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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10902-0.txt b/10902-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..493f4b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/10902-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1652 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10902 *** + +BIG AND LITTLE SISTERS + +A Story of an Indian Mission School + +By THEODORA R. JENNESS + + +CHAPTER I. + +It was a Saturday morning in December at the Indian Mission School. +Two young Sioux girls were going up the stairs--Hannah Straight Tree and +Cordelia Running Bird. It was their Saturday for cleaning. The two +girls drew a heavy breath in prospect of the difficult task that +confronted them. The great unplastered mission building was a chilly +place throughout the winter, and the halls and stairway that morning +were drafty from the blustering wind that swept the Dakota plains and +came through the outer doors below, where restless children kept going +to and fro continually. The young hall-girls shivered on the upper +landing, and stepped back in a sheltered niche in which the brooms were +hanging. They had thrown their aprons over their heads and shoulders, +and were dreading to begin their work. + +"My floor and stairs always look nicer than your floor and stairs," said +Hannah Straight Tree to Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Because you have the teachers' side, and that's always nicer, to begin +with, than the girls' side," answered Cordelia Running Bird. "You know +the teachers never walk whole-feet when you are scrubbing. If they have +to go by, they walk tiptoe, and their toes are sharp and clean and do +not make big tracks. But all the children on my side walk whole-feet +over the wet floor when I am scrubbing, and their shoes are big and +muddy. Ugh! big tracks they make! But I have learned the motto, every +word, and I can speak that when I feel discouraged with my work." +Cordelia Running Bird gazed at the motto, while the dormitory girls +flocked by, and when the hall was quiet she repeated it in the peculiar +monotonous tone with which an Indian pupil usually recites: + +"Those who faithfully perform the task of keeping clean the dark places, +the cold places and the rough places, are they to whom it may indeed be +said, 'Well done.'" + +"I shall not try to learn the motto, for it makes my memory tired," said +Hannah Straight Tree. "I do not like to think hard or work hard. I am +glad I have the teachers' side." + +"If you do not think hard you will have a heart that is a dark place, +like the scrub-pail closet, and it will he hard to keep it clean of +wrong thoughts, like the white mother talked about in Sunday-school. +The motto means inside of us as well as places where we live. I like to +think hard," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I heard the teacher tell the +white mother that I had the best memory of any middle-sized girl, and +she said it was as good as many white girls' memories of my age, and +that is 'most fourteen. So I am to speak the longest middle-sized piece +in the Christmas entertainment." + +"Ee!" cried Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white +memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed to tell it!" + +"She will not praise you, for you are always very dumb in school. You +will not try to speak a lesson only with the class in concert," said +Cordelia Running Bird. "I shall try to finish very fast this morning. +There are only two more Saturdays till Christmas, and to-day I want to +feather-stitch the little new blue dress for Susie. She will wear it +every day when she is here Christmas. Many white and Indian visitors +will be here." + +"And you will feel so proud because the visitors and the school will +look at Susie, and the middle-sized and little girls will always choose +her in the games. They would not choose my little sister if she +played," said Hannah Straight Tree, with a sudden downcast look. + +"Dolly is so shy I do not know if she would go into the middle of the +ring if they should choose her, and she would not know the way to choose +back," answered Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Ee! She would! She would!" disputed Hannah Straight Tree. "Dolly is +as brave and smart as Susie--smarter, too, for she is shorter! She +could play the games if I would let her!" + +"But you will not," replied the other; "you must not scold about my +little sister. Susie knows the motions in the Jack Frost song so well +the teachers says that she can motion with the children in the Christmas +entertainment." + +"She does not motion right," said Hannah Straight Tree. "She gets +behind, and when they sing: + + "'He nips little children on the nose, + He pinches little children on the toes, + He pulls little children by the ears, + And brings to their eyes the big, round tears,' + +she is only nipping her nose when the rest are pulling their ears." + +"But she is so little she looks cute, and the visitors and school will +laugh at her and praise her," said Cordelia Running Bird, undismayed. +"She will not wear the blue dress in the Jack Frost song. She will wear +a red dress from my mission box. I asked the white mother if I could +not buy the red cloth for an entertainment dress for Susie with the +money that she paid because I tended baby one month till the nurse-girl +came. And she said if I wished I could put a nickel on the missionary +plate twenty Sundays, which would be one dollar, and so buy the cloth. +She said it would be teaching me to give, as well as to receive. She +keeps the nickel with the school pennies, and I take one every Sunday." + +"And you lift your hand so high and drop the nickel very too loud, so +all the school can hear, when Amy Swimmer passes you the plate!" cried +Hannah Straight Tree. "Just like it says, 'Ee! I am putting on a +nickel, and the rest can only give one penny! And _I_ earned my money, +and the pennies are money that their people sent them.'" + +"You are very jealous," was the calm reply. "I shall hire a large girl +to cut it fine and help make the red dress very fast. The sewing +teacher has not time for such dresses. Ver-r-y pr-r-etty it will look!" +Cordelia Running Bird smiled prospectively, displaying small white teeth +and two round dimples. "Christmas evening I shall curl Susie's hair +with a slate pencil, and she will wear fine shoes, and black stockings +with the red dress. My father brought them with the blue dress, and I +keep them in my cupboard." + +"You are much vain because your father is an agency policeman and earns +money, so he buys nice things for Susie," Hannah Straight Tree said, +with growing envy. "Dolly has to wear the issue goods, and she will not +look pretty Christmas time! Her dress will be a kind that looks black, +and Lucinda only knows a way to make it look like an Indian dress. She +will wear cowskin shoes so much too large, and very ugly-colored +stockings. If her dress gets torn before she comes, Lucinda will not +mend it nice--only draw it up so puckery. Very lots of grease spots +will be on it, and her hair will be so snarly I shall have to comb her +very fast." + +"My little sister is not torn and dirty any time," said Cordelia Running +Bird, "for my mother came to mission school when she was young and +learned the neat way." + +"My big sister only went to camp school just a little while," said +Hannah Straight Tree. "When my mother died she had to stay at home and +work and keep my little sister. Now again my father has got married, +and Lucinda wants to come to school and bring my little sister. Dolly +was five birthdays last Thanksgiving dinner." + +"Susie was five birthdays while I was at home vacation. I would be so +glad if she could stay at school next time she comes, but she was +sliding on the ice, and she fell and broke herself right here." +Cordelia touched her collarbone. "She is mended, but my mother is +afraid to leave her with the children now," she added. "But next year +she will leave her. If your big and little sister come to school they +will have nice mission things." + +"But they cannot for my father," Hannah Straight Tree said, with +deepening gloom. "He would let Lucinda, but he says Dolly is too short; +she must be ten birthdays when she comes. Lucinda loves Dolly, so she +will not leave her, and my stepmother is cross-tempered. Lucinda will +be twenty-one birthdays--much too old to come to school--when Dolly is +ten birthdays." + +"You can tell your father the teachers like the Indian children come to +school when they are very short, so they can grow them more +white-minded," said Cordelia Running Bird. + +"I told him, but he says he does not want his children very +white-minded. He says I came to school so short that they have grown me +too white-minded. I tell him I am very Indian-minded, but he tells me I +do not know white from Indian. Lucinda is so sad she will not try. She +looks so horrid--Dolly, too--I am much ashamed of them. I shall not +speak to them before the white visitors and the teachers--only down at +camp." + +"Then you will be very