Free The Book of Small by Emily Carr

Father “not to.” Nor would we have thought of meddling with Father’s things. In the Cranes’ home it was different. When Helen took me into a funny little room built all by itself in the garden and said, “This is Papa’s Den,” I was frightened and said, “Oh Helen! surely we ought not to.”
    There was not a single woman’s thing in the Den. There were guns and fishing rods and wading boots and there was a desk with papers and lots of big books. There was a bottle of quicksilver. Helen uncorked it and poured it onto the table. It did amazing things, breaking itself to bits and then joining itself together again, but presently it rolled off the table and we could not find it. Whenever Mr. Crane came home after that, I was in terror forfear he would ask about the quicksilver and I hated him because he had shot the little begging dog.
    The little Cranes never took liberties with Mama’s things.
    IT SEEMED YEARS since we left home, but neither Alice nor I had had a birthday and there had been only one Sunday at Mrs. Crane’s. There was one splendid thing though and that was Cricket. He was a pinto pony belonging to the children. Every day he was saddled and we rode him in turns. The older girls rode in a long habit. Helen’s legs and mine were too young to be considered improper by Mrs. Crane. So our frillies flapped joyously. Helen switched Cricket to make him go fast, but fast or slow were alike to me. It was a delight to feel his warm sides against my legs. The toss of his mane, the switch of his tail, his long sighs and short snorts, the delicious tickle of his lips when you fed him sugar—everything about him was entrancing, even the horsy smell. Just the thought of Cricket, when you were crying yourself to sleep, helped.
    THERE WAS NO more room for Cricket in Mrs. Crane’s heart than there was for the dogs, but Mrs. Crane’s heart did take in an old lady called Mrs. Miles. Mrs. Miles was almost deaf and almost blind. She wore a lace cap and a great many shawls and she knitted and blinked, knitted and blinked, all day. She came to stay with Mrs. Crane while we were there. Mrs. Miles liked fresh raspberries for her breakfast and to make up for being nearly blind and nearly deaf, Mrs. Crane gave her everything she could that she was fond of. We children had to get up earlier to pick raspberries and Mrs. Crane did not even mind if our fresh frocks got wetted with dew, because she wanted to comfort Mrs. Miles for being old and deaf and blind.
    One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Miles draped her fluffiest shawl over her cap and face and everything and presently big snores came straining through it. Mr. Crane’s newspaper was sitting on top of his bald spot and he was snoring too—the paper flapped in and out above his mouth. Mr. Crane’s “awk, awk” and Mrs. Miles’ “eek, eek” wouldn’t keep step and we little girls giggled.
    Mrs. Crane said, “It is very rude for little girls to laugh at their elders.”
    Helen asked, “Even at their snores, Mama?”
    â€œEven at their snores,” said Mrs. Crane. She hushed us into the far corner of the drawing-room and read us a very dull story.
    Helen on the stool at her mother’s knee and the three others on the sofa were all comfortable enough to shut their eyes and forget, but how could anyone on a three-legged stool under the high top of the sofa sleep? Especially if the fringe of an antimacassar lolled over the top and tickled your neck? My fingers reached up to the little tails of wool bunched in colours and began to plait—red, yellow, black, red, yellow, black. A neat little row of pigtails hung there when the story was done and I thought it looked fine.
    When we trooped down the stairs next morning, Mrs. Crane was waiting at the foot. Her teeth looked very long, the chocolate of her eyes very stale. From the upper landing we must have looked like a long