The Education of Little Tree

by Forrest Carter

  The politicians knew what this meant. I did too. They stood up in the half-light and stumbled out the door. They didn’t say good-bye.

  We waited in the dark, a long time after they left. Granma lit the lamp and we set at the kitchen table. I couldn’t see what was on the paper, as my head only come above the table edge, but I listened.

  The paper said some people had filed with the law. It said I was not being done right by. The paper said Granma and Granpa had no right to keep me; that they was old and had no education. It said Granma was a Indian and Granpa was a half-breed. Granpa, it said, had a bad reputation.

  The paper said Granma and Granpa was selfish, and being that way was total hampering me for the rest of my continual life. They was selfish, it said, because they just wanted comfort in their old age and was putting me out, more or less, to give it to them.

  The paper had things to say about me, but Granma would not read it out loud. It said that Granpa and Granma had so many days in which they could come in court and give answer to it. It said otherwise I was to be put in a orphanage.

  Granpa was total stumped. He taken off his hat and laid it on the table, and his hand shook. He rubbed his hat with his hand and just set, looking at the hat and rubbing it.

  I went and set in my rocker by the fireplace and rocked. I told Granma and Granpa that I figgered I could up my dictionary learning to practically ten words a week. I told them that more than likely I could up it even more—maybe to a hundred. I was learning to read, and I told them I seen right off that I was going to have to double up on my reading, and I reminded them what Mr. Wine had said about my figgering; which, even though he didn’t count none with the politicians, it still showed I was moving ahead.

  I couldn’t stop talking. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I rocked harder and harder, and talked faster and faster.

  I told Granpa I was in no wise hampered at all; that I figgered I was gittin’ the uppers on just about everything. Granpa would not answer me. Granma held the paper and stared at it.

  I seen they figgered they was what the paper said they was. I said they wasn’t. I said it was the other way around; that they comforted me, and I was more than likely about the worst thing that had come along for them to have to mind about. I told Granpa I had burdened them up pretty heavy and they had not, in no wise, burdened me. I told them I stood ready to tell the law this very thing. But they wouldn’t talk.

  I said I was gittin’ ahead otherwise too, learning a trade and all. I told Granpa that I was total certain no other young’un my age was learning a trade.

  Granpa looked at me for the first time. His eyes was dull. He said maybe, the law being like they was, that we had ought not to mention about the trade.

  I went to the table and set on Granpa’s leg. I told him and Granma I would not go with the law. I said I would go back in the mountains and stay with Willow John, until such time as the law forgot about the whole thing. I asked Granma what a orphanage was.

  Granma looked at me across the table. Her eyes didn’t look right either. Granma said a orphanage was where they kept young’uns who didn’t have a Pa and a Ma. She said they was lots of young’uns there. She said the law would come looking if I went back and stayed with Willow John.

  I seen right off that the law might find our still if they taken to looking. I didn’t mention Willow John again.

  Granpa said we would go to the settlement in the morning and see Mr. Wine.

  We left at daybreak, down the hollow trail. Granpa had the paper to show Mr. Wine. Granpa knew where he lived, and when we got to the settlement we turned down a side street. Mr. Wine lived over a feed store. We went up long ladder steps, that wobbled as we climbed up the side of the feed store. The door was locked. Granpa shook it and knocked on it … but nobody answered. There was dust over the glass and Granpa wiped it away and looked in. He said there wasn’t anything in there.

  We walked slow back down the steps. I followed Granpa around to the front of the feed store, and we went in.

  Coming out of the noontime sun, it was dark in the store. Me and Granpa stood for a minute to get our sight. A man was leaning against the counter.

  “Howdy,” he said, “what fer ye?” His stomach hung over the belt of his britches.

  “Howdy,” Granpa said, “we was looking for Mr. Wine, the feller which lives over yer store.”

  “Mr. Wine ain’t his name,” the man said. He had a toothpick in his mouth which he worked from side to side. He sucked on the toothpick and taken it out and frowned at it, like it tasted bad.

  “In fact,” he said, “he ain’t got no name no more. He’s dead.”

