Sarah Binks

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47THE FARMER AND THE FARMER'S WIFE.The farmer and the fanmer's wife Lead frolicsome and carefree lives, And all their work is but in play. Their labors only exercise.The farmer leaps from bed to hoard, And hoard to binder on the land; His wife awakes with shouts of joy, And milks a cow with either hand*Then all in fun they feed the pigs, And plough the soil in reckless glee, And play the quaint old-fashioned game Of mortgagor and mortgagee.And all day long they dash about, In barn and pasture, field and heath; He sings a merry roundelay, She whistles gaily through her teeth.And when at night the chores are done, And hand in hand they sit and beam, He helps himself to applejack, And she to Paris Green.THE FARMER AMD THE FARMER'S WIFE stands pre-eminent in the annals of Saskatchewan lyricism. Marrowfat gives it his unstinted praise. He says in part: "I like the FARMER'S WIFE. She starts out well and ends on a high note." Inspector Peeker, probably the most outstanding critic in several school districts, says of this poem: "The teachers of Toenail and Cactus Lake have asked that this poem be put on the list of supplementary reading."The fact that Sarah, through the good influences and financial assistance of Grandfather Thurnow, now had an option on the single text-book in Geology, entitled her to its exclusive use on those days when she attended school. William Greenglow, more concerned with Mathilda's education than with
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48Sarah's, found this arrangement an admirable one. Mathilda had "been finding difficulty in understanding the theory of crustal movements, and the teacher was now able to give more time to this fascinating subject, while Sarah devoted herself to the larger outlook. It was a formative period in her education; scholars aptly refer to it as the Neo-Plasticine.Sarah was undoubtedly the founder of the geo-literary school of poetry*. Her position in that respect has never beenquestioned. But the Authors of this great work go even further,in that they venture the theory that if geology influenced Sarah, then Sarah in turn influenced geology, at least the geology of Saskatchewan.One need only read UP FROM THE MAGMA AND BACK AGAIN, and compare its swift cavalcade of events in the thirteenth Canto with those that actually occurred around Willows, to appreciate the truth on which this hypothesis rests. Actually few critics who profess to be familiar with Sarah Binks' works have read UP PROM THE MAGMA from end to end. Marrowfat never gets beyond the chorus of the angels, and the always mathematical Doctor Taj Mahal admits that so far he has merely counted the number of lines, and is working on the number of letters. But if the MAGMA is ever read, the truth will become at once apparent. The whole Heavenly scene of the thirteenth Canto even to the four elevators is strangely reminiscent of Willows. Moreover some of the names and characters are but thinly disguised; Rover has his counterpart in that mysterious animal, Strover, Ole becomes Si Pontifex Lowly, the thirteen Schwantshacker* Mr Ram Spud, (apologies to Leacook) later Sir Ramshorn Spud, one of the great Untouchables of India, in comparing Sarah's UP FROM THE MAGMA, with his own "Parabolas in Sanscrit" claims this honor for himself and more. He declares, nI alone am the founder of the neo-geo-literary school." Dr Taj Mahal supports his countryman in this, butboth make the same mistake in confusing geology with astrology.
