The Indian School Read online

  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.

  I will not stay in this prison. I go north to my father.

  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.

  FIVE

  All the rest of the week I stayed away from Raven. I had some idea that if I did not see her, I was not deceiving my aunt and uncle. Still, Raven was always on my mind. The sun was weaker, the days shorter, the nights colder. When I saw no new toy in Matthew’s hands, I began to worry. I waited until Sunday was over, thinking it a double sin to deceive my aunt and uncle on the Sabbath. Monday afternoon I took a fishhook from my uncle’s cupboard and some string from my aunt’s ball of twine. I stuffed my pockets with apples and corn bread and went into the woods.

  When I came to the lightning tree, I found Raven looking thinner. She seemed pleased to see me and eagerly ate the food I brought. Looking into the tree, I saw that the birch-bark baskets were nearly empty.

  “How is Matthew?” she asked. “I see him every day, but I do not go close.”

  “He is fine. Raven, won’t you come back to the school? The nights are so cold.”

  “I cannot go back now. Your aunt would be upon me like a fox on a rabbit.”

  “What will happen when the snows come?”

  “There is a story of an Indian girl who was lost in a snowstorm and never found. After the storm her tribe looked up into the sky. They saw stars in the shape of a snowflake. They knew then what had happened to her. Perhaps that is what will happen to me.”

  I did not want Raven to turn into a bunch of stars. I wanted her to stay on earth and be my friend.

  Raven began turning over logs until she found a pale crawly thing with many wriggling legs. She stuck it on the fishhook I had brought. Tying the string onto a branch, she cast the twitching bug out over the water. Again and again Raven sent the bug out. Suddenly a trout leaped out of the water. A moment later the trout lay on the grassy bank, its tail slapping the ground. I looked away as Raven slammed its head against a rock. With a thin-edged stone she cut open the belly to clean the fish.

  “There was a lake by our village,” she said. “At night we would get into canoes, carrying with us birch-bark torches. The torches made the water bright so we could see the fish but they could not see us. Then the men sent spears into the fish. They were not fish like this one but namah, a great fish. One of those fish would feed many people. You looked out in the black night and saw over the lake the canoes with their torches. They were like great fireflies skimming over the water.”

  “In Detroit the fishi
ng boats went out in the early morning,” I said. “Late in the afternoon they returned. Mama and I often went down to the waterfront to meet the boats. Mama would pick out a whitefish for our supper and we would take it home with us. Raven, do you think of your mother?”

  “She goes with me.”

  “My mother is often with me as well.”

  That night as I lay snug in my warm bed, I resolved next day to bring Raven a blanket.

  Extra blankets for the cots were kept in a chest. In the afternoon, after I had put on my cloak, I took one of the blankets from the chest. I wrapped it around me under the cloak and hurried out of the house. I had not received permission to go into the woods, so I hastily handed the blanket to Raven and turned to go.

  “I cannot take this,” Raven said. “Your aunt will guess where I am.”

  “It’s a blanket that is not used. She will never notice.” I thrust the blanket back and returned quickly to the school.

  I was wrong. She did notice. The next day Matthew came down with fever and chills. Aunt Emma went to get an extra blanket for him. “Mary,” she called, “there are only three blankets here. Where is the other one?”

  Mary looked puzzled. “I have not seen the blanket.”

  “Nonsense. No one else takes things from this chest. Do not lie to me.”

  Mary’s head drooped. Tears hung like drops of dew on her long lashes. “I do not have the blanket.”

  “You have stolen the blanket and sold it for money.”

  This was very terrible to me. “I took the blanket, Aunt Emma.”

  Aunt Emma turned to me. “If you were cold and required another blanket, you should have said something. I do not see why you should be spoiled with two blankets when one is all that is required. Bring the blanket here.”

  She would have noticed had I taken the blanket from my bed. I could not say that I had taken the blanket to Raven, for I had promised not to give her away. “I d-don’t have t-two blankets,” I stammered.

  “Then where is the other blanket? Speak up, Lucy.”

  When a child was sick we often held the child’s blanket to the fire to warm it and keep the child cozy. “I was warming Matthew’s blanket. I scorched it so badly, I hid it and took another for Matthew’s bed.” This was a very bad lie. I would not have been surprised if a bolt of lightning had been hurled at me from on high. I would have welcomed it. Nothing would have suited me more than disappearing in a puff of smoke. But no welcome bolt of lightning appeared.

  “Where did you hide it?”

  “I buried it.”

  “What! Buried it! You must have taken leave of your senses. Where did you bury it?”

  “I don’t remember. Someplace in the woods.”

  My aunt became very red and puffed up. “You are an ungrateful and foolish girl. This is how you repay our taking you in. With your carelessness you destroy valuable property.”

  I believe there would have been much more, but just then Uncle Edward hurried into the room. “Emma, you must come at once. Matthew’s fever has risen. He is delirious.”

  At that we all hastened to Matthew’s bedside. To keep the other children from catching his illness, Matthew was in a room by himself. We saw at once that his condition had grown worse. His face was flushed. He was having trouble breathing. From time to time he would cry out Raven’s name. Most worrisome of all was a rash that had appeared on his face and body. We all thought the same thing. Smallpox. The illness that had killed so many of the Indians.

  “I have sent Luke for a doctor,” Uncle Edward said. “But it will take another day for him to get here.”

  My evil doings with the blanket were forgotten. Aunt Emma knelt by Matthew’s bedside. It was the first time I had seen her appear helpless. She turned to Uncle Edward. “What must we do?”

  Uncle Edward said, “He is crying for his sister. It is a pity Raven is not here. She would be a comfort to him.”

