The Spoiled Romance

The Mormon and the Mohawk
Growing up Heathen

Sandy, the Snake,
The Reverend Findaly
and the Spoiled Romance
By KiiskeeN'tum (She Who Remembers)

Hi again folks! Nice to *see ya all again. Do you have your listening ears on? Ready for a story?

As some of you know, and some of you don’t, yet, at least, I grew up at the edge of a small Native American Indian Reservation, way back in the late fifties and early sixties. We lived in a huge old house that sat at the top of a hill. Two ‘cricks’ ran in the field below and there were two bridges made of railroad ties that got us up the road and home. Whenever someone drove or rode over them they rumbled and grumbled, letting us know that someone was coming. (Later on when I was a teen, this became a vital part of ‘living till my next birthday’ as if my father had caught me doing half of what I was doing, my life would have ended then and there!)

Well, anyhow, the road going up to our house was lined by large Maple and Elm trees, that shaded us in summer and helped block the snows of winter. Have I mentioned lately that the North has WAY too much winter? Or that I HATE being cold?

Our house had a big yard, and lots of flowers. My Granny, well, she loved growing things. Even things that weren’t supposed to grow near a house, like Trilliums! And hundreds and hundreds of Peonies of many colors and varieties. Ours was one of the only homes that had a real yard with grass that was cut (By us, my father being a lazy sod who thought that bringing us children into the world meant we owed him years and years of hard work, including cutting that big ole yard with a push mower).

Most other folks yards had rusted out farming equipment, and the odd rusted out car or truck laying all about, making a great home for bees, hornets and other stinging and flying beasties. There was this time my Granny got caught by a swarm of honey bees and what …well, that’s a story for a different time.

Our yard sure was pretty! When we’d come walking home from the local school, we could smell the flowers most of the way up the long road. Didn’t smell quite as nice as Granny’s kitchen, but it surely was nice!

For many years, six or so I think, my brothers, those of school age anyway, walked to and from school, hot weather or cold. In spring we needed high topped rubber boots to get through the muddy, wagon rutted roads. Lots of times, being kids and all, we just took off our footwear and ran through the mud in our bare feet. Having grown up wearing moccasins or going bare foot, I hated shoes! (Still do as a matter of fact. All the footwear I own today is one pair of Sunday shoes, one pair of sandals and several pairs of moccasins).

In good weather, of which there is not a lot up there, we enjoyed the walk to and from school. About a quarter mile before we got to school, the road made a big ‘S’, and there was a bigger creek with a real steel bridge that we had to cross. There was a boat launch at one side, with a gravel road leading down to the water. Not sure what the boat launch was for, no one ever used the thing! The high banks on the side of the bridge hid us from the road and the Teachers line of site.

So we’d run down the boat launch, and dip our feet in the cold spring water to clean all the muck off before completing our trek to school. Some days there were KingFisher’s swooping and soaring, diving to grab a fish and then sit in the trees on the banks of the creek to eat them. We’d eagerly watch the crick for the first signs of the sucker fish that meant spring was well and truly here, and wait excitedly for the end of the school day to rush home to grab our spears. We competed to be the first to bring fish home for Granny to cook for supper. Or watching the frogs eggs hatch into tadpoles and grow into frogs. At least once a year Sandy would catch a frog and hide it somewhere in something to startle a person, and too often, that someone was ME! Watching the frogs hatch and grow gave us older kids a place to act superior and tell the younger ones about the cycle of life, often with erroneous details added just for fun!

Oh yes, have I told you that our school was a one room affair built by the local Education Committee? It was built by some white man who used green lumber, took all the money and ran away, never to be seen again in those parts. The green lumber caused the roof to heave and make holes that the rain ran through anytime it rained. Lots in the spring and fall! And the walls were none too straight either!

This particular warm spring day, was special, as it wasn’t yet warm enough for the mosquitoes to be out, and one could really enjoy the outdoors without those nasty bloodsucking leaches to spoil it. My brothers and I were walking, talking, telling jokes, running into and out of the ditches, splashing, and having a great old time.

Grandfather Sun was shining brightly, and Brother Wind was warm on our arms and faces. My next brother, Sandy was known to be ‘full of mischief’ and liked to bother any adult he could. The local Preacher, The Reverend Findaly, well, he really didn’t like my brother much, there having been an incident or two in which Sandy had caused him some grief. He was always pointing at Sandy and telling folks what a ‘bad apple’ he was and how sure The Reverend was that Sandy would come to a ‘VERY bad end’. Now my brother, he enjoyed the notoriety, said it gave him ‘a reputation to live up to!” and live up to it he did!

