Free The Beaded Moccasins by Lynda Durrant Page B

sleep for days.

    "No!" Grandfather shouts. He shakes me hard by the shoulders. "Mary! Mary Caroline Campbell! Don't sleep," he shouts in my ear as he pinches my cheeks. He hoists me to my feet and walks with me. We weave in and out between the family fires. We walk for a long time.
    The backs of my legs begin to sting. Then my fingers, ears, and nose throb with sharp, hot pain. My thoughts come back slowly, like dying coals coaxed and stirred to fiery life.
    I collapse in Hepte's arms again.
    "I need more strength," I gasp to her. "I don't have enough strength."
    "Shh. I will tell you a secret," Hepte murmurs in my ear. She rocks me in her lap. "Tell me when you are ready to hear this secret."
    Chickadee presses my doll into my right hand. My fingers close around the doll, as slow and creaky as an old woman's fingers.
    Hepte waits for me as I shiver and shiver. Finally, I nod.
    "Secret," I say in a shaky voice. It occurs to me, slowly, that I spoke to her in her own language and that I can understand what she is saying to me. But Hepte doesn't speak a word of English.
    She whispers in my ear, "I saw you chopping a hole in the ice and sent your father down the cliff trail to pull you out. This is the secret: You have more strength than any of these boys. And you do not have to jump into a frozen river to prove it."

8. Strength Again
    W ILL THIS WINTER EVER BE OVER ?

    The days turn warm, and just when I think perchance it really is spring, the snow blows down the gorge again, reminding me that there's plenty of winter left.
    Then the weather turns pied: wet snow; sunshine; sleet; rain mixed with snow; sunshine again; sleet again; more wet snow.
    We have to go farther and farther afield to look for firewood. Mrs. Stewart always walks alone as she looks for wood. When she comes back to the cave at dusk, her eyes are red from weeping.
    Now that the winter is almost over, I want to plan our escape. We could be home in time for my birthday.
    But Chickadee tags after me every afternoon. Most of the wood she picks up is either too heavy for her, so I end up carrying it, or so rotten and soggy as to be useless.
    Today, however, she's napping back in the cave. I follow Mrs. Stewart past the waterfall, past the bend, and all the way to where beavers have dammed up the Cuyahoga, turning it into a deep pool.

    I call out, "Mrs. Stewart?" She jumps.
    "You frightened me, Mary."
    "Look." I give my left earlobe a tug with my right hand and look at her expectantly. She just frowns at me, so I tug my earlobe again.
    "Is there something wrong with your ear, Mary?"
    "That's my escape signal-don't you remember?"
    "Shh." Mrs. Stewart draws me close. "I told you not to say that word." She looks around us wildly.
    "No one can hear us."
    "We can't leave. How could we cross the Appalachians with snow as deep as a house?"
    My eyes fill with tears. "But it's almost spring."
    "Not in the mountains."
    "You said we could escape. You promised."
    "I said I'd promise to think about it. But it's much too dangerous, Mary. We'll just have to wait for a rescue."
    "Are you saying we're not going to try? All this winter I've been telling myself we'd be home by my birthday," I cry out. "How could you betray me this way?"
    "I haven't betrayed you. Not another word."
    "That's what my mother used to say when she'd run out of words," I say bitterly.
    Mrs. Stewart is already walking ahead of me on the trail, not listening.
    "You're content to die here, aren't you? Mrs. Stewart?"
I call out. "Just rot here and die? You're not even going to try?"

    She gives her kindling strap a pull to hitch the firewood higher onto her back. She doesn't stop walking.
    I come back at dusk with more kindling strapped to my back and fallen branches in my arms. I walk through the frozen gorge surrounded by bleak trees. This is what it feels like when all hope is lost, I think. I might as well be these barren trees, reaching up to a darkening gray sky. And waiting for a spring that will