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sisters reappear as the thirteen trilobites, and the connection "between William Greenglow and Wlllyam Flyblow is almost too obvious to he missed. Throughout this celestial scene stalks the Muse, Salacia, making notes, referring to the hook which she carries under her arm, putting the trilobites in their places, and telling the angels where to dig. So also when the great oil boom drifted i eastward from Alberta and finally reached Willows, Sarah, as much as Willian Greenglow, took charge.The discovery of indications of oil near Willows have already been recorded in the CLAIM JUMPER, the official organ of the Quagmire Bureau of Mines. The actual discovery, although officially in William Greenglow*s name, must be credited to Mathilda. Like so many discoveries of this nature it was entirely accidental. Greenglow himself had been searching for indications of oil for some time, having been commissioned to do so by the management of the Millenium Development and Exploration Company, who spurred him on to even greater effort by the inducement that he would be made their field geologist for that district as soon as the indications of oil had been discovered. His first day's effort had proven entirely fruitless; it was not until the evening that he recalled a spot a rod or two to the rear of the Binks' barn where he remembered having once detected signs of seepage. Fate, however, seems to have played strange tricks. Had he followed his original intention he might have discovered seepage, but he would certainly not have discovered oil. He hesitated, and prompted by some obscure voice or his own unfailing instinct, he turned
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50in the opposite direction. Precisely at the spot where for several years the separator had been standing, and may for that matter be standing yet, he discovered the first indications of oil.The location of the discovery claim as shown in the sketch map of William Greenglow's field notes, does not coincide with the spot where the first shaft was sunk. Ole obligingly enough, pulled the separator out of the way, but Jacob Binks' peremptory "Take that dam' separator back where you found it" restored it to its original site. Jacob Binks, first and always the dirt farmer, was not the kind to have his landscape changed and his scenes shifted without protest. He gave his consent to drilling operations when the possibility of a water supply for the stock was pointed out to him, but otherwise he intended to remain, as Sarah puts it, "crustaceous" The location of the well was therefore shifted under Sarah's direction several times until a suitable spot was found safe from the meanderings of the perennial calf and, if possible, out of the line of 0le's route from town on Saturday nights.Oil in paying quantities was never obtained from the well which was finally sunk. The citizens of Willows, who had subscribed to the shares of the subsidiary company formed for the purpose of this development, were no more disappointed then the Millenium Company itself. This Company pointed out later that if Ole had been permitted to move the separator from the original claim, t ie oil beds might have been reached from that point. As it was, three separate shafts were begun with Ole's post-hole augur before the final or main shaft
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51was developed. The first shaft struck a placer deposit of tin cans at the eight foot level, "but was not rich enough to warrant further development at the time and was abandoned. In the second shaft the Pre-Cambrian Shield, or what Greenglow took to he the Pre-Cambrian Shield, was reached at a depth of fifteen feet. Hopes ran high. In the Pre-Cambrian Shield oil might reasonably be expected at any moment. Anything can happen in the Pre-Cambrian Shield. If not oil then beryllium, and if not beryllium then bolognium. It was Sarah, poking down the shaft with a long stick, who made the important discovery that what Greenglow took to be the Pre-Cambrian Shield was an unusually large field boulder and that although Ole could be sent down to hand it up, others might be encountered an a lower level and that the shaft had better be abandoned in favor of another site visible from the kitchen window.The third well, and most successful one, was the one which finally yielded the gusher. Sarah was by this time practically in charge of the operations, although William Greenglow was officially the field geologist. An argument amounting almost to a dispute arose between the two as to the location of the third borings. Greenglow's intention was to go almost straight down until the Upper Silurian was reached and then either to penetrate this formation or go around it. Sarah, however, pointed out to him that what he took to be a syncline in the Upper Silurian was in fact the back side of the anticline between the Preluvian and the Lower Galician and that the well should be moved at least
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52forty rods due west. Greenglow, who was now determined to leave no stone unturned in his search for oil, agreed to give it a trial, hut conceded the point so reluctantly that had it not been for Jacob Binks' objection that these continual borings were hard on the land, it is possible that a fourth well might have been attempted.The gusher was struck towards morning on the third day at the forty-five foot level. It lay, as Sarah had predicted, in the intermediate horizon between the Preluvian and the Lower Galician. The dramatic episode is faithfully described in UP FROM THE MAGMA AND BACK AGAIN. In the MAGMA the thirteen trilobites are pictured as gathered around then the gusher is struck and are drenched to the skin, subsequently dying of exposure. In actual fact none or the thirteen Schwantzhacker sisters, with the possible exception of Mathilda, was present at the time, having left for home an hour earlier on learning from the crew of the night shift that no further developments were to be expected. Moreover, as Marrowfat, for once correctly contends, it is unlikely that Mathilda would ever suffer any ill effects from exposure. Sarah takes full advantage of her poetic licence here.It is poetic licence also which enables Sarah to describe the well at a "gusher". The actual gush, always excepting that of the Millenium. Development and Exploration Company, subsided after twenty five minutes to a mere trickle. The oil content, which William Greenglow's field notes classify as a "smear" were later corrected by more exact chemical analysis to trace". But if the oil content was disappointingly low, the alkaline content was correspondingly high, and
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53Grandfather Thurnow, quick to appreciate the medicinal valueof such a spring, incorporated its waters in his famed formula for wild sage bitters, even going to the trouble and expense of putting down a cistern pump. The curative value of these waters has "been described as radioactive, or sometimes retroactive, but always active. It is conceivable that the well might have developed into a spa of international reputationhad it not been for the drought. As an oil well it can neverandrank with those of Turner Valley and Texas; as a well of almost any kind it must be classed with those that were great only in their failure. Jacob Binks may well say as he so often said "...even the dam' steers won't drink it", but we must never forget that from its waters Sarah, poetically and figuratively, and Grandfather Thurnow literally, have "drunk deep". We must never forget that Sarah has done more than plumb its forty-five foot depth. UP FROM THE MAGMA AND BACK AGAIN, thatsuper epic in thirteen cantos with its prologue and epilogue,alonecould never arise alone from a forty-five foot well, and especiallyone which, as Taj Mahal points out, is considerably off theperpendicular. Those haunting linesShould maddened pterodactyl chance to meet With raging crocodile,Then crocodile the pterodactyl eat, etc, etc. express more than an oil well. They speak to us of the Upper Silurian. They speak to us of the Lower Galician. They speak to up, of the Plasticine, the Preluvian, the overburden, the underburden, the chert concretion, the great ice age. Nay, the whole super epic breathes in and breathes out the soul of Saskatchewan.
