The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

Author:Forrest Carter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Autobiography, Young Adult, Cherokee, Great Depression, Fiction, Coming-of-Age
ISBN: 9780826316943
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2011-08-24T12:00:00+00:00

The cabin looked crazy and tilted when I run into the clearing, and I tried to yell for Granma … but nothing would come out. I fell through the kitchen door and right into Granma’s arms. Granma held me and put cold water on my face. She looked at me steady and said, “What happened—where?” I tried to get it out. “Granpa’s dying …” I whispered, “rattlesnake … creek bank.” Granma dropped me flat on the floor, which knocked the rest of the wind out of me.

She grabbed a sack and was gone. I can see her now; full skirt, with hair braids flying behind and her tiny moccasin feet flying over the ground. She could run! She had not said anything, “Oh Lord!” or nothing. She never hesitated nor looked around. I was on my hands and knees in the kitchen door, and I hollered after her, “Don’t let Granpa die!” She never slowed down, running from the clearing up the trail. I screamed as loud as I could, and it echoed up the hollow, “Don’t let him die, Granma!” I figured, more than likely, Granma wouldn’t let him die.

I turned the dogs out and they took off after Granma, howling and baying up the trail. I ran behind them, fast as I could.

When I got there, Granpa was laying flat out. Granma had propped his head up, and the dogs was circling around, whining. Granpa’s eyes was closed and his arm was nearly black.

Granma had slashed his hand again and was sucking on it, spitting blood on the ground. When I stumbled up, she pointed to a birch tree. “Pull the bark off, Little Tree.”

I grabbed Granpa’s long knife and stripped the bark off the tree. Granma built a fire, using the birch bark to start it, for it will burn like paper. She dipped water out of the creek and hung a can over the fire and commenced to put roots and seeds into it; and some leaves that she had taken from the sack. I don’t know all of what was used, but the leaves was lobelia, for Granma said that Granpa had to have it to help him breathe.

Granpa’s chest was moving slow and hard. While the can was heating, Granma stood and looked around. I hadn’t seen anything at all … but fifty yards off, against the mountain, there was a quail nesting on the ground. Granma undid her big skirt and let it drop on the ground. She hadn’t anything on under it. Her legs looked like a girl’s, with long muscles moving under the copper skin.

She tied the top of the skirt together, and tied rocks around in the bottom of the skirt. Then she moved on the quail’s nest like a wind whisper. Just at the right time—she knew—the quail rose off the nest, and she threw the skirt over it.

She brought the quail back, and while it was still alive, she split it from breastbone to tail, and spraddled it, kicking, over Granpa’s snake bite.

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