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Chapter 12: Clara
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Five Little Indians, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Resilience and Redemption
Cruelty and Trauma
Family
Finding Home
Summary
Analysis
Flashing forward again to after Howie’s arrest for theft, Clara spends six months counseling him and helping him to establish himself. By the end of that time, she means so much to Howie that he immediately asks her out to dinner at the Only. There, he tells her the story of how he ended up in the mission school.
The blossoming romance between Howie and Clara tracks the slow process of their rehabilitation. Both will carry the scars of their experiences for the rest of their lives. But, the book suggests, as they find ways to forge meaningful lives for themselves, they can—and will—find a measure of peace.
Themes
In the story, Howie is five years old, living with his mother Sagastis on a reservation in Saskatchewan. When Sagastis’s sister Mae, who followed her white husband Charlie to the logging communities of British Columbia, sends money for train tickets, they head west for a visit. Howie is excited, and he finds the train trip fascinating. Auntie May’s house and its modern conveniences are even more fascinating; on the reservation, he grew up without electricity or running water. It’s an enchanted summer for Howie. He celebrates his sixth birthday at Mae’s house with streamers, store-bought cake, and a hotdog roast. Mae gives him a set of toy cars. But the local priest, passing by as they celebrate in the yard, finds out about Howie’s birthday.
Of all the characters, Howie gives readers the clearest impression of what his life was like before residential school. And while the reservation on which he grew up lacked modern conveniences, his mother took good care of him, and he had a happy life there. The church’s and state’s claims about helping or civilizing the children kidnapped into the residential school system are shown here to be utterly false and totally malicious. What’s worse, the authorities felt so entitled to control Indigenous lives that Mae’s local priest thinks it’s in his scope of authority to take Howie, even though Howie doesn’t have any connection with that priest or his community.
Themes
A few days later, on the eve of their return home, the priest returns with a police officer and kidnaps Howie over Sagastis’s protests that she will send him to school in Saskatchewan. Howie isn’t too scared or worried when he first arrives at the mission school. He trusts his mother to rescue him. But he’s not happy either; he begins wetting the bed and must endure teasing from the other children and abuse from Sister Mary because of it. As the year turns from fall to winter to spring and back to fall, and as one year turns to three, his hope slowly disappears. Still, he finds a friend in Kenny.
Howie’s experiences at the school bear witness to the violence of the system. Wetting the bed is clearly a reaction to the stress of being kidnapped, yet it’s treated as a choice or a character defect. He and others are punished for infractions they cannot control. And his story brings home to readers the horror of feeling like he’s been abandoned by the mother whom he loved and trusted without reservation. The fact that he can find a friend amid these circumstances testifies to the strength of his spirit—and the need of all people to be loved and to love others.
Themes
The day after the beating, Howie wakes up in the hospital with no memory of leaving the school. He just remembers Brother coming for him and hitting him so hard he lost consciousness. He enjoys his time in the hospital because the nurses are kind and because Auntie Mae (but not Sagastis) is allowed to visit him. Mae tells Howie that his family has a plan to take him away from the school by boat. All he has to do is meet them at the dock under the cover of darkness.
Like the others, Howie merely hints at the horrific abuse he suffered. And even the small bit of his experience that he shares with Clara is shocking for its brutality. Readers are left to imagine how much worse what’s left unsaid must be. His fate at the school must be terrible if being hospitalized for severe injuries feels like a vacation.
Themes
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After another week of recuperating in the hospital, Howie returns to the school. When he tells Kenny about his escape plan, Kenny promises to help. That night, Kenny jimmies the fire escape door for Howie who rushes down to the dock and onto Charlie’s boat. They race across the bay where Howie and Sagastis jump into a waiting car and head for the US-Canada border. As they go, Auntie Mae presses one of Howie’s tiny toy cars—a red one—into his hand. As he finishes his story, he asks Clara if she thinks that they will ever be able to free themselves from the long shadow of the mission school. In answer, she tells him about her visit to Mariah.
Kenny risks punishment of his own to help his friend, testifying both to his own generous and caring nature and to the strength of the bond he and Howie formed—which in turn represents the friendships other Indigenous children were able to form even amid the horrors of the residential school system. Likewise, it’s a testament to the love they have for their family that Mae and Charlie break the law to rescue Howie. It’s clear from Howie’s question that he, like Lucy, still feels like part of him is stuck in the mission school. Clara’s story about Mariah suggests that it’s possible to find peace—but that it requires more than a little luck and hard work.
Themes
