The Indian School (3 page)

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”—for 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.

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.

Now that Raven was forbidden to spend time with Matthew, Aunt Emma had him
for herself. This, along with many loud scoldings from my aunt, was more than Raven could bear. One morning Raven was gone, leaving behind a note.

Aunt Emma was furious. Uncle Edward was worried. “We have promised their father to care for his children. This is very bad.” After many false starts he hitched up the wagon. He set out on the road north to look for Raven, but by the day's end he was back. “There is no sign of her. No one has seen her. Most likely she has kept to the woods rather than travel the road. I have urged that word be sent to us if she is discovered.”

“She is an insolent child,” my aunt said. “I believe Matthew will do better apart from her and her stubborn ways.”

Matthew did not do better. When he missed his sister at supper, he asked where
she was. When she was not there at breakfast, he cried. It was not until the third day that he regained his sweet temper. Aunt Emma said, “He has forgotten her, and just as well.”

Matthew had not forgotten Raven. As I put him to bed that night, I plumped his pillow. Underneath the pillow was a tiny animal, a porcupine, fashioned of a pinecone and pine needles. I knew Matthew had not had it before. No matter how I coaxed him, he would not tell me where it
had come from. I put it back under his pillow and said nothing. I knew where it had come from. Raven had brought it to him while he was outdoors playing. She was somewhere near. That was why Matthew was happy once again.

The next afternoon I offered to look after the small boys while they played outside. I watched for Raven but she did not come. For several more days I watched. The beginning of the following week, when the children were playing a game of hide-and-seek I saw Matthew run into the woods. It was a long while before the other children could find his hiding place. When he was finally discovered, he had a fistful of hickory nuts.

Later, finding my aunt busy with a stew she was cooking for dinner, I asked if I might take a little walk. “Run along,” Aunt Emma said. “You are only underfoot here.”

I did not know where to begin looking. I wandered through the part of the woods where Raven and I had collected nuts. The
trees were bare. Their black branches were silhouetted against a gray sky. The Indian children spoke of October as the month of the falling leaf. Now it was November, the freezing month. That morning when I had gone out to get water I had to crack the ice on the rain barrel. I pulled my shawl around me and wished I had taken my mittens. If Raven was here in the woods, she would have to have a shelter at night. It was then that I thought of the lightning tree.

At first I could not find it. One tree looked much like another to me. When I came to the stream, I recalled how Raven and I had followed it looking for walnut trees. Now its edges were embroidered with ice. I hurried along beside it until I came to the tree. There was no one there, but smoke from a damped fire scrawled upward like a secret message.

“Raven,” I called. “Raven, I know you're there. I promise not to tell.” I waited. “Please, Raven. I need to see you.”

After a moment Raven appeared. She
looked more like a wood sprite than a student at the Indian school. Her dress was torn and her hair a tangle. “You said you were going north,” I said.

“I could not leave my brother. I said that so no one would look here for me.”

“What do you have to eat?”

Raven led me to the tree. Inside were birch-bark baskets of dried fruit and nuts. “The cranberries are ripe in the bog near here. Yesterday I caught a turtle.”

“A turtle! How could you cook it?”

“I roasted it in its shell.”

I shuddered. “But you'll freeze to death when winter comes.”

“I don't care. I will never go back to your aunt. There are ducks who feed upon fish and you cannot eat them for their bad taste. They are good for nothing. That is your aunt.”

I did not think my aunt would be happy to be compared to a duck. “She is not so cross as she seems,” I said. “She is very fond of Matthew.”

“My brother does as she tells him. He runs after her like a baby goose following its mother.”

Now Aunt Emma was not only a duck but a goose.

“I am not a little goose,” Raven said. “I will not follow her.”

As we spoke, there was a whirring sound and the sky darkened. Overhead a great flock of passenger pigeons turned the sky into a feathered river. They were on their way south. Some of the birds sifted down onto nearby trees. They rested on the branches, unafraid of us. Raven picked up a heavy log. She swung at the birds. A moment later three of them lay dead at our feet.

Quickly Raven began to pluck one of the birds. I took another in my hands. It was still warm. The bird was bluish-gray with a breast the color of a fiery sunset. I was shocked at how eagerly Raven had killed it. Still, in all my life I had never had to go without food. I knew that if I were
hungry, I, too, would have killed the birds.

I handed the small, limp body to Raven. “I must go or my aunt will be suspicious.”

“You won't give me away?”

I promised I would not. “Is there anything I can bring you?”

“A fishhook and some string.”

When I returned to the school, I kept my promise not to betray Raven. Yet it was hard for me to look my aunt and uncle in the eye. When my uncle read from the scripture that evening, it seemed the psalm was meant for me: “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.” After that I was glad to creep up to my bed and hide.