Peach Scanties

Coming up Simcoe Street I stopped short and nearly strangled! There, stretched right across the front windows of the Doll’s Flat, the street side of my respectable apartment house, dangled from the very rods where my fresh curtains had been when I went out–one huge suit of men’s natural wool underwear, one pair of men’s socks, one pair of women’s emaciated silk stockings, a vest, and two pairs of peach scanties.

Who, I wondered, had gone up the street during the two hours of my absence? Who had seen my house shamed?

I could not get up the stairs fast enough, galloping all the way! There was only enough breath left for: “Please, please take them down.”

I pointed to the wash.

Of course she was transient–here today, gone tomorrow–not caring a whoop about the looks of the place.

“I like our underwear sunned,” she said with hauteur.

“There are lines out in the back.”

“I do not care for our clothes to mix with everybody’s–and there are the stairs.”

“I will gladly take them down and hang them for you.”

“Thanks, I prefer them where they are. It is our flat. We have the right-“

“But the appearance! The other tenants!”

“My wash is clean. It is darned. Let them mind their own business, and you yours.”

“It is my business–this house is my livelihood.”

The woman shrugged.

Merciful night came down and hid the scanties and the rest.

Next wash-day the same thing happened. The heavy woollies dripped and trickled over the tenant’s clean washed windows below; of course she rushed up–furious as was I!

Again I went to the Doll’s Flat. I refused to go away until the washing was taken down and the curtains hung up. “If you live in this house you must comply with the ways of it,” I said.

On the third week she hung her wash in the windows the same as before. I gave her written notice.

“I shall not go.”

“You will, unless you take that wash down and never hang it on my curtain rods again!”

Sullenly, she dragged the big woollen combination off the rod, threw it on the table; its arms and legs kicked and waved over the table’s edge, then dangled dead. Down came the lank stockings, the undervest–last of all the peach scanties. Both pairs were fastened up by the same peg. She snapped it off viciously.

A puff of wind from the open door caught and ballooned the scanties; off they sailed, out the window billowing into freedom. As they passed the hawthorn tree its spikes caught them. There they hung over my front gate, flapping, flapping–“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!”

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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