There were eight in our party of bronzed children who were going East
with the missionaries. Among us were three young braves, two tall girls,
and we three little ones, Judéwin, Thowin, and I.
We had been very impatient to start on our journey to the Red Apple
Country, which, we were told, lay a little beyond the great circular
horizon of the Western prairie. Under a sky of rosy apples we dreamt of
roaming as freely and happily as we had chased the cloud shadows on the
Dakota plains. We had anticipated much pleasure from a ride on the iron
horse, but the throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled us.
On the train, fair women, with tottering babies on each arm, stopped
their haste and scrutinized the children of absent mothers. Large men,
with heavy bundles in their hands, halted near by, and riveted their
glassy blue eyes upon us.
I sank deep into the corner of my seat, for I resented being watched.
Directly in front of me, children who were no larger than I hung
themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces
toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and
pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such
rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children's
further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me
constantly on the verge of tears.
I sat perfectly still, with my eyes downcast, daring only now and then
to shoot long glances around me. Chancing to turn to the window at my
side, I was quite breathless upon seeing one familiar object. It was the
telegraph pole which strode by at short paces. Very near my mother's
dwelling, along the edge of a road thickly bordered with wild
sunflowers, some poles like these had been planted by white men. Often I
had stopped, on my way down the road, to hold my ear against the pole,
and, hearing its low moaning, I used to wonder what the paleface had
done to hurt it. Now I sat watching for each pole that glided by to be
the last one.
In this way I had forgotten my uncomfortable surroundings, when I heard
one of my comrades call out my name. I saw the missionary standing very
near, tossing candies and gums into our midst. This amused us all, and
we tried to see who could catch the most of the sweetmeats.
Though we rode several days inside of the iron horse, I do not recall a
single thing about our luncheons.
It was night when we reached the school grounds. The lights from the
windows of the large buildings fell upon some of the icicled trees that
stood beneath them. We were led toward an open door, where the
brightness of the lights within flooded out over the heads of the
excited palefaces who blocked our way. My body trembled more from fear
than from the snow I trod upon.
Entering the house, I stood close against the wall. The strong glaring
light in the large whitewashed room dazzled my eyes. The noisy hurrying
of hard shoes upon a bare wooden floor increased the whirring in my
ears. My only safety seemed to be in keeping next to the wall. As I was
wondering in which direction to escape from all this confusion, two warm
hands grasped me firmly, and in the same moment I was tossed high in
midair. A rosy-cheeked paleface woman caught me in her arms. I was both
frightened and insulted by such trifling. I stared into her eyes,
wishing her to let me stand on my own feet, but she jumped me up and
down with increasing enthusiasm. My mother had never made a plaything of
her wee daughter. Remembering this I began to cry aloud.
They misunderstood the cause of my tears, and placed me at a white table
loaded with food. There our party were united again. As I did not hush
my crying, one of the older ones whispered to me, "Wait until you are
alone in the night."
It was very little I could swallow besides my sobs, that evening.
"Oh, I want my mother and my brother Dawée! I want to go to my aunt!" I
pleaded; but the ears of the palefaces could not hear me.
From the table we were taken along an upward incline of wooden boxes,
which I learned afterward to call a stairway. At the top was a quiet
hall, dimly lighted. Many narrow beds were in one straight line down the
entire length of the wall. In them lay sleeping brown faces, which
peeped just out of the coverings. I was tucked into bed with one of the
tall girls, because she talked to me in my mother tongue and seemed to
soothe me.
I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy,
as I had thought I should be. My long travel and the bewildering sights
had exhausted me. I fell asleep, heaving deep, tired sobs. My tears were
left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother
was near to wipe them away.