Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

I went very briefly to the real “country” school where we wrote on slates and had many classes in each room — not all in one, because G V had the country school, so it was fairly large. You took a bottle of water and a rag to clean your slate — the bad boys spat on theirs. A little Micmac Indian boy, Jimmy Crow, was in “primer class” with me; most of the rest had Scotch names and looked very Scotch. Muir MacLaughlin I made the childish mistake of calling “Manure”—When I found him running a local store on my last trip there he recognized me and reminded me of this. The teacher’s name was Georgie Morash and I can see her clearly. She sang in the choir — as did my various relatives — and all those who sang in the choir I remember very well because I spent so many sermons studying them one by one. Miss Patriquin, (aunt of Gwendolyn “Applyard” whose name was really Gwendolyn Patriquin) taught the infant Sunday School class I attended. She later went mad and chased bad boys through the village with a carving knife. My aunt Mary and I actually attended school together at this stretch. She made me late and I howled in the cloakroom (I have always been over-punctual) until Miss Morash came and consoled me. Mary was very pretty and had many suitors. It was during the first World War — the village boys (a kilted regiment) would come to say goodbye and their clothes were wonderful, of course. Most of them were never seen again — almost every boy in that tiny place, from 18–22, was killed in one of the big battles — Canadians first, of course — and the whole village was in mourning — but this was after I’d left. (Over 20 boys, I think) I had a dachshund, “Betsy”—given to my mother when I was born, and she sent her to G V to her mother — the only dog of that sort ever seen there, of course, and a village character. The “big boys” hung around on the bridge, and she was afraid of them — so in order to cross the village to meet my grandfather on his way back from the farm, etc. — she would make a long detour and actually cross the river at a wide shallow place, on stepping stones. One summer Sunday afternoon, all good Baptists in the church, the doors open, Dr. Francis, the minister, was on his knees praying, when a patter-patter was heard and Betsy trotted down the aisle past our pew. She was fond of Dr. Francis and went right up on the platform and jumped to lick his face. He opened his eyes and said “Why, hello Betsy” and then went on praying.

Mary played the piano, quite well — all the aunts played some — and I think that and the hymns were how I came to love music from the beginning. This whole period in my life was brief — but important, I know.* The village was 50 years or so backwards — we made yeast from the hopvine on the barn; had no plumbing, oil lamps etc. My grandmother was a famous butter-maker. Everything is quite changed now of course. But when I came to live first in Samambaia and we had oil lamps for two or three years, etc. a lot came back to me. I helped design our sitting room stove for example needed up there “winters” and without ever having done such things before I found myself baking bread, making marmalade, etc. — When the need arises apparently the old Nova Scotian domestic arts come back to me!

Like most poets, I have a very morbid total recall of certain periods and I could go on for hours — but I won’t!

I know next to nothing about the Bishops, and have no idea when they “came over”, rather I have forgotten. There were 3 brothers, one was a doctor in Plymouth, Mass., I think —the 2nd I’d don’t know — the 3rd farmed in White Sands, Prince Edward Island. My grandfather B, according to the family story, ran away aged 12, with a box of carpenters’ tools on his back, and went first to Providence. His was an Horatio Alger story. He married very well, and made a “million,” etc. Sarah Foster, his wife, came from a very veryold New England family, originally from Quincy — she came from Holden. I also have a batch of papers from that branch, about her ancestors in the Revolution on that side — but again they are really not very interesting. One man, I remember, was in and out of the army many times — the way they were — and was imprisoned in the notorious prison ship in New York harbor — and seems to have survived it because he was a cook.

The Bishop grandparents came to visit in Canada several times, apparently — twice that I remember. Although my father had married a poor country girl the older generation were still enough alike, I think, so that they got along in spite of the money difference — it was the next generation that made me suffer acutely. The B’s were very early motorists — once they actually drove to G V and their huge car and chauffer made a sensations — also the fact that they wired the local hotel for rooms & bath — when there wasn’t a bath in the village. I was probably regarded as a small fairy princess, but I was too young to notice. ItThe thrill of riding with that grandpa on the dusty country roads — and the chauffeur, RondalRon dald, of whom I became fond and who was very nice to me later on in Worcester. ( We had only a buggy, of course, or two, rather, one with fringe, and a wagon, and in the winter a sleigh and a “pung.”) The B’s were horrified to see the only child of their eldest son running about the village in bare feet, eating at the table with the grown-ups and drinking tea, and so I was carried off (by train) to Worcester for the one awful winter that was almost the end of me. 1917–18.

I had already had bad bronchitis and probably attacks of asthma — in Worcester I got much worse and developed exzema that almost killed me.* One awful day I was sent home from “first grade” because of my sores — and I imagine my hopeless shyness has dated from then. — In May, 1918, I was taken to live with Aunt Maud; I couldn’t walk and Ronald carried me up the stairs — my aunt burst into tears when she saw me. I had had nurses etc. — but that stretch is still too grim to think of, almost. My grandfather had gone to see my aunt M privately and made the arrangements — he said my grandmother didn’t “know how to take care of her own children”, most of them had died. — My aunt was paid to care for me — but she would have anyway, I imagine, if there’d been no money. She really devoted herself to me for years until I got better — she probably never slept for nights and nights, getting me injections of adrenaline, etc. etc.—

When I couldn’t go to school in Worcester — well, I remember one evening I was sitting under the living room table building blocks and my Grandfather said as if to himself, “I wonder if some little girl would like to take piano lessons”—so Miss Darling came to teach me. I was too small, but loved it — and always took lessons, but never had a good teacher until I got to Walnut Hill.

I began writing poetry at about 8 and when I was 11 or so I remember Aunt Grace giving me some good advice about listening to criticism, not getting one’s feelings hurt, etc. I went to school off and on, but remember chiefly lying in bed wheezing and reading — and my dear aunt Maud going out to buy me more books. When I was 13 I was well enough, summers, to go to camp, and it wasn’t until then, briefly, and then at Walnut Hill, that I met girls who were as clever, or cleverer than I was, and made friends, and began to cheer up a bit.

The last time I was in Boston I went to see an elderly uncle by marriage (his 1st wife, my father’s sister, died the year I was born) and he told me that he had tried to adopt me legally that year in Worcester because he felt so sorry for me — he had three children of his own. He also said “Your mother was the most beautiful skater I ever saw — I fell in love with her, too, when I saw her skate.” These bits of information always surprise me very much, since I know so little — I have a lot of cousins here and there — The next to last Bishop, an aunt, died last year aged 86 or 87—I’m the last actually, of that short and undistinguished line. I never fought with what family I had, never had to “rebel”, etc. — I was always on more or less visiting terms with them, and I feel that has had a profound and not altogether good effect on me — it produces passivity, detachment, etc — on the other hand making one’s friends one’s family, really. But from the age of 18 I have always been independent and gone where I wanted to. My relatives now, I think, chiefly wonder why I don’t write best sellers and earn some money if I’m supposed to be so smart — the phrase is “Too smart for her own good,” I believe …