wrong," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I would not +be ashamed to speak to my own people anywhere." + +"Ee! You talk so good because your father wears a grand policeman's +coat and trousers, and your mother's head is in a hood!" said Hannah +Straight Tree, excitedly. "My father wears a very funny Indian clothes, +and feathers in his hairs, and my big sister's head is in a shawl. All +the girls will say on Christmas, 'Susie looked just like a fairy in the +Jack Frost song. We shall give her very lots of candy from our +Christmas bags.' Dolly knows the Jack Frost motions; I taught her, and +she did them with the children down at camp. But I shall not tell the +teacher, for Dolly has no pretty things to wear. That is why I won't +let her play the games. If my father saw her in the Jack Frost songs +and games, he would be glad she is so smart and just like he would let +her come to school. But you would be so sorry if my big and little +sister came to school. You think Susie is a skin-white girl and Dolly +is a very copper-colored Indian." + +"You do not speak true," was the denial. "I should not be sorry, and I +do not think Susie is a skin-white girl. She is very copper-colored, +too." + +"But you do not wish Dolly would be in the Jack Frost song and wear a +red dress just like Susie's!" challenged Hannah Straight Tree, +disconcerting her companion with the piercing gaze habitual to her race. + +Though not quite innocent of all the charges laid to her, Cordelia +Running Bird was a truthful girl, and she would not disown a failing +plainly set before her by another. She evaded her companion's gaze in +silence. + +"You are thinking hard! You cannot say it!" was the fierce indictment +from Hannah Straight Tree. + +"But--I wish she could be in another motion song--and wear a--green +dress," came the hesitating answer. + +"Ee! You think they would not watch Susie all the time if Dolly +motioned Jack Frost, too, and looked like Susie! And you do not wish +that Dolly had a blue dress--only ugly green--and looked like Susie in +the games," said Hannah Straight Tree. + +"But little white girls do not need to wear alike dresses," was Cordelia +Running Bird's argument. "Because the little white visitor last summer +looked just like a fairy in the pretty pink with white lace, did her +sister have to wish another little white girl looked the very too same?" +she asked. + +"There is a difference, but I cannot tell," answered Hannah Straight +Tree, taking down her broom in puzzled moodiness. + +The two girls went about their work in a most unfortunate state of mind. +Hannah's discontent at Dolly's lack and Susie's plenty, and the prospect +of Cordelia's triumphs through the petted little sister, grew upon her, +and resulted in unlooked-for trials to Cordelia, who was much +discomfited by the force of her companion's criticisms. + +Cordelia Running Bird was a bright, attractive girl, quite conscientious +in discharging her industrial and school duties, and much interested in +the Sunday-school; but in a private talk the very day before, the +teachers had referred to her in some perplexity. + +"I wish Cordelia Running Bird were a little different," said the +school-teacher. "She leads her class, and is a credit to the school in +most respects, but she is rather too ambitious to outdo others. It +creates jealousy." + +"I have observed that she is notional in the making of her dresses," +said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider +and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks +to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle +on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I +grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too +frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if +not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by +intuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconscious +of the fact that she makes the other girls discontented. But she is so +pleasant and obedient, as a rule, that minor faults may be forgiven +her," the white mother charitably concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +As something quite unusual at that season in the Dakotas, there had been +a thaw the day before, and a great quantity of mud had been tracked in +on the girls' side by the sewing classes coming from the schoolhouse, +separate from the main mission building, to the upstairs room in which +the sewing work was done. + +Hannah Straight Tree quickly swept her portion of the hall, for there +was but little mud on the teachers' side, and was proceeding to her +stairs before Cordelia Running Bird was half way along her floor. + +"You have not taken up your dirt! You have swept it over on my side!" +exclaimed Cordelia Running Bird, who, with all her close attention to +her own work, kept a sharp eye on the other's movements. + +"There is little, and it will not be much work to take it up with +yours," was Hannah's reply. "When we finished yesterday I lent our +dustpan to the middle dormitory girls--they said theirs was too broken +--and they lost it. Now they say they can borrow the south dormitory +dustpan, and they shall not hunt ours. You can always find things better +than I can, so you must hunt it and take up my dirt," was Hannah +Straight Tree's demand. + +"Tokee! How strange you talk!" exclaimed Cordelia Running Bird, in +amazement. "The dormitory girls must ask for a new dustpan if they +break theirs. It is not the rule to lend things, for it makes +confusion; if you lent the dustpan you must find it and take up your +dirt, for I have more to do than you. It is Number 8, and you can tell +it when you see it." + +"You are very cross as well as proud and vain--and you have learned the +motto, every word. If I had learned the motto I should try to be good," +said Hannah Straight Tree. + +"The motto does not say a girl can tell us we must do a work that is not +ours, and we must mind her. I shall sweep your dirt back," was the warm +reply. + +Cordelia Running Bird gave her broom a sudden push and sent the +sweepings flying backward in a cloud. + +"Now look how mean you are! Again I have to sweep my floor!" cried +Hannah Straight Tree, angrily. "Proud--vain--cross--mean!" She +counted the four failings on her fingers. + +"Not the least bit do I care," replied Cordelia Running Bird, stung +beyond endurance by Hannah's taunts. "I was not cross at first, but now +I am, because you call me four bad names. I am now glad your little +sister cannot play the games, or motion in one song, or even have an +ugly green dress. I am not sorry that your big and little sister cannot +come to school, and very much I wish I had not learned the motto." + +Here the young Sioux girl, who was compelled to battle with hereditary +pride and stubbornness in every effort to do right, forgot the white +mother's admonition that the heart might be a dark place and a cold +place needing to be cleansed of evil thoughts. + +Hannah Straight Tree did not hunt the dustpan, but with perseverance +worthy of a better cause, she brushed the sweepings from her floor and +stairs upon a ragged palm-leaf fan which she discovered in a corner, +and, dropping them into the scrub-pail, took them out of doors. Cordelia +brought a shoe-box from her cupboard in the playroom and applied it as +an inconvenient dustpan. Meanwhile dustpan Number 8 remained in the +darkest corner of the middle dormitory closet, where it had been pushed +in the rush of clearing up the day before. + +Cordelia Running Bird's work of making clean her floor and stairs was +even harder than she had expected. Never had there seemed so many +errands to and fro by those who did the weekly cleaning in the three +dormitories, numbering quite a force. The thaw had ended in a freezing +snow squall in the night, but a sufficient quantity of mud was clinging +to the broad soles of the government shoes that tramped across +Cordelia's wet floor to insure a startling trail of footprints. + +"I cannot keep them up, they come again so fast," she murmured to +herself in grim despair, while wringing out her mop-rag to attack a line +of tracks imprinted by the largest girl in school, in going to and from +the laundry to dispose of laid-off sheets and pillow-cases. "_Ver-ry +hor-r-i-d_ pictures of the ugly issue shoes. I will not wear them. I +am wearing kid store shoes my father buys for every day. The dormitory +girls are shovel-feeted, and I Wish they could not walk one step--only +lie in bed!" + +She was overheard by Hannah Straight Tree, coming up the girls' stairs +at that moment. Hannah's own work had been done with little difficulty, +and she had obtained permission to help the middle dormitory girls, for +reasons all her own. + +The reckless speech was repeated to the dormitory girls by Hannah +Straight Tree, much to their displeasure. + +"The dormitory girls are shovel-feeted, and she wishes they could not +walk one step, only lie in bed!" exclaimed the largest girl, sitting +down on a straw-tick to discuss the matter. "Then we should be +cripples, and, tokee! how many cripples there would be!" + +"If they came from both the other