Read Online When Breaks the Dawn (Canadian West) by Janette Oke - Free Book Online Page B

water from the river. It had not frozen over yet but would soon, and then daily a hole would have to be cut in the ice in order for them to dip out the necessary water. When the ice got too thick, the settlement families would have to simply melt the drifted snow.
    I was glad we had a well with a pump. The villagers were welcome to use it, but most of them declared pumping a “bad job,” as the small stream of water took a long time to fill their pail. In the summer months some of the children liked to play with the pump. They usually came together, two or three boys, and not too much of the pumped water ever found its way to the village home. Most of it remained in puddles in our yard, or soaked through the boys’ clothing.
    Nimmie and I planned for classes from nine to twelve. It didn’t seem like much, but we thought it better to take it easy than to overdo and have parents complaining about school keeping the youngsters from their duties.
    A classroom was one of our biggest problems. I knew our cabin was too small. We would be able to fit only eight at the most. We were hoping for a better attendance than that. We considered the empty Lamuir cabin Nimmie and Ian had used. It also was small, but with simple tables and benches, it might give us enough room for now. We discussed this with our husbands, and they made plans to have the tables and benches made.
    We also needed a wood supply for the fireplace in the cabin. Wynn took care of that; with three or four men, he went to the nearby wood and hauled out dead, fallen logs. The logs were brought to the village and cut into proper lengths for our fireplace, then stacked up against the side of the small cabin.
    We had no way to advertise our classes, so Nimmie and I walked from door to door, telling each household about our plan. Many of the people had no clocks, only the sun and their uncanny but rather accurate sense of time. Nimmie borrowed the idea of the store-hour signal, which was no longer in effect, Ian having taken over regular hours since his new building was useable. So as we went from door to door, we told them to listen for the banging of the hammer on the drum barrel, and then they would know that school was to begin.
    Both Wynn and Ian supported us completely in our project. Many times as Nimmie and I worked over our lesson plans, one or the other would offer advice.
    “If you want to get their attention and make them interested in learning,” offered Wynn, “then you must teach them things that relate to their life. No ‘c-a-t spells cat.’ ” (We had no cats in the village. The dogs would have torn them to shreds.)
    “Use words they know: fish, canoe, river, forest, dog, moon, sun, stars, trap.”
    I could see what Wynn was getting at and I agreed with him, at least until we fully had introduced learning to our students. We did hope also to expand the world as they knew it.
    We had few textbooks. The scribblers and pencils arrived with the winter supplies. As a surprise for Nimmie and me, Ian had also ordered a small chalkboard and a good supply of chalk with two brushes. We were thrilled with it all. When Wynn mounted the chalkboard on a wall in the cabin, it looked like a real classroom.
    One further problem was lack of light. The cabin’s one tiny window afforded little illumination even on the brightest of days, and much less during the dreary winter months. Ian gave us the use of two oil lamps from the store, but even they did not light up our little room very well.
    But Nonita was not a problem—she was a contented baby, who still slept many hours of her life away, and Nimmie would be able to bring her to school and care for her as necessary.
    Since we were beginning with words and concepts the Indian children knew, I needed teaching material. I wanted pictures to accompany the words. I had none. I was not an artist, but I set to work trying to illustrate the words on the cards I had made. “Fish” was not difficult, and my “canoe”