The Education of Little Tree Page #2

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your single. Damn near 200 proof.

We only get a couple of gallons of it.

You add water, start over again,

and that's how you get

your selling whiskey, see?

Still, a man ought to know

what his single tastes like,

seeing as how it's the

backbone of the whiskey and all.

That's out of the

early corn. Got a...

Don't know what you'd call

it, exactly. A kind of a...

- Bite.

- Bite.

Yeah, that'd be it.

- Have you told him of our history?

- Not as yet.

He should know.

- It's a hard tale.

- It is that.

But if you don't know your

past, you won't have a future.

Why don't y'all leave

it up to the boy?

This here's a story about your

ancestors Little Tree,

and how they come to be here.

Do you care to know?

I do.

Well, now...

...the Cherokee have lived in these

hills since the Doda put 'em there.

They farmed in the valleys,

made the winter hunts,

and taught themselves the Way.

But then the white man come

and the Cherokee made

a paper treaty with him.

They said, "These white men ain't

so bad. We could live together. "

Then government soldiers came and said

the paper treaty had changed its words.

Now the words said the Cherokee

had to give up their homes

and move far west, where the

government had other lands for them.

Lands that the white man

didn't want, of course.

While the Cherokee were trying to

understand, the government soldiers

found this big old valley and

ringed it in with their guns,

and drove the Cherokee

in there just like cattle.

And they filled up that whole valley.

Then they brought in mules and horses

and said they could ride out west.

Now the Cherokee, they

had nothing left, did they?

They had no homes, no

farms, no land, nothin'.

- But they would not ride.

- Damn right.

So they did save something

from it, didn't they?

They couldn't see it, they couldn't

wear it, they couldn't eat it.

But they did save something.

They would not ride.

- They walked.

- Yes.

It was a long walk

and as they got farther and

farther from their mountains,

they began to die.

At first, it was just the

very young and the very old,

and the soldiers stopped to let

the Cherokee bury their dead.

But then more began to die.

They died by the

hundreds, by the thousands.

The soldiers said, "Put your dead in

the wagons and we'll carry them for you. "

- But did they?

- No, sir.

No.

The Cherokee would not put

their dead in the wagons.

They carried 'em, walking. Yes...

The man carried his dead wife,

the son carried his dead momma,

and the little boy

carried his baby sister.

The white people lined up along

the trail to watch them pass by.

Some of them people began to cry

and that's why they call

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