dormitories into this to lie down with +the middle dormitory girls, there would be one cripple in each bed, and +in one there would be two cripples," said a broom girl, who was quite +expert at figures, having studied on the problem with the aid of +broom-straws representing cripples. + +This portrayal of the startling situation, if Cordelia Running Bird's +wish could be fulfilled, increased the shock of indignation in the +dormitories. + +"Ee!" cried one, "we hate the ugly government shoes, of course, and wish +that we could wear the nice shoes from our mission boxes every day. But +we cannot, only Sundays--and we have to change them after Sunday-school +--and when we wear our best clothes for white visitors. Cordelia Running +Bird will not wear the government shoes because her father is an agency +policeman, and can buy store shoes for every day." + +"I was always much ashamed of my big feet, and now I am more ashamed," +complained the largest girl. "If the dormitory girls are shovel-feeted, +every large girl in this school is shovel-feeted." + +"Cordelia was very cross about the dustpan, too, but we can pay her +back," said Hannah Straight Tree, adding fresh fuel to the fire. + +"Now I shall not show her how to feather-stitch the little blue dress," +said the largest girl, who was quite famous at embroidery, and had +partly promised to instruct Cordelia Running Bird in her work that day. + +"And I shall not help her make the little red dress, as she will be +wanting me next week," resolved a south dormitory bed girl, Emma Two +Bears, who was standing in the doorway. Emma was the most experienced +dressmaker of the large girls' class and was generous, as a rule, in +helping younger girls. "I am sorry now that I cut and made the little +blue waist, but I did not think she would so soon be wishing me a +cripple." + +"And you need not praise the little blue and red dresses if she gets +them done; but I am sure she cannot," gloried Hannah Straight Tree. + +"Ee! We will not. We will call them ugly issue goods," said one of the +girls. + +"Or watch her little sister in the Jack Frost song," said another. + +"We will shut our eyes!" exclaimed another. + +"And the middle-sized and short girls need not choose Susie in the +games," came from another. + +"We will tell them not to. They will choose Dolly," cried a fifth. + +"But Dolly looks so horrid, I am much ashamed of her," was Hannah +Straight Tree's answer. + +Cordelia Running Bird heard the fierce discussion through the open door, +near which she knelt at work, and the bitter tears ran down her face. + +When at length her work was done as well as she was able, and the last +stair wiped, she went back upstairs on tiptoe to inspect her floor and +see if it was dry. She was met by Hannah Straight Tree on the upper +landing, carrying a pail of scrub water, mixed with ashes, from the +dormitory. Hannah set it on the top stair, and then glanced wickedly at +Cordelia through half-closed eyes that meant mischief. + +"What if I should tip it over?" she said. + +"Ee! You must not. It would freeze, and I should have to scald my hands +with too hot water, thawing it!" exclaiming Cordelia Running Bird, +rushing to prevent her. + +In her haste to keep the pail from being overturned Cordelia hit it with +her foot, upsetting it herself. The stairs were deluged with the +contents, Hannah Straight Tree fell back with a laugh. "Now see what +you have done yourself! I did not spill one drop. You cannot say I +did." + +Cordelia Running Bird burst into upbraiding exclamations in Dakota, +which, because they wished them to learn to speak English, was a +forbidden language in the school except on Sundays and on holidays. By +an odd mishap of memory, Cordelia was apt to break the rule in moments +of excitement, and she knew the penalty too well. + +"Now you have talked Dakota, and you must report yourself," Hannah +Straight Tree said triumphantly. "You wished the dormitory girls would +have to lie in bed--now you must lie in bed yourself. You cannot +feather-stitch or speak to anyone." + +The unclean water froze upon the stairs, and Cordelia Running Bird's +work of thawing it with hot water was a long and painful process. When +it was accomplished, though but poorly, she went upstairs a second time, +passing through the front hall to the white mother's room to report that +she had spoken in Dakota. + +"Again, Cordelia? How can you forget so often?" said the young white +mother in a seriously inquiring tone. + +The little Indian girl's excitement had now given place to +discouragement. She was silent for some time, then she murmured an +original defense. + +"The cross thoughts come in Indian, and I speak them out that way. +Che-cha (hateful) means much more in Indian than in English. Dakota +is my own language, and it tells me how to scold just right." + +"No, dear, just wrong," was the reply. Then looking at the draggled +little figure with head drooped moodily and smarting hands locked +tightly at the sides, the white mother added, "You have had a cold, hard +time this morning in the hall, I know. Have you been cross about your +work?" The gentle voice invited confidence, but it did not melt +Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Yes, ma'am. I was very cross at Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory +girls. I called the dormitory girls a name, and then a pail of very +dirty water was tipped over on my stairs, so again I had to clean them, +and I screamed at Hannah Straight Tree in Dakota." + +"Did Hannah tip it over?" + +"No, ma'am, I tipped it over." + +With all her sense of injury, Cordelia Running Bird would not tell tales +to divide the blame. + +The white mother saw that there was more than she knew of connected with +the trouble in the hall, but seeing that the race mood was upon +Cordelia, she forbore all further questions. + +"It has often been explained that if the older pupils spoke Dakota very +much the little ones would speak it, too, and not learn English as they +should," she said. "I'm sorry that the cross thoughts caused you to +forget, Cordelia Running Bird." + +"I am very cross now," said Cordelia, fearing her confession might be +misconstrued as a repentance. "I have enemies that I am hating very +hard. I shall be thinking Indian thoughts about them while I lie in +bed." + +"I hope the cross thoughts will leave you if you lie in bed, where you +can be alone, and try to drive them out. I will send your dinner to the +dormitory," said the white mother. + +"I cannot eat one bite for many days. I wish to starve," Cordelia +Running Bird said, as she turned away. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The girls had finished working in the dormitories and had gone below. +Cordelia Running Bird was relieved that she would not have to meet them +and endure such looks as they might give, though not allowed to speak to +her. + +Going to her corner in the south dormitory, she put on her nightgown and +crept into bed. She hid her head beneath the blankets to shut out the +sounds below, in which she was to have no part for several hours. + +But though Cordelia Running Bird was in solitude, her sharp ears caught +the noise of romping children in the playroom, and the frequent dropping +of the sliding-doors upon the narrow individual cupboards, indicating an +excessive rummaging of shelves. Cordelia knew full well the prying +habits of the Indian children. + +"I am glad I have the red dress in my trunk, but they will meddle with +my other things and look at Susie's blue dress, and then roll it up in +such bad wrinkles," she said to herself. "Just like they will drop a +skein of feather-stitching silk and tramp it with their feet till it is +very dirty. Then some girl will pick it up to sew her doll clothes, and +there will not be enough for Susie's dress." + +Cordelia Running Bird held her breath as these thoughts came to her. + +"But I do not know if I can feather-stitch it now, for there is no one +to teach me, that I know of. Just like Hannah Straight Tree and the +dormitory girls will tell the whole school to hate me, and they will. +If I cannot get a large girl to help make the red dress, and I try to do +it all alone, it will fit so bad, and I cannot get it done in time. +What if I should tell my mother to have Susie stay at camp, and not once +come inside the yard Christmas time? Then she would not need the +dresses, and they could not call them issue goods, and not choose Susie +in the games, and shut their eyes at her." + +Cordelia lay very still, but the thought of Susie's missing the +festivities by staying in the big building in the mission pasture, where +the Indian visitors camped in winter, was put from her in short order. + +"Susie shall not stay in camp. I shall find a way to get the dresses +done, and she shall motion Jack Frost and see the Christmas tree. I +shall tell them I am tired of playing silly games, and Susie shall not +play, either, so they cannot leave her out. And I shall tell the school +they must not watch Susie motion, for they are such horrid Indians they +would scare her very bad. When Hannah Straight Tree's big and little +sister