  “Can we not find her?” Aunt Emma asked. In her worry over Matthew she had forgotten all her complaints about Raven.

  “How can we find her? When she ran away, we could not discover a trace of her.”

  Matthew called again for Raven. Aunt Emma looked up at Uncle Edward. “I drove her away with my scoldings. Now we may lose Matthew because of my hardness.”

  I could be silent no longer. “Raven is here,” I said.

  Uncle Edward looked at me. His voice was as stern as I have ever heard it. “Lucy, you see how sick Matthew is. You see what state your aunt is in. What foolishness can this be?”

  The words I had held in for so many days came pouring out in one breath. “Raven never ran away. She didn’t want to leave Matthew. She is staying nearby in the woods in a great tree with a hollow. She eats berries and nuts and roasts turtles. I gave the blanket to her so she would not freeze to death at night. I can get her at once.”

  I did not wait a moment. Uncle Edward and Aunt Emma stared openmouthed at me as I ran from the room.

  SIX

  I did not stop to throw on my cloak, but the coldness was nothing to me. I do not think my feet touched the ground. I was sure Raven would return with me. But when I blurted out my story to her, Raven shook her head.

  “It is a trick to bring me back to your prison.”

  “Indeed, it is not. Matthew calls for you. His life may depend upon your returning to calm him.”

  There must have been something in the urgency of my voice that persuaded her. Within moments she was running ahead of me. When I reached the school, she was already with Matthew, cradling him in her arms. Tears ran down her cheeks. Angrily she looked at my aunt and uncle. “You promised my father to care for us.”

  Aunt Emma was too upset to answer. Uncle Edward said, “We would not have Matthew sick for the world. But such things happen. We have sent for a doctor. He will be here tomorrow.”

  With Raven there Matthew grew quieter. He fell into a fitful sleep, but his breath came in short gasps. Raven stayed with him all night, as did my aunt. I could not sleep and looked into the room from time to time. Often I would find Raven and Aunt Emma joined together in some task to make Matthew comfortable. Aunt Emma would dip a cloth into cool water and wring it out. Raven would take it and lay it gently upon Matthew’s forehead. Raven would carefully lift Matthew from his bed while Aunt Emma spread a clean sheet under him. No word passed between them. Yet their hands working together was surely a kind of language.

  In the morning Uncle and I begged them to get some sleep while we watched over Matthew. They would not leave him.

  Raven had noticed Matthew’s rash at once. She shook her head. “It is not the smallpox rash.”

  “I pray you are right,” Uncle Edward said.

  That afternoon the doctor arrived. Dr. Windsor had bright blue eyes that looked right through your skin to your very bones. At once he took over, sending Raven and Aunt Emma from the room. “You must leave it to me now,” he said, and shooed them away.

  We stood outside the door waiting. The moment he came out, Uncle Edward asked, “Is it smallpox, Doctor?” He worried not only for Matthew but for all the students.

  Dr. Windsor shook his head. “No, indeed. It is merely chicken pox that has gone awry. It is a rare happening with chicken pox, but pneumonia has developed. That is the cause of Matthew’s troubles. His fever is high. Today should tell the tale. I will remain with you. You may continue to nurse the boy. It is all we can do for him at the moment.”

  Raven and Aunt Emma hastened back into the room. Mary and I brought basins of water from the kitchen. Uncle Edward paced back and forth in the hallway, his lips ever moving in prayer. Matthew tossed and shook like a leaf in a high wind. He mumbled words that made no sense. From time to time the doctor silently entered the sickroom, and then left just as silently. Though we looked hard, we saw no sign of hope upon his face.

  Darkness fell and a full moon, the freezing moon, shone through the windows of Matthew’s room. It frosted everything in its path. One candle burned in a far c
orner so as not to disturb Matthew’s sleep. “Surely his breathing is more steady,” Aunt Emma said to the doctor.

  “You are right. The crisis is passed. I believe the boy will recover. We can all get some rest now.” Raven and Aunt Emma refused to leave. When I looked into the room, I saw them asleep beside Matthew’s bed, their heads resting on either side of his pillow.

  In the morning Matthew was so improved that Dr. Windsor took leave of us. Uncle Edward attempted to pay him, but he would take no fee. “I have looked around at your school and I see what good work you are doing for these children. Where they might have gone hungry, here they have food. You are preparing them for some useful work so they may find a place in the world. Still, I think it is a sorry thing that they must give up their old ways.”

  Matthew’s appetite returned. Aunt Emma found tasty morsels for him and shared his care with Raven. Because Matthew so often called his sister by her name, Aunt Emma fell into the practice also. They were not friends, but they were no longer enemies. At first Raven spoke of leaving, but Matthew cried so, she promised to stay.

  I did not see how she could go back into the woods. Snow covered everything. One thing looked like another. Even if Raven curled up like a bear in the lightning tree, she would not survive. I thought of the Indian girl she had told me about. One night I would have looked up to see stars scattered into a snowflake.

  Winter seemed to go on forever. Very little food was left. The portions on our plates grew smaller. Uncle Edward and Aunt Emma took almost nothing for themselves. Uncle Edward grew thinner than ever. Aunt Emma looked like an upholstered chair that had lost its stuffing.

  There was little to eat besides carrots, cabbages, and turnips. The cows gave little milk and the salt pork was gone. Apart from a few rabbits shot by Luke Jones there was no meat. Mr. Jones declared that if only he could get to the cedar swamp, where the deer wintered, he would surely find meat for us. Unhappily, with his wooden leg he could walk no more than a few feet in the deep snow. Uncle Edward offered to try to get a deer. But everyone knew how helpless he was with a rifle. He held it as though it were a snake about to bite him.