Scattered Bones (7 page)

She bundles her papers together and walks out into the dazzling sunshine. It’s 8:25 and already hot – in a few minutes the back of her blouse is drenched with perspiration. She quickly reaches the hut situated not far from St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, opens the door, and, accosted by the stifling heat inside, stumbles back. “What a sorry excuse for a school house!” she thinks to herself, and not for the first time.

The Anglicans of the Peter Ballendine Band had, on more than one occasion, pleaded with the government to provide funds for a proper building. They were always turned down – “a ridiculous waste of money,” a bureaucrat in the Department of Indian Affairs had written – so the fathers had cobbled together this shack using pieces of plywood donated by the fur trading establishments. There is a window, but it’s very small and doesn’t open. On most days this isn’t such a bad thing – it restricts the view, thereby lessening the pain of the Anglican scholars who would otherwise have to endure the agony of watching the Catholic kids cavorting on the beach outside. But today, a little breeze would be a godsend.

In a few moments, the children swarm in. Izzy loves their round, smooth faces, the remains of berry preserves still visible on their sweet mouths, their expressions so guileless.

“How do you do, Miss Wentworth?” each asks in precise, clipped English. This phrase had been rehearsed many times over.

Just as The Lord’s Prayer is concluded, Gabriel Caribou rushes in, falling over the door step in the process. Late as usual because he’s been scrounging in the bush, searching for treasures. Today it’s a bat, frozen in rigor mortis, already stinky.

“A present for you, Miss Wentworth,” the little boy beams. His grandfather, a long-time trapper for the HBC, knows English and has drummed it into Gabriel’s head. “It’s for your birthday, whenever that is.”

Izzy thanks the child and puts the stiff lump in a box in the corner, as far away from noses as possible. She must make time for a lesson on the Little Brown Bat before she heaves it.

She’s glad to see the children so chipper. Usually a holiday is declared when the Treaty Party arrives but, since there are in total only thirty-two days to teach these kids anything before the families move to their fall hunting camps, Izzy has ruled that the school must remain open. She thought that they might be downhearted, but, as they scramble to their places, they seem their usual enthusiastic, if unruly, selves. Except for a couple of the older ones. Isaac Morin in particular, glowers at her with sullenness in his eyes. She ignores him. Eventually the insult of being imprisoned inside on such a lovely morning will abate, at least a little.

The wobbly plywood desks rest on sawhorses; the chairs are wooden crates. There are no text books – the only supply the government has seen fit to provide is twenty dollars’ worth of biscuits that were gobbled up long ago. Izzy receives a teacher’s salary, four dollars a day, five days a week for two months, and with this she has bought pencils and workbooks, a small blackboard and chalk.

She tacks up a picture from a rotogravure on the wall, and, pointing to it with a ruler, she carefully articulates, “el-e-phant.” The children have a difficult time getting their tongues around the word – there’s
no ‘l’ in Cree – and yell back what sounds like “en-e-fent.”

Slowly and clearly she continues: “Now, boys and girls, let’s take out our pencils and draw this magnificent animal. The pictures should be ready to show our guests when they arrive.” Which, regrettably, she says to herself, will be soon.

The younger children enthusiastically bend over their makeshift desks and begin. The older ones take a little time, but soon their pencils are dancing as well.

At the private school that Izzy attended in Toronto, copies of the work of great artists hung on the walls, grouped neatly by alphabet – Rembrandt, Renoir and Rubens; Cezanne, Constable, Caravaggio; Van Dyck, Velázquez, Vermeer. There was never a shortage of supplies – easels, palettes and palette knives, all sizes of brushes –a special one made of goat hair was used for laying down a colour wash – acrylic
s, pastels, the right paper for water colours, canvases for oils. There were live models with, of course, not an inch of inappropriate flesh showing. Exhibits were arranged at which tea and sandwiches were served. Parents came from afar to lavish praise on their progeny. The work produced was often masterful and polished – the smile of the Mona Lisa as enigmatic as required, sweet portraits of favourite dogs and cats, bright autumn leaves in High Park. But Izzy has come to realize that almost every rendering of an elephant done here today will display more originality than anything she encountered during her ten years at Bishop Strachan School. True art seems bred in the bones of these barefoot children.