come into the playroom I shall walk close up to them and pull my +dress away, and look at it so sharp, and say, so Hannah hears me, 'Those +wild Indians have so many grease spots I am much afraid of catching +them.'" + +While plotting these misdeeds Cordelia Running Bird fell asleep. A +young girl from the teachers' table brought her dinner on a tray and set +it by the bed without awaking her. She did not wake up until near the +middle of the afternoon. She found that the white mother had stolen +into the dormitory with a small book which she had placed upon the +pillow. There was a narrow white ribbon, frayed and yellow, wound +around the book and tied on one side in a bow. The rooms below now were +quiet, for the wind had lulled and the entire school was out of doors. + +Looking from the window near her bed, Cordelia saw the broad, white +plains illumined with brilliant sunshine and the girls exercising on the +glittering crust of snow occasioned by the thaw. The little girls were +sliding down hill on boards and broken shovels, cast-off dripping-pans +and ash-pans--everything, indeed, that could be seized on for coasting. +A group of large and middle-sized girls were walking over the mission +pasture, stretching for a mile on every side. Another band of girls was +packed into a long, wide bob-sled on the point of starting with the +white mother to the little log post office down the river. + +"Very lots of fun, and I am being punished here in bed!" Cordelia said +to herself, mournfully. "Now the bob-sled starts, and very loud the +sleigh-bells ring. The white mother drives, and she must hold the lines +so tight, for very fast the horses want to go. We go to the post office +by the al-pha-bet on Saturday, and this day it is the P's and R's--there +are no Q's--so it is my turn. Very fast I meant to feather-stitch, so I +could spare the time to go. Ee! There is Hannah Straight Tree in my +place. She made me talk Dakota and get punished. Now she gets my +sleigh-ride!" And Cordelia Running Bird threw herself back upon the +pillow, giving vent to wild, resentful tears. + +When the tears had spent themselves the Indian girl raised her head and +saw the little book on the other pillow. + +"Tokee! The white mother put it here. She always keeps it, and it +means that I can look at it now." + +Cordelia unwound the ribbon, opening the little book. + +"Annie's Bible, and I never thought of her to-day! Just like I am +forgetting her so fast. Here is Helen's letter. I shall read that +first." + +[Illustration: She read the little note slowly.] + +She took a little white note from a dainty envelope and read it slowly, +but with understanding that spoke of previous acquaintance with the +words: + + "_Dear Annie_: Will you let this little Bible be your + friend and guide, as I have tried to have it for my friend + and guide since I have been a King's Daughter? I have + marked some verses I have learned and have recited in + the meeting of our circle, and I wish that you might care + to learn them and recite them in your meeting at the + school. + + "The King's Daughters in the Far East love to think + about the Indian girls away out West, who are also + members of our circle. Isn't it a sweet thought, Annie, + that although so widely separated, we are all the children + of one family in Christ, and are cared for by the same + heavenly Father? + + "Yours with loving interest, + "HELEN MERRIAM, Hartford, Conn. + "Aged 16." + +"It came in Annie's mission box, and Helen was her unknown white +friend," said Cordelia Running Bird, as she put the letter back into the +envelope. "I shall next read Annie's letter." And she took another +little missive from the Bible, written with a pencil on the tablet paper +of the school, in wavering penmanship that showed the weakness of the +writer's hand. Cordelia read: + + "_Dear Cordelia_: Annie Running Bird will leave this + Bible to Cordelia Running Bird, my sister, for I cannot + carry it to heaven, and in heaven I shall not need to read + the words that Jesus spoke on earth, for I shall hear him + speak up there. But Cordelia will not just yet be bearing + Jesus speak up there, and she will need to read this Bible + and must mind just what it tells her. Dear Cordelia, + you can have this Bible for your own when you are + fourteen birthdays, so you will be old enough to take + good care of it and read it very lots. But if you want + to borrow it before it is your own, the white mother will + please lend it to you, so you always give it back, and do + not lose the letters and the pieces of my hairs that will + be in it. I did not learn all of Helen's verses for the + King's Daughters' meeting, for I got too sick to study, + and my memory feels so queer. I have put a cross behind + the ones I learned, and, dear Cordelia, wilt you try to + learn them, too, and all the rest that Helen marked? + The one I tried to think of most is St. Matthew, chapter 5:44. + + "Good-by, dear sister, for I cannot live much longer, + I am so pained with the hard coughing all the time. These + words I write so you will not forget me. I wish to see + my father and my mother and my little sister very much. + But if I cannot, you must give my love to them, and all + my other friends, and tell them they must meet me in + the better world. And you must, too. + + "So again I say good-by, dear sister, + "ANNIE RUNNING BIRD, + "Aged 16." + + "P. S.--Write good-by to Helen and my love." + +"She lies at the agency. She sleeps with those that are happy," mused +Cordelia, looking at the lock of hair with reverent eyes. "It was very +cold one year ago this winter, when she had the whooping-cough so hard +it made her lungs so sick she could not live. + +"My mother had the fever very long and hard at home and could not come +to watch her; my father came, but could not stay long, for my mother was +so sick. But the teachers took good care of Annie, and the large girls +helped them. I could only sit by her in daytime, for the teachers said +I was too young to stay up nights. The dormitory girls were very kind +to Annie, and they used to sit up nights, when they had worked all day +and were so tired, to watch her. + +"Emma Two Bears has a sweet song, and one night when she was watching +Annie, and there was a blizzard, and the wind cried very loud, like many +dogs all round the house, Annie was afraid; so she asked would Emma sing +'The Sweet By and By,' and Emma sang it louder than the wind, but very +sweet. Annie said it made her feel so happy that again she would not be +afraid. + +"And once more when Annie could not eat one bite of anything and was so +very faint, Hannah Straight Tree thought that she could drink some +rosebud porridge, so she ran away without permission, and waded through +the deep snow to the rosebushes up the river, to pick off some buds to +make the porridge. She froze her shortest right side toe, and a wild +steer watched her very fierce, but Hannah Straight Tree did not care, +for she was all the time thinking Annie was so faint. And Annie drank a +little porridge and told Hannah she was very glad indeed. And they did +not punish Hannah, for the rosebuds were for Annie. + +"When the Indian preacher told at Annie's funeral how she was so good +and learned so many Bible verses for the King's Daughters' meetings, +there was much crying in the schoolhouse, for the girls all felt so bad. +And before I got into the wagon with my father, when we carried Annie to +the agency, Hannah Straight Tree whispered that she did not want to +sleep with anyone but me, and if they put another girl in bed with her +she would be sure to turn her back and never say one word to her. + +"Now the dormitory girls and Hannah Straight Tree are my enemies. The +verse that Annie tried to think of most is all about enemies. I cannot +read it just now. I shall read some other verses first." + +Many of the verses her sister had marked were familiar to Cordelia, for, +as Annie had requested, she had been allowed to take the little Bible +when in thoughtful mood, perhaps when kept within doors on a stormy +Sunday afternoon. She had read them often, asking explanation of the +hard words from the teachers, and had learned a number of the simplest +ones in preparation for her own admission to the King's Daughters +Circle, which would be before long, she had hoped. + +"Here is one about the tongue, that has the straight marks Helen made, +and Annie's cross behind it. This I have not learned to say." + +Cordelia Running Bird read aloud slowly: "'_Even so the tongue is a +little member, and boast-eth great things. Behold how great a matter a +little fire kind-leth_.' + +"That means to brag with the tongue and make folks very cross. Hannah +Straight Tree bragged because her floor and stairs are always nicer than +my floor and stairs," Cordelia said. "But just like I have bragged +some, too," she added. "My tongue has talked so much because my father +is an agency policeman and my little sister has nice things. And I +bragged about my white memory and my store shoes. But I was only +talking to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and Hannah Straight Tree +went