  Me and Granpa was stumped. We didn’t say anything. I felt hollow inside and my knees weakened. I had built up a pretty heavy dependence on Mr. Wine as handling our situation. I figured Granpa had counted heavy on it too; for he didn’t know what to do next.

  “Yer name be Wales?” the fat man asked.

  “It be,” Granpa said. The fat man walked behind the counter, reached under it and dragged out a tow sack. He swung it up on the counter. It was full of something.

  “The old man left this here fer ye,” he said. “See, the tag. Got yer name on it.” Granpa looked at the tag, though he couldn’t read it.

  “He had everything tagged,” the fat man said. “Knew he was going to die. Even had a tag tied around his wrist telling where to ship the body. Knew exactly how much it cost too … left the money in an envelope … right down to the penny. Stingy. No money left over. Just like a damn Jew.”

  Granpa looked up, hard, from under his hat. “Paid his obligations, didn’t he?”

  The fat man got serious. “Oh yes … yes … I had nothin’ against the old man, didn’t know him. Nobody much did. Spent all his time wandering around in the mountains.”

  Granpa swung the tow sack over his shoulder. “Could ye d’rect me to a lawyering man?” The fat man pointed across the street. “Right in front of ye, up the stairs, ’tween them buildings.”

  “Thankee,” Granpa said. We walked to the door.

  “Funny thing,” the fat man said after us, “the old Jew, when we found him; the only thing he hadn’t tagged was a candle. The dern fool had it lit and burning right beside him.”

  I knew about the candle, but I didn’t say anything. I knew about the money too. Mr. Wine was not stingy; he was thrifty, and paid his obligations, and seen that his money was used in the right manner.

  We went across the street and up the steps. Granpa toted the sack. Granpa knocked on a door that had glass across the top and lettering on it.

  “Come in … come in!” The voice sounded like you wasn’t supposed to knock. We went in.

  A man was leaning back in a chair, behind a desk. He had white hair and looked old. When he saw me and Granpa he got up, slow. Granpa taken off his hat and set down the tow sack. The man leaned over his desk and stuck out his hand. “My name is Taylor,” he said, “Joe Taylor.”

  “Wales,” Granpa said. Granpa taken his hand, but didn’t shake it. He turned loose of it and handed Mr. Taylor our paper.

  Mr. Taylor set down and taken eyeglasses out of a vest pocket. He leaned on the desk and read the paper. I watched him. He frowned. He looked at the paper for a long time.

  When he finished, he folded the paper slow and handed it back to Granpa. He looked up. “You’ve been in jail—whiskey-making?”

  “Oncet,” Granpa said.

  Mr. Taylor got up and walked to a big window. He looked down in the street a long time. He sighed; and didn’t look at Granpa. “I could take your money, but it wouldn’t do any good. Government bureaucrats that run these things don’t understand mountain people. Don’t want to. I don’t think the sons of bitches understand anything.” He was looking a long way off at something out the window. He coughed. “Nor Indians. We’d lose. They’ll take the boy.”

  Granpa put on his hat. He taken his purse from his forward pants pocket and unsnapped and felt around. He laid a dollar on Mr
. Taylor’s desk. We left. Mr. Taylor was still looking out the window.

  We walked out of the settlement, Granpa leading, totin’ the tow sack. Mr. Wine was gone. I knew we had lost.

  It was the first time I could keep up, easy, with Granpa. He walked slow. His moccasins dragged in the dirt. I figured he was tired. We was on the hollow trail when I asked him, “Granpa, what is a damn Jew?”

  Granpa stopped and didn’t look back at me. His voice sounded tired too. “I don’t know; something is said about ’em in the Bible, somewheres or other; must go back a long ways.” Granpa turned around. “Like the Indian … I hear tell they ain’t got no nation, neither.” Granpa looked down at me. His eyes looked like Willow John’s.

  Granma lit the lamp. We opened the tow sack there on the kitchen table. There was rolls of red cloth and green and yeller cloth for Granma; needles, thimbles and spools of thread. I told Granma it looked like Mr. Wine had might near emptied his pack into the tow sack. She said it looked that way to her.

