Where the River Takes Me Page 8

  We had some leisure time before Supper, so Lucy and Sarah and I went outside to play. We were rolling hoops when the boys came back from their outing. They looked a fright, for they had painted one another’s faces with berry juice, and it had turned into a dust-streaked mess of purple and red. Puce! We teased them about it but they were actually proud of the effect.

  Rev. Staines ordered them to go off and wash, but Alec, Davy and Radish lingered to tell us about their day — a long wagon ride to a farm and (stopping on the way to pick berries) a glass of fresh milk at the farm, listening to one of the farmers play his fiddle.

  Sunday, August 11th

  Same as last Sunday.

  What would Father have said about Rev. Staines?

  I overheard a conversation once, between Father and Mr. Rowand, after Rev. Rundle came to Fort Edmonton, and Mr. Rowand was saying that the missionaries were the worst thing for the Company, because all they did was keep the Indians singing hymns and praying instead of hunting and trapping. Father agreed. Rev. Staines is different. He is not a missionary and has little to do with the Songhees, as far as I can tell. He doesn’t keep them from trapping or fishing, he only keeps his pupils from enjoying themselves.

  Nothing happened today.

  Monday, August 12th

  The vegetable thief has struck again! Such a calamity — Rev. Staines is in a fury because one of his lettuce plants was stolen and he was planning on having a salad supper. We were grilled without mercy. Who would want his maggoty lettuce? It would taste as sour as his temper.

  Tuesday, August 13th

  Today I was yelled at five times. Once for stumbling over a Latin phrase. Once for braiding the fringes of my ceinture fléchée instead of keeping my hands folded on the table. Once for helping Eliza when she could not solve a problem in Mathematics. Once for giggling when Mrs. S’s stomach gurgled. Once for asking Parson Puce to repeat a question because I had not heard it the first time and “Why was that, Miss Sinclair?” “Because I was not listening, Reverend Staines.” “Why were you not listening?” I did not want to tell him that I was thinking of my grandmother and so I shrugged. Insolently, I suppose, because I had to stay in and write 100 lines of Latin. At least I was not scolded for humming to myself when I was doing my Spelling exercises.

  I had expected that Learning would be an Adventure. I had not expected to be confined in a schoolroom, ordered about, made to sit just so, raise my hand, stand up to speak, ask permission to go to the privy, etc. I had not expected to be shouted at for asking a question or for helping someone with an answer or for daydreaming. I had not expected a real school to be as dismal as Dickens’ Dotheboys Hall, or a real schoolmaster to be as cruel as Mr. Squeers — I thought the descriptions in Nicholas Nickleby were exaggerations! Not so, for Rev. Staines gives the boys canings or smacks or thumps on the head for the slightest Misdemeanor, and he has such a temper. We never know from one moment to the next what might set him off — what throws him into a rage on Wednesday is scarcely noticed on Friday and vice versa. Oh, I have made such a mistake in coming here. Aunt Grace would say, “I told you so,” and she would be right.

  But if I were to return to Fort Colvile after paying my full subscription? Oh, the grumbling! She would be too proud to ask that the unused portion of my subscription be returned, and she would complain about the waste of that money for years.

  Why did I pay until the end of June? How will I survive until —

  I won’t survive! Not unless a new schoolmaster arrives, or a schoolmaster’s assistant, like the kind and heroic Nicholas Nickleby. But I fear that will not happen.

  If I were a boy, and 14, I could work in the Trade Store or in the dairy or stables, or perhaps be taken on as a Junior Clerk — but there’s no use thinking of what cannot be. I am utterly forlorn and miserable and disheartened.

  Veni, vidi, vici. Julius Caesar, 47 B.C. He came, he saw, he conquered. I will not be yelled at for not knowing that again, but there will always be something.

  Reverend Staines, 1850. He came, he saw, he tormented.

  Wednesday, August 14th

  Last night we were awakened by a startled screech coming from the boys’ dormitory. It was followed by a great deal of banging.

  It turns out that Radish discovered a rat in his bed. It was nibbling on a crust of bread that he had stowed away. He killed it by slamming it against the wall.