and told it." + +She turned the leaves and found another text: "'_A soft answer turneth +away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger_.' I did not speak soft +when I told Hannah Straight Tree she was very dumb in school, and I was +glad Dolly could not motion in a single song, or even have an ugly green +dress, and I was not sorry that her big and little sister could not come +to school. And Dolly and Lucinda have not said mean things to me, so +why should I be cross at them? But Hannah would not find the dustpan +and take up her dirt, and that was very mean. Now here is one that I +have learned. I can say it without looking at the book." + +Cordelia Running Bird shut her eyes and carefully re-peated: "'_Pride +goeth before de-struction, and a haught-y spirit before a fall_.' +Haughty means to feel stuck-up. The pail fell downstairs and made me +talk Dakota, so I had to come to bed, because I was stuck-up and made +Hannah Straight Tree cross. Just like they all would not be hating me +if I had not been haught-y. But the dormitory girls were very mean to +walk whole-feet on my wet floor. If they had walked heel or tiptoe I +should not have scolded to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and called +them shovel-feeted, and wished they had to lie in bed. But I did not +wish them to be cripples--only have a good long rest till I was through +scrubbing. But Hannah was mean to go and tell. I can find no verse +that will excuse her and the dormitory girls." + +Here Cordelia Running Bird fell to pitying herself anew. + +"I shall now read Annie's best verse, but it will be very hard to mind +those words that Jesus spoke." + + + + +Cordelia Running Bird wound the ribbon round the little Bible, tying it +with care, and laid the book close by her on the bed; then she ate her +dinner with a hearty relish. She had hardly finished when the door from +the front hall was opened, and the young white mother, rosy from her +sleigh-ride, looked into the dormitory. She saw the little Bible lying +near Cordelia, glanced inquiringly at the dark-faced girl, and then +smiled and nodded, to receive a cheerful smile in answer. + +"Jump up quickly, dear, and dress," she said. "Some little girls are +going up the river to the store, and one of the girls is Cordelia +Running Bird." + +Cordelia started out of bed in joyful haste. + +"Are you ready to give back the Bible?" asked the white mother, coming +to the bed. + +"Yes, ma'am," replied Cordelia Running Bird, handing her the little +book. "Thank you very much. It made me think of Annie, so I read it, +and it told me I must love my enemies, so just like I shall do it now." + +"I am very glad the cross thoughts have left you," was the answer. "Now +put on your plaid dress and be ready in ten minutes." + +Cordelia flew to get the plaid dress from the closet, and was ready and +downstairs in a twinkling. The little girls selected for the drive were +in the playroom putting on their hoods and coats in great delight. +Cordelia hurriedly put on her own, and, opening her cupboard, she +unlocked a doll trunk, taking out a tiny purse for coins, whose portly +sides bespoke some wealth within. She looked an instant at the blue +dress and the silk for feather-stitching, finding to her great relief +that they had not been touched. She locked them in the doll trunk, put +the little key into the purse, and whisked away. + +"The store is much nicer than the post office," was her joyous +reflection, as she slipped the purse into her pocket on her way +outdoors. "Very long have I been saving this last part of all the money +that I earned tending baby; now I have a chance to spend it with my own +eyes." + +Down the steep hill went the bob-sled to the great Missouri River, where +it took the straight, smooth road on the snow-laden ice. The sewing +teacher drove the horses, giving them free rein. The school-teacher sat +beside her on the seat, and Cordelia and the girls were snuggled down in +hay upon the bottom of the sled, with comforters for lap-robes. + +The little log store was but two miles distant, and the party were not +long in reaching it. It stood upon a steep bluff on the opposite shore. +The white man who kept it dealt to some extent in Indian curiosities, of +which the two teachers were in quest to send as Christmas gifts to +Eastern friends. + +"We wish to look especially at moccasins and Indian dolls," said the +school-teacher to the trader when they had made known their errand. + +[Illustration: "We wish to look especially at moccasins and Indian +dolls," said the teacher.] + +"I've got some first-class moccasins, both porcupined and beaded, but no +Indian dolls," replied the trader. "Indian dolls are growing mighty +scarce, now the young squaws get so much put into their minds to do. +Only the old-timers understand the trick of making dolls." + +"I am disappointed that you have none, for I wished to send one to my +little niece. But I must wait and try to get one elsewhere." + +While the two teachers were examining the moccasins, Cordelia Running +Bird and the children were absorbed in looking at the china dolls and +other articles displayed upon the shelves and hanging from a wire +stretched above the counter. + +"I was telling Hannah Straight Tree I should buy a big doll for Susie, +and a red silk handkerchief for my father, and a blue silk handkerchief +for my mother, and should hang them on the Christmas tree," said +Cordelia, partly to herself and partly to the little girls. + +"Kee! I would not hang them," said a prudent little maid of ten years. +"Hannah Straight Tree told the other girls, and they are very yelous-- +that is not the word, but I forget it--for they say they cannot hang +their people anything. They say you think the name 'Running Bird' is +very stylish, and you wish to hear it called so often at the Christmas +tree." + +"Of course I shall not hang them," said Cordelia, firmly. "And I shall +not buy a doll for Susie, for my father always buys her one. I was +going to brag about her having two," she added candidly. "And I shall +not buy the silk handkerchiefs. They have the issue cotton ones and +some other ones that my father bought;" and she withdrew her eyes from +the display of cheap and gaudy handkerchiefs of so-called silk material +suspended from the wire. "I shall buy a cake pan with a steeple for my +mother, and a hairbrush for my father, for his hairs stick up so +straight and stiff. And I shall give the presents very still at camp, +so the school will not be jealous." + +Having thus subdued her vanity, Cordelia Running Bird shyly bought the +articles she had selected from the trader's boy, who helped his father +in the store. She also bought four hair ribbons and a little bag of +candy, having left two silver quarters. She was considering how to +spend them when her eyes alighted on some little brown shoes and a pair +of stockings matching them, beneath a small glass show-case. + +"Ver-r-y st-y-lish little shoes and stockings!" she exclaimed, +forgetting in her rapture to be shy before the trader's boy. + +The small girls crowded upon tiptoe at the show-case, peering through +the glass sides to inspect the little wonders. + +"Just the color of an Indian," observed a little maid of seven, holding +up her slim hand to compare it with the red-brown shoes and stockings. +"But they made them for a little white girl. They are like the ones the +little white visitor with the pink dress wore last summer." + +"They are just as pretty for a little Indian girl," replied Cordelia. +"They would be just right for Susie," with a longing eye. + +"But Susie does not need them," said the prudent little girl. "She has +a black shoes and stockings in your cupboard that are very nice." + +"But she could have two pairs. These would be so pretty with the red +dress in the Jack Frost song. She could wear the black ones with the +blue dress," said Cordelia, seized anew with her besetting sin and +growing helpless in its grasp. + +She asked the number of the shoes, finding it the same that Susie wore. +Then she asked the price. She could buy the shoes and stockings for a +dollar and a half. + +"One dollar more than I have got," she said in feverish regret. She was +intently silent for a little, then she turned, and, running quickly to +the school-teacher, drew her to one side, where they could talk unheard. + +"The Indian doll my grandmother made for me is very nice and new, for I +have kept it in my trunk so much. I will give it to you if you please to +give me one dollar--that is what they gave my grandmother for her dolls +when she would sell them at the agency," Cordelia said, in eager +undertone. + +"Why, child, you surely cannot wish to sell your Indian doll that has a +beaded buckskin dress just like the one your grandmother wore when she +was your age?" said the school-teacher in surprise. "No, thank you, +dear. You wish to give me pleasure, but I cannot accept it, for I know +you love the little Indian grandmother better than you could the +prettiest white doll in the Christmas box," she added, gratefully. + +"It is very Indian-minded, and I do not now care for it," replied