Read Online The Dance Boots by Linda L Grover - Free Book Online Page B

school, Henen had, more than Maggie, absorbed all that had been taught at home by a baptized mother and old-fashioned,traditional grandmother—to be thrifty, industrious, helpful to others, modest, reserved and soft-spoken—virtues that she practiced so overtly that the nuns didn’t feel the need to watch her closely and never heard that she talked in Ojibwe language to the younger girls while she braided their hair in the morning or helped them to keep their clothing neat and their shoes clean and their sums and letters lined up in rows as neat as the two columns the girls made to march from the dormitory to morning Mass. The girls could see that Henen had been raised properly at home: she had been kind and generous, respectful and humble, concerned with the other girls’ well-being. Left at home, she might have become knowledgeable about healing and herbs or about the old sacred stories that grandparents told during the dark winter months. She might have learned the old ways by heart and might have chosen and taught others to do the same when she became an old woman, the venerable grandmother of a large clan family. Instead, Sister Cecile thought that Henen would make a fine mother’s helper, perhaps for a wealthy family in Duluth or Minneapolis, when she finished school.
    It was quite a shock to everyone, but especially the Sisters, when Henen was sent home from the mission school in disgrace.
    â€œI hope that you will enjoy working at Harrod,” said the matron. “There is a great deal to be done here, and as you have probably guessed, some of the students, the boys in particular but some of the girls, too, are quite wayward. Not completely their fault, of course; their families are so backward. So unfortunate. It is our task to correct what we can.”
    The walkway between the classroom building and dining hall was wide enough for only two people, and so the three males who approached from the opposite direction stepped off of the concrete to allow the ladies to pass. One man removed his hat; the other looked quickly at Maggie, then at the sky. Each held an upper armof the boy in the brown gingham shirt, which was open and missing its buttons. The skin of one shoulder showed at the seam, where a sleeve had been torn nearly off.
    The larger man nodded courteously at the women. “Miss Hall. Miss LaForce. We got him. He didn’t get very far this time.”
    The matron shook her head. “Tsk tsk. What a shame. What a lot of trouble it is to have to spend time on this, Mr. McGoun.”
    â€œIt is. We are on our way to the laundry. It will be solitary tonight for this boy. Once again.”
    â€œMiss LaForce,” the matron asked, “have you met Mr. Andre Robineau? He works in the barn and helps with handyman duties, but as you can see all of the staff must take care of other situations as they arise.”
    â€œYes, we have met.” The matron must not have realized that they were both from Mozhay Point, Maggie thought. Of course, everyone from Mozhay knew Andre Robineau. He was the handsomest man on the entire reservation, the handsomest man she had ever seen.
    Andre tipped his cap and looked Maggie directly in the eye, like a white man; she felt flustered. “Good evening, Miss LaForce.” He had gone to Harrod since he was six years old and stayed to work after he finished the fifth grade, at seventeen. He knew the proper way to address a young woman who worked for the school, Indian or white.
    During the exchange, the captive boy in the brown gingham shirt waited courteously, as if he were on a stroll with two friends, as though the men beside him weren’t each gripping one of his arms. As though his hair weren’t a sweat-stiffened mass of dark-red flames. As though his shirt weren’t torn, his breathing weren’t exhausted and ragged, as though there weren’t welts rising on his exposed shoulder. His eyes were clear and calm; above all,