mother to the river, on a late winter day, we found great chunks of ice
piled all along the bank. The ice on the river was floating in huge
pieces. As I stood beside one large block, I noticed for the first time
the colors of the rainbow in the crystal ice. Immediately I thought of
my glass marbles at home. With my bare fingers I tried to pick out some
of the colors, for they seemed so near the surface. But my fingers
began to sting with the intense cold, and I had to bite them hard to
keep from crying.

From that day on, for many a moon, I believed that glass marbles had
river ice inside of them.




VII.

THE BIG RED APPLES.


The first turning away from the easy, natural flow of my life occurred
in an early spring. It was in my eighth year; in the month of March, I
afterward learned. At this age I knew but one language, and that was my
mother's native tongue.

From some of my playmates I heard that two paleface missionaries were in
our village. They were from that class of white men who wore big hats
and carried large hearts, they said. Running direct to my mother, I
began to question her why these two strangers were among us. She told
me, after I had teased much, that they had come to take away Indian boys