the +girl, with a clouded face. "I wish to buy the little brown shoes and +stockings in the glass box," pointing to the show-case. "I have only +fifty cents." + +"Why, of course, Cordelia, if you really wish to sell it," was the +response. "The shoes and stockings are for Susie, I suppose, but are +not the black ones nice enough?" + +Cordelia had displayed the little black shoes and stockings to the +teachers with a deal of pride. + +"But the brown ones are much prettier for the Jack Frost song," she +argued, pressingly. + +"Very well," replied the teacher, opening her purse and handing her the +dollar, with a sorry look. "Perhaps, however, we would better see the +little things before you buy them." + +The brown shoes and stockings were examined by the teachers and were +thought quite satisfactory for the price. Cordelia bought them +breathlessly and hid them in her coat pocket to insure their safety. + +But the home-going in the early moonlight evening was less joyous than +had been the journey to the store. To the young Sioux girl the +sleigh-bells seemed to jingle harshly, and the gumbo hills, whose tops +were bare of snow, seemed frowning blackly from across the river. + +Cordelia Running Bird passed some peppermints to the children, which +awoke a burst of gratitude. + +"We little girls shall always choose Susie in the games," said one. + +"Yes," exclaimed another, "Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory girls +have told us not to, but we shall." + +"Ee! Talk lower so the teacher will not hear you," said Cordelia, with +a sudden flutter of the breath. "You must choose Dolly half the time-- +if Susie plays." + +"She is too bad-looking," said a third. "Susie has two pairs of pretty +shoes, and two nice dresses, and we like her better." + +"But you must not talk that way before the larger girls," Cordelia +cautioned in an undertone. "Doily has a new hair ribbon like the red +one I have bought for Susie--both are in my lap. And I have bought a +pink one for Lucinda. I wish to do them good--Hannah Straight Tree, +too. You must tell the larger girls you like Dolly just as well as +Susie. If they wear alike ribbons on their braids it will be nice." + +"A new ribbon cannot dress Dolly up," remarked the prudent little girl. +"The points of her hairs will look like Susie's points, and that is +all." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Sunday morning there was wonder in the school to see Cordelia Running +Bird in the heavy government shoes that had been lying in her cupboard +since the distribution of the clothing early in the fall. And when it +was observed that she had dressed for Sunday-school and had not changed +the shoes the wonder grew to pure amazement. + +"Ee! What ails the vainest girl in South Dakota? She will now be +wearing issue shoes to Sunday-school!" exclaimed a dormitory girl, among +a group of large and middle-sized pupils gathered in the music room, +adjoining the playroom, in Sunday-school attire. + +Cordelia sat in a corner with her eyes upon her Sunday-school lesson. +Her feet were planted side by side as if with studied care. + +"Just like she is very scared because the large and middle-sized girls +do not speak to her since yesterday. She is not sorry, only scared," +said Hannah Straight Tree. "See, she sticks her feet out very far, so +we will see the shoes and think she is not vain; but we will not believe +her. She has found the dustpan, too, because she is so scared of me. +She bragged so much she made me cross, so I told her she must find it +and take up my dirt, yesterday. She minded me this morning." + +"She will be more scared before we speak to her," remarked the bread +girl. "Ver-r-y ugly issue shoes! She ought to wear a dragging dress to +hide them." + +There was a burst of laughter, while the keen, black eyes of the entire +group were fixed upon Cordelia Running Bird's feet. She did not draw +them back nor lift her eyes, but suddenly her dusky face grew scarlet, +and there was a nervous trembling of her lips that moved persistently in +an attempted study of the lesson. She had heard the words, as the girls +intended she should. They were speaking in Dakota without fear of being +understood by the white mother, who was in the playroom passing pennies +for the missionary plate. + +The white mother heard the laugh and stepped into the space between the +sliding doors, which were ajar. She saw the girls' resentment at a +glance, and that it was directed at Cordelia Running Bird. She was +troubled, but could not combat the feeling that had spread throughout +the school, to mar the peace and quiet of the Sabbath, which these +Indian girls were wont to keep in reverent spirit. + +"She has bought another pair of shoes for Susie--stockings, too--not +black ones, like the little schoolgirls have to wear for best, but very +stylish brown ones," Hannah Straight Tree said. "She put them in her +trunk last night. I crept upstairs and watched her, for the children +said she had them in her pocket. The large and middle-sized girls must +not see them till the entertainment, but the little girls keep saying +they are like the ones the little white visitor that wore the dress that +was pink dim-i-ty, had on. Ver-ry white-minded shoes! She wants to +hire me to like her, if she does not wish to have Dolly in the Jack +Frost song with Susie, so she bought new hair ribbons at the store for +Dolly and Lucinda. She told the little girls because she knew they +would tell me. But Dolly and Lucinda shall not wear them. Very cotton +silk, of course." + +The ringing of the bell for Sunday-school relieved Cordelia Running Bird +of the torment she was undergoing. Conversation was suspended, and the +girls put on their hoods and marched in a procession to the +school-house, guided by the teachers. + +Cordelia had a trying hour in Sunday-school. The middle-sized girls, +her companions in the white mother's class, indulged in frequent +whispering at her expense and kept deep silence when she tried to lead +the class, as she was wont, in reading reference verses and in concert +recitation of the memory verses and the Golden Text. Thus it happened +that she read a reference verse alone, in faltering accents, with the +eyes of all the class upon her: + +"'_Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed +to give than to receive_.'" + +"She gives a nickel every Sunday, so she minds the verse and gets the +red dress very cheap," Hannah Straight Tree whispered from the seat +behind. + +The white mother heard the whisper, but the words were in Dakota, so she +failed to understand. She saw Cordelia Running Bird shrink and color +and her face grow very grave. Seeing this the class ceased whispering, +but the white mother's faithful teachings went unheeded, and she saw the +lesson was a failure. In fact, the whole room was in sad disorder from +the opening to the close of Sunday-school, and all three teachers were +perplexed and disappointed by the strange behavior of their usually +attentive pupils. + +"How unfortunate that the race mood has attacked the school when +Christmas is approaching, and we wish the girls to do their best and be +their happiest," said the white mother, lingering; for a minute in the +schoolroom after the dismissal. "Cordelia seems about the only one, +except the little girls, who isn't out of sorts to-day, yet she is the +one they are all against. The older girls all seem displeased at her." + +"The large girls worried me with loud and constant whispering and +inattention to the lesson," was the school-teacher's sorrowful report. +"There were so many, with the superintendent's class combined with mine, +I found it quite impossible to keep good order, as you probably +observed." + +The superintendent was not present. He had started for the distant +railroad station two days previously to get the Christmas boxes. + +"I have never had the slightest trouble with both classes, heretofore, +but to-day they seemed to throw off all restraint, and I was simply in +despair," added the young teacher with a strained expression in her +voice. "They whispered in Dakota, and their meaning was a mystery, but I +heard Cordelia Running Bird's name and Hannah Straight Tree's very +often, also Susie, Dolly and Lucinda." + +"There was some trouble in the hall yesterday, which made Cordelia +Running Bird moody for a time, but she recovered her good-nature in the +afternoon and seems to be behaving nicely now, although much hurt by the +treatment which she is receiving from the girls," the white mother said. + +"The children were excited also," said the teacher, who had taught the +infant class. "They whispered much in English, and I gathered from +their talk that the unusual wardrobe which Cordelia is preparing for her +little sister to appear in during her Christmas visit, has to do with +the disturbance. I was forced to hear about the red dress and the brown +shoes and stockings, and the blue dress and the black shoes and +stockings, till I knew not what to do. It seems that Hannah is vexed +about the little things, and the other girls are sympathizing with her, +and they seem to have some grievance