CHAPTER 10

Wisconsin, 1881

 

Miss Wells strode down the aisle, her horsehair crinolette rasping against her cotton skirt, her heels like a hammer atop the wooden floor. She rapped her ruler on the edge of the desk Alma and Minowe now shared. “On your feet, Margaret. Let’s hear your numbers.”

The girl flinched and slowly rose to her feet. “One, two, dree, four, five . . . er . . .”

“Six,” Alma whispered without looking up from her book.

“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” Minowe sank back into her seat beside Alma the moment she finished speaking.

“Adequate, but not exemplary.” Miss Wells’s eyes flickered to Alma and narrowed. “Perhaps next time you can complete the recitation without Miss Alma’s help.”

Alma clamped her lips around a laugh. She glanced at Minowe and saw the same pent-up laughter building behind her cheeks.

“All right, class, pull out your slates. Write out numbers one through ten. Copy them five times before the end of the period.”

Minowe picked up her chalk, and Alma turned back to her book. She knew Miss Wells would quiz her about the reading at the end of class, but her attention drifted from the book’s pages to the windows.

A fresh powdering of snow had fallen during the night. She couldn’t wait to don her overcoat and race outside. The Indian girls played a game with sticks and twine—pupu’sikawe’win, Minowe called it—no matter the weather. Now Alma played as well.

Of course, the snow had put an end to their nighttime excursions into the forest. Mr. Simms would undoubtedly notice footprints leading to and from the school.

After lunch, the boys marched outside for woodworking instruction with Mr. Simms while the girls cleared the tables and headed for the kitchen.

With her arms elbow-deep in a bowl of minced meat and breadcrumbs, Mrs. Simms divvied up the chores. Alice and Catherine washed the noontime dishes while the littlest girls dried. Others set to work peeling potatoes and churning butter.

Alma, Minowe, and Rose—whom Alma now called by her Ho-chunk name, on stools at one end of the large, wood table in the center of the kitchen. A mound of dough towered before them, which they were to knead and shape into rolls.

Alma loved this time of day, no matter what her assigned task. As long as they did their work and kept their voices to a whisper, Mrs. Simms never yelled at them for talking and giggling.

With an apron tied about her waist and her hands dusted white with flour, Alma grabbed a handful of dough and pressed it down onto the table. She flattened and folded, flattened and folded, then formed a small ball and placed it into a large pan greased with lard. Her next one came out oblong and lumpy—more the shape of an animal than a roll. She laughed and nudged her friends.

“Look. A rabbit.”

Minowe raised her eyebrows. shrugged.

Alma formed two long ears and a round tail. “See?” She hopped the sticky dough across the table.

giggled.

“Waabooz,” Minowe said.

Alma repeated both words. It had taken her days to get the nasally i sound in name right, to mimic the long vowels frequent in Minowe’s words, but she loved learning, loved the game of piecing together the syllables and guessing at the meaning, loved that language—hers and theirs—was something they could share.

“Rabbit,” the Indians said together, struggling, just as she did, with their pronunciation.

Minowe took her roll, shaped wings onto either side, and moved it through the air. “Bineshiinh.”

said.

“Bird!” Alma shouted, loud enough to catch a raised eyebrow from Mrs. Simms. “Sorry,” she mumbled. Her friends laughed.

went next, creating a sticky blob neither Alma nor Minowe could guess at. She grabbed a new piece of dough and formed four legs and a round body. Then, after a quick glance in Mrs. Simms’s direction, bared her teeth and growled. A bear! in Ho-chunk. Makwa in Anishinaabemowin.

The game continued until only a few sticky streaks of dough remained where the giant mound had stood. Alma scraped what she could into a final ball, sculpting legs, a thick tail, and upturned snout—a wolf howling at the moon. She held it up for the girls to see.

scrunched her face, and Minowe poked at the now-sagging form. Alma readjusted the neck so the head once again turned upward and made a quiet howling noise.

clapped.

Alma echoed the Ho-chunk word, still stumbling over the nasally vowels.

They both turned to Minowe. She took the lump of dough from Alma’s hand and studied it, then shook her head. Alma and howled together, faces raised toward the ceiling, lips drawn into an O.

“Ma’iig—” Minowe stopped mid-word and let the mushy figurine drop to the table.

“Are you girls speaking Indian?”

At the sound of Miss Wells’s voice, Alma snapped to attention, dropping her face and clasping her sticky hands together.

“Need I remind you such speech is forbidden? Perhaps demerits or—”

“No,” Alma said.

Miss Wells’s eyes flared at the interruption. “Excuse me?”

