I like not His two
new places for me when I am dead. Take the child, Blackcoat, and
save her from hell."
* * * * *
The first grief of my life was when we reached the mission. They
took my buckskin dress off, saying I was now a little Christian girl
and must dress like all the white people at the mission. Oh, how I
hated that stiff new calico dress and those leather shoes. But,
little as I was, I said nothing, only thought of the time when I
should be grown, and do as my mother did, and wear the buckskins
and the blanket.
My next serious grief was when I began to speak the English, that
they forbade me to use any Cree words whatever. The rule of the
school was that any child heard using its native tongue must get
a slight punishment. I never understood it, I cannot understand
it now, why the use of my dear Cree tongue could be a matter for
correction or an action deserving punishment.
She was strict, the matron of the school, but only justly so, for
she had a heart and a face like her brother's, the "Blackcoat."
I had long since ceased to call him that. The trappers at the
post called him "St. Paul," because, they told me, of his
self-sacrificing life, his kindly deeds, his rarely beautiful old
face; so I, too, called him "St.
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