The Indian School

by Gloria Whelan

  As he showed me about the school, Uncle Edward became less uncertain in manner. Proudly he pointed out where corn and potatoes had grown and where the winter wheat was planted. Rows of pumpkins and squash lay ripe and orange on the brown earth.

  “Someday,” he said, “we will have our own grist mill. Then we need look to no man for help.” He sighed. “Now it is time to return to your aunt.”

  We visited the classroom where my aunt was teaching reading and writing to the younger children. When I remarked on how alike the children were dressed, Uncle Edward explained their clothes were sent from the mission.

  Aunt Emma dismissed her class. She spoke to Uncle Edward as though he were one of her students. “You have been dawdling, Edward. Come now, Lucy. Let us see what you know of schoolwork.”

  I tried very hard.

  “Well, Lucy. You are better at your reading and your sums than I would have thought. You will take your lessons with the older girls.”

  My aunt did not give praise easily. She closed the books and stood up. “I am sure you know less of practical things.” I was led out to the henhouse and taught how to scatter the feed so all the chickens might have their share. At lunch I was told to watch over the youngest scholars and see that, like the chickens, they all shared equally.

  With their dark hair, brown eyes, and golden skin they were pretty children. I could not keep from kissing the cheek of one little boy. This did not please my aunt. She warned, “If you are softhearted, the children will have no respect for you.”

  After that I was more prudent in my attentions. Still, a small hand would creep into mine or a tender smile reward another portion of pudding. Then my heart would soften in spite of my efforts. I tried to hide my weakness from my aunt, for I liked being among the children. I could not forget that like myself many were without father and mother.

  That evening I was pleased when Aunt allowed me to help in getting the youngest boys ready for bed. Their sleeping room held narrow cots. At the foot of each cot was a small trunk for each child’s clothes. The children had to be coaxed to wash their faces, for the water in the pitchers was cold. After the washing and the putting on of nightclothes, each child knelt by his bed and said his prayers. Then my heart became soft indeed. It was very bad of me, but after I turned down the lamp, I hastily kissed each child good night.

  Uncle Edward said it was his custom to read a verse or two of scripture before bed. We settled down next to the fire. Just then we heard a knock at the door. Uncle Edward put down his Bible and went to see who was there. It was an Indian man. By his side was a small boy and a girl a year or two older than myself. “Come in,” my uncle said. “How can we help you?”

  The man took a few steps into the room. He was dressed in a torn shirt and soiled leggings. Though young, he was stooped, as though he were carrying a heavy burden. There was a frown between his eyes and a tightness to his mouth. He looked like he did not want to be there. The children hung back. The man reached down and gave each child a gentle push forward. “I am Lost Owl. This is my son, Star Face, and my daughter, Raven.”

  I thought Raven well named. Her black hair dipped on either side of her forehead like the wings of a raven. Her eyes were black and quick and sharp like the bird’s eyes. Star Face was no more than five or six. His long hair was matted and snarled. His clothes, what there were of them, were in tatters. He had eyes for one thing only: a bowl of apples on the table beside him. The temptation was too much. He picked up one of the apples and began to eat it greedily.

  Aunt Emma stood up. “Young man, put that down at once.” The boy dropped the apple onto the table. He hid behind his father’s leg, holding on for dear life. At this the girl, Raven, walked slowly over to the table. She picked up the half-eaten apple and handed it to her brother, who began to eat it again.

  For a whole minute Aunt Emma was speechless. “Put that down, I say.” She snatched the apple from the boy’s hand. But by now she held nothing but a stem and a few seeds. She turned to Lost Owl. “Your daughter is a wicked girl. Take your children and leave here.”

  Uncle Edward had been taken aback by the girl’s actions, but now he said, “My dear, we cannot send this man away without finding out why he has come.”

  “I am sorry that my children should give you trouble,” Lost Owl said. “They are hungry. We have come a long way from our village. There are as many dead from smallpox as there are alive. The sickness came like a hungry fox to a nest of young birds. My wife is dead. My brother and all his family are dead. The rest of my family have gone far away so the sickness cannot find them. I was told Indian children are welcome here.”

