Sarah Binks

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11Mathilda, even when eighteen and already large for her age, from the ground to the hayloft with n;reat ease and to her infinite delight.But if Ole's strength was great, his good nature and cheerfulness was even greater. No one is known to have ever offended Ole. His mind had that simplicity and directness and that acceptance of the world which one associates with his race and occupation. He and Rover were inseparable; Ole shared his lunches in the field with Rover, and the latter shared his fleas at night with Ole. Both had a deep and abiding affection for Sarah.Neither Rover nor Ole actually wrote any poetry, at least nonehas come down to us unless we except the terse verses, Often fragmentary and sometimes illustrated, which Ole was fond of writing upon the granaries and other small buildings with a piece of coal. (Two of these boards, one of doubtful authenticity, are known to exist in private collections of Binksiana.) But where both Ole's and Rover's chief influence upon Sarah's poetic talent lay, was that it was they who first taught her the singing quality of verse. Rover's voice had a deep and throbbing cadence with which he tended to experiment in metrical forms especially on moonlight nights. Grandfather Thurnow's remark that "At least he cuts it up into stove lengths" was at once a recognition of Rover's success and an appreciation of his talent. Ole's voice, on the other hand, was a high falsetto and tended to break. When it broke it took on a certain screeching quality, not altogether pleasant in itself, but particularly well adapted to the old Norse ballads and folk songs which he rendered with full pedal and with an abandon which aroused Sarah's boundless admiration. He translated these songs freely � almost too freely. But he planted the seeds of poesy in
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12Sarah's heart, nor could Jacob Binks' frequent admonition to "Shut up, you dam' squarehead!" prevent the seeds from sprouting.Between Ole and Sarah there was a bond which was never broken. She leaned heavily on him throughout her life, both in the matter of chores and in the matter of inspiration; "My staff and my stick, my Pole and my prop," she says of him in a fragment of verse in which she reveals a rather hazy conception of the geography of northern Europe but acknowledges her debt. Ole was her slave and her dependable friend. It was he who first taught her the satisfaction of the occasional pipe, he taught her to swim in the dug-out, he taught her all he knew about handling a calf, about farm machinery, and about Mathilda.for Sarah, poetry was ever the expression of the soul, whether it was her own soul or somebody else's or simply that of Saskatchewan. In THE HIRED MAN ON SATURDAY NIGHT she expresses Ole's soul and in its moment of greatest elation.THE HIRED MAN ON SATURDAY NIGHT.A horse! A horse! Give me a horse. To dash across the frozen north, And wallow in the mire, A noble barb with cloven hoof, With brazen wings and blatant snoof, And molten eyes of fire!I'll carve a furlong through the snow, And bring the bastard she-cat low, And bind her to a tree, That ding-bat dire, shall pull her sire, Out of the frying-pan into the fire, Where e'er she be.
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i3With gathered ra e of many an age, I'll blot the boar from off the page, And twist his face; I'll smite the rooster in the snow, And crafty Rover, dumb with woe, Shall curse his race.I'll tie a reef-knot in the tall Of Barney's bull � with tooth and nail I'll fill his day with gloom; The calf shall wail, the cow shall quail, The horse shall totter and grow pale � Give me room!It would appear that on Ole's one free evening of the week hedeveloped a sense of aloofness from farm animals which excludedeven Rover. The poem does not approximate the high standard whichSarah usually sets for herself. However it has a swing and rhythmand Professor Marrowfat rates it very highly. He says, "Sarah hashit it on the nose. I dont know much about farm animals, my linebeing literature. But I know just the feeling that Ole has. I haveit myself almost every Saturday night." Nevertheless, in the opinionof the Authors, Sarah expresses the feeling more accurately inSTEEDS. Here the sense of elation is combined with the rush and sweepof horses. The occasion of this poem was the time when Ole returnedfrom Willows on the late afternoon of electlon day, 1911. On thatoccasion he is alleged to have disappeared with two demijohns oflinseed oil which he was transporting with his team from the Liberalto the Conservative Committee rooms. (The incident is recalled inthe memoirs of the Hon Grafton Tabernackel, at that time Administratorof the Saskatchewan Farm Implement Oiling and Greasing Act.)STEEDS.I have two dashing, prancing steeds, Buttercup and Dairy Queen, What for spirit, what for speed, Matches this amazing team? One is roan and one is plaid, One a mare, and one a lad,
