The Indian School by Gloria Whelan Page A

over my shoulder at thetown that had been my home. How often Mama and I had visited the town market. This time of year the stands were heaped with apples and plums and the pears for which our French farmers are so famous. I thought of the times Papa and I had walked down to the wharves. We loved to see the great puffing steamships and the schooners with their sails out like soaring gulls. Papa would point with great pride to those ships he had helped to build.

    Mr. Jones watched me, the little smile still on his lips. “I could not live in such a town,” he said. “Too many people. In the forest I pick up wood for my forge. Underneath are ants. Many, many. They run this way. They run that way. That is a town.”
    In no time the road took us into the woods. At first there were cabins scattered among the trees. Then there were no cabins. Only great empty fields where stumps of trees appeared to grow like some ghostly crop. “What has happened to all the trees?” I asked.
    It was the only time that day the little smile left Mr. Jones’ face. He took one of his hands from the reins and made a chopping motion. “That is another reason I do not like your town. All the houses there once grew in this forest.”
    We left the empty fields behind and entered into a wood so thick and dark the sun could not find its way into it. “How do you know where to go?” I asked. “The trails all look the same to me.”
    â€œI read the woods like you read those.” He pointed to my package of books. “Look there. See the pine that stretches up higher than the others. And there, the hemlock where the lightning has bitten into it. Soon we will come to the tree where the eagle builds its nest. Tomorrow we go side by side with a stream. This land once belonged to my people, the Potawatami. In the days before I was a blacksmith, I often took this trail.”
    â€œHow did you come to the Indian school?” I asked.
    â€œWhen I was a young man I was about to kill a makwa , a bear. The bear did not like it. I did kill the bear, but first he tried to have my leg for his dinner.”
    I shuddered. “Are there bears where we are going?”
    â€œOnly a few,” Mr. Jones said. “If you do not try to kill them, they will not try to eat you.”
    I resolved then and there never to kill a bear.
    â€œAfter I lost my leg, I was no use to my tribe. I was no longer a good hunter. The blacksmith at your uncle’s school was growing old. Your uncle told him, ‘Teach Red Fox your work.’ Before the school, Red Fox was my name. Now I teach Indian boys how to make a living in that little part of the world that is left to them.”
    The forest was filling with darkness. I worried that we would have to spend the night in the wagon. Perhaps there would be a bear in the woods. Perhaps it wouldknow that Mr. Jones had once killed a bear. Perhaps it would be angry. “Will we have to sleep in the woods?” I asked.
    â€œNo, no. Look there. You see smoke?”
    It took me a while. Finally, in the distance, I could see a wisp of white smoke curling into the darkening sky.
    â€œIt is the cabin of Mother Sally. She will take us in.”
    The sliver of a cabin was hidden among the trees. I could barely make it out until we were upon it. In the darkness the light from the window was a welcome sight. An old woman opened the cabin door. She had a gun pointed at us.
    â€œWho is that? Come into the light so I can make you out.”
    I was too frightened to move, but Mr. Jones limped boldly up to the woman. “It’s me, Mother Sally. I brought a young lady with me.”
    â€œLuke. Come in. You too, my dear.” I was much relieved to see the gun laid smartly aside.
    The cabin was tiny but tidy. The chairs and table looked more like trees growing out of the floor than furniture. Mother Sally was as tiny and tidy as her cabin. Her face was like a withered apple. A long