  “I am not sure we have a place for children who are so lacking in manners.” Though my aunt’s words were hard, I saw that she was moved by Lost Owl’s story.

  “We have never turned away someone in need,” Uncle Edward said. “Even with such sauciness we cannot begin now.” There was no indecision in his voice.

  Lost Owl had something more to say. “I am not giving you my children. I will go far north of here where there are still many animals. When the winter is over, I will come back with pelts. I will buy my children back.”

  Aunt Emma was truly shocked. “We do not buy and sell children here! What we do, we do for charity. No money will change hands. You may have your children back whenever you wish. I dare say we will be glad to be rid of them. I will promise you, though, that when they are returned you will find them much improved.”

  “I thank you,” Lost Owl said. He bent to embrace his son. Star Face clung to him sobbing. Uncle Edward pulled him gently away. Lost Owl put his hand on Raven’s shoulder in farewell. Raven stood very stiffly. She said nothing and gave no sign of sadness at her father’s departure.

  After Lost Owl left, I was asked to put Star Face to bed with the younger children. At this Raven looked startled. I saw that she did not want to be parted from her brother. Still, she would not give my aunt the satisfaction of showing her distress. When Aunt Emma led her away, Raven followed along with her chin high in the air. Only once, when my aunt’s attention was otherwise engaged, did Raven look quickly back at her brother. There was much love in her look. When she caught me watching, her face became stormy and closed. Timidly I asked my aunt, “May I take Star Face to the kitchen and give him some milk before I put him to bed?”

  “Yes, Lucy. I should have thought of that myself. But do not call him by that foolish name. We will find a proper name for him tomorrow. Girl, would you like something as well?”

  Raven shook her head. Yet she looked so thin, I was sure it was her pride and not her appetite that answered for her.

  When I had warmed some milk for Star Face and fed him bread and jam, the unhappiness seemed to go out of him. He followed me like a lamb follows its mother to the small boys’ dormitory. It was only when I tried to put a nightshirt on him that he rebelled. I had to let him climb into his cot in his soiled and tattered clothes. There he made a nest of his bed, burrowing into his bedclothes and curling into a ball.

  That night it was not Star Face I thought of, but Raven. At last, unable to close my eyes, I crept down the hall to the girls’ sleeping room. I peered in. By the light of the moon I saw Raven. She had pulled her blanket from her cot. Wrapping herself in it, she had lain down on the floor. Her shoulders were shaking with silent sobs. At first I thought of comforting her. Yet I was sure she would not like to be seen crying. I crept back to my room.

  I slept no more that night. When I had first come to the Indian school, I had been brave. Seeing Raven’s unhappiness, I thought of the absence of my own parents and I cried with her.

  THREE

  In the morning there was a terrible commotion. Aunt Emma had set to work to bathe Star Face and cut his hair. I was helping her. His howls brought Raven. She snatched the child from us and, clasping him against her, shouted, “You should not have cut his hair. Men in our tribe don’t cut their hair.”

  “Nonsense,” my aunt said. “Matthew”—fo
r that was the name she had given Star Face—“looks much better. I will see to you when I am finished.”

  Raven refused to change into the school dress. “I cannot tell who I am if I look like everyone else,” she insisted.

  Aunt Emma warned Raven, “Do as you are told or you will not be allowed to see Matthew. I will not have him set a bad example by your behavior.” After that, Raven put on the school dress.

  What she refused to do was answer to her new name. My aunt had decided to call her Eleanor. Even I could see the name was not suitable. Raven fit her perfectly. As often as I heard her new name, always I thought of her as Raven. At last even my aunt was worn down. She could not get Raven’s attention by using her new name. She would not call her by her given name. So she called her “girl.” To that Raven would respond, but sullenly. After a few days Matthew and Raven became a part of the school.

