Free When Breaks the Dawn (Canadian West) by Janette Oke Page B

learn. Nimmie passed on my information in a flow of words, but the blank look on the women’s faces did not change.
    Little Deer said what all of them must have been thinking. “When tea?”
    We tried our best to explain that we didn’t serve tea at school, and with looks of disappointment, they got up and filed out one by one.
    I felt exhausted after the first morning. Nimmie looked as fresh and relaxed as ever, and little Nonita had roused only once, nursed and gone back to sleep.
    I gathered up my word cards, looked at the canoe to see if I might be able to fix the tear, abandoned the idea, and headed for home.
    I honestly did not know if our first day at school had been a success or not. We certainly had a roomful of students. But if they did not learn, was it worth their time to be sitting there? I decided not to do too much bragging to Wynn as yet.

THIRTEEN
    The Three R’s
    We banged the barrel the next morning and again waited for our students to return. The room was not as full as it had been the previous day, but I was not concerned. I knew that as the morning progressed more students would arrive. I didn’t expect any of the ladies. They had felt cheated out of a tea party and would stay home beside their fires.
    When Wynn had asked about our first day, I could not refrain from boasting some about the numbers. Wynn just nodded encouragement without comment and I wondered if he was saying silently, “Elizabeth, don’t set yourself up for a heartbreak.”
    I’m not sure why I felt that way, except that I was getting to know the way Wynn thought. The expression in his eyes often said things he didn’t put into words.
    More students did straggle in as the morning went on. We went back to our two words of the day before. Everyone could now pick out the canoe once they had been given the secret of the torn corner. A few even recognized “fish”—without a tear on the card.
    I went on to another word. “Dog,” I said, holding high the card. Nimmie announced the Indian word for dog and then repeated it in English. There was a bit of tittering in the classroom and black eyes flashed secret messages of merriment. I turned to Nimmie.
    “They think it looks more like a skinny bear,” she informed me with a slight smile.
    I looked back at my picture. It certainly wasn’t a very good dog. I didn’t dare show them my deer or moose. I went on to the moon and the sun. They seemed to have some difficulty with these concepts as well.
    I tacked the cards to the wall and told them to open their scribblers, take a pencil and copy the words in their book.
    They were not clumsy naturally; in fact, they were unusually dexterous, but how to hold a pencil posed a good deal of difficulty at first. Many of Wynn’s carefully sharpened points were broken in the attempt.
    Nimmie and I circulated among them, showing them how to hold the pencil properly and how much pressure to put on the point. I laid aside all the pencils needing to be resharpened to take home to Wynn and his jackknife.
    Most of the students got “fish” and “canoe” entered in their new scribblers, though some of the attempts were hardly recognizable.
    I was surprised that some of the women did join us again, even though they knew that tea was not forthcoming. They settled themselves on the floor and appeared to listen—whether out of curiosity or interest, I did not know.
    As I went quietly from student to student, I was surprised by a boy of about twelve or thirteen. Not only had he printed his words, and rather neatly at that, but he had also drawn the pictures. It didn’t take a teaching certificate to see that his pictures were far superior to mine. I hastened to Nimmie, excitement filling me.
    “Come here,” I whispered. “Look what he’s done.”
    The “he” was Wawasee. His father was a trapper, one of those whose trapline was some miles from the village. The mother had died in childbirth two years previously. Wawasee was left each winter