Sarah Binks

Primary tabs

Pages

MSS 37_I_A_1_145
affairs, and the geological trend which is said to mark her powerful epic if a direct result of her desire to serve this district with oil. The picturesque farm of our esteemed fellow citizen, Jacob Binks , owes much to the care and assistance of his talented daughter, and if there is anyone in this district of her age and weight who can spread or pitch "better than she can the Editor would be glad to hear of it and to give due credit in these columns. Her interest in farm animals won for her the McCohen and Meyers competition and she has always been more than generous in loaning her thermometer. More than one family in this district has been saved the expense of a doctor when they thought they were sick owing to her thoughfulness and her experience in taking temperatures.Her words to the Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Grasshopper Control were well chosed. But her word? TO MY FATHER, JACOB BINKS, are not merely tribute to any one man. They are addressed to ALL of us, from one of us. We are proud to honor Sarah Binks, the winner of the What Pool Medal. But it is Sarah, as a woman, as a member of the community, who has always interested us most and has won a place in our hearts. It is all the more regretable, therefore, that on an occasion like this, the town of Willows should not be able to hold its meetings in a regular hall instead of in a skating rink where the sun beating down on the tin roof makes for poor ventilation and the school children rolling rocks on the tin roof makes for poor acoustics."Sarah, the Poetess! Sarah, the woman! Of all the lavish praise which poured upon her after the Wheat Pool Medal, this simple tribute from the home town paper, THE SHEET, was the only one apparently, which she really valued and the only clipping she preserved. Although quite aware of her position in the world of letters, and of herself as a public character, she was too much her own severe critic to be moved by fulsome praise. But to be counted as a member of the Willows community moved her deeply. Her interest in community affairs had been more abstract than real, certainly, her probings with William Greenglow into the geology of the Binks' farm had been actuated more by an academic curiosity to discover what lay under the surface than by a desire to supply the community with oil. Sarah had what the philosophers call "the inquiring mind", but she also had considerable artistic aloofness, and had
MSS 37_I_A_1_146
133played more or less a Ione hand as all posts must. As the onlydaughter of the somewhat taciturn Jacob Binks who permitted her tohave her way in all things, and surrounded on all sides by masculine influences unless we except Mathilda, whom she dominated, she had grown up independent, even headstrong, and had followed her own lines of development, without which her latent genius could never have blossomed. And now she was made suddenly aware of a community around her, a community which claimed her as its own. To be regarded as Sarah Binks, W,P.M� , the emminent poetess, she could understand and accept as her right, to be singled out as Sarah, the Woman, whose progress into womanhood had been watched from the first Grade, and whose trip to Regina had been followed "with more than usual interest", was to her a revelation and a challenged andto some extent a reproach. She felt that she had neglected thecommunity, where the community had by no means neglected her.The appeal to Sarah's community spirit found its immediate reponse in a poem which showed that she could take an even greaterinterest in community affairs than she had been given credit for.She wrote WASH OUT OH THE LINE*, published very appropriately inthe home town paper, THE SHEET. It is a poem in which Sarah, thehadWoman earns her title. If she had had any misgivings as to her position in the community she was henceforth to have none; "If this doesn't fix me in this community," she writes to Mathilda in sending over a copy of the manuscript, "nothing will."*WASH OUT ON THE LINE has since been set to music and adopted as the official marching song of the United Brotherhood of Railway Firemen.