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54CHAPTER VI.Grandfather Thurnow, and the Binks-Thurnow Controversy.Ole, Rover, Wm. Greenglow, Henry Welkin, Thadeus T. Thurnow, what a splendid cavalcade, and all male. It is the very masculinity of their influence which makes Sarah's work so Saskatchewanesque, and where they influenced her life they influenced her work. With the exception of Grandfather Thurnow, who will always be unique, they fall singularly into pairs, where she took from Ole her sweet Simplicity, her love of the pastoral scene, and her oneship with nature, from Greenglow she acquired its tremendous geological sweep, where from Hover she acquired the mystical note and haunting cadence and mastery of new metrical forms, from Henry Welkin she received those deep shadows and dark browns with which much of her work is colored during the post Regina period. But Thadeus T. (Grandfather) Thurnow stands alone. By all the ties of "blood and home and affection his is the greatest influence in that from him Sarah received, if not her genius, at least many of his genes.Thadeus T. Thurnow, last of the long line of Thurnows (originally Thurnips) was a figure in the community of billows. He was noted for his "breadth of mind and body, and the fact that he was called ''Old Sage" is as much a tribute to the profundity of his wisdom as to his herbal remedies. His beard was long and full, and possessed that property, already becoming so rare, of being what the botanists describe as branchiate, in which each hair tends to branch into a series of secondary or even tertiary hairs, much like the root system of the common bunch grass. The result was a beard which re-
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55sembled the creeping juniper after a heavy frost, except that during the height of its season it tended to resume its original rich loamy color, and was at all times faintly phosphorescent. This phosphorescence may have been due to his atavistic passion for turnips, for it has long been known that the soil of Saskatchewan produces a turnip which is particularly rich in turnipin and the turnipinoids , compounds closely related to carotin and the carotinoids which are said go he phosphorescent when mixed with phosphorus. In any case it was said that by its glow Old Sage could find his way home on th darkest night.He was not a tall man, certainly not compared with Ole, hut he was larger than Ole, stone for stone. He had great breadth of shoulder, and the line from the chest down was drawn in a confident arc. In the beam too, his great breadth was indicative of his independence of mind and his tendency towards philosophical contemplation. Figures, of course, are available. They have been discussed at considerable length and some depth under the title "T. T. Thurnow, aThree Dimensional Study", by Dr. Taj Mahal.Granfather Thurnow'sgreat wisdom was a legend in the community. Regardlessof the subject under discussion he was able to contribute from the wealth of his experiences, or, if these were lacking, parables which bore all the semblance of experiences. In his early days he could speak the language of the Ojlbways and of the Mound Builders � in fact he had assimilated much of the red man's obscure philosophy and hie knowledge of herbal remedies � and he is known on election day to have given a demonstration of an Indian tribal dance in the Clarendon Hotel at willows, in which he successively and then simultaneously took the part of every member of the tribe.In his political opinions he differed from those of Jacob
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56Binks. Jacob Binks was a liberal and patronized the Commercial House, whereas, Thadeus T. Thornow's choice, when it was offered, invariably fell to the Clarendon Hotel. But he was not bigoted and their differences of opinion may have been due not so much to politics as to the fact that the title of the North East Quarter Section 37,Township 26 Range 9, West, was still vested in the name of Thadeus T. Thurnow, which would tend to make the latter as a landed proprietor more Conservative inhis outlook. Certainly Jacob Binks' characterization of him as "thebiggest dam' liar west of the Principal Meridian" was expressed asoften in pride as in the heat of political argument, and concerningthe farm he was wont to quote Grandfather Thurnow's homely epigramof which the latter had been safely delivered one day after an hour's twilight sleep, viz., "Its the last sardine in the tin gets the olive oil". Undoubtedly Old Sage was too great a man to wear for long any political label, and it is characteristic of the man that after his demise when he was stuffed and mounted and presented to the Nation for the Binksian Collection, and