I thought then that he knew he was part of the Good Spirit and that he had things to say to the Hebrews and to the Romans, and that he took care of people who suffered and that these were the important things. Share the spirit of his ways, I told myself, and the spirit of the ways of others who are like him—persons like Tree. Then leave the rest to the Good Spirit. Jesus, I thought, would understand this.

But my dreams troubled me: from time to time I saw my white mother. She always approached me and stared at Hiokatoo and at my garb. When she took in what had become of me, that I loved the Good Spirit but was not a Christian, she would cover her mouth with her hand.

“Mother,” I said to her. “Mother.”

And in the dreams I thought of hiding my children from her. Instead I said to her, “Mother. I have children. Come and see my children.”

However, she would turn away and would not look upon them and would say to no one in particular, “This woman who was my daughter is but a shade of what she was. These children, along with their mother, neither read nor write. My white grandchildren, had I had them, would have been able to read and write.”

With that, she would walk directly away, and as she walked she would say, as if addressing the sky or the wind, “Remember me.” I believe she said this in order to prompt me to alter my life according to her wishes.

T A straight line at the top.

Then a straight line underneath that rose up in the middle to meet the first line.

T

T

T

She inscribed a T in the reddish wet earth and tilted her head. T was for tooth and Tree and turtle and timbrel and table and Thomas her son, and Thomas her father. T was powerful.

However, she could not proceed to drawing other letters. T was the last letter she could remember.

I could no longer really read nor write. When I was with my white family my life from around the age of ten, except for some winter evenings, had been hard and crowded with labors. Mother was particular in every respect; each minute, it seemed, there was something to be scrubbed down or winnowed, something to be split or bundled. As my brothers and sisters were born, I as the eldest became their caretaker.

Father read to us from the Bible almost every day while Mother and I sewed. Both my parents often quoted long Scripture passages by heart. I desired to read more on my own, but I rarely had time. My hold on reading and writing, then, was fragile even before my capture.