  There was all manner of tools for Granpa. And books. A figuring book and a little black book that Granma said had valuing sayings in it for me. There was a book with pictures of boys and girls and dogs. It had writing in it and was brand-new, for it still shined. I figured Mr. Wine was going to bring it on his next trip, if he didn’t forget. That was all; we thought.

  Granpa picked up the empty sack and started to put it on the floor. Something bumped in the sack. Granpa turned it up. A red apple rolled out on the table. It was the first time that Mr. Wine had recollected the apple. Something else rolled out and Granma picked it up. It was a candle and it had one of Mr. Wine’s tags on it. Granma read it. It said: Willow John.

  We didn’t eat much supper. Granpa told about our trip to the settlement; about Mr. Wine and what Mr. Taylor had said.

  Granma blew out the lamp and we set by the fireplace in the half-dark of a new moon coming through the winder. We didn’t light a fire. I rocked.

  I told Granma and Granpa they was not to feel bad about it. I said I didn’t. More than likely I would like the orphanage, with all the young’uns and such being there. I said it would not take long to satisfy the law, more than likely, and I could come back.

  Granma said we had three days, and then I was to be delivered up to the law. We didn’t talk anymore. I didn’t know what to say. We all three rocked, our chairs creaking slow, far into the night and we didn’t talk.

  When we went to bed, for the first time since Ma died I cried, but I put the blanket in my mouth and Granma and Granpa did not hear me.

  We filled up the three days, living hard as we could. Granma went everywhere with me and Granpa, up the Narrows to Hangin’ Gap. We taken Blue Boy and the hounds. One morning, early in the dark, we taken the high trail. We set on top of the mountain and watched day break over the rims. I showed Granpa and Granma my secret place.

  Granma spilt sugar in practical everything she cooked. Me and Granpa eat fairly heavy on meal cookies.

  The day before I was to leave, I slipped off over the cutoff trail to the crossroads store. Mr. Jenkins said the red and green box was old, and so he would sell it for sixty-five cents, which I paid him. I bought a box of red stick candy for Granpa, which cost a quarter. This left me a dime out of the dollar I had got from Mr. Chunk.

  That night Granpa cut my hair. He said it was necessary, for it might be hard on me, looking like a Indian and all. I told Granpa I didn’t care. I said I had just as soon look like Willow John.

  I was not to wear my moccasins. Granpa stretched my old shoes. He taken a piece of iron and pushed it into the shoes, punching the leather of the uppers out over the soles. My feet had growed.

  I told Granma I would leave my moccasins under my bed, as I would more than likely be back pretty soon, and they would be handy. I put my deer shirt on the bed. I told Granma that it could stay there as nobody would be sleeping in my bed until I come back.

  I hid the red and green box in Granma’s meal bin where she would find it in a day or two; and put the box of stick candy in Granpa’s suit coat. He would find it Sunday. I had only taken out one piece to more or less prove it out. It was good.

  Granma would not go to the settlement for the leaving. Granpa waited in the clearing for me, and Granma knelt down on the porch and held me like she held Willow John. I held her too. I tried not to cry, but I did, some. I had on my old shoes, which if I stretched my toes, they didn’t hurt. I wore my best overalls and my white shirt. I wore the yeller coat. In my tow sack, Granma had put two more shirts and my other pair of overalls, and my socks. I would not carry anything else, for I knew I would be back. I told Granma I would.

  Kneeling there on the porch, Granma said, “Do ye recollect the Dog Star, Little Tree? The one we look at in the dusk of evening?” I said I did. And Granma said, “Wherever ye are—no matter where—in the dusk of evening, ye look at the Dog Star. Me and Granpa will be looking too. We will remember.” I told her I would remember too. It was like Mr. Wine and his candle. I asked Granma to tell Willow John to look at the Dog Star too. Which she said she would.

  Granma held me by the shoulders and looked at me. She said, “The Cherokees married your Pa and Ma. Will ye remember that, Little Tree? No matter what is said … remember.”

  I said I would. Granma turned me loose. I picked up my tow sack and followed Granpa out of the clearing. Across the foot log, I looked back. Granma was standing on the porch, watching. She raised her hand and touched her heart, and pushed the hand after me. I knew what she meant.