Well, to really understand this story, you need to know a little bit about the school teacher we had just then too. The newest local school marm, she was a white girl. She had replaced the ‘penguins’, our names for the Catholic Sisters who had been our previous teachers. Her name was Miss Rachel. She wasn’t any more than 18 and supported her widowed mother by teaching at our school. (Most of the adults were running a betting pool based on how long would she actually last. In our community, which was Haudenosaunee (Mohawk), we bet on everything!!!!)

Now Miss Rachel, she had long red hair, which was really unusual there abouts. She wore it long and braided. By usual customs, she shoulda put it up on her head, but for what ever reason, she left it in two braids most days and one at the back of her head other times. She, like most of the white folks about, thought we were all ‘Heathen’s’ and would come to a ‘bad end’ anyway. None of us rightly knew what a Heathen was, or what a ‘bad end’ was either for that matter. She was also very tall. Taller than most of the women anywhere nearby and taller than a lot of the men folk too! She walked sort of hunched over, trying to make herself shorter. Gave her sort of a ‘turtle’ look, like she was carrying a shell around on her back!

Miss Rachel wasn’t used to living on the Reservation, nor to eating what most of us thought of as good food. It was known that she wouldn’t eat Rabbit Stew, or Bear, or Squirrel, and once one of us mentioned eating Muskrat and she ran outside to loose the contents of her stomach in the outhouse. She was ‘soft, city girl’ or so we children all thought.

Well, you remember that The Reverend Findaly was a single man, right? He claimed he’d never met a woman ‘Godly enough’ to marry. This didn’t stop him from pursuing every single girl over the age of 15 or so. Why, he even tried to court the local Indian girls! Unheard of an got him talked about by the white folk!

The Reverend, he wore big horned rim black glasses without lenses in them. Not to see with you know, but to hold the hearing aids in his ears, him being somewhat deaf and all. He was not very tall, about five feet nine or so.

Once Miss Rachel arrived, it took The Reverend Findaly about ten minutes to find out there was a new white school marm, and another half hour to show up at the school to welcome her to the community. He even took a bath and put on some ‘pomade’. It smelled a bit better than skunk, but not much! And we Mohawks thought the ‘moccasin telegraph’ was fast!

Thereafter, he took to ‘calling on’ Miss Rachel at least once each day during school hours and three or four times a week in the evening. She’d moved into the school marm’s house, right next to the school, with her aged and infirm mother. (Now the mamma was a mean one! But that’s a story for another day)

He used any excuse he could come up, but his favorite was how it was his ‘bounden’ duty’ to save us poor ‘Heathen’ children from coming to a ‘bad end’. So he’d read the Bible in his melodious voice, and quiz us on what the words really meant. We never did get it right to his satisfaction. He had a great voice! It rippled and flowed, and got louder and softer and sometimes sounded like the Thunder Beings that visited after a spring lightning storm! My Granny said she didn’t agree with his religion, but she did enjoy his delivery!

Sometimes, in the evening, we saw them out riding in his old buggy with the broken down horse called Buddy. His voice could be heard for quite some distance ahead and behind. Miss Rachel, she never looked very happy at all, but The Reverend looked like he’d found Heaven! She became his favorite topic of conversation and he managed to work something about her into every single Sunday sermon for months! There being not much entertainment about, most of us attended church just to listen to him talk.

Well, I’m sure you all are wondering what this all has to do with this story and my brother right?

So, back to that beautiful spring morning. As we were washing off our muddy feet in the cold water, my brother hears a noise in the pile of dead grass at the side of the ditch. Like lightning, he runs over, and grabs what ever is making the noise. Imagine his surprise when his hand gets wrapped around this HUGE milk snake, at least three feet long and in places as thick as a man’s wrist! Sandy, he’s so scared, he hangs on so tight the poor snake nearly suffocates.

Now the rest of us are laughing and jumping about, while Sandy just sort of stares into the eyes of that big ole snake for the longest time. His face is just a tad pale, and for the first time in my memory, Sandy is speechless. It takes him a few minutes to collect himself, and then he’s back to being the cocky, know it all that everyone is so familiar with. Sandy’s tan face gets this look that means he’s ‘got a plan’ that will make someone miserable. Since, being with him, I know it won’t be me, I think it’s okay to get in on the fun. So, I ask: “Sandy, what’cha thinking of doing with that there snake? Gee, that’s the biggest milk snake I’ve ever seen around here! Ain’t he grand!”

Sandy, ever one to keep things close so he can be in total control, says, “Just watch”. He slowly coils the snake up and puts it in his back pack, which is army surplus and pretty sturdy, with only a small hole or two that’s supposed to have been made by some German soldier in the last Great War. Making sure his guest is safe, he slings the backpack onto his skinny shoulders while we all get back to washing our feet. Not having any towels or such, we use the old, dried grass to dry them off, being careful that there are no more snakes near by.