  Rev. Staines has offered the boys one shilling for every ten rats they catch.

  I wish I had a friend here like Suzanne. No one seems to like me. Is it because of my ceinture and old-fashioned dresses and the way I tear off the coal-scuttle hat when Mrs. Staines is not around? Because I fidget in class and sometimes hum or mutter to myself when I am thinking? Because I think too much? And spend a great deal of time writing in my Journal? They have made comments about that from time to time — not unkind comments, but things like, Whatever can you be writing about? Nothing happened, etc. (I wonder how Eliza and Maggie and the others who keep journals can write so little!)

  Maybe they don’t like me because I come from the prairie. Or do they think I am common? They have no reason to, for Father was a Chief Trader.

  Perhaps it is because of Uncle Rory. Eliza knows him from Fort Colvile. She knows that he and Aunt Grace are my guardians, and that he is not an officer but a blacksmith, and even though he is a skilled tradesman he is only one level above a servant. By the Company’s rules, he could never be considered a gentleman and, if I were his daughter, I could not be attending this school.

  Perhaps they do not like the way I behave. The other day Mrs. Staines praised one of the older girls for being very English in her manner. Am I not English enough for the other girls? Aunt Grace taught us proper English manners and Christian values and I do behave properly — well except for going off and exploring, but only because I do not see the harm in it.

  Perhaps they think I behave more like a worker’s daughter. Before Aunt Grace came to Fort Edmonton, I did not have to follow the rules so strictly, and I was mostly with Suzanne’s family or with Nokum, at least when Father was away. And besides, many of the girls from the other officers’ families were too young or too old to have as friends, except for Lizzie.

  Well the rules are still the same. The Officer Class does not usually mix with the Tradesmen Class or the Servant Class.

  I do think too much. Why can’t I make friends with the girls and stop worrying about whether or not they like me? I think — and this has only just come to me — it’s because I don’t know how. My best friends, like Suzanne, have always been there. And Eliza was my friend for a while, I suppose. But now she spends her time with Jane Douglas and the Work girls. As for Lucy — but I have to stop now. I have wandered way off track, considering I started this entry with rats.

  Later

  Sarah is missing a handkerchief with the initial S embroidered on it. We helped her look in the school and in the dormitory but did not find it, nor did we find Maggie’s blue sash. It has been gone for a week.

  I have decided that if the other girls do not take to me, I may as well do as I please.

  In my Future Novel I will be sure to give my Heroine a special friend, so she will not be as lonely as I am.

  Thursday, August 15th

  Little by little the weather is changing. The mornings are cool and foggy. The nights are chilly, so it is easier to sleep. Except for the rats.

  I am discouraged and homesick. If only I were home picking berries with Nokum or gossiping with Suzanne or racing across the prairie. I felt free on the prairie, where the world stretched before me in all directions. In this place I feel as tho’ the trees are caging me in.

  I wish Fort Victoria were on a river instead of on the sea. The tide comes in and goes out but it does not seem to lead anywhere — except out to the open ocean, which must be as immense as the sky. I have heard people say that out on the ocean you can spend days and days without seeing a speck of land!

  You can follow a river, a
nd let the current take you wherever it pleases — to rapids or deep quiet pools, and Adventure around every bend. It leads you onward — and sometimes, when the current is fast-flowing, the wavelets seem to be laughing and calling out, “We’re racing our way to the end!” It’s all you can do to keep from racing along.

  Oh, fiddle. Sarah has just come in. She wants help looking for her handkerchief and is reluctant to crawl under the beds.

  Friday, August 16th

  More veg. have been stolen from Rev. S’s garden and he is at his wit’s end. No one at school knows anything about it, tho’ someone might be lying.

  Rev. Staines has been asking throughout the Fort, for the thief could be a worker or a tradesman or even an officer. I am secretly pleased that a few missing lettuces can upset him so greatly.

  Two weeks since I have been here, and my excitement about Learning in a Real School is wearing thin. Aunt Grace was strict and we had to do lessons for long periods of time, but her school was never like this.