  My days were much the same. I rose early. After morning prayers I ate a quick breakfast, taken, as all of our meals were, with the Indian students. I then went to the classroom for lessons. After lunch I turned to my tasks, tending the chickens and helping Mary with dinner. Mary and I became friends. I learned from my uncle that Mary had come to Michigan from Illinois. Her family had belonged to the tribe of Chief Black Hawk. Her father, her mother, and all her sisters and brothers had perished in the battle of Bad Ax River. Any loud noise or angry word frightened her. Even my aunt noticed this. She spoke more softly to Mary than to the other students.

  Once I asked Mary what her Indian name had been. Her head drooped like a wilted flower upon a stalk. She would not look at or talk with me. After that I asked no more questions. Mary was usually quiet and guarded. Sometimes, though, she liked a jest. She would hand me an empty plate for my aunt, whispering, “Your aunt needs no food. She is already as fat as a bear ready to sleep through the winter.” She knew each of the little children’s favorite treats. One child would get an extra piece of gingercake, another a double portion of rhubarb jam.

  I helped Mary clear away the dinner dishes and put the little boys to bed. There were evening prayers, and then I, too, went to bed.

  As I went about my tasks, I marveled at Uncle Edward’s work with the Indians. It was only with my aunt that he was undecided. On his own he was everywhere at once. He supervised the milking of the cows. He instructed the older boys in the classroom and in the carpentry shop. He had even taught himself to speak a little of the Indian language. Some of the children, when they first came to the school, knew only a few words of English. My aunt waited for them to learn. My uncle met them on the path.

  Uncle Edward made a great friend of Matthew, who followed him about and called him “Papa,” much to my aunt’s disapproval. Where my aunt scolded, my uncle encouraged. I thought his results were better. The students minded my uncle out of love, my aunt out of fear.

  In teaching our history lessons my aunt put all the blame for the wars between the white man and the Indians upon the Indians. The children did not argue with her, but Mary looked down at her desk and caught her lip between her teeth. Only Raven spoke up. She said, “In your Bible it says if you take what does not belong to you, you will receive punishment. The white man took land that belonged to the Indians.”

  “It is very rude of you to contradict me, girl,” my aunt snapped. “In this very country, the Iroquois Indians took land from the Sauk Indians. What do you say to that?”

  Thinking of Mary, I could not be quiet. After class I said to my aunt, “There is truth in what Raven says. All of Mary’s family were killed trying to protect their homes and land.”

  My aunt shook her head. “You are only a child. What can you understand of such things?”

  I said nothing more, yet I did not like myself for giving in so easily. I marveled at Raven’s courage. I did not think I would ever be brave enough to rise up against my aunt as Raven did.

  Raven missed no opportunity to defy Aunt Emma. She disliked the bread served with the meals. It was a rule that the children must eat all that was served to them. I saw Raven hide bread in her pocket. Because she did not like the aprons all the girls had to wear, she smudged and soiled hers. She would purposely pretend she had not prepared her lessons. My aunt would scold her. Afterward Raven would be quick to answer the questions so that we saw she had prepared after all.

  Aunt Emma punished Raven’s defiance by giving her the hardest tasks. She had to scrub the floors and pare the potatoes. She did it all with an angry scowl.

  I was surprised, then, when Raven went to Aunt Emma and offered to gather wild nuts. My aunt was pleased, for there was never enough money for all the school needed. A supply of nuts for breads and sweets would be welcome. I was sent along with Raven. “You will see where these trees are, Lucy, so that you can find them when the girl is no longer with us.” Raven did not seem pleased at my company but said nothing.

  It was October now. In the sunlight the maples looked as if they had been hung with hundreds of scarlet lanterns. The birches, like Uncle Edward, could not make up their minds. Half were green and half gold. Watching over everything were pines so tall you could not see to the top of them without bending back your head. Winding through the woods was a narrow branch of the Coldriver. Leaning over the stream were willow trees, the tresses of their branches waving in the light wind.