All of us kids, about six or so, are really curious, but we know that Sandy won’t tell us anything till he’s of a mind to. So we try guessing what it is he’s going to do. Suggestions of making cooked snake sandwiches, or snake stew, or hiding it in the Reverend’s saddle bags, or pockets are all met by a sly, sneaky smile. Gee, Sandy was like Fort Knox when it came to things like this! The more we guessed, the more he smiled and stayed silent about his Plan, and talked endlessly about things that no one cared to hear! We were really excited, as this was sure to be good entertainment indeed!

We all enter the school, take off our boots, hand up coats and take our places at our desks. Each row of desks is slightly bigger than the first, and each row is one grade. We go from Grade One to Grade Eight, about 20 or so kids in all. The excitement is just about more than we can stand. What DOES that boy have planned anyway?

The school building faces south and the morning sun streams into the room. It gets warmer as the day grows longer. Miss Rachel’s desk is a huge oak one, with lots of drawers, all with locks of different sizes and each of them LOCKED tight. It sits at the south end of the school. After all, we’re all stealing Heathen’s right? Nothing is safe from us if left unlocked, or so Miss Rachel has been told. In the absence of any other information she takes it as being the Gospel truth. She often jingles as she walks, her keys on a leather throng around her neck.

Miss Rachel is dressed a very pretty green dress, which sets off her red hair and green eyes very nicely. The oldest boys stared at her, and a time or too I notice that she gets embarrassed and turns bright red when she notices.

Early mornings we study arithmetic and spelling, each class taking it’s lessons from the various blackboards that Miss Rachel has written on. The blackboards take up two complete walls, so there’s lots of room and she seems to think she has to crowd every bit of space with work for us. Telling us often that ‘idle hands are the Devil’s workshop’, she works us hard each day.

Today is no different for her, but for those of us full of excitement, waiting for Sandy’s plan, time slows down to a crawl. We do our best to pay attention and do our work, but our eyes keep wandering over to Sandy and his backpack, at his feet.

Morning recess, two of the boys start a fight and Miss Rachel runs out of the school room to separate them and give them a punishment. She sure has a temper! The two boys keep smiling anyway, enjoying the attention. By now, every one of the kids knows that something is up, and the excitement level is really high!

After recess, we hear the Reverend’s wagon pull up. Dang it all, I thought. He’ll spoil everything! Now we’re never get our fun! We can smell him before we see him, that pomade sure is horrible!

The Reverend waltzes in like he owns the place, swaggering up to the front of the classroom, leaning over Miss Rachel as if he had every right to do so. She doesn’t look too happy to see him either, I thought. Wonder what that’s about? Isn’t she his ‘beloved?’

All of a sudden, Sandy stands up and raises his hand. Sandy? Raising his hand? Now this had got to be ‘it’!!!! All of us turn our heads to watch, holding our breath, waiting….

After a couple of minutes, Miss Rachel asks: “Yes, Sandy? Do you have a question?”

Sandy looks her full in the face (Now I KNOW something is up!). He smiles and gently asks, “Well, Miss Rachel, I’ve been a pondering something the good Reverend said last Sunday and I’m a bit confused about a quote he used. Would it be okay for me to ask him to find it in your Bible and read it to us? Maybe that will help me make sense of it?”

Now we can all see the confusion on Miss Rachel’s face, and the hope on The Reverend’s. We can almost hear him saying “Gee, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could convert that Old Witch’s no account grandson? That oughta be good for a raise at least!”

The Reverend he thought my Granny was a Witch since she used herbs to heal and followed the Old Ways of Our People. He was wont to say so a dozen times a day at least!

“Yes, young man, I’ll be more than happy to clear up any questions you have about Scripture. I’m well versed in it you know, being a Man of God and all. What was your question?”

“Sir, shouldn’t you get the Bible out, so you can get to the right place and we don’t have to waste Miss Rachel’s class time with this?”

Sandy? Worried about wasting class time? I let out the breath I’ve been holding slowly and listen as everyone else does the same.

Miss Rachel hands the key to the drawer that holds her Bible. The Reverend, still looking at Miss Rachel’s pretty face, reaches in, without looking, expecting only to find a Bible. All of a sudden he gets this horrified look on his face, then he gets pale, then begins to scream like a baby! As he drags his hand out, we can see that big old milk snake, teeth firmly attached to his hand and wrapped several times about his right hand and wrist!

