Jenny

“Go cheer the child in the next room, Mammy. Bad lung case—overwhelmingly homesick—name, Jenny.”

I found a straight-haired little girl, a child of twelve—pointed chin, big eyes, flushed cheeks, hollows under their pink, eyes too bright, set deep.

“Hello! I’m your neighbour; Doctor said I could visit you. You are Jenny, aren’t you?”

“Yes, are you the Bird Lady?”

“The baby thrushes and blackbirds are mine.”

“I have never seen a baby bird. I come from London. Do your little birds keep you from aching for home?”

“Well, I live in Canada. That is a long, long ache, but the birds do help a lot, Jenny.”

“I’m glad you’ve come. Have you been in the San long?”

“Four months.”

“Four months! And I only, only two weeks. My little brother and I are orphans. We live with our Aunt in London. She is very rich. She says it is scandalous the price the San charges to keep me here, but she is willing because she is dreadfully afraid of catching my lungs. She won’t let me kiss her, or kiss my brother. It’s dreadful living without kisses. Tell me about your birds. Birds are the nicest things in Sunhill, don’t you think?”

Bird Studies

“The very nicest, Jenny.”

“Let’s be friends. Enormous friends!”

“All right. I tell you what; our beds are right against each other, just the wall between. We’ll invent tap-talk, shall we?”

Jenny frowned, “Shout back and forth? We daren’t. Doctor’d hear.”

“We wouldn’t shout things; we’d say things by tapping on the wall—tap, tap, ‘Good morning’, tap, tap, tap, ‘I’m fine’.”

“That will be fun,” said Jenny. “What else shall we say?”

“Clean plates are very important. Four taps: ‘Have you made a clean plate?’ Smart tap: ‘Yes’, dull bang with the palm, ‘No!’ ”

The code worked splendidly.

After supper one night in answer to my four taps a monstrous slap from Jenny’s palm.

I went to her. She pulled the sheet over her head to hide red eyes. Before the child was a plate piled with sliced raw carrot.

“Hello! What’s that?”

“A beastly new idea of Dr. Bottle’s—raw carrot!”

“She has got you mixed with Jinny the donkey!”

Between giggles and “he-haws” the carrots began to go down. We were making fine fun and did not hear Dr. Mack till she was in the room. Over her, glasses and under her glasses the Doctor’s eyes called me “Fool”. In her most awful tone she said, “Hush!”

“Sorry, Doctor. I was trying to help Jenny’s carrots down.”

“Temperatures, Mammy! Temperatures! Must not excite the child. Neither laughing nor crying to excess is permissible here!”

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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