  Oh, I am so homesick!

  What I miss:

  Father

  Nokum

  Suzanne and her family

  Fort Edmonton

  Aunt Grace — for tho’ she was stern and had a sharp tongue, and smacked me on occasion (and I hated her for it), she did not have a heavy hand and she did not make me sit upright on a hard bench for hours and chant das, dat, damus Latin

  Uncle Rory

  I miss the freedom I had at Fort Edmonton — being able to visit the Home Guard families and play with Nokum’s great-nieces and Suzanne’s cousins and help Nokum make moccasins and embroider them — oh, I miss it, I miss everyone, and now my mind is made up. Before I go to bed I’m going to write to Aunt Grace and tell her I am returning to Fort Colvile. Goodness knows when she will receive my letter, but at least it will be in the mail packet and ready to go.

  There’s the Supper chorus.

  I wish we could eat in the Fort’s dining hall for a change and talk to the other children, but we are in class even during meals, and in the same room as well. At least Rev. Staines eats with the men, and thank goodness for that.

  Friday, August 16, 1850

  Fort Victoria

  Dear Aunt Grace,

  You were right. I do not need an Education of the sort offered here. In fact (and I do not exaggerate) I hate the school, the people, the meals, the dormitory, the Latin, the rats and Sundays. I have never felt so lonely. Last night I cried myself to sleep. (It was not the first time.)

  Please forgive my Stubbornness and Pride and let me return to Fort Colvile. I will never argue or talk back or sulk and will try to behave in a more ladylike fashion.

  I am sending this letter to you via the Clerk on his next visit to Fort Colvile, and I pray I will hear from you on his return.

  Please give my regards to Uncle Rory.

  Your loving and obedient niece,

  Jenna Sinclair

  Saturday, August 17th

  I did not put my letter in the packet for Fort Colvile, I put it in my Journal to remind me of what I was going to do, before I had a change of heart. Aunt used to talk about “staying the course,” even when the course appeared to be hopeless, and she’ll be pleased to hear that I do have occasion to follow her advice.

  The reason for my change of heart? I have a friend! We met in the most unexpected way — indeed, today was full of the unexpected — so I had better start at the beginning.

  This morning Mrs. Staines announced that she was taking the girls on an outing to Beacon Hill “to watch the Indians harvest their camas.”

  She did not tell us what camas was, but I reckoned it was what I’d seen the Indians digging.

  We left after Breakfast. It was great fun, everyone in a happy mood, even Mrs. Staines, and we waved gaily to the boys as we set out, for they were spending the morning pulling weeds in Rev. S’s vegetable garden.

  Lucy walked beside me until we reached the trail and then it was single file around the Bay, with Mrs. Staines leading the way and making sure no one skipped on ahead. We talked and laughed and Maggie’s bonnet got caught in some sort of prickly vine because she went off the trail, and Annie found a robin’s egg and Lucy screamed when she saw a hornet’s nest, and the girls who were at the school last year told stories about the picnics and outings they’d had, and kept asking Mrs. Staines when we could go on a picnic this year and she said we’ll make it soon while the weather is fine. (I hope she does not forget or change her mind.)

  Mrs. Staines had us sit in the grass at the top of Beacon Hill, our legs tucked beneath us in a proper ladylike manner and our dresses spread out around us in “an elegant way,” but my dress was not long enough. (I must have grown since Aunt Grace made it!) Mrs. S’s dress sounded like a walk through autumn leaves when she sat down, the material is so crisp and crackly.

  Songhees women were out digging, as I’d seen before, but in different parts of the meadow, and Mrs. Staines explained that they were digging up camas, a type of root like a potato. She said they planted potatoes too.

  I saw the woman who had reminded me of Nokum. She was harvesting on the slope right below us, and whenever she began to speak, the women and children working with her fell silent, except to laugh or sigh or cry out with surprise. I reckoned she was telling stories.

