Prairie Lotus: Chapters 1–5

“About time we had a hot meal,” he said.
Hanna bristled at the note of petulance in his voice; the dreary weather of the past week was hardly her fault.

Rain had rinsed the gray and beige plains, leaving behind a translucence of green that was growing denser every day.

She took up her pencil and began to draw, combining the bodice of one dress with the skirt of the other.

He told her that the government had forced the Indians in this region, most of them members of the Sioux tribe, off the wide-open prairie and onto tracts of land reserved for them.

She could conjure delicious soups from nothing but scraps and bones, and she had taught Hanna the secret: One strongly flavored ingredient could make the whole pot of leftovers tasty, and you didn’t need much of it.

The white tubers were clearly some kind of vegetable.

They tapered in size along the length of the braid, the smallest about the size of a walnut.

“Good thing you fed them. Wouldn’t want any trouble.”
Hanna let a moment go by; she didn’t want to sound impudent. “Not even a hint of trouble, Papa.”

For years there had been bloody skirmishes between the Indians and white people.

Like many other tribes, the Sioux had signed a treaty with the US government, promising that white settlers would not encroach on Indian land.

She saw packed-dirt streets and buildings of raw lumber identified by hand-lettered signs: a dry-goods store, a hardware store, a saloon, a feed store. There was even a furniture shop, a rarity in these hinterlands.

LaForge was little different from the other frontier towns she had seen: the railroad at the north end, with Main Street at a right angle to it, leading to the livery at the south end.

Hanna climbed the stairs along the outside of the building carrying a valise and a sack atop a wooden box.

He would take their horses, Chester the roan and Cherry the sorrel mare, to be boarded at the livery, and park the wagon there too.

Several more columns and rows held novelty buttons, shaped like animals or stars or cherries.

Pressed carefully into the Bible Miss Lorna had given her when they left Los Angeles was a square of plain muslin with two lotuses: one done by Mama as an example, and the other by seven-year-old Hanna.

Mama’s stitches were even, symmetrical, with perfect tension. Those by Hanna were wobbly and uncertain. But Mama had praised her effort, and since then, Hanna had embroidered a lotus countless times, always striving to make hers as even and graceful as Mama’s.

“You questioning my decision?” His voice rose in querulousness that she knew could easily become anger.

It was true: Papa had his faults, but he was a shrewd businessman.

He was setting up a dry-goods shop just outside Chinatown, and he needed a seamstress.

Five young boys were running and calling out to one another. They turned the corner and went down Second Street. Behind them, three little girls followed more sedately.

As they ate, she felt the heat of her agitation cooling into something steadier and more solid. A tree stump. No, a rock. A big boulder that takes a yoke of oxen to move.

First she needed to sieve the flour and the cornmeal. She found the box that held the sifter, a ring of tin with a mesh bottom, and brought out the flour sack. A few cupfuls at a time, she poured flour into the sifter and shook it over her largest cooking pot.

Hanna felt her spirits lift a little and immediately tamped them down.

Children taunting her, shouting derisively in fake Chinese, pulling at the corners of their eyes to mock her.

As she stood on the threshold of the schoolhouse, it was hard for her to recall why she had wanted so badly to be here.

The teacher, a fair young woman with light brown hair twisted into a knot low on the nape of her neck, was sitting behind a big desk across the room.

With that single glance, Hanna also appraised what Dolly was wearing: a dress of fine brown poplin that fit her nicely. But Hanna’s practiced eye saw traces of picked-out seams along the bodice. Which meant that Dolly’s dress had originally been a different size and had been made over for her.

The teacher was tactful and did not call on Hanna to read or respond on her first day.

Her hair was styled with curled bangs; her dress was blue challis with a lace collar and cuffs. Very demure and proper, with one subtle exception: The bodice was buttoned with dark blue roundels made of sparkling cut glass.

Two of the twenty children stayed and ate at their desks; Hanna guessed that they lived outside town on a homestead claim.

Like the other towns in Dakota Territory, LaForge was surrounded by parcels of land, each 160 acres. People—usually men—would “claim” a parcel by filing their intention with the government and paying eighteen dollars. They had to farm the land and live on it half the year for five years, after which they had “proved” their claim and would own the land.

Like spectral hounds across the sky,
The white clouds scud before the storm;
And naked in the howling night
The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form.

He had a very quick smile that might have been called cheeky if it weren’t so friendly.

Sam was not the least bit shy. He grinned and made an exaggerated bow.
“Sam,” Miss Walters said, “you read very well, but please remember that modesty is always becoming.”

Hanna had taken a skein of yellow wool from Mama’s knitting basket and played with it in front of the big mirror on the shop wall, draping the yarn over her head as she stared at her reflection.

After brushing Hanna’s shoulder-length hair, she plaited it carefully, weaving in the silk cord, then wrapping and tying it at the bottom of the braid.

Bess turned toward Hanna, the smallest of movements, so subtle that Hanna thought she might have imagined it.

She kept her eyes resolutely on her book even as those whispers seemed to crawl down her spine.

“Fifth Reader class, please choose a selection and use it for your grammar lesson. Parse a sentence of at least ten words on your slates. Fourth Reader class, rise and come forward.”