The Education of Little Tree

Barry Walker, a fellow teacher and good friend, died suddenly a few weeks ago. He introduced me to Angela's Ashes and Redeeming Love; I introduced him to The Color of Water and Peace Like a River. We were always shoving books at each other. Even though he was an avid reader (or maybe because of it!) he always had a simple air about him like Jed Clampet. I think more than anyone I have known, he wanted to make the Sermon on the Mount a reality in his life. He loved simple grace, simple love, simple discipline, simple physics, simple math. He was always looking for things in their pure form. He hated things that were complicated with human power, pride, or politics. Sometimes he seemed idealistic and naive, but I loved him for that. Little Tree's granpa in The Education of Little Tree is a lot like Barry Walker. Little Tree says that his granpa "thought Indian," and if anyone thought it was "naive" to do so, it didn't matter because it was good.

Early on in the book, granpa teaches Little Tree to "take only what you need," that this is a fundamental principle in nature and ought to be so among humans. The two observe that the panther takes the slowest deer, thereby strengthening the herd for a better future, where as men often shoot the largest deer as a point of pride or more deer than they need, simply for sport, and then wonder why the herd has weakened or moved away. Little Tree's education in the ways of nature teaches him to fit in, to live in communion with the animals and birds and plants around him. The book celebrates the economy of nature. One beautiful passage describes Nature birthing spring in a storm that flings down the weak and old in the forest as though it were "tidying up any afterbirth that might be left over from last year; so her new birthing could be clean and strong." Later, Mr. Wine, a mountain peddler, who being a Jew is another kind of outcast whose nation has been deprived of their land, tells Little Tree about the difference between stinginess and thrift, how the former is as idolatrous as hoarding riches, while the latter is keeping things in their place.

The ways of the Indian are cast into a sharp contrast with the ways of the rest of American society. Politicians, "the Law," and Christians are all lumped together as those who struggle for power for personal gain at the expense of community. Politicians stand on their soap boxes and shout about pointless things, like Catholic priests mating with nuns, in order to rile the ignorant mountain people up and gain their support. "The Law" meddles with granpa's still and Little Tree's education with a ruthless lack of consideration for either one as a real person. Christians are people who cheat Little Tree, condemn him for his supposedly illegitimate birth, and accuse each other of going to hell for baptizing in the wrong way.

Confused by cruel Christians and conflicting accounts of salvation, Little Tree decides to reject not only the idea of hell, but also the idea of evil. He says that the creek and the birds in his hollow "didn't know such word-feelings; and in a little while [he] had forgot them too." The fervor with which he has castigated especially Christians throughout his narrative belies these words. He has a deep sense of good and evil, often punctuated by his endearing statement, "Which is right." In fact, I'm not sure I have read a book with so few good people in it. There isn't a single stranger who is kind to him. The two union soldiers who helped a poor family during his grandfather's childhood are the most altruistic people in the book, and their efforts come to nothing. The world he describes is full of evil. I completely understand the sentiment of Little Tree's statement though. He spent a few wonderful years with two people who loved him deeply in a near ideal piece of nature. The longing for a place where we can live in communion with man and nature is something that the Indian has overtly tried to nurture within himself. It is something which many Christians scoff at, but I believe it is a longing for Eden. Which is right.