Tisha (15 page)

“Sure. It’s a dirty low-down black Injun.”

More giggles. I felt like throttling her. “There are certain words,” I said, “which I don’t want to hear in this class room. One of them is siwash.”

“What’s wrong with it, Teacher?” Jimmy asked. “Everybody says it.”

“It’s a mean word—like hunkie or nigger or kike. Now,” I asked Eleanor, “do you think you can find another sentence for me?”

“How about if I said
Indians
aren’t very intelligent?”

“Do you really think that’s true?”

“I sure do,” she answered.

“All Indians?”

She nodded.

“How about people who are only part Indian?”

“You mean like half-breeds? I guess so,” she said.

“I should tell you,” I said, “that my own grandmother was an Indian. That makes me part Indian too. Do you think there’s anything wrong with my intelligence?”

Eleanor shifted uncomfortably. “No.”

“Is that really true, Teacher?” Jimmy said.

“Yes, it is.”

“What kind of an Indian was she?” Elvira Vaughn said.

“Kentuck.”

“I never heard of that kind.”

“They’re like any other kind—Comanche or Sioux, any kind of Indian.”

“Oh, well,” Jimmy said. “They’re
American
Indians. They’re different from the ones we got here.”

“Why?”

“They just are.”

“If they are it’s not very much. Indians are Indians, and there are all kinds.”

“Was your grandmother like these Indians?”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” I said. “If you saw her in the Indian village you’d think she was one of them.”

“How come you don’t look Indian then?”

“I guess I take after my grandfather. He was white.”

“That’s
why you’re smart enough to be a teacher.”

“Not necessarily. My grandmother was a pretty smart woman. A lot of people said she was smarter than my grandfather.”

Robert Merriweather hadn’t said anything up to then. He raised his hand. “If your grandmother was an Indian,” he said logically, “then your father was a half-breed.”

“I guess that’s right. But you know something? Where I come from nobody cared about it. As a matter of fact whenever anybody found out I was part Indian they thought that was a pretty interesting thing to be…. Now we’ve got work to do, but just remember, what people are doesn’t matter, whether they’re Indian or Irish or Negro or anything else—they’re just people.”

When school was over for the day, Chuck hung around for a few minutes. “You tell truth, Tisha?” he asked me. “You Indian?”

“I’m part Indian, yes.”

“You make moccasin?”

“No. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Cut fish?”

“Not too well.”

“Trap?”

“I’m afraid not.”

He thought it all over. “Funny Indian,” he murmured.

Elvira Vaughn knocked at my door right after supper that night. She was all embarrassed. “My father said to tell you that me and my sisters won’t be coming to school tomorrow,” she said.

“How come?”

“My father said you’d know why.”

I didn’t sleep too well that night, and the next morning I was up at five. I did some washing just to keep busy, then I brought some wood in. By 8:30, when Robert arrived to start the fire, I was in the school-room
putting some work on the board and listening for anybody who’d be coming. At a quarter to nine Isabelle Purdy and Joan Simpson arrived just as I went out to ring the hand bell for the first time. A few minutes later Rebekah brought Lily in, and right after that Chuck arrived. The Vaughn girls didn’t show up at all. And neither did Willard and Jimmy. At nine I went out and rang the bell for late call, but there was nobody in sight. The settlement was quiet.

During recess I saw Willard and Jimmy playing up by the roadhouse. I decided to go over and talk to them, but as soon as I headed in their direction they ran indoors.

I tried to go on as if it was just a normal day, but every time I’d look at those five empty chairs I felt miserable. After school I must have sat for an hour drinking tea and trying to think what to do. Finally I threw on a sweater and went next door to the Vaughn cabin.

Mr. Vaughn opened the door.

“I wonder if I could talk with you for a few minutes?” I asked him.

“What about?”

“About the girls not being in school today.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I know they’re not sick. I wondered why they were absent.”

“I kept them home.”

“Will they be in school tomorrow?”

“We’ll see,” he said. Then he closed the door.

I stood there looking at the closed door, feeling like a little girl who’d done something awful. I started over to the roadhouse, then I changed my mind. I just didn’t have the guts to stare into another face that might look at me as if I was a stone. So I went back to my quarters and stared at the walls for another hour.