MSS 37_I_A_1_147
WASH OUT ON THE LINE.The sun is bright, and once again its Monday, And on each line the apron and the undie, And tablecloth and towel adorning fence, Tell family history and the week's events In simple code, that he who runs may read, For passing fancy or his neighbor's need; And changing calendar of underthing, Remarks the winter or announces spring:Already in McGinty's yard the brevies Nod in the wind to Joe McGinty's heavies; And at the Brown's the extra sheet and test, Flutters its tile of late departing guest; And at the Jones' � another wash on Friday � laiWMimt made in dialer and didy, They now have six � at Smith's Salina's hack, Judged from her things, she must have got the sack.Each line unfolds its bit of news or lack, Here the new school ma'am; spends it on her hack, Her lavender flimsies in the breezes beckon � She wont last long in this town, I reckon � And Mrs Sam Cahoo is getting stout � Pete had an extra shirt this week, he's stepping out, Rust be the new Gimp girl, at her grandma's, A bit fast, too, Heavens, yes, pyjamas!'Tis Monday morn, let each her message fling, From stately tent-pole to the twisted string, In terms of rinse, and bleach, and starch, and blueing, Of fortune, character, � or just what's doing.It was Sarah's last poem.*It is useless to speculate as to what heights Sarah Binks mighthave reached had not Death touched her with his untimely finger. Dr Taj Mahal has derived a formula and drawn a curve based upon herproductive activity daring her last three years, which would seemto indicate that her work followed the law of squares, and thathad she continued for another three years her annual literary outputIncidentally, it was the last issue of the North Willows SHEET.
MSS 37_I_A_1_148
135would have exceeded the total of any other writer, past or present. Miss Rosalind Drool, on the other hand, without regard to Sarah's literary potentialities, bewails her passing as, "A life which had not reached its complete fulfilment and fruition." Even Marrowfat is somewhat in accordance with this view. Though he appears to take some satisfaction in the thought that Sarah dead could produce no more poems, "hard enough to understand as they are," his regret is genuine when he states, "She showed all the sipins of "becoming a more interesting woman". But the Author,cannot altogether share these regrets, certainly not on the bases advanced. Mahal's method of extrapolation is a new approach to the literacy problem and must be accepted with caution. It clearly indicates a great loss, but it must be pointed out that ittakes into account only Sarah's potential yardage or cubicfootage � Mahal, as usual, is uncertain of his units �- and fails to take into account the question of quality. always an important consideration where poetry is involved. It may have been that Sarah, scaling the unclimbed peaks, would have reached an isolation of greatness where even Saskatchewan could not have understood her, and Professor Marrowfat, for once, seems to be stumbling towards the truth. But for Miss Drool to interpolate into what she calls, "The Unfinished Symphony of Sarah's life" another of the frustration complexes with which readers of all her work are only too familiar, is hardly in accordance with what we know of Sarah. There was nothing frustrated about Sarah. She had had her struggles and disappointments and her darkest Africa. But she had won through to a horse thermometer and to the Wheat Pool Medal. She had studied geology, she had been to Regina. Who can say that she had not reached the
MSS 37_I_A_1_149
136fullness of life? Hers was the joy of sky and field and the driving rain against her cheek. She had health and vitality and the inner satisfaction of achievement. The community had claimed her � Sas-Saskatchewan called her Its own.In such a person the love of life is strong. But Sarah must have had some awareness of those very peaks of cold isolation to which her genius must ultimately have led her. The high resolve, Sarah's own, "To face these facts undismayed," which had carried her up the elopes and had plumbed the profound geological depths of N.E.1/4 37, T.21, R9,W would never have permitted her to turn back. one cannot hut wonder whether Sarah's courage must notat times have faltered � she would not have been human otherwise.-Certainly that disillusionment which is the concomitant of successwould have been hers sooner or later. There is a suggestion ofthis in the one portrait we have of Sarah, taken a few monthsbefore her death. It shows her in thoughtful mood, leaning far outof the window and gazing wonderingly, wistfully over the prairiesshe loved so well. It may have been that she was casting her mindback to her childhood when she wandered,, the Little Sarah, ones those same prairies insearch of flowers, or trudged, a little girl, her potato-bug and lunch pai!l underher arm, the mile and a quarter to the Willows school. This, at least, is the impression one gathers from a study of the portrait, an impression which would have been heightened if the photographer had taken the picture from outside instead of from within the room.
