I
“In dat familee dere are eleven cheeldren, and more--they come! See dat
leetle one? She is très jolie! Oui, très jolie, n’est-ce pas? De father
he come from Eengland about ten year ago. He was joost young man, mebbe
twenty-seven or twenty-eight year ol’, and he have one leetle foreign
wife and six leetle cheeldren. They were all so cold. They were not use
to dis climate of Canada. My wife and I, we keep de leetle ’otel at
Hochelaga, and my wife she take all dose leetle ones and she warm dem
before the beeg hall stove, and she make for dem the good French
pea-soup.”
Mama had sent me to the corner grocer to buy some things. Monsieur
Thebeau, the grocer, was talking, and to a stranger. I felt ashamed and
humiliated to hear our family thus discussed. Why should we always be
pointed out in this way and made to feel conspicuous and freaky? It was
horrid that the size of our family and my mother’s nationality should be
told to everyone by that corner grocer. I glared haughtily at Monsieur
Thebeau, but he went garrulously on, regardless of my discomfiture.
“De eldest--a boy, monsieur--he was joost nine year old, and my wife she
call him, ‘Le petit père.’ His mother she send him out to walk wiz all
hees leetle sisters, and she say to him: ‘Charles, you are one beeg boy,
almost one man, and you must take care you leetle sisters; so, when de
wind she blow too hard, you will walk you on de side of dat wind, and
put yourself between it and your sisters.’ ‘Yes, mama,’ il dit. And we,
my wife and I, we look out de window, and me? I am laugh, and my wife,
she cry--she have lost her only bebby, monsieur--to see dat leetle boy
walk him in front of his leetle sisters, open hees coat, comme ça,
monsieur, and spread it wiz hees hands, to make one shield to keep de
wind from his sisters.”
The man to whom Monsieur Thebeau had been speaking, had turned around,
and was regarding me curiously. I felt abashed and angry under his
compelling glance. Then he smiled, and nodding his head, he said:
“You are right. She _is_ pretty--quite remarkably pretty!”
I forgot everything else. With my little light head and heart awhirl, I
picked up my packages and ran out of the store. It was the first time I
had been called pretty, and I was just twelve years old. I felt
exhilarated and utterly charmed.
When I reached home, I deposited the groceries on a table in the kitchen
and ran up to my room. Standing on a chair, I was able to see my face in
the oval mirror that topped a very high and scratched old chiffonier. I
gazed long and eagerly at the face I had often heard Monsieur Thebeau
say was “très jolie,” which French words I now learned must mean:
“Pretty--quite remarkably pretty!” as had said that Englishman in the
store.
Was I really pretty then? Surely the face reflected there was too fat
and too red. My! my cheeks were as red as apples. I pushed back the
offending fat with my two hands, and I opened my eyes wide and blinked
them at myself in the glass. Oh! if only my hair were gold! I twisted
and turned about, and then I made grimaces at my own face.
Suddenly I was thrilled with a great idea--one that for the moment
routed my previous ambition to some day be an artist, as was my father.
I would be an actress! If I were pretty, and both that Frenchman and
Englishman had said so, why should I not be famous?
I slipped into mama’s room, found a long skirt, and put it on me; also
a feather which I stuck in my hair. Then, fearing detection, I ran out
on tiptoe to the barn. There, marching up and down, I recited poems. I
was pausing, to bow elaborately to the admiring audience, which, in my
imagination, was cheering me with wild applause, when I heard mama’s
voice calling to me shrilly:
“Marion! Marion! Where in the world is that girl?”
“Coming, mama.”
I divested myself hastily of skirt and feather, and left the barn on a
run for the house. Here mama thrust our latest baby upon me, with
instructions to keep him quiet while she got dinner. I took that baby in
my arms, but I was still in that charmed world of dreams, and in my hand
I clasped a French novel, which I had filched from my brother Charles’
room. Charles at this time was twenty years of age, and engaged to be
married to a girl we did not like.
I tried to read, but that baby would not keep still a minute. He
wriggled about in my lap and reached a grimy hand after my book.
Irritated and impatient, I shook him, jumped him up and down, and then,
as he still persisted, I pinched him upon the leg. He simply yelled.
Mama’s voice screamed at me above the baby’s:
“If you can’t take better care of that baby, and keep him quiet, you
shall not be allowed to paint with your father this afternoon, but
shall sit right here and sew,” a punishment that made me put down the
book, and amuse the baby by letting him pull my hair, which seemed to
make him supremely happy, to judge from his chuckles and shouts of
delight.
After dinner, which we had at noon, I received the cherished permission,
and ran along to papa’s room. Dear papa, whose gentle, sensitive hands
are now at rest! I can see him sitting at his easel, with his blue eyes
fixed absently upon the canvas before him. Papa, with the heart and soul
of a great artist, “painting, painting,” as he would say, with a grim
smile, “pot-boilers to feed my hungry children.”
I pulled out my paints and table, and began to work. From time to time I
spoke to papa.
“Say, papa, what do I use for these pink roses?”
“Try rose madder, white and emerald green--a little naples yellow,”
answered papa patiently.
“Papa, what shall I use for the leaves?”
“Oh, try making your greens with blues and yellows.”
From time to time I bothered him. By and by, I tired of the work, and
getting up with a clatter, I went over and watched him. He was painting
cool green waves dashing over jagged rocks, from a little sketch he had
taken down at Lachine last summer.
“Tell me, papa,” I said after a moment, “if I keep on learning, do you
think I will ever be able to earn my living as an artist?”
“Who? What--you? Oh!” Absently papa blew the smoke about his head, gazed
at me, but did not seem to see me. He seemed to be talking rather to
himself, not bitterly, but just sadly:
“Better be a dressmaker or a plumber or a butcher or a policeman. There
is no money in art!”