Flint and Feather | Page 5

an extremely early age this little Indian girl evinced an intense love
of poetry; and even before she could write, composed many little
childish jingles about her pet dogs and cats. She was also very fond of
learning by heart anything that took her fancy, and would memorize,

apparently without effort, verses that were read to her. A telling
instance of this early love of poetry may be cited, when on one
occasion, while she was yet a tiny child of four, a friend of her father's,
who was going to a distant city, asked her what he could bring her as a
present, and she replied, "Verses, please."
At twelve years of age she was writing fairly creditable poems, but was
afraid to offer them for publication, lest in after years she might regret
their almost inevitable crudity. So she did not publish anything until
after her school days were ended.
Her education was neither extensive nor elaborate, and embraced
neither High School nor College. A nursery governess for two years at
home, three years at an Indian day school half a mile from her home,
and two years in the central school of the City of Brantford was the
extent of her educational training. But besides this she acquired a wide
general knowledge, having been, through childhood and early girlhood,
a great reader, especially of poetry. Before she was twelve years old
she had read every line of Scott's poems, every line of Longfellow,
much of Byron, Shakespeare, and such books as Addison's "Spectator,"
Foster's Essays and Owen Meredith.
The first periodicals to accept her poems and place them before the
public were "Gems of Poetry," a small magazine published in New
York, and "The Week," established by the late Professor Goldwin
Smith, of Toronto, the "New York Independent," and "Toronto
Saturday Night." Since then she has contributed to "The Athenaeum,"
"The Academy," "Black and White," "The Pall Mall Gazette," "The
Daily Express," and "Canada," all of London, England; "The Review of
Reviews," Paris, France; "Harper's Weekly," "New York Independent,"
"Outing," "The Smart Set," "Boston Transcript," "The Buffalo
Express," "Detroit Free Press," "The Boys' World" (David C. Cook
Publishing Co., Elgin, Illinois), "The Mothers' Magazine" (David C.
Cook Publishing Co.), "The Canadian Magazine," "Toronto Saturday
Night," and "The Province," Vancouver, B.C.
In 1892 the opportunity of a lifetime came to this young versifier, when
Frank Yeigh, the president of the Young Liberals' Club, of Toronto,

conceived the idea of having an evening of Canadian literature, at
which all available Canadian authors should be guests and read from
their own works.
Among the authors present on this occasion was Pauline Johnson, who
contributed to the programme one of her compositions, entitled "A Cry
from an Indian Wife"; and when she recited without text this
much-discussed poem, which shows the Indian's side of the North-West
Rebellion, she was greeted with tremendous applause from an audience
which represented the best of Toronto's art, literature and culture. She
was the only one on the programme who received an encore, and to this
she replied with one of her favourite canoeing poems.
The following morning the entire press of Toronto asked why this
young writer was not on the platform as a professional reader; while
two of the dailies even contained editorials on the subject, inquiring
why she had never published a volume of her poems, and insisted so
strongly that the public should hear more of her, that Mr. Frank Yeigh
arranged for her to give an entire evening in Association Hall within
two weeks from the date of her first appearance. It was for this first
recital that she wrote the poem by which she is best known, "The Song
my Paddle Sings."
On this eventful occasion, owing to the natural nervousness which
besets a beginner, and to the fact that she had scarcely had time to
memorize her new poem, she became confused in this particular
member, and forgot her lines. With true Indian impassiveness, however,
she never lost her self-control, but smilingly passed over the difficulty
by substituting something else; and completely won the hearts of her
audience by her coolness and self-possession. The one thought
uppermost in her mind, she afterwards said, was that she should not
leave the platform and thereby acknowledge her defeat; and it is
undoubtedly this same determination to succeed which has carried her
successfully through the many years she has been before the public.
The immediate success of this entertainment caused Mr. Yeigh to
undertake the management of a series of recitals for her throughout
Canada, with the object of enabling her to go to England to submit her

poems to a London publisher. Within two years this end was
accomplished, and she spent the season of 1894 in London, and had her
book of poems,