The first turning away from the easy, natural flow of my life occurred
in an early spring. It was in my eighth year; in the month of March, I
afterward learned. At this age I knew but one language, and that was my
mother's native tongue.
From some of my playmates I heard that two paleface missionaries were in
our village. They were from that class of white men who wore big hats
and carried large hearts, they said. Running direct to my mother, I
began to question her why these two strangers were among us. She told
me, after I had teased much, that they had come to take away Indian boys
and girls to the East. My mother did not seem to want me to talk about
them. But in a day or two, I gleaned many wonderful stories from my
playfellows concerning the strangers.
"Mother, my friend Judéwin is going home with the missionaries. She is
going to a more beautiful country than ours; the palefaces told her
so!" I said wistfully, wishing in my heart that I too might go.
Mother sat in a chair, and I was hanging on her knee. Within the last
two seasons my big brother Dawée had returned from a three years'
education in the East, and his coming back influenced my mother to take
a farther step from her native way of living. First it was a change from
the buffalo skin to the white man's canvas that covered our wigwam. Now
she had given up her wigwam of slender poles, to live, a foreigner, in a
home of clumsy logs.
"Yes, my child, several others besides Judéwin are going away with the
palefaces. Your brother said the missionaries had inquired about his
little sister," she said, watching my face very closely.
My heart thumped so hard against my breast, I wondered if she could hear
it.
"Did he tell them to take me, mother?" I asked, fearing lest Dawée had
forbidden the palefaces to see me, and that my hope of going to the
Wonderland would be entirely blighted.
With a sad, slow smile, she answered: "There! I knew you were wishing to
go, because Judéwin has filled your ears with the white man's lies.
Don't believe a word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child,
their deeds are bitter. You will cry for me, but they will not even
soothe you. Stay with me, my little one! Your brother Dawée says that
going East, away from your mother, is too hard an experience for his
baby sister."
Thus my mother discouraged my curiosity about the lands beyond our
eastern horizon; for it was not yet an ambition for Letters that was
stirring me. But on the following day the missionaries did come to our
very house. I spied them coming up the footpath leading to our cottage.
A third man was with them, but he was not my brother Dawée. It was
another, a young interpreter, a paleface who had a smattering of the
Indian language. I was ready to run out to meet them, but I did not dare
to displease my mother. With great glee, I jumped up and down on our
ground floor. I begged my mother to open the door, that they would be
sure to come to us. Alas! They came, they saw, and they conquered!
Judéwin had told me of the great tree where grew red, red apples; and
how we could reach out our hands and pick all the red apples we could
eat. I had never seen apple trees. I had never tasted more than a dozen
red apples in my life; and when I heard of the orchards of the East, I
was eager to roam among them. The missionaries smiled into my eyes and
patted my head. I wondered how mother could say such hard words against
him.
"Mother, ask them if little girls may have all the red apples they want,
when they go East," I whispered aloud, in my excitement.
The interpreter heard me, and answered: "Yes, little girl, the nice red
apples are for those who pick them; and you will have a ride on the iron
horse if you go with these good people."