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One a pacer, ona a trotter, One a son, and one a daughter:When they're fastened side by side, Yoked together in the traces, Joyfully prepare to ride O'er the big and open spaces; Whoople! Swift across the stubble, Over boulders, banks and rubble, Up the hill and down the glen, Cross the county � back again, Through the fence and greenhouse go, Pumpkin garden � to and fro, Pounding, puffing, like a dragon, Kill the calf and smash the waggon, Through the hayloft, dust and smother, In one end and out the other � Zowie! When their spirit's up! Dairy Queen and Buttercup!On an even higher level is the short poem, THE CURSED DOCK, a poem in which Sarah reveals her sympathetic nature and essential womanhood following the loss of one of Ole's ears one Sunday morning. The ducks on the Binks' farm had a passion for vegetables to which Sarah's garden bore mute testimony every fall, and it is supposed that Ole had inadvertently fallen asleep in or near the vegetable patch;THE CURSED DUCK.A cursed duck pecked off his ear, And his face grew peaked and pale; "Oh, how can a woman love me now?" Was his constant and lonely wail; But a woman came, and she loved the man, With a love serene and clear � She loved him as only a woman can love A man with only one ear.It is undoubtedly to Ole's influence that we owe the SONG OFand STORM AT SEA, THE SEA, characterized by Professor Dumplin* as ... the finestsea songs ever to come out of the dry belt." Sarah had never seen the sea, in fact it was not until years later that she saw Lake Waskana, but the blood of the Vikings flowed in Ole's veins, and* Bootlick and Dumplin - "Some Observations on the Marine Lifeof the South Saskatchewan River and its Beaches. Trans. Proc.Lit.Phil,Soi. Soc.Agric.Sask. (7) 11. 1936
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15from Ole's veins to Sarah's verse was but a step:SONG OF THE SEA.All hail, all hail, to the shriek of the gale,Huzzah, Huzzah, to the boat, As with mainsail rent, And the keel all bent,The mainfore gallant sail split like a tent, The captain dead, And the mate in bed,The ships carpenter downstairs sounding the lead,She runs amuck, and she runs smoke,O'er the rollicking, frolicking, bounding main.Rear Admiral R.N.Saltspit, retired, in a letter to the TIMES calls attention to a technical error in this poem in that the duties of the ships carpenter are not to sound the lead but to swing it, but he adds in commendation, "The colonies are doing some remarkable things. Miss Binks charts her way through the shoals and intricasies of metre in a way that makes us all feel four sheets in the wind. Our Laureate may have to look to his laurels."Sarah's greatest poem to Ole is undoubtedly, WHERE SHALL I FIND. As in so many other of her greatest lines the spirit of the West breathes through and through it. Here she not only extolls Ole's virtues as a man, but also pays splendid tribute to that manhood in a hired capacity.WHERE SHALL I FIND.Where shall I find a hired manFor homely destiny to toil, To mend harnesses, And shovel cement, And boil oil.Where shall I find a hired man, To gather rocks and do the chores, To harrow wide, And plow deep, The big outdoors.
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16Where shall I find a hired man With single passion for his job, With thoughts of work, And nothing else, Within his knob.Where shall I search for a hired man, With corded arms and knotted knees, With beamed shoulders, And feet Like Hercules'.At a recent joint meeting of The Ladies Literary League of Quagmire, and The former Friends of Ole, Willows Chapter, it was decided to have this poem carved upon Ole's tombstone when he returns from Bear Lake, if ever. In rising to propose a raffle to defray the expenses of this monument, Mrs Pete Catallo, F.F.O., paid a tribute to Ole as well as Sarah when she said, "It is a big poem. It's going to cost us money to hare this done. But then Ole was a big man, big in every way, you can take it from me."