I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I still felt guilty. They were the ones who were wrong—Maggie and Angela and Mr. Vaughn. They were all wrong. They had no right to keep Chuck or Lily or any other little kid out of the school just because they thought they were dirt. There were plenty of people who’d thought
I was dirt when I was a kid. I could even remember one teacher who used to favor the kids who came to school dressed in nice clothes. She was always calling on them and smiling at them, while she looked at the ones like me as if we were trash. She’d even made me wear a sign one day when she found lice in my head during health inspection. I’d gotten them from playing with two kids next door and I’d never had them before, but she made me sit in the corner all day wearing a cardboard sign with “Dirty” printed on it. As long as I lived I’d never forget that. Or her. I’d hated her from then on.

I tried to think what I’d do if I was Miss Ivy, but it didn’t help at all. She just wasn’t the kind of person you fooled around with. She’d have gone right up to Mr. Vaughn and Maggie Carew and told them she expected to see their children in school the next day and no nonsense about it, and that would have been that. By suppertime I couldn’t even think about eating. I decided that I’d wait till after supper, then I’d go over and talk to Maggie. The idea of going through another day, and maybe more, with less than half a class was unbearable.

Maggie saved me the trouble, though. Just before six Jimmy knocked at the door. “My mother says is it all right if the school board comes over after supper?”

“Sure. You can tell her 7:30 would be fine.”

Before 7:30 came I went through a half a dozen conversations with them, and if I was able to say half the things I’d thought of I’d get a speech prize. I gave them quotes from the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments and ended with some beautiful phrases about how education was the birthright of all Americans. As soon as they trooped in, right on the dot, though, I felt just as tongue-tied as I’d been on the first day of school. They were grim. They turned me down when I offered them tea.

I had the stove going really hot so they’d be comfortable. Angela Barrett took off her sweater right away and my eyes nearly popped, out. Her arms had so many tattoos they looked like an art gallery.

“I prepared the minutes of the last meeting,” Mr.
Vaughn said, opening a composition book. “Ill read them.”

“We can do without that,” Maggie said.

“We’re supposed to read the minutes,” Mr. Vaughn said.

“What for?” Maggie said. “We know what we said.”

“Are you making a motion that we waive them?”

“Wave ’em, fry ’em or boil ’em, I don’t care. Let’s get to what we come for.”

Mr. Vaughn cleared his throat. “We’d like to know on what grounds you’ve taken Joe Temple’s half-breed into the school.”

“The same grounds on which I’d take any pupil in, Mr. Vaughn.”

“He doesn’t belong here. If you weren’t a cheechako you’d know that. He belongs in the Indian village school.”

“But he’s not
in
the Indian village now.”

“That has nothing to do with it. He shouldn’t be in the same school with our children.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, but I don’t see on what grounds you want to keep him out.”

“According to the law,” Mr. Vaughn said, “this school is open to, and I quote, ‘White children and children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life.’ You are aware of the law, I take it.”

“Oh yes,” I lied.

“Then there’s your ground—‘children of mixed blood
who lead a civilized life.’
That kid isn’t civilized. None of those Indians from that village are.”

Now that it came right down to it, faced with the three of them I wasn’t feeling as brave as I thought I would.

“Well?” Mr. Vaughn said.

“Isn’t that your interpretation, Mr. Vaughn? Chuck can read, he can write, as far as I can see he’s like any other little boy who—”

Maggie cut me off. “My kid says he can’t even talk civilized.” This time she was in agreement with them.

“Besides that he’s a bastard,” Angela said.

“I hadn’t even thought about that,” Mr. Vaughn said.

“I don’t see how I can do what you’re asking,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t,” Mr. Vaughn said.

“No. I just can’t tell that little boy to get out of class for no good reason.” And you wouldn’t make me tell him either, I thought, if Chuck had a father who’d knock your block off.

“You’ve been given the reason. We’re telling you the reason. We’re not running a school for uncivilized siwashes and the law will back us up. Now are you going to tell him or do I have to do it myself?”