Alma’s knees knocked against the leg of the table. “We . . . um . . . we weren’t speaking Indian. I was teaching them English.” She nudged Minowe in the ribs. “Tell Miss Wells some of the words I taught you.”

“Bird,” Minowe said without looking up. “Rab . . . rab . . .”

“Rabbit,” chimed in. “Pig, mouse.”

“And those other—”

Mrs. Simms cut her off. “Can I fetch you something, Amelia?”

Irritation sparked in Miss Wells’s eyes, but she fashioned a thin-lipped smile. “No, thank you. I just came to return my teacup.” She placed her cup and saucer by the sink, then turned back to the girls. “Leave the teaching of English to me, Miss Alma.”

* * *

That evening, Alma’s father called her into his office. He sat behind a massive desk like the proud captain of a ship. Neat stacks of paper rested to one side. An inkwell and a worn prayer book sat on the other.

Even back in Philadelphia, she never ventured uninvited into her father’s study. Yet almost every night he’d beckoned her in, sat her on his lap beside a warm fire, and read her stories from among his grand collection. Before they’d start, he’d let her choose a lemon drop or peppermint stick from the jar of bonbons kept high up on his bookshelf. The sweet flavor filled her mouth as his words had filled her ears.

Tonight, Alma bounded in and saw her mother seated in one of the two velvet armchairs opposite the desk. Her exuberance dwindled. This was not going to be one of those beloved reading nights.

She scooted into the free chair beside her mother and folded her hands in her lap. Her feet hung several inches above the floor, but she resisted the urge to swing them.

Her father adjusted his spectacles and looked down at her. “How are you taking to life here at Stover, Alma?”

“Fine, Papa.”

“I know it’s a great change from our life before. And these past months have been busy ones.” His eyes flashed toward her mother. “Things will get easier.”

“They’ll be putting up the holly wreaths and mistletoe in the display windows of Wanamaker’s soon.” Her mother’s voice ached and her gaze was distant. “If I had any say in the matter, we’d never have left Philadelphia.” She sighed and massaged her head, her thin frame sinking back into the upholstery. “Such is a woman’s fate.”

“We both—”

“Get on with it, Francis. I have a headache.”

The corners of his lips turned down, and he looked back to Alma. “Miss Wells tells me you’re doing well with your studies.”

Alma’s body tensed at the mention of Miss Wells.

He continued. “But she says you involve yourself too much with the other students.”

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Thank you, kitten, but Miss Wells has a great deal of experience working with . . . um . . . uncivilized youth. She left her position at Carlisle to come help us found this school. She does not need your help.”

Alma fought back a frown. “Yes, sir.”

“I know we’ve placed you in a position of intimacy with these Indians. You study beside them, eat beside them, sleep beside them in the dormitory, but remember: You are not one of them.” His hand found the prayer book on the desk and rested lightly upon it. “You are an example to them of goodness, of manners and civility.”

“Can’t I be their friend, too?”

Her mother and father answered at the same time—him with a nod, her mother with a sharp “no.” Their gazes locked.

Alma squirmed on the sidelines.

“Their vile habits are bound to rub off,” her mother said.

“It’s those very habits that they’re here to correct. Think of how they’ll benefit from her company.”

Her mother pointed a long manicured finger at her husband. “I’ll not have you sacrifice our only child to this horrendous Indian experiment.”

“They can be saved, Cora!” Her father’s voice shook, his fingers clenched around the prayer book. “Saved from their own primitiveness, brought into the folds of productive society.”

Alma sank down and slid back as far as she could in her chair.

“What will the people of La Crosse think when we have a daughter wearing buckskin rags and feathers in her hair?” her mother said.

“Come now, my dear, you’re being overly dramatic.”

“What about the doll incident? And you have not seen her running wild with them at recess, sticks in her hand like some barbarian huntress.”

He raised an eyebrow in Alma’s direction. She shrank down even farther into her chair. The fire crackled. Wind rattled through the leafless trees outside, kicking up the fallen snow and throwing it in swirls against the window.

Her father set down his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “Games, Cora, they’re just games. We’ll teach them new games. American games.”

Her mother huffed and turned away, staring off into the fire. Her voice came as a whisper. “Your self-righteous ideals will be the ruin of all of us.”

“Cora—”

She waved him off with a flick of the wrist, as if dismissing a tiresome maid.

Her father’s face fell. After a pause, he straightened and looked back at Alma. “You will be eight in a few weeks. I trust that’s old enough to tell the difference between right and wrong. Our job here at Stover—and it is all of our jobs, even yours—is to teach these Indian children the ways of the Christian world. Yes, you may be their friend, but you must not join them if they fall back into the folly of their heathen ways. You must be a constant light. Do you understand?”

