Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [26]
“Jimmie, don’t you think that pole might fall on us in the night?”
“No, it has leaned over like that for many, many years.”
Louisa’s white cat looked like a ghost with the firelight on her eyes. We began to talk about ghosts and supernatural things—tomtoms that beat themselves, animals that spoke like men, bodies of great chiefs, who had lain in their coffins in the houses of their people till they stank and there were small-pox epidemics—stories that Louisa’s grandmother had told to her.
When we held the face of the clock to the firelight we saw that it was late. Louisa went to the tent and laughed aloud; she called out, “Come and see.”
The walls of the tent and our beds and blankets were crawling with great yellow slugs. With sticks we poked them into a pan. They put in their horns and blunted their noses, puckering the thick lips which ran along their sides and curving their bodies crossly. We tossed them into the bush.
Louisa hung the lantern on to the tent pole and said—
“Jimmie and I will go now.”
“Go?”
“Yes, to the gas boat.”
“’Way out there and leave us all alone? Haven’t you got a tent?”
Jimmie said he forgot it.
“But … Jimmie won’t sleep in Cha-atl … too many ghosts.…”
“What about us?”
“There are some bears around, but I don’t think they will bother you.… Goodnight.”
Their lantern bobbed over the water, then it went out, and there was not anything out there but roar. If only one could have seen it pounding!
We lay down upon the bed of rushes that the Indians had made for us and drew the blanket across us. Maria said, “It’s awful. I’m scared to death.” Then she rolled over and snored tremendously. Her heavy hands and feet banged about. The thought of those ankles with no taper from calf to foot made me squirm. Our lantern brought in mosquitoes, so I got up and put it out. Then I went from the tent.
Where the sea had been was mud now, a wide grey stretch of it with black rocks and their blacker shadows dotted over it here and there. The moon was rising behind the forest—a bright moon. It threw the shadows of the totems across the sand; an owl cried, and then a sea-bird. To be able to hear these close sounds showed that my ears must be getting used to the breakers. By and by the roar got fainter and fainter and the silence stronger. The shadows of the totem poles across the beach seemed as real as the poles themselves.
Dawn and the sea came in together. The moon and the shadows were gone. The air was crisp and salty. I caught water where it trickled down a rock and washed myself.
The totem poles stood tranquil in the dawn. The West Coast was almost quiet; the silence had swallowed up the roar.
And morning had come to Cha-atl.
WASH MARY
Mary came to wash for Mother every Monday.
The wash-house was across the yard from the kitchen door—a long narrow room. The south side of it was of open lattice—when the steam poured through it looked as if the wash-house was on fire. There was a stove in the wash-house. A big oval copper boiler stood on the top of the stove. There was a sink and a pump, and a long bench on which the wooden tubs sat.
Mary stood on a block of wood while she washed because she was so little. Her arms went up and down, up and down over the wash-board and the suds bobbed in the tub. The smell of washing came out through the lattice with the steam, and the sound of rubbing and swishing came out too.
The strong colours of Mary’s print dress, brown face, and black hair were paled by the steam that rolled round her from the tubs. She had splendid braids of hair—the part went clear from her forehead to her spine. At each side of the part the hair sprang strong and thick. The plaits began behind each ear. Down at the ends they were thinner and were tied together with string. They made a loop across her back that looked like a splendid strong handle to lift little Mary up by. Her big plaid shawl hung on a nail while she washed. Mary’s face was dark and wrinkled and kind.
MOTHER SAID TO ME, “Go