Halfbreed Page 10

  Mom had had a baby in the hospital, a little boy. No one even thought of him at all during the funeral and the next couple of weeks. In fact, I didn’t even know we had a baby until the nurse brought it home. I assumed it had died too. So there we were. I was twelve years old, Jamie was eleven, Robby eight, Dolores six, Peggie four, Edward three, Danny one and a half, and we were presented with a brand new baby who had just got out of an incubator. Cheechum and Dad were away that day so we were at home alone when the nurse came with him. She told us what to feed him and left. We had no cows for milk and no money to buy any. Poor Geordie had cried himself to sleep from hunger by the time Dad and Cheechum got home. Dad sent us to a nearby farm for milk and I made arrangements to get it twice a day, wondering all the time how we would have twenty cents a day to pay for it. Then came the job of finding clothes, diapers, bottles and so on. An aunt made the clothes and we used an old beer bottle with a nipple, and when he was ready to eat solid foods, he had whatever we had, all mashed up.

  Dad found a job with a farmer for the summer and fall, and with Jamie and him both working we managed to survive our first year. We planted a huge garden of potatoes, turnips, carrots and cabbages. Although the soil was very poor, we managed to get a good crop of vegetables. I took all the kids berry picking, then under Cheechum’s directions, canned over two hundred quarts that first fall. I made jars and jars of pickles while Robbie cleaned our dugout basement and built bins for storing the vegetables. Besides all the gardening and canning, I had to bake, cook, wash clothes twice a week on a scrub-board, make enough lye soap to last us for six months, and unravel old tattered socks, sweaters and mitts to knit new ones. Dad brought home sacks of raw wool that had to be washed, carded and made into yarn, all by hand. There were old clothes to mend and old coats to be remade for everyone. I was so tired sometimes that I would tell Cheechum, “I just can’t do it anymore.” She would reply, “You have to. Once you learn to do it right it will be easier.” I don’t know how I ever managed to do it all before school started in September.

  School was about to start and we had not even discussed what we would do with the small ones. Cheechum was too old to chase after them outside. She could get along well in the house, but the two little boys were just too much for her; they were always wandering off into the bush and we had to be quick to find them.

  And so our first housekeeper arrived. She was in her twenties, utterly lazy and irresponsible. She wanted sixty dollars a month, yet felt she could stay in bed till noon each day. She liked children but didn’t look after them, so when Danny got lost for nearly a day Daddy fired her. A whole succession of housekeepers followed during that first year. Then one night we heard Daddy say to Cheechum that he would just have to remarry. My God, what a panic we were in! We didn’t want a stepmother and didn’t think it was right for him to remarry. All housekeepers thus became potential stepmothers and therefore the enemy, and we made sure that they never wanted us for a family.

  One afternoon Cheechum told us that she was leaving because she was too old to be anything but a burden to us. She was ninety-six that year. She packed her things and her nephew came for her the next day. How completely alone I felt! I had been so close to her all those years, constantly at her side, and although she said that I would see her often, it was even harder than losing Momma. We became poorer and poorer, if that was possible. We never received assistance, for Dad was afraid that if we received help they would visit our house all the time. I guess in his own way he was too proud. So our lives continued until our teacher reported us to the relief people and they said there was going to be an investigation into our situation. That night Dad told us we would be moving in a few days.

  Chapter 10

  DAD HAD A JOB TWENTY-FIVE miles away with a farmer he had known for years. The man offered us a house half a mile from his own plus a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, and all the milk we could use if we did our own milking. There was a school nearby, just across a hollow.

  We arrived at our new home late in the afternoon, all nine of us and our belongings piled in the wagon. We had left nearly all our furniture behind as there was no room to take it with us. Dad said he would get it some day soon, but that day never came. I remember Dad locking the door of the home he had built for his family. The house looked so lonely; it looked the way we felt.

  The kids were excited and happy with their new surroundings. There was a slough nearby and lots of bush, so they had plenty of things to keep them interested and busy. Jamie and I unpacked our few things and tried to clean that barn of a house, which seemed so desolate and unfriendly compared to our comfortable log home. The only consolation was that the relief man would not find us and we could be together.

  I was scrubbing floors and Jamie was putting dishes in the cupboards when he said, “Maria, it will even be easier for us to go to school here—if our babysitters are no good we can run home and check up.” I started to cry at that point, but we ended by laughing as I always felt foolish for being so weak.

  Our new place was a big frame house with a kitchen and pantry, living room and bedroom on the main floor, and two bedrooms upstairs. It looked bare because we had nothing to put inside it. In the kitchen there was an old square table which Daddy rebuilt to accommodate all of us, a couple of benches, a cupboard, an old wood stove which never worked properly, an old washstand and wood box. The living room had nothing except Dad’s rocking chair. He made beds for all of us with old boards, and we had our mattresses from home filled with fresh straw.

  Dad ploughed a big garden for me and I organized the little ones to weed and hoe. They picked berries too, and by fall I had filled every one of three hundred jars bought at an auction sale. When the berries and vegetables were finished, I canned moose meat. It was packed into jars, salted, and then boiled for three hours in the washtub.

