Walking Two Worlds Read online

  Walking

  TWO

  Worlds

  JOSEPH BRUCHAC

  7th Generation

  Summertown, Tennessee

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bruchac, Joseph, 1942-

  Walking two worlds / Joseph Bruchac.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-939053-13-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-939053-10-7 (pbk.)

  -- ISBN 978-1-939053-96-1 (e-book)

  1. Parker, Ely Samuel, 1828-1895--Childhood and youth--Juvenile fiction.

  [1. Parker, Ely Samuel, 1828-1895--Childhood and youth--Fiction. 2. Seneca Indians--Fiction. 3. Indians of North America--New York (State)--Fiction. 4. Education--Fiction. 5. Racism--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B82816Wal 2015

  [Fic]--dc23

  2014046212

  ©2015 Joseph Bruchac

  Cover and interior design: Jim Scattaregia

  Cover photo: David Fadden

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced

  by any means whatsoever, except for brief quotations in reviews,

  without written permission from the publisher.

  7th Generation

  Book Publishing Company

  PO Box 99

  Summertown, TN 38483

  888-260-8458

  bookpubco.com

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-939053-10-7

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-939053-13-8

  20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  Printed in the United States

  Book Publishing Company is a member of Green Press Initiative. We chose to print this title on paper with 100% postconsumer recycled content, processed without chlorine, which saved the following natural resources:

  • 18 trees

  • 563 pounds of solid waste

  • 8,414 gallons of water

  • 1,551 pounds of greenhouse gases

  • 8 million BTU of energy

  For more information on Green Press Initiative, visit www.greenpressinitiative.org. Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Defense Fund Paper Calculator. For more information visit www.papercalculator.org.

  Contents

  ONE:

  The White Man Way

  TWO:

  Quiet Sounds, Night Sounds

  THREE:

  Don’t Speak Indian

  FOUR:

  Whirlpool of Words

  FIVE:

  A New Adventure

  SIX:

  Chief Blacksmith

  SEVEN:

  Two Bits Is Twenty-Five Cents

  EIGHT:

  A Traditional Home

  NINE:

  First Morning

  TEN:

  Deep in the Forest

  ELEVEN:

  Mosquitoes

  TWELVE:

  The Visitor

  THIRTEEN:

  Family Embrace

  FOURTEEN:

  Ways of the Warrior

  FIFTEEN:

  “Hello, Young Savage”

  SIXTEEN:

  Leather for Logs

  SEVENTEEN:

  Ready to Help

  EIGHTEEN:

  Yates Academy

  NINETEEN:

  Young Moses

  TWENTY:

  New Friends and Pretty Girls

  TWENTY-ONE:

  Always, Just an Indian

  TWENTY-TWO:

  A Fateful Encounter

  TWENTY-THREE:

  A New White Friend

  TWENTY-FOUR:

  Rising Up the Rainbow

  Afterword

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The White Man Way

  Hasanoanda held the plow handle tight.

  “Whoa,” Hasanoanda shouted. “Stop, Dover.”

  Dover was the name of the Reverend Stone’s stubborn mule. It did not always obey. That was why Hasanoanda had not wrapped the reins around his wrist. He wanted to be able to let go if Dover decided to run.

  He did not want to be dragged along behind. That had happened last week to one of the new boys in the Tonawanda Baptist School. That boy’s Seneca name was Big Lake. He had been given a new white man name. He was now George. He also now had a sprained wrist.

  “Whoa,” Hasanoanda shouted again. He pulled harder on the reins. Dover stopped.

  Hasanoanda patted the mule on its neck. “You are a good mule,” he said in Seneca. He said it in a low voice.

  Dover nodded his head as if he understood.

  Hasanoanda smiled. “Maybe you are like me,” he said. “You do not like to be told what to do in English.”

  “Eeee-leee,” a voice called from the other side of the field. “Ely Parker, come over here.”

  “You see how it is?” Hasanoanda said to the mule. “Now I must be Ely. ‘Hasanoanda’ was too hard for Reverend Stone to say. So he gave me his name of Ely.” He patted the mule one more time and then ran to the other side of the field.

  The reverend Ely Stone was standing next to the boy who was now called George. Elder Stone was a tall man with a long nose. His back was bent like a heron hunting for fish. George was big for his age, but the reverend towered over him. The reverend looked unhappy. George looked even unhappier. He was holding a hoe in his one good hand and staring down at his feet.

  “Look what this foolish boy did,” Elder Stone said. He pointed his long finger at a mound of dirt. “Do you see that?”

  “I see that, sir,” Ely said.

  The reverend gestured toward George. “Tell him what he did wrong, Ely. You may use Indian to tell him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ely said. He took the hoe from George’s hand. Then Ely used the hoe to level the mound of earth. “We must not plant in hills,” he said in Seneca.

  George bit his lip. “But that is the way to plant,” he said in a soft voice.

  Ely shook his head. “No, that is not the white man way. Give me the seeds.”

