One sultry month I sat at a desk heaped up with work. Now, as I recall
it, I wonder how I could have dared to disregard nature's warning with
such recklessness. Fortunately, my inheritance of a marvelous endurance
enabled me to bend without breaking.
Though I had gone to and fro, from my room to the office, in an unhappy
silence, I was watched by those around me. On an early morning I was
summoned to the superintendent's office. For a half-hour I listened to
his words, and when I returned to my room I remembered one sentence
above the rest. It was this: "I am going to turn you loose to pasture!"
He was sending me West to gather Indian pupils for the school, and this
was his way of expressing it.
I needed nourishment, but the midsummer's travel across the continent to
search the hot prairies for overconfident parents who would entrust
their children to strangers was a lean pasturage. However, I dwelt on
the hope of seeing my mother. I tried to reason that a change was a
rest. Within a couple of days I started toward my mother's home.
The intense heat and the sticky car smoke that followed my homeward
trail did not noticeably restore my vitality. Hour after hour I gazed
upon the country which was receding rapidly from me. I noticed the
gradual expansion of the horizon as we emerged out of the forests into
the plains. The great high buildings, whose towers overlooked the dense
woodlands, and whose gigantic clusters formed large cities, diminished,
together with the groves, until only little log cabins lay snugly in the
bosom of the vast prairie. The cloud shadows which drifted about on the
waving yellow of long-dried grasses thrilled me like the meeting of old
friends.
At a small station, consisting of a single frame house with a rickety
board walk around it, I alighted from the iron horse, just thirty miles
from my mother and my brother Dawée. A strong hot wind seemed determined
to blow my hat off, and return me to olden days when I roamed bareheaded
over the hills. After the puffing engine of my train was gone, I stood
on the platform in deep solitude. In the distance I saw the gently
rolling land leap up into bare hills. At their bases a broad gray road
was winding itself round about them until it came by the station. Among
these hills I rode in a light conveyance, with a trusty driver, whose
unkempt flaxen hair hung shaggy about his ears and his leather neck of
reddish tan. From accident or decay he had lost one of his long front
teeth.
Though I call him a paleface, his cheeks were of a brick red. His moist
blue eyes, blurred and bloodshot, twitched involuntarily. For a long
time he had driven through grass and snow from this solitary station to
the Indian village. His weather-stained clothes fitted badly his warped
shoulders. He was stooped, and his protruding chin, with its tuft of dry
flax, nodded as monotonously as did the head of his faithful beast.
All the morning I looked about me, recognizing old familiar sky lines of
rugged bluffs and round-topped hills. By the roadside I caught glimpses
of various plants whose sweet roots were delicacies among my people.
When I saw the first cone-shaped wigwam, I could not help uttering an
exclamation which caused my driver a sudden jump out of his drowsy
nodding.
At noon, as we drove through the eastern edge of the reservation, I grew
very impatient and restless. Constantly I wondered what my mother would
say upon seeing her little daughter grown tall. I had not written her
the day of my arrival, thinking I would surprise her. Crossing a ravine
thicketed with low shrubs and plum bushes, we approached a large yellow
acre of wild sunflowers. Just beyond this nature's garden we drew near
to my mother's cottage. Close by the log cabin stood a little
canvas-covered wigwam. The driver stopped in front of the open door, and
in a long moment my mother appeared at the threshold.
I had expected her to run out to greet me, but she stood still, all the
while staring at the weather-beaten man at my side. At length, when her
loftiness became unbearable, I called to her, "Mother, why do you stop?"
This seemed to break the evil moment, and she hastened out to hold my
head against her cheek.
"My daughter, what madness possessed you to bring home such a fellow?"
she asked, pointing at the driver, who was fumbling in his pockets for
change while he held the bill I gave him between his jagged teeth.
"Bring him! Why, no, mother, he has brought me! He is a driver!" I
exclaimed.
Upon this revelation, my mother threw her arms about me and apologized
for her mistaken inference. We laughed away the momentary hurt. Then she
built a brisk fire on the ground in the tepee, and hung a blackened
coffeepot on one of the prongs of a forked pole which leaned over the
flames. Placing a pan on a heap of red embers, she baked some unleavened
bread. This light luncheon she brought into the cabin, and arranged on a
table covered with a checkered oilcloth.
My mother had never gone to school, and though she meant always to give
up her own customs for such of the white man's ways as pleased her, she
made only compromises. Her two windows, directly opposite each other,
she curtained with a pink-flowered print. The naked logs were unstained,
and rudely carved with the axe so as to fit into one another. The sod
roof was trying to boast of tiny sunflowers, the seeds of which had
probably been planted by the constant wind. As I leaned my head against
the logs, I discovered the peculiar odor that I could not forget. The
rains had soaked the earth and roof so that the smell of damp clay was
but the natural breath of such a dwelling.
"Mother, why is not your house cemented? Do you have no interest in a
more comfortable shelter?" I asked, when the apparent inconveniences of
her home seemed to suggest indifference on her part.
"You forget, my child, that I am now old, and I do not work with beads
any more. Your brother Dawée, too, has lost his position, and we are
left without means to buy even a morsel of food," she replied.
Dawée was a government clerk in our reservation when I last heard from
him. I was surprised upon hearing what my mother said concerning his
lack of employment. Seeing the puzzled expression on my face, she
continued: "Dawée! Oh, has he not told you that the Great Father at
Washington sent a white son to take your brother's pen from him? Since
then Dawée has not been able to make use of the education the Eastern
school has given him."
I found no words with which to answer satisfactorily. I found no reason
with which to cool my inflamed feelings.
Dawée was a whole day's journey off on the prairie, and my mother did
not expect him until the next day. We were silent.
When, at length, I raised my head to hear more clearly the moaning of
the wind in the corner logs, I noticed the daylight streaming into the
dingy room through several places where the logs fitted unevenly.
Turning to my mother, I urged her to tell me more about Dawée's trouble,
but she only said: "Well, my daughter, this village has been these many
winters a refuge for white robbers. The Indian cannot complain to the
Great Father in Washington without suffering outrage for it here. Dawée
tried to secure justice for our tribe in a small matter, and today you
see the folly of it."
Again, though she stopped to hear what I might say, I was silent.
"My child, there is only one source of justice, and I have been praying
steadfastly to the Great Spirit to avenge our wrongs," she said, seeing
I did not move my lips.
My shattered energy was unable to hold longer any faith, and I cried out
desperately: "Mother, don't pray again! The Great Spirit does not care
if we live or die! Let us not look for good or justice: then we shall
not be disappointed!"
"Sh! my child, do not talk so madly. There is Taku Iyotan Wasaka,[1] to
which I pray," she answered, as she stroked my head again as she used to
do when I was a smaller child.
[Footnote 1: An absolute Power.]