These newspaper stories about public experiences were our best tutors. I imagined these scenes later and created my own ironic stories. We were persistent, persuasive, and pretended to be at the very center of the worldly stories that were published that summer in the Tomahawk.
The Ogema Station was built near the grain elevator at the very edge of the woodland and the peneplain. The new station faced west, warmed by the winter sun, but in the summer the platform was not shaded. The Soo Line Railroad provided a residence for the agent and his family in the two-story station. The observation site and ticket office were located in the bay window near the main tracks, and a second building to store freight was attached to the side of the station. The railway mail and “wish book” catalogue orders were stored in the freight house. Montgomery Ward shipped the famous Clipper steel windmills to farmers. Many years later several houses, the entire precut materials, planks, windows, doors, siding and shingles, were ordered by mail from Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue and shipped by train to the Ogema Station.
The station agent was a stout, silent, serious man who sat in the bay window and waited for the next train from Detroit Lakes or from Winnipeg. He encouraged and protected our newspaper business and allowed us to board the trains to hawk copies of the Tomahawk to passengers. The sound of his whistle was absolute and we never abused his trust. His wife provided water on hot summer days, and sometimes she would make sandwiches. The station agent, his wife, and our mother were very close friends. They had once lived near Bad Medicine Lake.
The Mogul engine sounded the whistle and came to a slow stop at the station. The building and platform shuddered from the weight and coal-fired rage of the mighty engine. Steam shrouded the station windows. We waited inside to avoid the heat. Patch, the assistant agent, a smartly dressed native in uniform, greeted every passenger with a salute. He wore gray work gloves and his military coat was properly buttoned, even in the heat and humidity of the summer.
Patch Zhimaaganish, our good friend, was not paid for his service and dedication, but the station agent was sympathetic and allowed him to practice the manner and courtesy of a railroad conductor. Patch was the only boy to survive in his family, and so his given name was a tease of fate. The translation of his surname was “soldier” in the language of the Anishinaabe. His mother tailored a dark brown uniform for him with bright brass buttons and told her son to find a future on the railroad. So, he reported early every day to the station agent and proudly carried out his unpaid railroad duties with dignity.
Patch was taught to play the bugle by his grandfather who served as a bugler in the Civil War. His grandfather was badly wounded, lost a leg, and was given the nickname zhimaaganish, or soldier, when he returned from the war. That nickname became a surname when the reservation was created by treaty in 1868.
Patch Zhimaaganish was an ecstatic singer with a rich baritone voice. The government teachers praised the soldier but the students only mocked his manly voice. He sang native dream songs when the trains arrived at the station, and sometimes he sang in the rain and to the sunset. The Soo Line Railroad agents at other stations on the line told passengers to listen for the great voice of the young agent at the Ogema Station. Patch was honored for his voice, dream songs, and for his courtesy.
In the skyI am walkingA birdI accompany.The first to comeI am calledAmong the birdsI bring the rain
Crow is my name.
Aloysius painted an abstract portrayal of a soldier in uniform, and with two blue ravens at his side. The ravens with enormous beaks pecked at the bugle and buttons on his coat. Patch never had a father or a brother, so he was grateful for our attention and especially for the picture of the blue ravens. The students at the government school teased him as a stupid student, and more so in uniform, and gave him a new nickname, “Niswi S,” or “Triple S,” for Simple Simon Soldier.
Patch Zhimaaganish was a dedicated volunteer conductor at the station, a singer, bugler, and the soldier of his name. We became close friends that summer because he served the railroad agent and we hawked newspapers to passengers at the Ogema Station. Later we were mustered together and served as soldiers in the First World War in France.
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GATEWAY PARK
— — — — — — — 1909 — — — — — — —
The Soo Line train arrived on schedule that afternoon and we boarded as passengers on our first adventure south to the great city of Minneapolis. Augustus bought our tickets as he had promised a year earlier. We were dedicated to the promotion of the newspaper during the year and that pleased him more than our hurried mission as painters. The white paint had already started to blister and crack on the sunny side of the newspaper building.
Augustus emerged from the steam of the engine, a great man on our reservation, and gave me a brown envelope with money for the hotel and other expenses on the journey. Aloysius was given a new book of art paper. He touched the smooth white paper, and then we both hugged our uncle on the steamy platform. We were about to leave the reservation for the first time and without permission of the federal agency regime.
Honoré, our father, had not been home for more than three weeks. He was cutting timber near Bad Medicine Lake. Our uncle told us not to worry, because no agent would dare to confront him or anyone in our family about government permission to leave the reservation. He had shunned the authority of the federal agent and every agent since the federal court had decided in favor of the constitutional right to publish the Progress. Augustus would never solicit favors or permission from any agent of the government to leave the reservation.
Margaret, our mother, our uncle, Patch Zhimaaganish, the eager soldier and conductor, and the station agent and his wife were there to wave as the engine slowly pulled away from the station. My heart beat faster with the mighty thrust of the engine. Aloysius convinced our mother that we must present the original totemic paintings of blue ravens to curators at art museums and galleries in Minneapolis.
Patch saluted and then he removed his gray gloves and waved until his hand vanished in the distance. Suddenly we realized that our friend, the good soldier, should have joined us on the train to the city. That would not happen, however, for another nine years, when we were drafted at the same time to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
We packed thirty folded copies of the Tomahawk to hawk at stations on the way, but the tout and trade was reversed. The sound of the engine and the whistle was the same but every station was an adventure. We left the train for a few minutes at each station rather than board the passenger car to promote the newspaper and the Hotel Leecy on the White Earth Reservation.
I sold only five copies in one direction and twelve copies on our return to the Ogema Station. Aloysius painted blue ravens in scenes at every station, blue ravens with beaks under wing, and with great feathers that shrouded the passengers.
The Soo Line Railroad stopped at stations in Callaway, Detroit Lakes, Vergas, Ottertail, Henning, Parkers Prairie, Alexandria, Glenwood, Eden Valley, Kimball, Annandale, Maple Lake, Buffalo, and other towns without stations. We remembered every town on the railroad line, and we announced the street names and counted every house and building as the train approached the Milwaukee Road Depot in Minneapolis.
Eden Valley and other country towns moved slowly through the windows of the passenger car, one by one, surrounded by farms. The towns were built by migrants and fugitives from other worlds of stone and monarchies.
Chicago, our uncle said, was built twice with white pine trees cut down from our reservation, and we wondered at the time about the timber that built the houses in Minneapolis. We were native migrants in the same new world that had created the timber ruins of the White Earth Reservation.
The slow and steady motion of the train created