Sorrows’ Children Sorrows’ Children
Buck would have preferred to spend the night in the barn. Tired as he was, he doubted he would even notice the difference between a pile of straw and a proper mattress. But the Reverend Mother was insistent, stating that “no former student of Sorrows would spend the night in a leaking barn when a perfectly good bed was available”. Shortly after supper and the call for “lights out”, Buck found himself climbing the narrow stairs to the second floor where a bed for overnight guests awaited him in the infirmary.
Though the hallway was empty, he could almost feel his shoulders lurch forward sharply as Albert and Dutch shoved him from behind. In his mind’s eye, Buck could see himself falling forward, cringing as his books and writing slate jumped out of his hands and were trampled and kicked down the corridor by children rushing to class. “Did you drop somethin’, Injun?” Albert clucked, strutting around him like a rooster. Buck saw himself scurrying after the Reader and slate, wincing at the punishment he knew he would receive if the Reverend Mother saw their abused condition.
He could have passed by the open doorway on his way to the infirmary, but before he could remind himself he had encountered enough ghosts for one evening, Buck found himself in the middle of the Reverend Mother’s classroom. He turned in a slow circle, the amber sweep of the lamp’s glow bringing the darkened room to life. It had been seven years, but the memory was as fresh as yesterday.
They were very young, not much more than six or seven years old. Each child sat perfectly still, hands folded on their desktops, backs ramrod straight – too intimidated by the small woman in black to do otherwise. Feet were placed firmly on the floor and even those whose legs weren’t long enough to reach took great care to hold them still. No swinging legs or shuffling feet were allowed in Mother Augustine’s classroom.
The small wooden desks sat in perfect alignment across
the floor, the Reverend Mother’s larger one situated at the front of the room.
An alphabet of precisely drawn letters was printed across the face
of a chalkboard mounted on the wall behind her chair and a set of McGuffey Readers
stood at attention between metal bookends on her desktop. Nothing was out of place. Nothing except the lanky, confused thirteen
year old Indian at the back of the room.
Camille had told Buck stories of school and the wonderful
things she had learned before the attack on her family’s wagon train brought
her to the Kiowa village. The English
words she taught him were easy enough to memorize but she never mentioned how
difficult the white language was to read. She had never explained how these strange marks
became words and the words became a thought or a story. The Kiowa way was much simpler. Pictures told stories. One painting could describe the heroics of
a successful buffalo hunt or record the number of enemy lives taken in a great
battle. He couldn’t imagine why white men chose to tell their stories by making
marks across a piece of paper when the Kiowa paintings were so easy to understand.
Camille never told him how slowly the school day dragged
by either. Rather than sitting in a
classroom for hours on end, Kiowa children learned by experience. Whether it was arrow making, tanning a hide,
or learning the uses of different plants, they were outside in the fresh air,
learning by doing. Even with the window
open, the classroom in the white school was stifling in the early September
heat. Accustomed to wearing little more than a breechcloth in the warm weather,
his white clothing was uncomfortable and clung to his sweaty skin where his
back and legs pressed against the seat of his desk. The heat made it difficult to concentrate.
From his place in the back of the room Buck could see
directly out the window and his thoughts began to wander into the expanse of
blue just the other side of the second floor window. He noticed the dark shape of a bird against the sky in the distance
and imagined himself lying on his back in the cool, grassy depths of the prairie,
chewing on a tassled blade, admiring the gliding, effortless flight of the hawk.
Or better yet, he envisioned a lightning quick sliver of wood slicing
through the layer of blue as he tested his perfectly crafted arrows – arrows
so straight even Red Bear would be impressed.
They were painted with his special mark - his signature – so there would
be no doubt who had made them. A crowd
of onlookers congregated around him. Even
the Dog Soldiers, the most respected men of the village, stopped to watch their
leader’s younger brother. The warriors
spoke in low tones amongst themselves then turned, smiling broadly at the young
brave who held such promise. They gathered
around him, patting him on the back to congratulate his fine workmanship. “Well done, Running Buck!” they said. “What
a fine warrior you will be!” His cheeks
flushed scarlet, but from modesty rather than embarrassment, hearing their praise. “ I am proud of you, little brother,” Red Bear whispered privately.
The boys his age looked on enviously as he was asked to demonstrate his skill
once more. “Show us again how well your
arrow flies, Running Buck!” they said. He could feel the tension in his bow as he drew back on the string,
felt the weapon quiver with excitement in his hands as he released the arrow.
Its flight was perfect, soaring so high into the sky it might never come
. . ..
“Buck Cross!”
The Reverend Mother’s voice shook Buck from his daydream.
