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The Beads

Summary: The Beads

This story is told by Marie Kashpaw in 1948. It tells of how nine-year-old June Morrissey came to live with her and her husband, Nector, after June’s mother, Lucille, Marie’s sister, died in the woods. June was found with her dead mother, surviving on pine sap and berries, and two Lazarres show up with June at Marie’s door. June is dirty, thin, and covered with sores, and she wears a string of black rosary beads around her neck. Marie takes a special liking to June and her health improves under Marie’s care. June is silent so Marie speaks for her to the other children. Marie observes that there is no devil in June. One day, the children pretend to hang June while playing a game. Marie is furious at them for being so careless. When June calls Marie a “damn old bitch” for stopping their game, Marie forces her to eat soap flakes.

A heavy drinker, Nector is often gone from the house. He gambles with the money he earns and stays away long hours at a time. His brother, Eli, who lives like a hermit alone in the woods, begins to visit. As Eli spends time in the woods hunting with June, she opens up more. Like her uncle, June is a child of the woods. Some ladies, whom Marie calls “the old hens,” come to visit and taunt Marie with gossip about Nector and Eli. One night, Nector does not come home, and Eli and Marie share a moment of tenderness, but he leaves the house quickly. The next day, Nector returns. He has money and makes love to Marie but leaves again the next day and takes the money with him. Marie grieves his absence. June tells Marie that she wants to go live with Eli and Marie lets her go. Marie discovers the black rosary beads in a can where she keeps her sewing tools. She does not take them out, but she touches them often which feels like prayer.

Analysis: The Beads

Erdrich continues to explore the tangled tapestries of the Morrissey and Kashpaw families and the many connections among them. By now, Marie is twenty-eight and has children of her own. Her observation that there is no devil in June recalls her own experiences with Sister Leopolda. The rosary beads become the most important symbol in this chapter of her life, and again, religion is a dominant theme in this part of the novel.

The Lazarres who found June in the woods put the rosary beads around her neck to ward off any evil she might carry, and June continues to wear the beads until she leaves the house to go live with Eli. When June leaves, she hides the beads in a lard can where she knows Marie will find them. The beads symbolize faith, the past, and June herself. She is gone from Marie’s view and home, but part of her remains, hidden. Touching the beads feels like a prayer to Marie who admits, “I touch them, and every time I do I think of small stones. At the bottom of the lake, rolled aimless by the waves[.]” This imagery echoes the way Marie feels when Nector makes love to her. It also recalls the June in Part 1 of “The World’s Greatest Fishermen,” a woman who has been worn down by life. The waves are “grinding them smaller and smaller until they finally disappear,” which is exactly what happens to June.

In this story, Marie claims that she married a man with brains, but she admits that his drinking diminishes his mind. Marie almost succumbs to Eli because of the abandonment she feels from Nector. This near infidelity reinforces a central theme of the novel, that alcoholism deteriorates individuals, families, and whole communities.

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