  Soon enough it was time to go. It took me a while to adjust my dress, and I hopped around a bit, for my legs were pins and needles from being tucked up and elegant, and so I ended up being last in line. Now I hadn’t planned this, but when the others were well into the woods and I was still hopping about on the meadow, I saw my Lookout tree and I could not resist climbing it. Only a little ways, I decided, so I would not end up too far behind, and if Mrs. Staines scolded me for dawdling I could tell her I’d needed to go behind some bushes to relieve myself (which was in fact the truth). Anyway, Mrs. Staines was not in a scolding mood.

  So up I climbed! It felt so good being away from the proper English girls and in my tree, I climbed a bit higher. Oh, the view was grand! And a bit higher still, and I recognized my perch from last week and went even higher! Well then I heard a sound that was not the rustle of branches.

  I stopped and listened. A voice! “Hello,” it said — from somewhere in the tree.

  I was so startled I almost fell off the branch. “Where are you?” No answer but a giggle, and a rustling of branches.

  The next thing I knew I was looking at a Songhees girl, standing on a branch a little lower than mine. She smiled and started to back down, indicating that I should follow.

  I made to do so, but suddenly froze. Without realizing it, I had climbed a great deal higher than I had before and the ground looked impossibly far. I must have gasped or given some sort of cry, for the next thing I knew, I felt the girl’s hand on my ankle, slowly guiding my foot to the next branch. Goodness, it was shaking so much it’s a wonder she could hold onto it at all, but she did, speaking words of encouragement the whole time — at least that was how they sounded — and in that way I made it down, with a great number of “whews” and “thank yous” on my part.

  Once we were on the ground, the girl pointed to herself and said, “Kwetlal.”

  “Jenna,” I said, and we repeated each other’s names and smiled.

  As I was running to catch up to the others, I saw Lucy up ahead, coming to look for me. “We missed you,” she says. “Mrs. Staines was worried.”

  The others were sitting on a log near the stream and, when I told them that I’d twisted my ankle and had had to limp part of the way — but it was better now — they said they’d been dawdling anyway, singing and playing guessing games, expecting I’d be along soon enough, so no harm done.

  It was a glorious outing — and best of all, I might have a new friend!

  Sunday, August 18th

  Maggie has still not found her sash, tho’ we have searched high and low. She is certain that one of us has taken it.

  Monday, August 19th

  Some of the boys
almost killed another dog from the Songhees village — like they did last week, when they caught one chasing chickens. They chased after it and when they had it cornered, they beat it to death, and boasted.

  Not this time. Lucy and I were walking around the yard after Dinner and saw one of the Songhees’ wool dogs by the kitchen, looking for scraps. Lucy was surprised, said she’d never seen a wool dog at the Fort, not since she’d been here, and we should try to catch it so one of the men could return it.

  “We could return it ourselves!” I said.

  And Lucy says, “We can’t go to the village, it’s forbidden!”

  While we’d been talking, Alec and a group of boys had spotted the dog and were chasing it, waving sticks and throwing stones, and I cried, “Come on, Lucy!” and ran after them, yelling at them to stop, but they didn’t, they chased it right through the East Gate.

  By the time I caught up — Lucy hadn’t gone past the gate — they had it cornered behind Father Lempfrit’s cabin. “Leave it alone!” I shouted, and in true heroic fashion — I can use this in my Novel! — I grabbed Thomas’s stick and pushed the boys aside. “You should be ashamed!”

  They must have thought I’d turned into Mrs. Staines! There was a lot of muttering — It’s only a dog, We’ll get the next one, etc. — and Davy threw one last stone, but then they swaggered off and left me to my rescue.

  Poor little creature! He cowered when I approached, no doubt afraid of a beating, but I spoke a few comforting words and gingerly held out my hand. By and by he grew more confident, even licked my fingers and wagged his tail. Best of all, he allowed me to pet him.

  It was the first time I’d seen one of the white dogs up close, or touched one, and their hair really is as thick and soft as sheep’s wool. No wonder they are valued so highly!

  I longed to keep him as a pet and curl up with him in the winter, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed. At least he let me pick him up and hold him — a difficult task (tho’ pleasant) for he was not a puppy.