  Granpa had on his black suit. He had his shoes on too, and we both kind of clumped along. Down the hollow trail, pine branches swept low and held my arms. An oak limb reached out fingers and pulled the tow sack off my shoulder. A persimmon bush grabbed my leg. The spring branch commenced to run harder and jump and fuss, and a crow flew down across us and cawed over and over … and then set on a high tree top and cawed and cawed. All of them was saying, “Don’t go, Little Tree … don’t go, Little Tree …” I knew what they was saying. And so my eyes blinded and I stumbled along behind Granpa. The wind rose and moaned and picked at the tail of my yeller coat. Dying briers reached over the trail path and hung theirselves on my legs. A mourning dove called, long and lonesome—and was not answered, so I knew she was calling for me.

  Me and Granpa had a hard time making it down the hollow trail.

  We waited in the bus station; me and Granpa setting on a bench. I held my tow sack in my lap. We was waiting for the law.

  I told Granpa I didn’t hardly see how he was going to make it in the whiskey trade, me not being there to help. Granpa said it would be hard. He would have to double up on his work time. I told Granpa that more than likely I would be back pretty quick, and he wouldn’t have to double up long. Granpa said more than likely I would. We didn’t say much else.

  A clock ticked on the wall. I could tell the time, and I told Granpa. There wasn’t many people in the bus station. A woman and a man. Times being hard, Granpa said, folks wasn’t traveling by paying ways. Which they wasn’t.

  I asked Granpa, reckin if the mountains run down as far as the orphanage. Granpa said he didn’t know. He had not been there. We waited some more.

  The woman came in. I knew her; it was the woman in the gray dress. She come up to me and Granpa, and when Granpa stood up, she handed him some papers. Granpa put them in his pocket. She said the bus was waiting. She said, “We don’t want any fuss now. Let’s get on with it. What has to be done, has to be done; best for everybody.”

  Which I didn’t know what she was talking about. Granpa didn’t either. She was all business. She taken a string out of her purse and tied it around my neck. It had a tag on it, like one of Mr. Wine’s tags. The tag had writing on it. Me and Granpa followed her out the back of the bus station to the bus.

  I had my tow sack throwed over my shoulder. Granpa knelt there, by the open door of the bus, and held me like he held Willow John. He held me a long time, kneeling on the pavement with both
his knees. I whispered to Granpa. I said, “I’ll more than likely be back, d’rectly.” Granpa squeezed me that he heard.

  The woman said, “You’ll have to go now.” I didn’t know whether she was talking to me or Granpa. Granpa stood up. He turned and walked off and he didn’t look back.

  The woman picked me up and set me on the step of the bus, which I could have made it myself. She told the bus driver to read my tag, and so I stood for him while he read it.

  I told the bus driver I didn’t have a ticket and wasn’t right sure about riding as I didn’t have any money. He laughed and said the woman had give him my ticket. There wasn’t but three people on the bus. I went back and set down by a winder where maybe I could see Granpa.

  The bus started up and moved out of the station. I saw the woman with the gray dress watching. We moved down the street and I couldn’t find Granpa anywhere. Then I saw him. He was standing on the corner of the street by the bus station. He had his hat pulled down low and his hands hung down by his sides.

  We went by him and I tried to raise the winder, but I didn’t know how. I waved, but he didn’t see me.

  As the bus passed on, I run to the back of the bus and looked out the back winder. Granpa was still there, watching the bus. I waved and hollered, “Good-bye Granpa. I’ll be back more than likely pretty quick.” He didn’t see me. I hollered some more. “I’ll more than likely be back d’rectly, Granpa.” But he just stood. Getting smaller and smaller in the late evening sun. His shoulders sloped. Granpa looked old.

  The Dog Star

  When you don’t know how far you are going, it is far away. Nobody had told me. I reckin Granpa didn’t know.

  I couldn’t see over the backs of the seats in front of me, and so I watched out the winder; the houses and trees going by, and then just trees. It got dark and I couldn’t see anything.