The drawings are being collected just as the delegation arrives. Indian agent Taylor, Doc Happy Mac, and the two special guests, Claude Lewis and The Famous Writer, crowd into the little room. Izzy’s father, the overseer of the school, takes up the rear.

“I’m absolutely right, Reverend Wentworth.” Taylor is continuing a conversation began earlier, completely ignoring the children. “These day schools are a miserable attempt at education. What the heck can the kids possibly get out of a couple of months of sitting in this poorly-lit shack? When the term’s over, they’ll speak hardly any English, never mind read or write it. And when they return next year, they’ll have forgotten every damned word.”

“They’d do a lot better if they had proper desks and not have to hunch over like Bob Cratchits,” responds Ernst. “Some books, and pens and paper would help too. You know, we could have a year-round school here. If they could get their hands on some building materials, the fathers would put up a proper log
cabin, and some of the mothers would stay behind to cook and housekeep for the children.”

“They say that, but do Indians ever keep their promises? No, never. And I don’t think it would be wise to leave squaws in charge of children who aren’t their own. Anyway, the government would never appropriate the necessary funds. That’s all there is to it.”

Izzy has carefully drilled her students to yell out in English, “Welcome to Pelican Narrows, dear guests.” Now she’s afraid that the Indian agent’s rudeness has intimidated them. But they are as cheery as usual, and even Taylor smiles a little.

Since it’s assumed that a writer must know a lot about art, Sinclair Lewis is asked to judge the drawing contest. He perches on one of the rickety benches and begins to pore over the twenty-five submissions. Izzy can tell by his attentiveness, and his grin, that he appreciates what’s in front of him.

“This is more a woolly mammoth than an elephant,” he exclaims, holding up one of the masterpieces. “But it’s a gem.”

While Lewis is at his task, the others walk among the desks, inspecting the students’ notebooks. Izzy knows they are a disaster –Taylor tut tuts his disapproval, like a snake among the lambs – but she can see the progress. Twelve-year-old Jacob Bear didn’t know a word of English when classes started, and now he’s created a paean to the Evinrude motor. It’s full of cross-outs and spelling errors, but his ideas are there, clear and bright, and in a sort of English. And Laura Whitegoose, who could hardly add two numbers together a month ago, has proven to be a mathematical whiz. She has learned to multiply to the factor of ten; the time tables are all written down in her notebook, though rather raggedly, Izzy admits.

“What a mess these are,” Taylor barks. “There isn’t one example of legible writing in the whole lot. It proves my point exactly. These schools are a waste of tax dollars. If I were you, Miss Wentworth, I’d be furious at having squandered my time.”

“Oh don’t be so hard on the kids,” Doc Happy Mac interjects. “You can’t expect the Indian to become civilized overnight. A few more years and these children will be as white as you and I.”

Izzy is grateful when, at that moment, Sinclair Lewis announces he has finished his deliberations. His lanky frame looms over the classroom.

“Boys and girls, you’re going to think I’m a terrible judge. Having considered long and hard, I simply cannot pick a best picture. Really, they’re all so good. So I declare that you are all winners. Prizes will be handed out this afternoon.”

With that, the party of large men, mopping their brows, say goodbye. As he goes out the door, Rev. Wentworth whispers to his daughter, “It wasn’t an overwhelming success, was it?”

Chapter Nine

The children squeal
with delight
when Izzy holds up the story book. On the cover three tiny
omomikwesiwak
paddle a canoe. The kids love these ugly creatures who sit slouched over, their thick black hair falling forward.

“Why won’t they let us see their faces?” Izzy asks the class.

“They’re ashamed ‘cause they don’t have any noses,” they shout out in unison.

