

  Yes, life was sad sometimes, Cassie had learned. But the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and the softness of the wind and the company of her best friend made her feel happy and hopeful. There was a small lilac bush in the Hopkinses’ front yard, and in a few weeks the lilacs would be out. They only lasted a week or so on the tree, but they had the loveliest smell. Lilacs always marked the time for Cassie when spring turned into summer. Soon she could take off her stockings and boots and wear her socks and shoes.

  Cassie banged the gate shut, and she and Mary went around the path to the back door. Their boots were dry, but still they wiped them on the mat. Mrs. Hopkins liked her linoleum floors to stay clean, and Cassie knew she’d get it if they tramped in mud. They took off their coats and hung them on a hook. Cassie flipped up her braids, straightened the collar of her middy, and squeezed into her place at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table. Mary sat down next to her.

  “Hello, girls,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “How was the morning?”

  “It was good. It’s a lovely day out, Mum,” Cassie said happily. “Spring makes me so hungry. What’s for dins?”

  “Stew,” her mother answered as she stood by the stove, stirring a steaming pot with a wooden spoon. “And I had time to make a batch of fresh biscuits.”

  Mary and Cassie exchanged grins. Mrs. Hopkins’s biscuits were legendary.

  Just then, Mr. Hopkins came in the back door, swinging his cape from his shoulders onto a hook and tipping his helmet on top of it. He undid his brass buttons, took off his jacket, and sat down, taking his napkin from beside his fork and tucking it into the collar of his blue shirt. He smoothed his big moustache with his fingers, giving the ends a twirl.

  “Dinner, me love,” he said heartily, then sniffed the air. “Ahh, stew and biscuits. The way to a man’s heart.” He winked at her.

  Cassie giggled. Mr. Hopkins frowned at her.

  “As for you, young ladies, don’t I recall some arithmetic test?”

  “Yes, Papa,” Cassie answered. She really didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Well?”

  Cassie sighed. “I couldn’t help it. I had an error.” Cassie glared at the pattern in the oilcloth and wrote an O in it with the handle of her spoon.

  “Now, now,” cautioned Mr. Hopkins. “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “I almost was. So close.”

  Mary snorted. “One error out of a hundred questions, Cassie! I only got 92, so what does that make me?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Cassie. “It’s that Barbara MacKenzie. She got them all right, as usual, and then stuck her tongue out at me when I didn’t. Miss Parker didn’t notice, or pretended not to. You know the teachers are just easier on the rich kids. Barbara came late to class twice this last month and Miss Parker didn’t say anything! No lines, no detention, and if I so much as breathe too loud the teacher’s mad at me. Big surprise Barbara got perfect on another test.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, hush, Cassie. You and Mary both did fine,” said Mrs. Hopkins as she set a bowl of hot stew before each of them. “We won’t wait for Billy.”

  Cassie stuck her nose in the steam rising from the bowl, calming down immediately. The stew smelled rich and meaty. She watched her mother’s plump arm put a heaping plate of fresh biscuits in the middle of the table. Then Mrs. Hopkins ladled some stew into her own bowl and sat down at her place.

  “What’s keeping him?” asked Mr. Hopkins.

  “It’s this strike. He’s so involved. Land sakes, I hope he don’t lose his head.”

  “He does love excitement, don’t he, Mum?” said Cassie. She reached for the fresh biscuits and passed one to Mary. They were lightly browned on top and flaky and smelled good.

  “Doesn’t, Cassie, doesn’t,” Mrs. Hopkins corrected.

  “But Mum, you just said …” Cassie looked around the table. There was something missing. “Where’s the butter?”

  “It’s still in the icebox, Cassie. I made a decision this morning. Butter’s gone way up in price. We have to ration it and only have it on our toast in the morning. We can’t afford more.”

  “Oh, Ruth, there you go, economizing. We’ve got to have butter.” Mr. Hopkins dipped his biscuit in the gravy of his stew, and took a large bite.

  “Not at today’s prices,” said Mrs. Hopkins sternly. “Why, it’s not even the middle of the month yet and I’m running short of grocery money, even with Billy paying room and board. The way prices have shot up. You can always use bacon drippings on your bread, David. If I can find the pennies for the bacon.”

  The screen door slammed and Billy, dark haired and rosy cheeked, flung off his cloak the way his dad had, then dropped his helmet over it.

  “Prices, did you say?” he asked, rubbing his hands together and sitting down at his place. Mrs. Hopkins leaped to her feet to get him a bowl of stew. He was the apple of her eye, her only son. Fortunately, Cassie loved him too. “Prices are up eighty percent since the war started. Not wages, though.”