  George handed the bag of seeds to Ely. Ely took out several kernels of corn and put them into the ground.

  “You see?” Ely said. “This is how white men do it. They just plant corn. They do not mix corn with beans and squash.”

  George looked confused. “That is strange. Corn and Bean and Squash are Three Sisters. Corn rises up. Bean twines around it. Squash covers the ground and keeps it moist. If you plant them apart, they will not do well.”

  Ely nodded. “You are right, cousin. The harvest is small when we do it the white man way. But we must do what we are told.”

  George looked very confused now. “Hasanoanda,” he said, “that does not make sense.”

  Ely nodded again. “I agree. But we must do as we are told. Our parents sent us to this school to learn white man ways. Even when those ways are crazy. Also, do not call me Hasanoanda. You must call me Ely.”

  Ely turned to Reverend Stone. The reverend was smiling now. “I have told him, sir,” Ely said.

  Reverend Stone patted him on the shoulder. “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Quiet Sounds,

  Night Sounds

  It was dark inside the boys’ dormitory room. The girls were in a dormitory room on the other side of the building. The cots in both rooms were small and close to each other. There was only one window. It did not let in much air. It was too hot during the warm moons and too cold in the winter. You could hear everyone else breathing and smell each other’s bodies.

  The moon shone through the small window near Ely’s cot. It reminded him of the story his mother told him. Moon is the grandmother of us all. She looks down on us and worries about us.

  Tonight, even the moon could not calm Ely’s thoughts. He
heard the sad sound of someone crying on the far side of the room. He knew it was Big Lake, the boy who was now George. Perhaps his sprained wrist was hurting. Perhaps his feelings were hurt. Elder Stone had taken away his name. Then he made him feel foolish.

  Ely had cried when he first came to the Tonawanda Baptist School two years ago. He thought of getting up and going over to George. But George was not crying loudly. He did not want sympathy.

  “Why are we in such a school?” Ely thought.

  But he knew the answer.

  If they learned the language and laws of the white man, they might be better able to help their Seneca people. They might be able to defend the little bit of land they had left. The white man had already taken most of their land but still wanted more. The Ogden Land Company was trying to buy their land. The Senecas all said no. They did not want to sell. But the land company kept trying. The land company wanted the Buffalo Creek Reservation land. It wanted the Tonawanda Reservation land. It wanted the Cattaraugus Reservation land.

  George was no longer crying. Perhaps he found peace in his sleep. But Ely could not quiet his own thoughts. He thought about his great-grandfather Handsome Lake, the prophet. He had a great vision and was given the Good Message by the Creator. It came at a time when things were bad for the Six Nations of the Iroquois. After the war between the British and Americans, most of the Iroquois land was taken by the white men. Many Iroquois left their homes and went to Canada. Many Iroquois people began to drink alcohol. Things seemed hopeless.

  Handsome Lake’s message brought hope. He told them that the Creator wanted them to stop drinking alcohol because it was killing them. He told them it was good to learn some of the white man ways because so many white people were now around them.

  Ely thought.

  Staring up at the ceiling, he shook his head again. That is why I am here, but I do not like it. I want to be back home. I want to eat my mother’s cooking. I want to help my father, Dragonfly, around our own farm. Our farm is not far away. I could leave and walk home. I’d be home in time for breakfast.

  But he had promised to stay at school. A man must keep his promises.

  Ely’s thoughts took him back to his parents’ farm. He wished his father needed his help, but that was not the case. Two of his two older brothers, Nic and Levi, still lived at home. His mother missed him, but she wanted him to be at school. She wanted it because of her dream.

  Ely sat up and looked out the window. His mother’s dream. She often told him about it. The dream came to her four months before he was born.

  In her dream she was standing near the land of Judge Granger, the Indian agent. It was winter. Heavy snow was falling. The sky was filled with clouds. Suddenly the sky opened. The clouds were swept back by an invisible hand. A rainbow appeared. It reached from the reservation to the Granger farm. That rainbow was broken in the middle of the sky. On the lower side of the rainbow were pictures. They looked like the signs on the little shops in the city.

  His parents went to the Dream Speaker the next day.

  “You will have a son,” he told them. “He will be a peacemaker among our people. He will become a white man with great learning. He will be a warrior for the palefaces. Yet he will never desert his people or lay down his horns as a chief. His name will reach from the sunrise to the sunset, from the winter land to the summer land. His sun will rise on Seneca land and set on white man’s land. Yet the ancient land of our people will fold him in when his life ends.”

  It was still dark outside. The dawn was far away. Tomorrow was another school day.

  A dream is a powerful thing. A dream can tell you what to do. I am supposed to live that dream.

  “I wish my mother never had that dream,” Ely whispered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Don’t Speak Indian

  Ely looked out the window. It was a beautiful day. The wind was blowing through the young corn in the school garden. By late summer it would be eight feet tall. Its tassels would be as golden as the hair of the Corn Spirit.

  Ely closed his eyes. He saw himself walking through the tall corn.