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll do it for you. We’d better take a vote on it to show we’re doing it lawfully. I make a motion that the half-breed child known as Charles Temple be excluded from the school on the grounds that he does not lead a civilized life. How do you two vote?”

Maggie and Angela said aye.

“That settles it,” Mr. Vaughn said.

Maybe it settled it for them, but it didn’t for me. I was so mad I could have thrown the stove at them.

“We don’t want you to have any hard feelia’s, Annie,” Maggie said. “We’re just tryin’a show you what’s best. You’re still new here, ya know.”

“I know.”

“I’ll take that tea if you’re still offerin’.”

I served her and Angela some. Mr. Vaughn didn’t want any.

“Want you to know my kids think you’re a good teacher, too.” Maggie said, taking a sip.

“If there’s no further business,” Mr. Vaughn said, “we can close this meeting.”

Not as far as I was concerned. Without my even having to think about it I heard myself say, “It’s too bad I had to come all the way out here for nothing.”

“How’s that?” Mr. Vaughn said.

“I’m going to have to close the school.”

About to take another sip, Maggie made a sound into her cup and put it down quickly. “You what?”

“I’ll have to close the school,” I repeated.

Mr. Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t have enough of an enrollment,” I said. I had to hold my hands tight in my lap, they were shaking so much.

“You got plenty enrollment,” Maggie said.

“No I haven’t,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. It sounded to me as if I was squeaking. “Under the law there has to be ten pupils.”

“You got my two boys, his three girls, the Merriweather kid, Simpson’s little girl, and Isabelle and Lily.”

“That only makes nine.”

“I hear Nancy Prentiss is coming out. That’ll make ten.”

“If she comes out. Right now there’s only nine.”

“Well, so what?” Maggie said. “That’s just a technicality. Plenty of schools don’t make the enrollment.” She snorted. “If you hadda rely on a full enrollment all the time there’d never be a school in the bush.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said, “but this is my first teaching job in Alaska and I don’t want to start out by breaking the law.” My hands were sweating and my heart was pounding so loud I thought they could all hear it.

Maggie stared at me for a long moment as the point got home to her. Mad and disgusted, she pulled in one side of her mouth. “You telling us you’d pack up and git?”

“That’s what I’d have to do, Mrs. Carew.”

“You’re bluffing,” Mr. Vaughn said.

“No I’m not. You told me yourself—the law is the law.”

He was so mad I was afraid he might smack me or something. “You dirty little snotnose,” he snarled. “How dare you give us an ultimatum!”

“Simmer down, Arnold,” Maggie said.

“Like hell I will.” Even the veins on his goiter were standing out. “I never heard of anything like this in my life!”

“Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Angela yelled.

“We’re being blackmailed, that’s what’s going on,” Mr. Vaughn said. “We’ve got a second Catherine Winters
here—another Indian lover. I heard you’re part siwash,” he said to me, “now I believe it. For my part you can just pack up and get the hell out of here right now. As far as I’m concerned this meeting is adjourned.” He walked out without saying another word.

Angela had her arms crossed in front of her. She didn’t say anything, but her expression spoke worlds. It was pure hate.

“Angela, you go on back to the roadhouse,” Maggie said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

When she was gone Maggie said, “You’re expectin’ to teach in Eagle next year I take it.”

“Yes.”

“If I was you I wouldn’t—not if you keep that little half-breed in the class. They got a school board there too. If they don’t want you they don’t have to take you. They’re not gorma like it when they hear about this.”

“There’s not much I can do about that.”

She got up. “You got gall, I’ll say that much for ya—more gall than a Government mule. You’re a good kid and I like ya, but I’m gonna tell ya something and I’ll tell ya right to your face—don’t go too far or you won’t be teachin’ in Eagle or anywhere else in Alaska next year. People are goin’ to be writin’ to the Commissioner about this, more people than you think. You’re a little too interested in siwashes for your own good.”

“I don’t want any trouble, Mrs. Carew, but that little boy is entitled to—”

“Never mind what he’s entitled to. Maybe you don’t want trouble, but you got a peck of it right now.”