MSS 37_I_A_1_150
137Alas, the horse thermometer! The gods of Greek drama must have laughed ironically when that fateful instrument, that first tangible nark of Sarah's success, finally broke and proved to be the tragic means of her destruction. Mercury poisoning is a dreadful thing, hut it is swift and sure, and as dramatically fitting as the asp and the hemlock. Sarah had reached the height of her powers and she was Still far from the inevitable senility which besets allpoets upon receiving recognition. Put from her pinnacle she could look ahead and faintly she could hear the echo of that far cry from her darkest Africa:"This makes me scratch myself and ask, When shall my powers fade? It puts me severely It the task, To face this fact undismayed."After all, what was the beauty of sky and field and rain-drenchedhill, of prairie swept by storm, of dazzling alkali flat, of hotfallow land in the sun of the summer afternoon, of the misty pastelsof spreading time? All these things had been hers � and yet nothers. They had entered into her and become part of her and shehad caught some of their intangible spirit and flung it back:"Burbank , bobolink, and snearth," she had sung long age in ecstacyof joy. But she knew that they could never be completely hers,that they belonged to the prairie and to the West, that they were of Saskatchewan for all time.
MSS 37_I_A_1_151
"This makes ma scratch myself and ask," � the Pates weave their web of circumstance around the great. It is no mere coincidence that the great epidemic of hives which swept Saskatchewan should have found Sarah with a horse thermometer which registeredsix degrees too high. It is no mere coincidence that success had brought with it a passionate fondness for Scotch mints, and bearing down upon oneof them at a moment when she was taking her own temperature she cracked the thermometer and swallowed the mercury, a full tablespoon with a plop. There was no catching it. Death loves a shining mark; the Pates had tied the final knot in the web � and in Sarah. For her there was no escape.The facts of Sarah Binks' death from mercury poisoning are too well known and tragic to bear a detailed repetition, and the Authors, blinded by tears and things, prefer not to discuss it. Dr Taj Mahal, who has reconstructed her temperature chart from available data, and on the same chart has plotted thedaily price of wheat during the epidemic* , claims that if the thermometer had ever been properly calibrated against a standard horse and corrections applied accordingly, then the root of Sarah's temperature plus pi minus eight would give the same values he found in her production curve. Genius will out!One more honor still remained for Sarah. St. Midgets conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Laws, (in absentia). No provision had been made in the calendar of St. Midgets for a* The extent of this epidemic may be judged from the fact that at the Cactus Lake fair in the third heat of the 2.15 for two year olds and under, and in the second heat of the 3.45 race for twelve year olds and over, all of the horses and several of the jockeys had to be scratched.
MSS 37_I_A_1_152
139post-humus degree, and so far no L.L.D. had been conferred upon anyone actually dead. But the always earnest desire of St. Midgets to confer its honor upon those who had achieved success was able to surmount this fine distinction. Sarah would always live in the hearts of her countrymen.Sarah Binks, W.P.M., L.L.D. The Sweet Songstress, the Poet's Poetess, the Woman! Who shall take her place? Some day, from the ever fertile soil of the West, another genius may spring. Some day, perhaps � some day! Until then � until then, let simple shaft of composition stone tell in that one word, forever eloquent, her place and her achievement � ALONE.THE END.
MSS 37_I_A_1_153
140L'ENVOI.Oh I'll light my pipe no more, Where the dusty reapers roar, And the swishing, tossing waves of wheatStretch endless from the door; Where the wind from off the fallow, Warm and steady, soft and mellow, Brings the chorus of the crickets From their moonlit dancing floor.Oh I'll nevermore go back, Where the graineries strain and crack, And at dusk, from field returning With their teams and empty racks, Come the boys � the sound of pumping � Running water � horses thumping In their stalls � and tired voices � Hank and Ole, Bill and Mac'.. . . . . . . . . . .Oh the years have gone forever � Hurdy gurdy, hubble-bubble � But the autumn nights still bring me, Like a breath across the stubble, Like a land breeze in the tropics, Full of murmur and delight, Sounds of separators drumming In the pale moonlight; Sounds of dogs and creaking waggons , And the heavy smell of grain � And the call of distant voices That I'll never hear again.
MSS 37_I_A_1_154

Pages