of their own, besides." + +"That explains it," said the white mother. "Perhaps it was unwise to +let Cordelia have the red cashmere for the little dress, but she is +paying for it by contributing a portion of her hard-earned money to the +missionary fund. Her patience with the baby, who was very fretful, was +quite wonderful. She cheerfully devoted all her playtime for a month to +baby, while I gave attention to the little children, and I thought it +but a just reward to let her have the little dress, especially as it was +in her mission box. Her father had not brought the blue dress then, But +dear me! She has added brown shoes and stockings, which I didn't in the +least expect." + +The children in their bedtime talk had told the white mother of Cordelia +Running Bird's purchase at the store, and later in the evening the +second teacher had informed her of the barter of the Indian doll. + +"The brown shoes and stockings must be laid to my account. Whatever can +be done?" exclaimed the school-teacher, in dismay. + +"Nothing," said the white mother, firmly. "I wish Cordelia was less +extravagant, and we will be careful to restrain her after this. But +Indian girls must learn as well as white girls to respect the right of +property. The girls have been allowed much freedom in the spending of +what money they could call their own, but it has mostly gone for hair +ribbons and candy, and there has been no trouble before. I hope the +feeling will subside, however, in a day or two. So many Christmas +pleasures are in prospect that the girls will surely have no room for +strife and envy in their hearts." + +Here the teachers hastened to the mission building to discharge the +duties that devolved upon them after Sunday-school. + +Just before sun\et Monday afternoon a flock of girls were gathered at +the stile in front, watching with intensity a solitary little figure +moving slowly on a far side of the pasture, near the barbed wire fence. + +"Again there walks Cordelia Running Bird very far away," said Hannah +Straight Tree. "She has walked alone two afternoons. She must be +thinking very hard." + +"She is going on the mourner's walk," observed the girl who kept the +playroom. "When an Indian walks alone, so far and very slow, that means +they are too sad. She cannot be happy, for the large girls--only me--and +the middle-sized girls do not talk to her. Then, too, of course, she +thinks of Annie. It was just one year ago this Monday that they took +her to the agency. The large girls did not wash, because there was a +funeral." + +"And Cordelia Running Bird was so proud because the girls all cried," +said Hannah. "Now I wish we had not cried." + +"Kee! You must not be so mean as that," exclaimed the largest girl, in +shocked surprise. "Of course we cried for Annie. She was very kind to +everyone--not cross like us." + +"She was a very little cross, sometimes, because she was an Indian. She +tried much harder than Cordelia Running Bird." + +"I am glad I sang 'The Sweet By and By' when she was so afraid," said +Emma Two Bears. + +The girls were silent for a little, stirred by memories of the +schoolmate who had passed into the life beyond. + +Meantime the solitary girl in the snowy pasture continued her walk. + +"I can wish I had not told Cordelia Running Bird that I would not sleep +with anyone but her," said Hannah. "I am glad she is not in the middle +dormitory now." + +"They put her in our dormitory so that she can go and tell the teachers +if a little girl is sick, or cries," remarked the prudent little girl, +who had arrived upon the scene with several other children. "The +teachers say she wakes up easy, and is braver in the dark than any other +girl." + +"Ee! Cordelia Running Bird is a dress pattern for the other girls--I +mean a pattern!" Hannah cried. "Cordelia is the bravest, and she has a +white memory, so she has the longest piece. Cordelia is polite. She +keeps her clothes so clean and does not tear them, so the missionary +ladies send her prettier things, for the teachers write she is so nice. +The visitors always talk about Cordelia Running Bird very lots. They do +not think the girls are listening, but they are." + +"They should not listen. That is stealing talk, the white mother says," +replied the prudent little girl. "We like Cordelia Running Bird, for +she does not scold us little girls and tell us we are in the way, as you +do," was the bold defense. "We shall choose Susie in the games." + +"If the little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can +pull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threat +from Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say their +hairs were snarly and we could not help it." + +"Ee! We shall not pull the little girls' hairs and tell a lie," said +Emma Two Bears, rallying her honest principles. "We can treat Cordelia +Running Bird cross because she called us shovel-feeted, and is very +vain, so we should punish her, but we will not be wicked." + +"I did not say we shall--I said we can," retracted Hannah, in confusion. + +"The girls were very mean to walk whole-feet where she was scrubbing," +said the playroom girl, who knew from sad experience what Cordelia's +trials must have been. "It makes me very cross because the little girls +will not stay out or, sit still on the benches when I scrub the +playroom, and they do not make big tracks, if they do walk whole-feet." + +"You can speak to her, because she could not call you shovel-feeted, for +the white mother lets you always wear the mission shoes," said Hannah +Straight Tree, growing bold again. + +"Because I have an onion--no, a bunion--on my foot. The issue shoes +would make it worse. Just like there is no girl in school that does not +hate to have the horrid whole-feet tracks on her wet floor." + +"I hate them--some," confessed a middle dormitory girl. + +"I, too," admitted a south dormitory girl. "I threw a few drops of +scrub water on a girl that walked whole-feet." + +"I told a girl her tracks were so big, just like she had on snowshoes," +said a north dormitory girl, relentingly. + +"Of course, I made the very biggest kind of tracks on Cordelia Running +Bird's wet floor," said the largest girl; "but if we walk tiptoe all the +other girls will laugh and say, 'See how she nips along. She tries to +walk so nice, just like the teachers.' And if we are walking on our +heels they say, 'Very awkward; hear her tramp just like a steer.' But +it is not kind to walk whole-feet." + +The race mood was upon the wane, and Hannah Straight Tree was fast +losing influence. + +"I would not have cared so much about the blue dress and the black shoes +and stockings, but she bought the red dress and the brown shoes and +stockings, when her little sister does not need them," Hannah argued in +an injured tone. + +"She did not buy them with your money," said the playroom girl. "You +would not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plum +picnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You are +much too lazy." + +"Now I shall not stay another minute!" springing from the stile in deep +chagrin. "You all can like Cordelia Running Bird if you want to, but I +shall not like her." + +Hannah Straight Tree ran into the house, and those remaining turned +again to watch Cordelia. She had reached a sloping bluff, down which +the fence extended to the flats beside the river. She stood a moment on +the edge, then wrapped her clothes about her and sat down on the crust. +Presently she disappeared. + +"She has slid down hill," observed the playroom girl. "She must be going +to the river." + +"She should not. It will soon be dark, and she is all alone," said Emma +Two Bears, in a tone betraying some anxiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Cordelia Running Bid held her clothes about her with one hand, steering +with her feet, and reached the flats in safety. She arose and stood +still and looked toward the river to a space of open water on the near +side of a sandbar, half way over. + +She took a few steps forward rather slowly, then her pace quickened more +and more, till she was running breathlessly, as if in fear of losing her +resolve to carry out some plan she was intent upon. + +In rushing through a hollow lined with willow trees she slipped and +almost lost her footing, and in struggling to regain it she released her +hold upon a well-filled gingham bag which she had hid beneath her coat +and dropped it on the ground. She picked it up and hung it by the +draw-string on her arm, but with this interruption of her headlong +course there came a corresponding halt of purpose. So she turned aside +and walked a few yards down the hollow, where she found a log on which +to seat herself. + +Presently she murmured in the passive monotone of a despairing Indian +girl: "Just like I have to stop and think before I do it. If I drown +the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and +the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for +she will not let me speak to her: 'Now you see I truly am not vain, for +I have put the Christmas clothes for Susie in my workbag, and a stone, +so it would sink, and I