Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [42]
“My mother-in-law says the river is too cold for you to wash in. Here is water and a basin for you.”
Everyone watched my washing next morning. The washing of my ears interested them most.
ONE DAY AFTER WORK I found the Douse family all sitting round on the floor. In the centre of the group was Lizzie. She was beating something in a pail, beating it with her hands; her arms were blobbed with pink froth to the elbows. Everyone stuck his hand into Lizzie’s pail and hooked out some of the froth in the crook of his fingers, then took long delicious licks. They invited me to lick too. It was “soperlallie,” or soap berry. It grows in the woods; when you beat the berry it froths up and has a queer bitter taste. The Indians love it.
FOR TWO DAYS from dawn till dark I worked down in the old part of the village. On the third day Aleck was to take me back to Kitwangak. But that night it started to rain. It rained for three days and three nights without stopping; the road was impossible. I had only provisioned for two days, had been here five and had given all the best bits from my box to the sick child. All the food I had left for the last three days was hard tack and raisins. I drank hot water, and rocked my hunger to the tune of the rain beating on the window. Ginger Pop munched hard tack unconcerned—amusing everybody.
The Indians would have shared the loaf and jam-tin with me, but I did not tell them that I had no food. The thought of Lizzie’s tongue licking the jam-tin stopped me.
When it rained, the Indians drowsed like flies, heavy as the day itself.
ON THE SIXTH DAY of my stay in Kitwancool the sun shone again, but we had to wait a bit for the puddles to drain.
I straightened out my obligations and said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Douse. The light wagon that was taking me out seemed luxurious after the thing I had come in on. I climbed up beside Aleck. He gathered his reins and “giddapped.”
Mrs. Douse, followed by her husband, came out of the house and waved a halt. She spoke to Aleck.
“My mother wants to see your pictures.”
“But I showed her every one before they were packed.”
At the time I had thought her stolidly indifferent.
“My mother wishes to see the pictures again.”
I clambered over the back of the wagon, unpacked the wet canvases and opened the sketchbooks. She went through them all. The two best poles in the village belonged to Mrs. Douse. She argued and discussed with her husband. I told Aleck to ask if his mother would like to have me give her pictures of her poles. If so, I would send them through the Hudson’s Bay Store at Kitwangak. Mrs. Douse’s neck loosened. Her head nodded violently and I saw her smile for the first time.
Repacking, I climbed over the back of the seat to Aleck.
“Giddap!”
The reins flapped: we were off. The dust was laid; everything was keen and fresh; indeed the appetites of the mosquitoes were very keen.
WHEN I GOT BACK to Kitwangak the Mounted Police came to see me.
“You have been in to Kitwancool?”
“Yes.”
“How did the Indians treat you?”
“Splendidly.”
“Learned their lesson, eh?” said the man. “We have had no end of trouble with those people—chased missionaries out and drove surveyors off with axes—simply won’t have whites in their village. I would never have advised anyone going in—particularly a woman. No, I would certainly have said, ‘Keep out.’”
“Then I am glad I did not ask for your advice,” I said, “perhaps it is because I am a woman that they were so good to me.”
“One of the men who went in on the wagon with you was straight from jail, a fierce, troublesome customer.”
NOW I KNEW who the hero was.
CANOE
Three red bulls—sluggish bestial creatures with white faces and morose bloodshot eyes —and the missionaries, made me long to get away from the village. But I could not: there was no boat.
I knew the roof and the ricketiness of every Indian woodshed. This was the steepest roof of them all,