“Now, listen, my
athikisisak
, my little tadpoles. You are to write down everything you know about the
omomikwesiwak
. The first one finished gets to read his or hers out loud.”

Izzy made the story book herself, from sheets of brown wrapping paper glued at the sides, the pictures painted with the water colours she brought back from the east. The plot line, though, is Annie’s. For years Izzy has sucked up the housekeeper’s stories, like a hummingbird siphoning nectar.

Annie Custer was always the first person Izzy ran to when she arrived back in Pelican Narrows for summer vacation. She’d throw her arms around her, screeching, “Annie, Annie, I’m back. Can you believe it?”

Annie, who is reserved even for a Cree woman, was always taken aback by such an extravagant show of affection. But then, who wouldn’t be captivated by this exuberant girl? And there was a certain satisfaction that the child was obviously happier to see the Indian housekeeper than her parents.

For Izzy, the summers she was allowed to spend at Pelican Narrows were glorious. At first the Wentworths were reluctant to let her roam about, but they soon realized there was no way they could contain her. She ran with the Cree children, barefoot always, sometimes naked as a piglet, gambolling on the beach, racing, fishing with little nets, and playing cowboys and Indians – she was always made to be a Mountie. She took part in all the games – snow snake, deer sticks, marbles, spinning stones, the coasting-erect race. She won as often as she lost, never mind that her opponents were mostly boys.

There were dolls – Izzy’s from Eaton’s Department Store in Toronto, the other girls’ made from socks stuffed with rags. Seagull feathers were fashioned into hats. Doll play began with the babies swinging in their hammocks, their little mothers singing them soft Cree lullabies, but often ended with a bloody massacre by the Sioux which left the sock heads ragged.

Izzy learned to insult in Cree,
kispakitcon
– fat lips – and
makistikwan
– big head – being her two favourites, and to fight with her fists because there was always some kid who made fun of her pale complexion. “Fish-belly Izzy, fish-eye Izzy.”

A few weeks in the sun and Izzy would turn almost as brown as her playmates, but her mother, watching from the rectory window, her mouth pinched in annoyance, could easily spot her. It was her curly, fiery-red hair as untameable as the girl herself, always escaping from the braids that had been so firmly knotted in place. In the evenings, Lucretia would yank the tight ringlets with a fine-toothed comb. “Where you got this unsightly bramble bush, I’ll never know. No one on my side, that’s for sure.” Izzy’s eyes would water, but she did not cry out, not once.

The girl’s unruly behaviour was a disgrace, no question about that. Lucretia nagged at her husband until Ernst finally laid down some rules. Izzy was to spend three hours each afternoon in the rectory, studying Latin and scriptures, and, in preparation for her future, was to learn something about keeping house from Annie. This would have been torture for Izzy except the Cree woman’s stories, told while scrubbing the floor, or preparing rice pudding, or washing the clothes, enthralled her. Annie became Izzy’s confidant, so much so that Lucretia suffered twinges of jealousy, although she would never admit such a thing.

It was Annie who trained Izzy to hear the music in the Cree language.

“Listen for the birds,” she would say. “Over there is
piskwa
, night hawk, there
misko-chachakwan
, red-winged blackbird, there
makwa
, a loon, and on that tree
ohoh
, well you know what that is – an owl.”

“Please, Annie, let’s do snow,” Izzy would plead, and together they would recite,
kona
– big snow;
mispon
– falling snow;
saskan
– melting snow;
piwan
– drifting snow,
papeskwatatin
– snow drifts.

Annie loved to shock the proper white girl. “Name the places in English where you go to pee,” she’d demand.

“Washroom, toilet, ladies’ room, WC, water closet, powder room.”

“In our language it’s
misiwikamik
, plain old shithouse.”

Before her marriage to Alphonse Custer, Annie had been a Ballendine. Her father, Peter, was elected the first chief when the band was established twenty-four years before and she liked to tell stories about him.