  We finally got settled down and Dad started work. Jamie found a job as well, doing chores and mending fences, and I started to prepare again for school and winter. I had a long hard talk with myself and made up my mind that I was going to do the best I could here, regardless of what happened. It was our chance to get ahead and I even day-dreamed that I would make it through high school, and that we would all make good friends and become part of the community. But it didn’t work out like that.

  One warm, sunny day Dad and Jamie were working and we were home alone. Robbie had drowned a couple of gophers and we decided to cook them outside. He built a fire while I skinned and gutted the gophers. Then we put them on sticks pushed into the ground and bent over the fire. I put some bannock in a frying pan to bake, and Edward, the third youngest, decided that he wanted to roast the intestines while everyone was waiting. They are really delicious, roasted and salted. I cleaned them out and the little ones were holding them over the fire when Dad’s boss and son drove into the yard. I will never forget how they looked when they saw what we were cooking. I knew that by supper time all the neighbours would know that we ate gophers, so when Mr. Grey asked if that was all we had to eat, I lied. They shook their heads and laughed and drove away. We had no meat or vegetables then, as our garden was not yet ready and Daddy had no time to hunt while he was working.

  We got a housekeeper that fall, a young Indian girl who was able to get along with and manage the little ones fairly well. School began in September and for the first time everyone had new jeans, shirts and shoes, sent by Grannie Dubuque. She had been too ill after Momma’s death to help us in any way.

  School was heaven to me, at first, because I could be young for a few hours each day. I could forget the cooking and cleaning at home and there was time to read. I read everything I could find and thought about the big cities I had read about with good food and beautiful clothes, where there was no poverty and everyone was happy. I would go to these cities someday and lead a gay, rich, exciting life.

  Our teacher was a young woman from a good, middle-class Christian family. She was ambitiou
s and wanted to have a large farm and fine house, but her husband liked to drink, dance and run around. She had different moods—sometimes she was very prim and proper, and sometimes just the opposite, and I realize now that these were often caused by personal problems.

  We were the first Halfbreeds she had taught and although she tried to hide her prejudices, she was often cruel. Then she would feel guilty about her outbursts and overwhelm us with kindness. During class she would often ridicule us for mistakes. Peggie was in the first grade, a very small six-year-old, timid and shy. Because we used a mixture of Cree and English at home, her pronunciation was poor. The teacher would shake her and say to the class, “Look at her! She is so stupid she can’t even say ‘this,’ instead of ‘dis.’ ” She would make Peggie stand up at the front of the room for an hour, without moving. She grew so afraid of school that she would cry and wet her bed at night.

  During a ten-minute health program in the mornings, one of the pupils had to check everyone for clean hands and neck, brushed teeth and so on. The student called out our names and when she said “Maria Campbell,” I stood up. “Did you brush your teeth?” We never brushed our teeth, but I answered “Yes.” Robbie was always getting x’s as his fingernails were never clean and his hands were chapped and dirty. One day, the teacher found his ears dirty again and told him that if he wasn’t clean tomorrow, she would clean him up properly. Robbie washed well the next morning but forgot to do his ears. So she took him to the cloakroom and with a scrub brush—the kind you use on floors—started scrubbing his hands, neck and ears. We all sat still for a long time, waiting for her to finish. Soon I heard Robbie whimpering and became alarmed. He had always been a real toughie, and if he cried he was really hurt. I went into the cloakroom. She had him bent over the basin, his poor little neck was bleeding and so were his wrists. She was starting on his ears with the brush when I snatched it away and slapped her. We got into a fight and Jamie finally pulled me away and took us all home. I was so angry I would have killed her if I had found something to smash her head. Jamie went to get Daddy, as I was sure that we had all been expelled, while I put salve on Robbie’s scrapes. Daddy came home accompanied by Mr. Grey, and when Dad saw Robbie he got very angry. Mr. Grey told him to quieten down and that he would call a Board meeting that night. The teacher never bothered us again, and in fact, tried her best to be nice. In time my brothers and sisters forgot and even liked her, but I never forgot or became friendly.

  There was no work after harvest was finished, so Daddy decided to trap until Christmas as we were getting short of everything. He left us in November with enough food to last until his return, but we ran out of flour and staples early in December. It was really cold that year and we had more snow than usual. We knew that Daddy could not be home for two or three weeks, so we decided to go to the store at our old home, twenty-five miles away, where we could buy on credit. It was an icy, snowy day. Our housekeeper was afraid that we might freeze, but we assured her that we knew what we were doing. Jamie got the team ready and, with Robbie, put the hayrack on the sleigh so that we would have plenty of room. We loaded it up with an old armchair and mattresses, then put the little ones on the chair, with hot stones wrapped in blankets at their feet. We decided to go on an old trail across country as it was shorter than the main road. (I don’t know what possessed us, for we certainly knew better.) About five miles from the house, the snow started to blow and we lost the trail. Soon the horses were up to their bellies in drifts and I knew we were lost.

  The children were getting cold and started to cry. I realized what could happen to us and started to panic, but Jamie remained calm and told me not to be scared or the little ones would be frightened. He finally found a fence and followed it, leading the horses back to the road. We were lucky to get home with only frozen cheeks and fingers.

