My Mother
There is a path that leads from Zitkala-Sa's neighborhood to the river, and every day her mother treads the path several times in order to get water for the family. As a young girl, Zitkala-Sa feels free as a bird, and at one with the nature around her. By contrast, her mother always looks sad, as if the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Zitkala-Sa tells her mother that once she turns seventeen years old she will take over the water carrying duties for the household, like her older cousin has done. Her mother makes a throwaway comment, suggesting that the paleface will take their water from them by the time that day comes. When Zitkala-Sa doesn't understand, she explains that they have taken much from their community and it is because of paleface that Zitkala-Sa's uncle and cousin are dead.
The Dead Man's Plum Bush
Zitkala-Sa sees men with painted faces coming into the neighborhood; she has never seen them before but knows they have come to honor new warrior Haraka Wambdi and celebrate his first victory. She and her mother are supposed to be joining in the celebration but they are waiting for a duck that her mother is roasting to finish cooking. Zitkala-Sa is impatient and cannot understand why her mother needs to cook a duck when they are going to a banquet. Her mother reminds her about the elderly lady in the neighborhood who has been very sick; she is taking the duck to her. Zitkala-Sa feels guilty for forgetting about the elderly lady's existence in her excitement to get to the banquet and hear stories told by the elders. She goes with her mother to deliver the duck and on the way passes a plum bush with ripe plums on it. She reaches out to pick one but her mother stops her; the plum tree marks the burial spot of a revered warrior, who died with plum seeds in his hands. Plum seeds were placed into his hands again before his burial. A plum tree had grown over his burial mound. Zitkala-Sa believed this was a reminder to her to always listen for the sound of the spirits on the winds.
The Ground Squirrel
Zitkala-Sa is not fond of the fall, because the river becomes shrouded in mist, which scares her. She stays close to her mother when the mists are on the river. Fall also brings harvest time; her mother and aunt harvest corn, and it is Zitkala-Sa's task to watch the corn whilst it dries. Whilst she is doing this she spots a small ground squirrel, and she feeds him the corn kernels by hand. Her mother does not like her to do this because she is worried she may get bitten, but Zitkala-Sa loves the squirrel and does not fear him. Her mother and aunt also cut huge slices from big pumpkins and hang them between two poles, as well as drying fruits of all colors. Yet amongst all of this vibrant color and amazing aromas, Zitkala-Sa's favorite memory from fall as a child is of the little squirrel who visits.
During the winter, she takes a walk to the river with her mother and she sees that the river has frozen; there are huge chunks of ice floating in it and the sun reflects on the chunks, making them seem to be full of colors. The ice chunks remind her of the bag of colored glass marbles that the missionaries gave her. From that day onwards she believes that the marbles are filled with ice from the river.
The Big Red Apples.
Soon, missionaries begin to visit the Indian villages. Zitkala-Sa's mother is suspicious of these paleface strangers, but the tribe's children were all intrigued by them. The missionaries' intention was to take the children away to schools specially created to make them more European-American. Zitkala-Sa's brother had already gone to one of the missionary schools out east, and the missionaries are keen to recruit his sister as well. Zitkala-Sa's mother does not want her to go but she is curious; other children tell her that the lands out east have trees where apples grow so close to the ground that one can reach up a hand and pick one. Zitkala-Sa wants to taste an apple because she has never had one before. She wants adventure too, and the missionaries use this natural inquisitiveness to convince her to go with them, telling her of apples to eat, and of a ride on an iron horse, but only if she goes with them right away.
The Devil
Zitkala-Sa has always been taught not to fear anybody, but paleface contradicts this teaching. She is shown a picture in a book of a frightening figure with horns and a long spiky tail. The paleface tell her that this is the devil and that he tortures children who don't obey school regulations.
That night, she has a dream in which her mother and another woman are in a house when the devil comes in. Zitkala-Sa is screaming at them to tell them that they are in danger but they cannot hear her Later she scribbles over the picture of the devil in her book so hard that there is a hole in the page where the image had been.
Iron Routine
The children are woken up every morning by a loud bell clanging at 6:30am. They are expected to get ready quickly in time for roll call. Even when they were sick they would have to be there on time or else be listed as tardy. Once Zitkala-Sa was sick and did not feel well enough to go down for roll call but she still had to do so. She hates the teachers because they don't care about the children when they are sick. Once there was another little girl who was very ill indeed; teachers sat at her bedside and applied cold rags to her hands and feet to bring her fever down but it made no difference; she died anyway. Her overriding memories of school are of hating this time in her life. She hated the way the teachers dismissed illnesses in the children. She hated the medicine she had to take when she was sick. She hated being marked tardy just because she was sick. Eventually she remembered how to smile again but looking back, it is these tragic and difficult times that she remembers the most.
