Read Next Spring an Oriole Online
Authors: Gloria Whelan
Next Spring an Oriole (5 page)
Just as she always did, Taw cum e go qua left suddenly, without saying good-bye. Like a quick bird, one minute she was there, the next minute you saw only the empty woods.
When Papa returned, I hurried to tell him how we could find food for the winter.
“I’m afraid we will need more than a few beechnuts and acorns,” he said. “I heard today a railroad will be coming through near Saginaw next summer. There will be plenty of work for surveyors then. But we must first find enough food to get through the winter.”
Mama had stopped listening to Papa. “Look, Rob,” she said. “There are some Indians.”
“They must be passing by on their way to their winter camp,” Papa said.
“There’s Taw cum e go qua’s papa,” I said. He led the other Indians to us and signaled them to wait while he spoke.
“My daughter tells me you have need for food to carry you through the winter. The blackbirds have been kind this year and we have more corn than we need.” He motioned to the men. They put down several baskets filled with corn. There was a gourd of wild honey, and two of the men carried what looked like huge cowhides. “This is mon-e-meg, sturgeon, which we have smoked,” he said. “The little fish in your pond are not worth the catching. You must stay well this winter—as well as you made Taw cum e go qua when you cared for her.”
Papa and Mama tried to thank the Indians, but such talk embarrassed them and they hurried away into the woods.
It had frightened me to hear our neighbors talk of the cold, cruel winters in this new land, but I had seen so much kindness here that I was no longer afraid.
After we had stored the gifts safely away in our cabin, we all went out to walk among the trees. “This morning,” Papa told us, “I found something I want to show you.” He pointed high up in one of the elms. I could just make out the nest of a bird, like a little pocket hanging down from a branch. “It’s an oriole’s nest,” he said. “It’s empty now. The orioles have gone south.”
“Next spring,” I asked, “will they be back?” I liked looking ahead to the other side of winter.
“Yes,” Papa promised. “Next spring they will surely return.”
“And I will draw their picture for you,” Mama promised.
G
LORIA
W
HELAN
is an award-winning author of adult and young adult books. A Michigan native, she researched the stories of the state’s early settlers as told in their journals and letters. “One of the stories was of a family who took in an Indian child and nursed the child through an illness,” she says. “Later, when the family had little food, the Indians helped them.” This story was her inspiration for
Next Spring an Oriole
.
Gloria Whelan lives with her husband in the woods of northern Michigan.
Read more about Libby in
Night
of the
Full Moon
One of the soldiers shot his rifle into the air. Some of the Indians ran toward the woods, but the soldiers rode after them to bring them back. They were like the shepherd dogs in Virginia that ran barking and snarling at the sheep to herd them together.
I grabbed Fawn’s hand. “What’s happening?” I whispered, too frightened to speak aloud.
“It is what your father warned us of. They have come to take us away.”
The final story of Libby’s adventures,
which began with
Next Spring an Oriole
SHADOW
OF THE
WOLF
“Fawn,” I begged, “please do something.” Fawn only shook her head. “If I let the wolf get away, my father will be angry with me. We trap animals because the white man gives us money for the skins. Our land has been taken away. The animals are all that are left to us.”
Fawn’s words made me angry. “I didn’t take your land,” I snapped. “My papa is helping to get it back.”
The wolf lay very still, looking up at us with its green eyes. There was dried blood where the trap dug into its leg. I began to cry. Fawn picked up a dead branch. I covered my eyes so that I would not see her kill the wolf.