Meg the Worker

Bobtail Meg was registered. I bought her by mail; I sent the money but no dog came. After writing a number of letters which were not answered, I applied to a lawyer. He wrote–Meg came. Her seller claimed that the dog had been run over on the way to be shipped. She was a poor lank creature with a great half-healed wound in her side. I was minded to return her. T

hen I saw the look in Meg’s eyes, the half-healed, neglected wound, and I could not send her back to the kind of home she had obviously come from. I saw too how ravenously she ate, how afraid she was to accept kindness, how distrustful of coaxing.

Her coat was a tangled mass, barbed with last year’s burs, matted disgustingly with cow dung. Before I let her go among my own dogs, she had to be cleaned. I got a tub and a pair of shears. When the filth was cleared away Meg shook herself; her white undercoat fluffed patchily, she looked chewed but felt clean and was eased by the dressing of her wound. She felt light-hearted, too, and self-respecting. Before the shears had finished their job Meg had given me her heart.

The kennel accepted Meg; Meg had no ears or eyes for any living thing, beast or human, but me. All day she sat in the dog-field, her eyes glued to my windows or the stair, waiting trembling to hear my step, to see my shadow pass.

When her coat grew Meg did not look too bad. She was very intelligent and had been taught to work. Idleness irked Meg; her whole being twitched to obey; her eyes pleaded, “Work!” On Beacon Hill she bustled in and out among the broom hunting imaginary sheep and would slink shamedly to my heel when she failed to find any.

I invented work for Meg. I was clearing the smaller stones off the far field, Meg following my every trip to a far corner where I emptied my basket. I stitched a pair of saddle-bags and bound them on to Meg. The dog stood patiently while I filled them with small stones and then trotted them to the dumping place proudly.

I took her and her saddle-bags to the butcher’s for the daily kennel rations. Meg lugged them home, nose high when she passed the dog-field where the others sniffed enviously. The bone that was her reward did not please Meg much, she let the others take if from her. Had any of them taken her job, Meg’s heart would have been broken.

A kind-voiced man rushed into the kennel one day.

“I want a trained cattle-dog to take with me to the Cariboo immediately!”

He fancied Meg; I liked the way he handled her. I let Meg go to the big spaces and the job that was hers by right.

Klee Wyck

Emily Carr wrote these twenty-one sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations.

The Book of Small

Emily Carr wrote these thirty-six sketches that relate anecdotes about her life as a young girl in the frontier town of Victoria. She notes: “There were a great many things that I only half understood, such as saloons and the Royal Family and the Chain Gang.”

The House of All Sorts

Emilly Carr wrote these forty-one stories of those hard-working days as landlord and the parade of tenants — young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders. In an additional twenty-five stories, she describes the mutual bonds of affection between her and her dogs.

Growing Pains

Completed just before Emily Carr died in 1945, Growing Pains tells the story of her life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. She writes about the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting and of the unexpected vindication and triumph she felt when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them.

Heart of a Peacock

A collection of 51 short stories by the legendary writer and painter Emily Carr, arranged in themes such as her experiences with Native people, her adventures with various beloved creatures and her love of nature. Together, they underline Carr’s place as a writer with the sharp yet tender eye of an artist, with a deep feeling for the tragedies of life and with a rich sense of the comic.

Pause

While studying art in London, Emily Carr seriously undermined her health and was sent to a sanatorium for a complete rest cure. Bridling at the hospital’s rules, which prohibited excitement of any kind, the always rebellious Carr proceeded to make friends, raise birds, and cause trouble. In words and enchanting sketches, in Pause: A Sketchbook, Carr presents a funny, poignant account of her 18-month convalescence,

Hundreds and Thousands

Hundreds and Thousands consists of her journals from 1927 to 1941. She began keeping a journal in 1927, when, after years of her work being derided and ignored, came unexpected vindication and triumph when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them and encouraged her to overcome the years of despair when she stopped painting.

Opposite Contraries

Collected from Emily Carr’s private and public writings and edited by Susan Crean, these previously unpublished pieces reveal the outspoken artist at her most forthright. Expurgated sections from Carr’s journals detail her anguished meditations on her spiritual mission, musings about Native culture and the white community’s reaction to it, and thoughts about her family. Her groundbreaking 1913 "Lecture on Totems”, her first recorded writing on Native art and people, is also included, as are some of her most fascinating letters to friends and colleagues.

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