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CHAPTER III MATHILDA.It is a singular fact that all the influences in Sarah's life ware masculine with the exception of Mathilda. Even here, one can hardly say that Mathilda, in spite of her close friendship and years of association, was actually an influence in Sarah's work; one might say, that she served as a foil and as an occasion for Sarah's poems rather than an actual source of inspiration. Nevertheless, to Mathilda the great world of literature must acknowledge an unrepayable debt. Without her the Grizzlykick Symphony of poems would never have been written. Through her our knowledge and understanding of Sarah's character and personality has been extended. But above all, it is through, her collection of Sarah's letters, carefully preserved, that we are able to piece together the often sketchy outline of Sarah's life. Mathilda was always a Sarah worshipper, moreover she had that priceless gift of acquisitiveness which marks the true collector. When she was finally i&nduoed to sell her collection to the Binksian Society it included not only the priceless letters but also various items of her own personal interest such as valentines, comic post cards, newspaper clippings of advertisements for long eye-lashes and the improvement of the "figure", and a relic, which from the color and texture was long believed to be a lock of Ole's hair but which since has been shown to be a gopher tail.* Mathilda valued this collection highly, and only her approaching marriage induced her to part with it; "If I hadent had to get married I wouldent take a cent lessen twenty five* The complete collection, with the exception of the comic post cards, is preserved in the Binksian Collection.
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dollars for them," she writes to the Secretary of the BinksianSociety during the course of the protracted negotiations whichfinally led to this collection being acquired for the Nation.Mathilda Schwantzhacker was the fourteenth daughter of KurtSchwantzhacker who occupied the South East Quarter of Section 37,Township 21, Range 9, West. The Schwantzhackers and the Binks weretherefore neighbors a half mile a;art, and lived in reasonableamity except on those occasions when the horses strayed throughthe barbed wire or when Ole and Rover practiced their duets. Kurt Schwantzhacker one of the New Canadians was a dirt-farmer of the better class, independentto the point of obstinacy. His farm supported him in all things ever to the extent of a species of wild rhubarb of which he harvested a small crop every year in the belief that it was tobacco. He believed in being self-sustaining and raised his own food, his clothing, and his help,with the somewhat indifferent co-operation of his wife. The belief that the farm could satisfy every need was not shared, however, by the thirteen elder Schwantzhacker girls, and they accordingly welcomed Ole as an honored guest. They also paid frequent calls on Sarah, and when the thirteen Schwantzhacker girls came calling on Sunday afternoon, carefully picking their way in single file across the pasture which separated the two farms, the resemblance to an ancient Druid precession was very close. Ole was always moved by this fine sight, some latent memory of his Viking ancestry must have stirred in his blood, but to Sarah the only really welcome visitor among the fourteen was Mathilda. She was by far the best locking of the fourteen, certainly she was the least cross-eyed, she was Sarah's own age, she had been her confidante at school, and above all she was the only one who showed any interest in and appreciation for poetry.
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It was Mathilda who first introduced Sarah to German literature. Literature in any language did not accupy a particularly high place in the Schwantzhaoker culture, but the sisters, although they spoke German, as they were anxious to have it understood, "only in the home" , nevertheless still sang some of the folksongs of their parents' homeland, generally in chorus, and often, it is said, to drown out Rover and Ole. Sarah knew no German but Mathilda taught her some of the songs, the words and melodies at least without much regard for their meaning. But Sarah's mind was always awake to any poetic opportunity. She borrowed Kurt SchwantzhacKer's dictionary and translated. Several of these translations have come down to us, hut they have generally been omitted from the anthologies of Sarah's works as not being truly representative of Sarah and Saskatchewan, and may, in fact, represent the combined efforts of Sarah and Mathilda. Her best known, and undoubtedlyfinest of these translations, are those of Heine's DU BIST WIEanFINE BLUME, and DIE LORELEI, The former is an almost perfect translation, but in the case of the LORELEI Sarah makes the easily understandable mistake of translating "Lorelie" as "laurel's egg" instead of "Laura's Eye"DU BIST WIE FINE, BLUME (TRANSL. )You are like one flower, So swell, so good, and clean, I look you on and longing, Slinks me the heart between:Me is as if the hands I On head yours put them should, Praying that God you preserve, So swell, so clean, and good.