The Reverend begins to jump and shout, cussing and then begins to swear. Now us kids, we all knew that he had a great command of both, ever since the incident of the Apple Pie and the second incident with Blackie the Crow, but those happened before Miss Rachel came, and I was sure no one would have told her about either of them, not wanting to embarrass a Man of God and all.

Now The Reverend was bald, and when ever he gets excited, his head gets all shiny and sweaty. All of us are laughing to hard we can’t hardly sit on our chairs, and a couple of us fell off them, laughing so hard.

Miss Rachel, she jumps up on a chair and starts screaming too, but no cussing or swearing at all. That’s a shame I think, I could use some new cussing to practice. And The Reverend, he’s not being creative this time around.

Someone going by on the road hears all the noise and rushes in to see what’s going on, thinking someone is being scalped or murdered or something. We see its Jacob Brown, a man that many of the older girls have crushes on, as he’s so good looking, tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, lots of muscles and single too! He runs over to stand beside Miss Rachel, and she picks that particular moment to faint dead away. Moving fast, Jacob catches her before she hits the floor. He looks really surprised and unsure of what to do next, so he stands there and holds her.

The Reverend, he sees his beloved in the arms of another man, gets more agitated, and all of a sudden his cussing becomes VERY creative! We all start paying closer attention, hoping to learn some new ones for the Cussing Contest at the local County Fair that happens each Autumn. Jacob he stands there, not sure what to do, whether to hold on to the school teacher or let go and run for his life, as he can see that The Reverend is about to use violence upon his person. Deciding that protecting the Teacher is a higher priority than protecting his person, he sits down with his back to the wall, holding Miss Rachel close to his chest, and putting his knees up behind her back, in case The Reverend misses hitting him and hits her.

But the poor Reverend, he’s got this three foot problem attached to his right hand, and it’s impossible to hit Jacob with that thing attached.

He starts shouting, “Get me a knife, you stupid excuses for Human Beings, you Pagan Savages, you imbecilic Heathens, GET ME A KNIFE!”.

We’re all thinking maybe he’s going to do like animals in traps and cut off his hand to be free of the snake. This might be our best adventure yet! Doing that would surely mean a lot of blood!!!!

It soon becomes clear to us that he intends on cutting the snake to pieces, and I just can’t allow that at all. The poor snake was simply minding its own business when my brother dragged it into his plans.

Having been in the snake’s place a time or too, I empathize highly and decide it’s time to intervene. So I run over, trip The Reverend Findaly, who falls on his behind, still cussing. I reach down and pinch the snakes neck just behind his jaws and he let’s go of The Reverend’s hand. It must have been shock or relief, or maybe terror, but then The Reverend, he faints dead away!

Grabbing as much of poor snake as I can, I rush out to the wood pile to set him free. (Well, my observations of snake anatomy were limited. He turned out to be a she and left a bunch of baby snakes in the woodpile later that summer!)

I can see from my side vision that Miss Rachel had been coming around as I was rescuing The Reverend, and she’s got this ‘moon struck’ look on her face as she sees who’s holding her. My stomach sinks, as I’ve seen too many grown ups with that look and know that The Reverend’s romance is deader than a three day old fish.

All the kids except Sandy are still laughing, and a few adults have made their way into the school during the ruckus, and they’re laughing too! I see my Granny standing there, and then, horror of horrors, I see my Pappa! Gee, I’m gonna be in such trouble! He’s just plain mean, that one!

Sandy, placing a higher value on his own skin than anyone else’s had made off for parts unknown, to avoid having his hide ‘tanned’. I’m still not sure how he got out of the school, nor how he got that poor snake into the locked desk drawer where the Bible was sposed to be!

Well, as you can likely guess, Miss Rachel, she married Jacob in pretty short order, became a permanent part of our community (tho not always as a Teacher) and they had 10 or 12 kids before all was done. They seemed happy enough. They made cow eyes at each other every day of their lives.

The Reverend, he recovered from his broken heart enough to perform the wedding ceremony, tho Sandy did play that trick on them during the reception, with the fruit punch! The Reverend went back to chasing every girl of marriageable age for miles around in only a year or so. Some of them said they sure enjoyed the rest and were prone to give Sandy candies every now and again in appreciation.

Sandy got his hide ‘tanned’ but by my Granny. not my Pappa, and she wouldn’t let Pappa hurt me at all. Course I had to do all the dirty chores she lined up for a month! The worst part was gutting and scaling all the fish we caught in the next few weeks.. Do you know how my Pappy fishes? Him being as lazy as he is and all? No? Well, we’ll leave that one for another time!

Ya’all drive home safe now, ya hear? Hope to see you next time for another in the Growing Up Heathen Stories!

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