Between Earth and Sky(2)
Why didn’t they climb down? It couldn’t be comfortable crowded in like that, nothing but scratchy hay to sit upon. Couldn’t they smell the sweet cornbread Mrs. Simms had just finished baking? Alma looked beyond them at the schoolhouse. The freshly painted trim gleamed white and three stories’ worth of windows sparkled with sunlight. Surely, they hadn’t such grand buildings on their reservations.
Finally, a boy seated near the edge raised his head. Alma guessed him to be only a year or two older than she was. Loose strands of hair danced about his round face, catching the light with their glossy sheen. He pushed them behind his ears and glanced around the yard. She followed his gaze from the clapboard outbuildings, to the nearby picnic spread, to the lawn and surrounding forest. Then his dark brown eyes fixed on her.
Alma forgot her smile. His stare reminded her of the fox she’d seen sniffing at the edge of the yard two days before. Intelligent. Cautious. Just as curious about her as she was of him.
The boy scooted across the wagon bed and dangled his legs over the edge. For the count of several seconds he sat there, undecided, his leather-clad feet swaying high above the grass.
Jump down, Alma breathed.
At last he did.
One by one the other children followed. The school’s new teacher, Miss Wells, shepherded them toward the picnic table. Alma moved to join them, but her mother grabbed her hand. Despite the dusting of rouge she’d seen her apply that morning, her mother’s face was in want of color. She stared at the new arrivals with the same pinched expression she brandished at stray dogs and street-side beggars.
“You said they would be clean and affable,” she said to Alma’s father.
“Wagon dust, Cora. They’ve only just arrived.”
“Humph. Not a very impressive lot.”
“Give them time.”
“A millennium would not be long enough.”
“We’re their salvation.” Her father’s voice hummed with excitement. “Here they shall be reborn, civilized and good.”
Alma kept her face lowered, tickling a dandelion with the toe of her boot. She knew better than to interrupt her parents’ conversation but wished dearly they’d hurry up.
Her mother gestured around the yard. “Indians or not, how are we to raise a genteel young lady in this wildness?”
“Come now, La Crosse is only a few miles away.”
“Provincial. Hardly fit to be called a city.”
Her father squatted down. “What do you think, kitten?”
Alma glanced at the children corralled before the picnic table. “They’re awfully funny looking.”
“That’s just on the outside. Inside they have the same potential as you or I.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” her father said at the same time her mother shook her head no.
Alma looked over again. It would be so nice to finally have friends her own age. “Let’s keep them, Papa. Can we?”
Her father rose and took her hand. He offered his other to her mother. She didn’t take it, but strode nonetheless beside them to join the others.
Standing before the picnic table, her father cleared his throat. “Almighty God, Creator and Preserver of the white man and the red man alike, we call upon Thee to bless the founding of this school and the children within its fold. Banish the wickedness from their souls and guide them toward lives of industry and righteousness. . . .”
As her father’s gentle voice grew louder, full-throated like that of a ringmaster, Alma peeked at the new arrivals. A few children prayed as they should, hands clasped and heads downturned. The others wandered their gaze around the yard or stared wide-eyed at her father, whose outstretched arms had begun to vibrate along with the timbre of his voice.
Their skin was not really red, but varying shades of brown and copper. Many wore their hair long in braids or ribbon-wrapped ponytails that snaked down their backs.
The Indians she’d seen in her father’s color-plate books were strange and fearsome: feathers splayed about their heads, bright bobbles adorning their chests, paint smudged across their cheeks. These children bore little resemblance to those drawings. Most wore pants and dresses similar to those good Christians wore. But whereas Alma’s clothes had lace and ruffles, their outfits were ornamented with beads and brocade of astounding color—blues like the sky and the river, reds and yellows like the newly changed leaves. One boy had what looked like horse teeth sewed to his shirt. They jiggled as he shifted from one foot to the other. She reached out to touch one, to see if it were truly a tooth, but dropped her hand at her mother’s sharp ahem.
“. . . Finally, O Lord, bless this food before us. May it nourish our bodies as Thy word nourishes our souls. Hear these our prayers, we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Mrs. Simms bustled from the kitchen at the back of the schoolhouse. Smears of grease and crusts of dried food blotched her apron. She distributed tin plates to the children and motioned with pride to the buffet. They hesitated, but once the first descended upon the food, the rest did likewise, clumping around the table despite the cook’s efforts to form them into a line.
One boy with only a narrow patch of hair on the back of his head picked up a chunk of cornbread and brought it to his nose. After several sniffs, he bit off a small corner, then frowned and returned it to the tray. Another child dished out potato salad with his bare hand. A piece of fried chicken was passed and examined by several children before a small girl finally claimed it for her plate. Alma couldn’t help but laugh. Didn’t they have picnics where they came from?