Jemmy was born Gemstone Opal Stott, but she goes by Jemmy now at 17. She lives in Minnesota with her father who is an alcoholic who often mistreats the family when he drinks. He is Irish, and Jemmy's mother was Chippewa, but she isn't with the family anymore. One day Jemmy is instructed by her father to quit school so she can care for her younger siblings. She doesn't mind, so she acquiesces.
She talks about her race in the following prose. She sometimes feels like two halves of a person instead of one person. She tells us that at her white school she felt properly Native American than white. School has a white culture that permeates every aspect of it in her opinion, like the dress code, which she finds unnecessarily restrictive and condescending.
During a blizzard, she meets Otis Chapman and his wife Ann. Otis asks if Jemmy will pose for a mural he is painting of the Maiden of Eagle Rock (an important local legend). She agrees, and it is the first time she leaves her small town life to see more of the world. With this newfound perspective and appreciation from art, she suddenly begins to feel moved to make art of her own.