  “Can no one answer this question?” a loud voice said.

  Ely opened his eyes. The field of corn was gone. He was sitting at his desk in the school. Reverend Stone was standing at the front of the room. He held a ruler in his right hand as if it were a war club.

  “Who will answer my question?” Reverend Stone asked again. He swung the ruler back and forth.

  No one answered.

  Reverend Stone was not just the Baptist minister. He was also one of their two teachers. The other teacher was his wife.

  Mrs. Stone taught the girls sewing, cooking, and housecleaning. Those were the skills needed to be nursemaids and servants in the homes of white people.

  Reverend Stone taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. He also supervised the boys in their farm work. The boys did all the farm work. The crops they raised were sold. That brought in more than enough money to pay for their room and board.

  All the children were supposed to speak English all the time. They were supposed to speak “Indian” only one day of the week. But when Reverend Stone was not around, they all spoke Seneca.

  Ely did not think that Reverend Stone was a good teacher. In church, Reverend Stone was kind to everyone. But in the classroom he was often impatient.

  The reverend walked over to the desk of the boy named George.

  “What is the answer?” he demanded.

  George’s cheeks grew red. He did not look up or speak.

  George had only been in the school for a month. He had not yet learned that white people want you to stare at them when you talk.

  Reverend Stone slapped the desk with his ruler.

  “LOOK AT ME!”

  George raised his head to look at Reverend Stone. George’s lips were trembling.

  “WHAT . . . IS . . . THE . . . ANSWER?” Reverend Stone shouted.

  George took a deep breath. “I . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “Foolish boy!” Reverend Stone said. He stepped back and looked around the classroom.

  “It is simple subtraction,” the reverend said. He picked up a book and shook it at the class. “It is right here in your arithmetic book. What is twelve less eight?”

  Ely knew the answer. It came to his mind right away. Four.

  Reverend Stone looked around. “Like an owl listening for a mouse,” Ely thought.

  No one made a sound. It bothered the reverend that his Indian children did not act like white boys and girls. They were never eager to show that they knew the answer first. The reverend liked his Indian students. But he thought they were not very smart. He did not understand how they had been taught at home to help each other and not show off.

  Reverend Stone sighed. “Eee-leee! Master Parker,” he said. “The answer, please.”

  “Four,” Ely thought again.

  But he also thought something else. “Why is English so strange? In Seneca every word always means the same thing. But in English the same sound could mean different things. It could be ‘four.’ Or ‘for.’ Or ‘fore.’”

  The classroom was silent. The other Seneca students were waiting for him to answer, hoping he would give the right answer.

  Ely looked into the reverend’s eyes. The Seneca way was to look down at the earth when you spoke to an elder. But white men were different. If you did not stare at them, they thought you were ashamed or untrustworthy.

  “Four is the answer,” Ely said, holding his gaze. He spoke slowly and carefully. He made sure every word was right. “The answer is four, sir.”

  Reverend Stone clapped his hand on Ely’s shoulder. “Excellent. Well said, my boy. Your English is quite good.”

  Ely knew that was not true. His English was better than the other Seneca students. But his English was not good. If English was a wrestler, it would throw him to the ground.

  He wished he could go back to his family’s farm. He wished he could leave spelling, grammar,
geography, and arithmetic behind. He wished he could be himself again.

  Hasanoanda, not Ely.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Whirlpool of Words

  Ely looked over at his mother and father sitting next to him in the pew. It was Sunday. Sunday was the only day of the week when he could be with his family. They could go to church together at First Baptist Church. Then, after church, he could eat dinner at home before going back to the school.

  He looked up at the church ceiling. His father and his older brothers had helped build that ceiling. The church was a fine frame building, so new that Ely could smell the pine boards. It had taken the place of the first church made of logs after Reverend Stone came to Tonawanda thirteen years ago in 1825.

  Ely’s four brothers and sister sat on his other side—Nic, Levi, Solomon, Newt, and Caroline. All of them were in the front row. The Parkers were a respected family. Whenever there was any social gathering, Ely’s father and mother were there to show their support for the community.

  Ely’s grandfather Sosehawa was also there. Sosehawa was one of the head chiefs of the Seneca. He was the nephew of Red Jacket, the great orator. The White Father in Washington had admired Red Jacket so much that he gave him a big silver medal. When Red Jacket died, it went to Sosehawa. Today Sosehawa was wearing the Red Jacket medal.

  Ely’s mother turned her head toward him and smiled.

  “Why is she smiling that way?” Ely thought.

  Ely looked around the church. Every pew was filled this morning. The service had not yet begun. Going to church was important. Ely’s father, Dragonfly, was a church deacon and the church treasurer. He said that what the church taught was good. The church beliefs were like the Seneca beliefs. It was the Seneca way to love your neighbor as yourself. It was the Seneca way to tell the truth. It was the Seneca way not to steal. It was the Seneca way to help the poor. “You can live as a Christian and still be a Seneca,” his father had said.