  So, we had nothing to eat except canned meat and berries and a little flour. Christmas was coming and we could not even bake a cake. The blizzard lasted nearly a week and we were afraid for Daddy. We did not want to go to Mr. Grey, as he might call the relief people, so whenever he stopped to see us, we told him that we were getting along fine.

  Robbie caught a very bad chest cold on that trip and it grew worse each day. Finally, his fever was so high that he went completely out of his mind and could hardly breathe. I remembered that Momma and Cheechum used to make a broth from bark of green poplar for colds, and that they boiled certain roots for fever. Jamie went out and got me some bark and roots and for three days we fed Robbie as much broth as he could swallow. It was bitter stuff. We bathed him with cool water and finally the fever broke; but it was a while before he could get out of bed.

  By now I was sure that we would never see Daddy again. Our food was nearly all gone, the house was drafty and cold, the younger kids were sick and Christmas was only one day away. Jamie told me, “We’re going to get ready for Christmas because Daddy will be home tonight. He always comes home on Christmas Eve.” He cut a tree and we decorated it with pine cones as there was nothing else, not even crepe paper. The angel and the few ornaments which belonged to Mom were set aside for Daddy to put up. I was very depressed that whole day and evening, and worried what to tell the little ones if Daddy didn’t get home. Jamie and I were still up, when shortly after midnight, Daddy came walking in. He had bags of groceries and big boxes of gifts. Later, when we were in the kitchen having tea, he handed me a small bag. Inside were two hundred and fifty dollars. He told me to buy clothes for everyone after Christmas and whatever else was needed.

  Christmas was a sad time, even if Daddy was home. He tried to make us happy, but in spite of all our efforts we were a lonely family. Our people were too far away to visit and we missed the excitement and love we shared at home with them. We sat down and tried to eat Christmas dinner, but the roast beef and new toys couldn’t replace what we had known. We had never eaten beef before and we found it flat and flavourless. The new toys broke the first day; we had always had hand-made gifts that lasted forever. Poor Daddy, it seemed that the harder he tried, the rougher it all became.

  Grannie Dubuque arrived during the holidays and we were so happy to see her. She expected us to be poor, but I don’t think she expected what she saw. She cried as she kissed us all and because we were so starved for a woman’s affection and love, we almost overwhelmed her.

  Everything went back to its old order of peace and quiet. The little food we had tasted better, our endless sewing and mending seemed like fun; and above all, we older ones had someone who would put her arms around us and hold us close if we were hurt.

  Grannie was kind and gentle like Mom but where Mom had been quiet, she was noisy and full of fun. She would cook our dinner, then tell us that we were having chicken-à-la-king—whatever that was—and we would set the table with an old sheet taken from a bed and pretend we were rich. We would taste all the fancy salads and dishes she’d prepared, though of course they were only meat, potatoes, bannock, lard and tea.

  Grannie was a combination of a very strict Catholic and a superstitious Indian, which made her the greatest storyteller in the world. Every evening, after work was done, she made each of us a cup of cocoa and some popcorn, and then gathered us around her and told stories of the northern lights (ghost dancers), of Almighty Voice, Poundmaker and other famous Indians. We heard many spine-chilling tales, but we asked for one story in particular, over and over again.

  It was about an only child whose parents were older people. The little girl was very spoiled and was forever whining and crying. She died of a sickness when she was only six years old. A couple of days after the burial her parents discovered her hand sticking out of the grave. They went to the priest who told them that this was their punishment for spoiling her, and that if they wanted the little girl to rest in peace and go to heaven they must take a switch and whip her hand as they should have done when she was living. So each day they did this until the hand was gone. In its place was a little rosary to sho
w that the child had gone to heaven. We were always scared and spooked while Grannie told this story. One night a figure came crashing through the window behind her chair. Glass flew everywhere as we screamed and raced from the room with Grannie right behind us. Soon we heard moaning, and Jamie peeked in. Poor Robbie was sprawled on the floor, cut and bleeding. He had slipped away from the storytelling and was trying to sneak out from the upstairs window on a rope. Somehow his pants caught and when he kicked loose, he slid down the rope too fast and hit the window. What a fright he gave us! Grannie laughed until she cried as she washed him off and I put cardboard over the window.

  Chapter 11

  DAD LEFT TO GO TRAPPING again and we went back to school after the holidays while Grannie started housekeeping in earnest. Bob (the son of Mr. Grey, Dad’s boss) and his wife Ellen lived only six miles away and often came to see us. They treated Jamie and me as equals and were probably the first good white people I knew. We often visited them too, spending the whole day riding, tobogganing or just talking and playing cards.

  Ellen had a younger sister Karen, fourteen years old like me. Her father had died just a week before my Momma, so we found comfort in each other, and she spent a great deal of time at our house. She lived with her mother who taught in an all-Halfbreed school in another district. She didn’t dislike me or other Native people, and was good to us so long as we kept in our place. My friendship with Karen, however, broke the unwritten law of each staying on his own side. Later when Jamie and Karen started to spend some time together, Karen’s mother became very cold and rude and tried in many ways to break up our friendship.