When Breaks the Dawn (Canadian West) (8 page)

During the month of August three more babies were born in the village, but only one of them lived. There was great mourning among the people as the tiny graves were dug. I sorrowed too, thinking of the mothers and the pain they must feel.

The days became noticeably shorter, and we knew summer would not be with us forever.

ELEVEN

Another Winter

With the honking of the Canada geese and the autumn dance of the leaves in the blustery winds, we knew fall was here. The berry patches had been stripped of all of their fruit. We had either canned the berries or else dried them in the sun.

Wynn was working a little closer to the settlement now, and I was up in time to prepare his breakfast each morning before he went to another day’s work.

The welcome day arrived when Nimmie moved from the cramped cabin to her new home. I insisted on the enjoyable task of caring for Nonita while Nimmie settled in with the nesting instinct of a mother robin. When I reluctantly returned the precious little bundle, Nimmie chirped and twittered to her little nestling and Nonita smiled and gurgled back.

I often noticed the Indian men studying the sky. Even the women, as they walked to the nearby woods for their daily wood supply for their fires, glanced heavenward as though the skies held many answers to the days that lay ahead.

I wanted to keep the Indian summer forever. I was not happy about the thought of being shut in again by the swirling snow and the howling winds. I was sure Wynn was not looking forward to the difficult days of winter either, but he made no comment.

Kip’s fur grew thicker and fluffier and I knew the wild animals, too, were wearing a warmer coat against the cold that was to come. I no longer heard the birds fighting over the scraps of produce left in my garden. Most of them had already migrated south.

And then one morning when I rose from my warm bed, I noticed a chill about the house, even though Wynn had already started the fire in the stove. My glance went to the window and I saw the snow gently sifting down. If I had not been dreading it so, I would have most surely thought it to be beautiful. It fell in large, soft flakes, and as it floated gently on the slight wind, it looked like fluffy down. After my time in the North, I knew better, so I did not stop to enjoy the sight. Instead, I went into Wynn’s office to draw some consolation from him.

“It’s snowing,” I informed him as soon as I reached his door.

He looked up from the dog harness he was mending and nodded.

“It’s only October,” I complained, as though Wynn should know better than to let it snow so early.

“I know,” he answered. “It likely won’t last for long.”

I knew he was trying to reassure me. I also knew that some years the snow
did
come to stay even in October. I hoped this wouldn’t be one of those years.

I looked at what Wynn was doing. The dog harnesses were only used when there was snow on the ground.

He noticed my accusing gaze.

“Didn’t have anything else that needed doing this morning,” he explained defensively, “so I thought I might as well get an early start on this.”

I nodded and changed the subject. “I’ll have breakfast in a few minutes,” I said, and turned back to the little kitchen area and the singing kettle.

The snow fell all that day, and the next and the next.
We won’t be seeing the last of it for some time,
I groaned silently.

I was feeling close to despair when there was a knock on my door. Nimmie came in, shaking the snow from her bare head and the blankets covering Nonita.

I was surprised to see her, but I shouldn’t have been. A little thing like a few inches of snow would not have kept Nimmie home.

“I have some good news,” she said, even before she unwrapped the baby and removed her coat.

She didn’t wait for me to ask but went on, “Remember I said that Ian had to pay a visit to the main village?”

I nodded, reaching for the squirming Nonita.

“Well, he’s back. I asked him to check with the chief about our starting a school. He did, and the chief just shrugged his shoulders and said that if we wanted to teach the children letters, it was up to us, just as long as we didn’t interfere with their rightful duties. We can go ahead, Elizabeth; we can start our classes! Now that winter seems to be here the children will be free to attend for a few hours each day.”

We could go ahead and start our school!
So the snow had brought some good. I looked out the window as my heart thanked God for the welcome news.

I turned back to Nimmie, the small Nonita still in my arms. “Oh, Nimmie!” I exclaimed, “we have so much to do to get ready! So much planning. Where will we hold it and—?”