His words, like his gaze, lay heavy upon her. “Yes, sir. I do,” she said. But she didn’t—not really. What was so vile about their language? So barbarian about their games? What was so wrong about being Indian?

“Myself, your mother, Miss Wells, we cannot be around every moment of the day. If you see things—misbehaving, thievery, lapses into their tribal ways or language—you must tell me.”

Alma bit her lip.

“Come here.” He scooted back from his desk and patted his knee. Alma slid from her chair and climbed onto his lap. The smell of orange-blossom cologne and tobacco clung to the wool threads of his suit jacket and his neatly trimmed beard. She breathed in deeply, wishing to trap the scent forever in her lungs. “You’re getting so big, kitten. Soon you won’t fit on my lap at all.”

“Yes, I will, Papa.”

He squeezed her close, then drew back. “What we do here, Alma, it’s for their own good. Will you be part of that?”

His blue eyes glowed in earnest. She thought about the sneaking out, the stolen apples, lying to Miss Wells that very afternoon. It hadn’t seemed bad at the time, but here, seated on her father’s lap, guilt clawed at her. She swung her legs and chewed the soft skin at the base of her nails. Finally, she nodded.

A smile fought its way onto her father’s tired face. “Good girl.” He set her down on the rug and reached for the jar of bonbons on the top shelf of the nearby bookcase. “One little treat, then off to bed.”

“Can I have two? Please.”

“All right, two.”

He held up the glass lid, and Alma fished inside, her fingers brushing candy sticks and sugar drops, paper-wrapped taffies, molasses pulls, and caramel creams.

“You spoil her, Francis,” her mother said, still looking at the fire.

With a long stick of peppermint in hand and a roll of taffy between her teeth, Alma traipsed through the dimly lit foyer and up to the dormitory.

The room was dark and quiet when she entered. Miss Wells had already made her rounds and extinguished the lamps. Alma laid the candy stick on her washstand and tugged off her boots and stockings. Her sticky fingers breezed through the long line of buttons at the front of her dress. She threw on her nightshirt and worked her hair free from its braid.

A chill stole through the thin cotton covering her skin. The curtains on the far wall billowed. She crept to the open window and heard her friends’ whispers coming from outside on the roof. She hurried back to her bed and grabbed the peppermint stick—her friends had probably never tried candy before. They’d love sugary sweetness. She was just about to draw back the curtain when the echo of her father’s words stopped her. Even if they weren’t sneaking away, they weren’t supposed to be out on the roof. And the whispers she heard were not in English.

Her chest tightened and she retreated from the window. She’d promised to be a good girl, a dutiful daughter, to report such misbehavior. Her feet shuffled back another step. She should go straightaway and tell her father. It was for the girls’ own good.

Outside, the whispers cascaded into laughter—soft, quiet, free. Alma stopped. She felt stretched, like a fought-over toy that eventually breaks in two. Could her father be wrong? Surely not all the ways of the Indian were bad. And he did say they could be friends.

Wind ruffled the curtain again, carrying with it Minowe’s songlike voice, ever-present giggles. Alma glanced at the door behind her, allowing her father’s words to roll once more through her mind before tucking them aside.

She tiptoed to the window and climbed out. Afternoon sunlight had melted the snow from the roof, but the frosty night wind bit her skin. Her friends sat a few steps off, pointing up at the black sky. Alma settled beside them and broke her candy stick into three pieces. Minowe drew her into the warmth of her thick quilt.

continued the story she’d been telling. She spoke Ho-chunk mostly, tossing in an occasional word of English. It didn’t matter to Alma that she couldn’t understand. She followed hand as the Indian pointed at a cluster of stars that hung like shiny dewdrops in the night sky. The animation in face, the feeling in her voice conveyed the story.

Minowe spoke next, gesturing to a group of stars Alma knew to be the Big Dipper. “Niswi giiyosewininiwag . . .”

Alma remembered niswi, three, from a few days before. Judging from Minowe’s arms, one outstretched, the other tucked in close beside her ear like she held a bow, the following word was hunters.

Alma listened to Minowe’s voice and stared up into the blackness, imagining the three hunters wending their way through the sky.

“. . . makwa . . .” Minowe said amid a string of other words.

Alma leaned her head against her friend’s shoulder, thinking of sticky fingers and dough animals. Makwa. Bear.

How could Papa fault her? The words and stories may be different, but the stars remained the same.