between right and wrong.”
He snapped his fingers at the closest serving girl and with his plate heaped for the second time, he continued. “Clearly, taking the children away from their families is a big help when it comes to assimilating them into our society, especially regarding Christianity. Separating them from their pagan communities gives us a far greater success rate, don’t you agree?”
The governor didn’t wait for a response. “We’ve been criticized for wasting money educating the females,” he said, glancing at the serving girls, “but in my opinion, the fate of the next generation hangs on girls such as these! What will happen if the boys leave here and marry unschooled girls?”
The question was rhetorical, but Mother Hall valiantly tried to answer.
The governor ignored her, slapping his palms down on the table with a resounding smack that shook the water glasses. “They will fall back into their heathen ways! And the children from these marriages will almost certainly adopt the habits of their pagan mothers. All things considered, the money spent educating females is money well spent. By the next generation there won’t be an Indian problem because the Indians will have been assimilated into our society.”
“Yes, yes, quite so,” Father Thomas agreed, anxious to steer the conversation to another topic. “But we do have a problem for next year, and I was hoping you might be able to help.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Father, but I’d like to talk more about —” The governor stopped in mid-sentence. Apple pie, piled high with dollops of fresh whipped cream, had appeared in front of him.
Father Thomas, seizing the opportunity of the governor’s distraction, continued with his well-rehearsed speech. “Some of the children are now in Grade Eight, but we don’t have the curriculum or the teachers for higher education. We have wonderful, dedicated people on staff here. They have a passion to bring the love of God to these children, but none of them are qualified in the field of education —”
The governor swallowed and intervened. “My good fellow, you don’t understand —”
Father Thomas kept talking. “As you know, Governor, it’s hard to find qualified educators willing to come out to these remote places and work with the Indians. I made an enormous sacrifice coming here, giving up a comfortable life in a well-to-do parish. But I have no regrets. This is my calling. Remuneration and worldly goods are of little importance compared to saving the souls of these boys and girls. I am, after all, storing up treasures in Heaven, not on earth, where moth and rust can destroy. It’s what the Lord tells us to do.”
One or two heads nodded in agreement.
“However, the problem is this — we need someone capable of teaching the older children. If we were to offer a more lucrative salary we could employ one or two trained teachers. So, in short, Governor, I need you to organize additional funding.”
“My dear man,” the governor said, wiping cream from his lips, “the policy of the government is to provide the children with an elementary education! We are not trying to turn out Indian students who compete with our students for university places, or for jobs. The government policy is to rid the children of their Indian-ness, to kill the Indian in the child, so to speak! Then to assimilate them on the bottom rung of the social ladder where they can do manual labour.”
Father Thomas looked shocked.
And Mother Hall lost her airs and graces. “But we’ve got to keep ’em here ’til they’re fifteen or sixteen? What the heck are we supposed to do with ’em?”
Mister Hall kicked his wife in the shins. “Let’s not worry the governor about that, my dear.”
“If you can teach them the basics of the three R’s,” the governor continued, “Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic, you will have achieved your mandate.” He chuckled. “And, of course, Father Thomas, the fourth R: Religious studies!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Turtle waited until all the boys in the dormitory were sleeping, then he slipped out of bed, and in his bare feet and nightgown crept out of the door and along the corridor to the staircase. The wooden steps creaked loudly. He stopped dead, heart pounding, but nobody came, and after a few seconds he tiptoed on.
It was coincidence that earlier in the day Turtle had been sent to Father Thomas’s office at the same time as a girl from the other side of the school had been sent there. Turtle had done nothing wrong, at least he didn’t think he had. He was merely delivering a written message. But he had walked slowly, head down, wondering if he would be able to complete his mission without getting punished. However, the girl who sat forlornly on the chair outside Father’s Thomas’s office, fingering a single strand of yellow yarn, knew for sure she would be punished. She knew exactly what she had done. It had been in sewing class. They had been making baby dolls, stuffing the cloth bodies with fluffy white blossoms of columbine then using strands of yarn for hair and red felt for lips. The girl had attached a pair of sky-blue glass buttons for eyes and held the finished doll at arm’s length to admire her handiwork. The doll looked back at her with a quizzical expression. Emotion took the girl by surprise. Suddenly, her eyes were stinging and breath caught in her throat. She clutched the doll to her chest and sobbed as memories washed over her: a soft deerskin baby doll, a mother who hugged her.
“Put the doll in the donation box!”
The girl turned away.
“Look at me, girl! I said put it in the donation box. Now!”
The woman wrenched the doll away, leaving only a stand of yarn in the girl’s clenched fingers.
“You ungrateful child!” she said, tossing it into the donation box. “These dolls are for deserving white children who don’t have any toys to play with. Stop your snivelling, you bad girl. Go to the office!”
And so it was that when Turtle dawdled down the corridor with his message for Father Thomas, he was shocked to see the girl on the chair. This had never happened before. His apprehension vanished in a rush of excitement. “Do you know my sister, Willow?” he whispered urgently.
“You mean Anne? She is in my dormitory!”
“Tell me where.”
The girl jutted her chin casually toward further down the corridor and murmured in a sing-song voice that could have been interpreted as a hum if anyone had overheard.
“Through that door, up two flights, third door.”
Turtle whispered. “Tell her I’m coming … tonight … after lights out.”
Turtle’s clandestine route to Willow’s dormitory took him down two flights of stairs, along the main floor corridor, past the grade one classroom and then past the offices. It was pitch black apart from the moonlight that shone through the barred windows, leaving a series of shadowy ladders emblazoned on the polished wood floor. When he saw the narrow shaft of lamplight that spilled from Mother Hall’s door, fear stabbed his chest and made his heart pound. He hadn’t anticipated that she would be there. Pinpoints of bright light flashed across his eyes and his knees buckled. He wanted to be back in his bed. But he couldn’t turn back! Willow was waiting for him. The fainting spell passed, and on trembling legs he stole closer until he could peek through