He tried to slide further down in his seat hoping to make himself small
enough that she couldn’t see him, but when the nun repeated his white name he
knew it was a lost cause. Buck slowly wriggled free of his too-small
desk, his tattered McGuffey Primer clutched in his hands. His gaze was fixed on the floor as if his eyes
were glued to the wooden planks as he trudged to the front of the classroom
taking the assigned spot beside his teacher. The other students in the Beginners class read
no better than he did - some of them were much slower and needed more practice
- yet the Reverend Mother insisted upon calling him to read. Every day he found
himself in this same spot and every day he failed to please her.
Buck felt a trickle of sweat slide down his neck as she
replaced the McGuffey Primer in his hands with the more difficult First Reader.
He was familiar with the Primer. He had memorized the bold letters printed
on the pages and could recognize many of the words by the illustrations they
described. The new book was different. Instead of just one word on the page there
were many all strung together and there weren’t as many pictures.
“Quiet!” the Reverend Mother demanded although the only
sound in the room was the soft rustle of turning pages. “We will begin a new Reader today, class. Buck will read for us.”
Buck glanced at the open page before him. He turned toward his teacher, speaking in his
choppy English under his breath so the rest of the class couldn’t hear. “Don’t
know words. Where pictures?”
“Only little children need pictures,” she replied, her
strong voice contrasting sharply with his whispered tones. “You know the sounds the letters make. How will you ever learn if you don’t try? If you don’t learn to read you will have to
stay in this class rather than advance to one of your own age. Would you prefer to stay here?”
“No,” Buck answered through gritted teeth.
“Then perhaps you should spend your time concentrating
on your studies rather than daydreaming.”
Buck felt his ears flush red in embarrassment as Mother
Augustine’s comment sparked a round of giggles from the younger students.
“Quiet!” she ordered.
Turning to the boy fidgeting beside her, she added, “We are all waiting,
Buck.”
Buck looked down at the page again and swallowed hard.
Suddenly everything he had learned seemed to have vanished. Would they laugh at him if he made a mistake?
He couldn’t bear it if they did. He
would rather be beaten than laughed at. “Don’t
want to say mistake,” he confided in his teacher.
“Shall I ask one of the smaller children to help you?”
Mother Augustine asked growing impatient with the boy.
“No.”
“Then try. We
all make mistakes,” she said. Such an
obstinate child! This boy had too much
pride for her liking. “That is how we
learn.”
Buck didn’t think he had ever known anyone as stubborn
as his teacher. She wouldn't back down – he was certain of that much. The only way she would leave him alone was
if he read her words. Buck drew a deep
breath in an attempt to calm himself and began. The boy stuttered and stammered his way through the simple sentence,
sounding out each letter, hoping they would somehow flow into a recognizable
word. But the sounds were slippery and
he couldn’t quite catch hold of them.
“J..Jan..e sat
on t...he w..hit fenk..e.” .
A shudder of frustration ran through him. The words didn’t make sense. He knew he was wrong before Mother Augustine
spoke.
“No. The ‘e’
is silent after a consonant and that is a ‘c’ not a ‘k’. ‘T’ followed by ‘h’ has a different sound. Again.”
Buck tried to concentrate as he sounded each letter,
but his repeated efforts were still not enough to remove the creases of dissatisfaction
from his teacher’s brow. English was
a hard language. It seemed to Buck that
the rules kept changing. The same letter
could have different sounds depending upon the word.
Sometimes a letter had a sound, sometimes it didn’t.
Some words were pronounced exactly the same yet had different meanings. It was all so confusing.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then
back again, and wiped his damp palms against his trousers. His mouth went dry. His belly flip-flopped.
His fingers felt thick and clumsy. In
his nervousness he fumbled with the book and it leaped out of his hands. He grabbed for the Reader and snared it before it hit the floor,
but when he tried to find the page again it seemed to have disappeared. Buck turned quickly back and forth through
the pages with sweat slicked fingers. The Reverend Mother’s gaze weighed on
him like a mound of rocks, growing heavier with each flipped page. Buck felt himself shrinking under the weight,
growing smaller and smaller until after what seemed like an eternity, he finally
found the assigned passage.
It was too hard. He
was such a fool to think he could ever learn this terrible language.
Buck looked out upon his classmates hoping for a sign of support or encouragement,
perhaps a show of unity against this taskmaster.
But none of the younger students met his panicked gaze. Instead they trained their eyes on their own Readers, afraid to
make a sound or movement lest the Reverend Mother notice them and they end up
in the same predicament as the Indian.
“Again,” she said.