later offered as a candidate to the electors of Quagmire Constituency by the Liberal Party, he should have failed of election only by being disqualified by the Conservatives who claimed him as a candidate of their own.Between Sarah and her Grandfather there was abond of sympathy and understanding and mutual admiration. From her earliest childhood she had sat at his knee and drunk in his wisdom and his philosophy. From him she received her understanding of the cosmos, of time, and of space, but especially of time. To Grandfather Thurnow the three dimensions of space were more than abstractions; they were something to be lived, something to be realized in one's everyday life, and he never departed from this conviction. But in the matter of time he was the complete philosopher. Past, present, and future
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were inextricably "blended, and his mastery of them was such that he was able to use all three interchangeably. when he addresses Sarah as "My son", or refers to Jacob Binks as an "old woman", he is bringing his greatest powers into play. His knowledge of psychology, especially animal pyschology, was profound, and undoubtedly Sarah took much of the inspiration of HORSE from his meditations. Certainly, in the case of Hover, he could, as he admitted, "read him like a book", and in his delineation of the latter*s psychology he was sometimes wont to include Mathilda*In a sense it is almost unfortunate that the bond between Sarah and her Grandfather should have been so firm* That storm, the Binks-Thurnow controversy which had swept the literary circles of Saskatchewan might then never have arisen* But then TIME, and SPACE, and HORSE, and CRISSCROSSERS might never have been written and Saskatchewan would be the poorer by just that much. It is unfortunate that Professor Marrowfat, in his so-called" critical Analysis" has raised the question as to the authenticity of some of Sarah Binks's poems, and it is even more regrettable that the discussion which followed should have taken on what appears to be a personal note. Certainly the incident between Professor Marrowfat and the literary editor of the FARM AND FAIR, in which the latter is said to have kicked the Professor below the belt and from behind, exceeds the bounds of literary criticism. Nor can Professor Marrowfat's attempt to gouge the literary editor's eye be regarded as a contribution to scholarly research. Nor is it the aim of the Authors to decide between the respective merits of the two gentlemen. But Professor Marrowfat's contention as to the authenticity of some of the poems has been a challenge which the Author has finally decided to face squarely and like a man
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58Professor Merrowfat's contention is based on the internal evidence of the four poems, TIME, SPACE, HORSE, ant CRISSCROSSERS. His argument, in "brief, when sifted from the mass of verbiage, bad spelling, and split infinitives, which characterize all his papers, is that Sarah could not have written these poems, especially TlME because she lacks the profound philosophical background which characterizes the poems. She was young, she was immature, and she certainly could not have reached that mellow, that ripe, that almost over-ripe wisdom which is the breath and soul of TIME and CRISSCROSSERS. "I don't allow," says Marrowfat "that Sarah done it. I have had a lot of experience with women, and I have never met one yet who hadany fll idea of time and apace, except as their personal enemies. They are preoccupied with time and space only insofar as they tend to show nnd. increasingly* occupy these entities, but philosophically � nix!?"On the other hand, there was Thadeus T. Thurnow, passive, meditative, hirsute, full of turnipin , andi, as Jacob Pinks describes hiwv 'Given to setting around". He at least had reached the age of ninety-six and with it that Kantian-Ojibwyan conception of time which is the breath and soul of the poem. It is from his pen, and fromhis matured brain that the sonorous lines and deep truths must haverolled." Thadeus T. Thurnow, and not Sarah Binks, is therefore according to Marrowfat theauthor of TIME, and HORSE and CRISSCROSSERS, and a number of otherpoems. In fact, the whole question of authorship is thrown opento dispute.It would be easy enough to throw some doubt on the authority with which Professor Marrowfat speaks by reference to incidents in his private life. But as these, together with his literary and physical antecedents have already been carefully enumerated by the Literary Editor of the FARM and PAIR, let us examine the internal evidence of TIME and compare it with the internal evidence of HORSE.

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