Nimmie laughed and reclaimed her baby. “Slow down, Elizabeth,” she said; “we’ll get it all worked out.”

I made the tea and Nimmie sat down at my table. We got pencils and paper and began to work through every part of our plan.

I would do the actual teaching. Nimmie would be my helper and interpreter as needed. We planned to pool our resources for classroom supplies. Ian could send out for some pencils and scribblers for the students’ use. He had another wagon train due in soon with the winter supplies for the settlement. The carrier was leaving in two days with the additions to Ian’s supply list, so our needs would have to be figured out and presented to Ian very quickly.

My mind could hardly work in the excitement. Another of my prayers had been answered: We would get our school.

TWELVE

School

Even though Nimmie and I went right to work on our plans and materials for the new school, still it was near the end of November before we held our first class.

That first early snow had not left us. Instead, it had been added to by three separate storms. Wynn now used his sled dogs for his rounds, and the snow was almost deep enough for snowshoes. Many of the village men already had left the comfort of the village and returned to their traplines.

My only consolation for the early winter was the proposed school. Even with the chief ’s approval, we knew our classes would have to be kept short. The children were needed to gather the family’s wood supply and carry water from the river. It had not frozen over yet but would soon, and then daily a hole would have to be cut in the ice in order for them to dip out the necessary water. When the ice got too thick, the settlement families would have to simply melt the drifted snow.

I was glad we had a well with a pump. The villagers were welcome to use it, but most of them declared pumping a “bad job,” as the small stream of water took a long time to fill their pail. In the summer months some of the children liked to play with the pump. They usually came together, two or three boys, and not too much of the pumped water ever found its way to the village home. Most of it remained in puddles in our yard, or soaked through the boys’ clothing.

Nimmie and I planned for classes from nine to twelve. It didn’t seem like much, but we thought it better to take it easy than to overdo and have parents complaining about school keeping the youngsters from their duties.

A classroom was one of our biggest problems. I knew our cabin was too small. We would be able to fit only eight at the most. We were hoping for a better attendance than that. We considered the empty Lamuir cabin Nimmie and Ian had used. It also was small, but with simple tables and benches, it might give us enough room for now. We discussed this with our husbands, and they made plans to have the tables and benches made.

We also needed a wood supply for the fireplace in the cabin. Wynn took care of that; with three or four men, he went to the nearby wood and hauled out dead, fallen logs. The logs were brought to the village and cut into proper lengths for our fireplace, then stacked up against the side of the small cabin.

We had no way to advertise our classes, so Nimmie and I walked from door to door, telling each household about our plan. Many of the people had no clocks, only the sun and their uncanny but rather accurate sense of time. Nimmie borrowed the idea of the store-hour signal, which was no longer in effect, Ian having taken over regular hours since his new building was useable. So as we went from door to door, we told them to listen for the banging of the hammer on the drum barrel, and then they would know that school was to begin.

Both Wynn and Ian supported us completely in our project. Many times as Nimmie and I worked over our lesson plans, one or the other would offer advice.

“If you want to get their attention and make them interested in learning,” offered Wynn, “then you must teach them things that relate to their life. No ‘c-a-t spells cat.’ ” (We had no cats in the village. The dogs would have torn them to shreds.)

“Use words they know: fish, canoe, river, forest, dog, moon, sun, stars, trap.”

I could see what Wynn was getting at and I agreed with him, at least until we fully had introduced learning to our students. We did hope also to expand the world as they knew it.

We had few textbooks. The scribblers and pencils arrived with the winter supplies. As a surprise for Nimmie and me, Ian had also ordered a small chalkboard and a good supply of chalk with two brushes. We were thrilled with it all. When Wynn mounted the chalkboard on a wall in the cabin, it looked like a real classroom.

One further problem was lack of light. The cabin’s one tiny window afforded little illumination even on the brightest of days, and much less during the dreary winter months. Ian gave us the use of two oil lamps from the store, but even they did not light up our little room very well.