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THE LAUEEL'S EGG (DIE LORELEI)I know not what shall It betoken, That I so sorrowful seen, A marklet from out of old, spoken,That comes me not out of the bean.The loft is cool and it darkles, And ruefully floweth the Clean,The top of the mountain-top sparkles, In evening sun-shine sheen.The fairest young woman sitteth, There wonderful up on top, Her golden-like outfit glitteth, She combeth her golden mop;She combs it with golden comb-full And sings one song thereto, That has one wonderful, wonderful, And powerful toodle-di-doo.The shipper in very small shiplet, Begrabs it with very wild cry, He looks not the rock and the riplet, He looks but up top on the high.I believe that the whales will devour, The end of the shipper and ship, And that, has in her singing bower, The Laurel's egg done it.Sarah's translation of the river Rhein as the river Clean, is masterful. But it must be confessed, even among her most ardent admirers that she is not at her best in a translation. She tends to be too literal, and in her efforts to preserve form and rhyme she loses, if not the actual content, at least some of the spirit of the original. Von Knodel,* in his study of these translations asserts that In her rendering of "Mit den Pfeil un Bogrn" etc." as;With the file, and bonding, Come the gripes a-rending,she has lost not only the spirit but the form and content as well,but admits that she has improved on the original, for which, with* Von Knodel , Doctors Thesis, Still unpublished.
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21a narrow nationalism he is inclined to give Mathilda the credit.Sarah is certainly not at her best in translation, at least not from the German. What she might have done with translations from the Portugese or the Greek or the Hindustanee, as Professor Marrowfat suggests, we cannot say. Such statements as Marrowfat's, "Had Mathilda and her thirteen sisters bee*) Swahili girls such as I have seen in Africa, we might have another story to tell," belong to the field of idle speculation and not to literary criticism, certainly Professor Marrowfat's ethnological studies cannot be applied to comparative literature.It may be that we dismiss Sarah's translations too lightly.Time and a more intensive study may reveal treasures that are stillhidden to this generation. All we can say at present is that theydo not express the Saskatchewan soul. But in dismissing them wedo not detract from her peculiar genius any more than when we saythat her patriotic poems, written during the great war, were unworthy ofher talents. No poet is uniformly good, and least of all a poetess.It is the privilege of the artist to experiment with matter and form, to find herself and her highest type of expression, and that the patriotic poem failed to represent this highest expression of herself Sarah was quick to discover. Not that we can ever attribute to Sarah a narrow sectarianism or a parochial outlook, even in such poems as WASH OUT ON THE LINE. There are times when she rises to splendid heights of pure patriotism as in,Shall Freedom shriek again, shall Freedom wail, Or stand at last, aghast, with unfurled tail, Shall it beneath the iron tyrant's gum-shoe quail? Nay! Not while yet is left the wind wherewith to sound The bag-pipe, not while yet is left the stick wherewith to pound, The snare-drum, not while yet the blood of Christopher Columbus, Plows in our veins, shall these our foes, succumb us.
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22But she realizes that she cannot for long maintain the high tempo and the martial sweep which the patriotic poem demands. Hers was the pastoral simplicity of the plains, hers the gentle dust storm, the dying calf, the long, somnolent afternoon of the drought summer. Give her a field mouse, a grasshopper, or a jam pail of potato bugs and her poetry gushed forth unhidden, uncalled-for, and unrestrained, Not until she had studied geology did she rise to the larger outlook. Until then her patriotism was negative in character, a denial of others, rather than an assertion of her own. For it was Mathilda's thirteen sisters who inspired most of her patriotic verse, and the Schwantzhacker girls were kept almost as busy in destroying verses as Sarah was in writing them. She sent them over with Ole. She presented them as parting gifts to her guests on Sunday afternoons, she tied them around the necks of their ducks when they came to the Binks' coulee � at times when the wind was in the right direction she fastened them to the tumble-weed and lifted it across the barbed wire. She exhausted her vocabulary and her knowledge of the anatomy of farm animals in her search for the precise word in which to express her feelings towards the Schwantzhacker sisters.At first glance one is inclined to regard this series of verses in the light of another of those feuds which have ever made the study of literature so fascinating. But the frequent references to the physical features of the Schwantzhacker farm, as well as to those of the Schwantzhacker sisters, and above all her emphasis upon their foreign extraction, definitely places this group of her poemsas a patriotic effort. That this effort has not added to her fame was due to her youth. Sarah was not to acquire that wider patriotism until she had studied geology, in fact not until she had been to Regina. But what she did acquire at this stage was that

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