  All afternoon I followed Raven about as we filled our baskets. I was amazed at what she found: butternuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts. Each kind of tree had its own place in the woods. The walnut trees were often along the bank of the stream. “The nuts fall into the water,” Raven said. “The stream carries them along for many miles. Then they find a home on the shore and become trees.”

  These were the first words Raven had spoken to me.

  “Did you have to do as much work in your village as you do here?” I asked.

  “More. I gathered wood. I fished, putting out nets and gathering them in. I planted the corn and harvested it. I helped with the maple syrup. That is what I liked best.”

  I had never heard Raven have so much to say. Hoping to encourage her, I sat down. After a moment she settled next to me. “Why did you like it best?” I asked.

  “In the spring, when we have warm days and cold nights, the men return from their hunting. Many trees are tapped. The syrup drips into birch-bark pails. The pails are gathered and emptied into great kettles. All night long the kettles boil over the campfire. We have songs and dances for the sugaring. You have many maples here. I wonder you do not make syrup.”

  “Perhaps my aunt and uncle do not know how. Could you teach them?”

  “I think no one could teach your aunt.”

  I ought to have disagreed, but I could not.

  As we went deeper and deeper into the woods, Raven seemed a different person. The sullen scowl left her face. She watched a trout fanning its tail in the stream’s clear water. She smiled at the clumsy grouse that flew up with a great racket as we approached. She showed me many things: a mud chute on the bank of the stream where otters slid, a hump of rushes that was a muskrat’s home, a poplar limb with tooth marks from a beaver. The forest had become my classroom.

  We were just about to turn back with our full baskets when Raven saw the tree. It was a great oak. A long while before, lightning must have opened a gash in the trunk. Over the years the tree had rotted and the opening had widened to a huge hollow. Raven and I both were able to squeeze inside. There were droppings and bones in and about the tree. Raven named the animals that had once lived there: a porcupine, a groundhog, a skunk, and even a bear. At that I recalled Mr. Jones’ story and looked hastily about.

  As we turned back toward the school, Raven was quiet. She no longer paid attention to my questions. She was thinking of something, but she would not tell me what it was.

  FOUR

  Each day Raven would ask if she might go into the woods. When enough nuts had been gathered, she offered to pick up kindling and pinecones for the fire. My aunt grew suspicious. I heard her tell
my uncle, “She will revert to the way of her pagan people and forget all we have taught her here at the school.”

  “I believe Raven just likes being out-of-doors,” Uncle said. “It is what she is used to.”

  My aunt put an end to Raven’s trips into the woods. Once again Raven grew silent and angry. Her black eyes were fierce when she looked at Aunt Emma. One fine afternoon when Raven had been set to scraping carrots for our dinner she slipped out of the kitchen. Against my aunt’s wishes she went into the woods. When she returned, my aunt was waiting for her. “You have been disobedient. I told you when you first came that if you did not follow the rules of the school, you would not be able to spend time with your brother. I will not have you set Matthew a bad example.”

  This was hard on Raven, for she looked forward to the time after dinner each evening when she was allowed to be with Matthew. Often she had saved secretly for him some tasty morsel from her own dinner. Or she had some little toy to amuse him. Once it was a handful of pretty stones she had gathered from the river bottom. Another time she made a bird with the dried pod of a milkweed for wings.

  I believe it was more than Raven’s disobedience that made my aunt keep Raven from spending time with Matthew. A rivalry had grown up between Raven and Aunt Emma for Matthew’s affections. Matthew was clever at his lessons. He was a loving child who easily attached himself to anyone who paid him attention. He followed my uncle about. He was just as loving to me as I put him into bed at night. Even my aunt Emma, who made no friends among the students, allowed Matthew to climb upon her lap. He would catch on to her apron strings and follow her about. Aunt Emma could not even bring herself to scold Matthew for any little mischief he made.

  Matthew had not noticed that Aunt Emma would frown when he put his arms around Raven. He had not noticed Raven’s scowl when he climbed onto Aunt Emma’s lap. He was a child who trusted everyone.