But Nonita was not a problem—she was a contented baby, who still slept many hours of her life away, and Nimmie would be able to bring her to school and care for her as necessary.

Since we were beginning with words and concepts the Indian children knew, I needed teaching material. I wanted pictures to accompany the words. I had none. I was not an artist, but I set to work trying to illustrate the words on the cards I had made. “Fish” was not difficult, and my “canoe” and “sled” were recognizable, but “dog” and “deer” and “moose” required a lot of imagination.

I wasn’t sure how to show the difference between the sun and the moon. Did the Indian people see the moon with a smiling face? As I labored over my drawings, I certainly recognized their inadequacies. I wasn’t sure if my “art” would help or hinder my students’ progress.

At last the long-awaited day arrived. Wynn promised to build our fire and have the chill out of the cabin by the time the teachers and the students arrived. I gathered the rest of my teaching tools together, bundled myself up against the cold wind, closed the door on the whining Kip, and headed for the exciting first day of school.

Nimmie was already there. The room was cozy and warm. The crude tables and chairs were the best that could be managed out of rough lumber, and I knew they held the possibility of many future slivers. Beneath our blackboard was a piece of chalk and one of our brushes. A few of my books were on a shelf along with our supply of scribblers and the pencils Wynn carefully had sharpened for us with his jackknife.

I had thought that supplies were quite limited in my schoolhouse at Pine Spring, and so they were; but here at the settlement I had even less to work with and just as great a need.

We were ready. This was our school. I took a deep breath and smiled at Nimmie, giving her the nod to “ring our bell.”

I don’t know if I really expected a stampede to our door. If I did, I certainly shouldn’t have. I knew the Indian people better than that, and yet somehow because of my own great excitement, I guess I expected them to be excited too.

At the end of our gonging signal, we waited for our first student. No one came. The minutes ticked by, and still no one showed up.

I began to feel panicky, but Nimmie seemed perfectly at ease. She threw another log in the fireplace, then crossed over to where tiny Nonita was sleeping on a bear rug in the corner and sat down beside her on the floor.

“Do you think we should bang on it again?” I asked anxiously.

“They heard,” said Nimmie. I too was sure they had heard. One could not have lived anywhere in the village and not have heard the terrible din of the clanging barrel ringing out over the crisp morning air.

We waited.

“Why aren’t they coming?” I asked Nimmie.

“They’ll come,” Nimmie assured me, unperturbed.

We waited some more.

Nimmie was right. At last two girls came toward the cabin. I, who had been watching out the window for any sign of activity, met them at the door. I wanted to be sure they didn’t change their minds.

Three more girls, hiding giggles behind their hands, soon followed, and then another, and then four boys, grouped together as if for support. Two more girls, a single, a pair of boys. They kept straggling in until I feared that most of our morning would be taken with trying to get some kind of a roll call established.

I welcomed the children and found them each a place to sit. Nimmie repeated my words in their own native tongue. I explained to them what we would be doing at school, hoping the excitement in my voice would somehow carry over to them. Twenty-three pairs of eyes never left my face, but I saw no flicker of interest or enthusiasm. I swallowed hard and went on.

“We will be learning numbers and words and colors,” I continued, trying to make it sound fascinating, but the expressions before me did not change.

Nimmie stepped forward to stand beside me. She began to speak to them in her own soft and flowing speech. I understood only a few of the words, but somehow they managed to convey to me, and to the children, a sense of wonder—an inspiration. A few eyes before me began to light.

As we worked on the roll call, other stragglers arrived. Our schoolhouse was crowded. We didn’t have room to seat any more. I was exhilarated!
Wait till I tell Wynn!
I exulted. I remembered his words of caution.

“Don’t be too disappointed, Elizabeth, if you have very few students. The value system of the people here varies greatly from ours. They do not see the need, or the advantage, of spending many hours trying to learn about things they will never see or know. What good is all that learning if it will not put food in the pot, or coax the fox to the trap?”