have drowned them in the airhole in the middle +of the river.' + +"But again that would be bragging," was her puzzled afterthought. "Just +like Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and bought +the brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain. +And the teachers looked so sorry, and I was ashamed to tell the white +mother. Everything I say and do is vain and bragging, and I cannot +think hard enough to help it. My tongue bragged about Dolly and +Lucinda's hair ribbons to the little girls, and my feet bragged about +the issue shoes, I stuck them out so far. And when the girls made fun +of me I did not pull the shoes back, for I wanted them to think I was +not scared, but sorry. I was truly trying to try hard, but I was trying +the wrong way. Now my pencil will be bragging if it tells Hannah +Straight Tree I have drowned the things." + +Cordelia sat in troubled thought while the pink and golden colors of the +sunset faded from the sky above the bluffs and the wind sighed through +the hollow. + +"The white mother says it is not right to even waste a pin, and many +nice things that have cost much money would be wasted if I drowned them. +I shall look at them and think again what I can do." + +She drew the contents from the bag and spread them on her lap. First +she gave attention to the little blue dress she had helped to make at +the expense of many play hours. + +[Illustration: She drew the contents from her bag and spread them on +her lap.] + +"Emma Two Bears made the waist so nice and said she would not take one +thing for pay, but I made her take a shell necklace that was very +pretty; but I did not care for it myself, it was so Indian-minded. Emma +is so generous. I wish I could be generous. If I should give the blue +dress to Dolly, and the black shoes and stockings, just like I should be +some generous. What if I should truly do it?" with a sudden interest in +her tone. "She would look as pretty as the little schoolgirls then, and +she could motion Jack Frost, and Hannah and the others could not say +Susie did not need the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings. I +am 'most sure Jessie Turning Heart will help me make the red dress, if I +bring the playroom wood for her, till we change work next month. She +hates to bring wood, for her foot gets cold, and then the sore bunch +pinches her much worse. She is very fast and stylish making dresses, +and she feather-stitches; and she says she is not cross at me. She said +one time she liked to sew so much, just like she would be getting up and +sewing in her sleep. So I shall ask her to trade work. + +"But Hannah Straight Tree says she hates light blue, for it makes a +copper-colored Indian look much blacker; and she hates one tuck, and +there would have to be one, for the blue dress is too long for Dolly. +And it smuts some, too, and is not soft and fine. Hannah would not want +it. She would say Susie looked much nicer in the red dress, and Dolly +should not motion Jack Frost in the blue one." + +Cordelia put the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings back into +the bag, and spread the red cashmere across her lap and smoothed it +lovingly. + +"It feels so soft I like to rub it. Just the color of the one rose on +the white mother's window bush." She held it up, luxuriating in its warm +red glow. "Ver-ry sw-e-et and pretty--and the brown shoes and +stockings, too. I shall put them on the clean snow and look at them." + +She spread the things on the hard white crust and viewed them with +increasing admiration. Suddenly she caught them up and hid them in her +apron, for the sight of them was far too tempting; then she locked her +hands together in her lap and sat so still a wood-mouse dared to leave +his hole beneath the log and frisk about her feet. + +"The baby was so cross I could not play one bit the whole four weeks," +she said at length, in supplicating tones. "Just like I earned the +dress so hard. I thought I did not care much for the Indian doll, but +my grandmother cannot make another, for she now has par-a-lay-sis in her +hands--the doctor says it is. And I sold the Indian doll to get the +brown shoes and stockings. Dolly has a round face, and her eyes are +pretty. Susie has a thin face, and she is a very little cross-eyed, so +she needs a prettier dress to look as nice as Dolly. + +"But Lucinda cannot come to school if Dolly cannot, and she feels so +sad. If Dolly's father saw her looking very pretty in a red dress and a +brown shoes and stockings, just like he would feel so happier he would +let her come to school. Then Lucinda would be glad, and she would learn +the neat way, and they would grow Dolly more white-minded. The verse I +read yesterday was a King's Daughters' verse. Helen marked it--Annie, +too. + +"What if Annie should be looking down from up there,"--pointing to a +newly glimmering star--"and speaking just like this: 'Dear Cordelia, +these words I tell you--" It is more blessed to give than to receive." +I would give the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings to the +little girl named Dolly Straight Tree.'" + +Cordelia looked another minute at the star. + +"Of course Annie cannot speak those words up there, but she would like +to have me do it, and my father and my mother would not care, for I +should tell them just like Annie thought I ought to; and they always let +me do a thing I want to, anyhow. + +"If an Indian likes another Indian very much he will give him a big +present. My father told an Indian man one time, 'I am your friend, so I +shall give you a pony.' And he did. And the Indian man told my father, +'I am your friend, so I shall give you a steer.' And a white man +laughed and said it was a good trade. But the Indians did not laugh. +They said my father and the other Indian were very generous. + +"Now I have found the right way, and it makes me very happier, and I +shall not change my thoughts." in firm relief. "I shall do this kind: +Till Dolly and Lucinda come I shall not say one word to any girl, or +even tell the white mother. Then Susie's best things I shall give to +Hannah Straight Tree in a way that will surprise her. Tokee! there rings +the half-hour bell till supper, and I am down here, and it is +moonlight." + +Cordelia hastily replaced the best things in the bag and scampered home. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Cordelia Running Bird carried out her plan of asking Jessie Turning +Heart, the playroom girl, to help her make the red dress, and the latter +willingly agreed to "trade work," and escape bringing in the wood to the +torture of her lame foot. + +Cordelia found that she had undertaken no light task, for there were +violent snowstorms in the next two weeks, and an enormous quantity of +wood was swallowed by the great stove in the playroom, which must needs +be kept red-hot from long before dawn until bedtime, to dispel the +freezing atmosphere within. + +Owing to the influence of the playroom girl, the large and middle-sized +girls in general ceased to be intensely hostile to Cordelia, but they +did not break the seal of silence, so she could not ask help from among +them. The small girls showed their friendship for Cordelia now and then +by marching in a line behind her from the wood-yard laden with what fuel +they could bring, or even going down the path the older girls had broken +to the flats for willow fagots, which they tied upon their backs and +brought to her for kindling. + +Hannah Straight Tree tried Cordelia's resolution to do good to her by +stealthy persecutions that escaped the notice of the teachers, who +remarked to one another in relief that Hannah and the other girls +appeared in better humor toward Cordelia, and the fatter had regained +her cheerful spirits. + +Hannah took her station in the little outside hall one blustering +afternoon, watching through the side window till Cordelia climbed the +porch steps loaded to her chin with wood; then Hannah braced her back +against the outside door. Cordelia spared one hand with difficulty, +tugging at the door with wind-tossed garments, all in vain. She dropped +her wood to use both hands. The door would sometimes stick when lightly +closed, and thinking this to be the case, she threw her weight against +it in a forcible attempt to burst it open. Hannah jumped away and +darted through the inside door in silent glee. + +Cordelia fell full length into the hall and struck her head against the +inner threshold. She lay in a dazed condition for a little, then aroused +herself, to catch a glimpse of Hannah peering through the window of the +inside door. She vanished instantly, but the expression of her face had +told Cordelia where the mischief lay. + +"She will not let me like her," thought Cordelia, struggling to her feet +with aching head, and blinking back the tears. "Just like I shall have +to hate her just a little while I do her good." + +She turned, and saw to her surprise that Emma Two Bears, who had come +behind her to the porch, was gathering up her wood. Emma often helped to +fill the wood-box in the music room, as an especial friend of hers +attended to that work, and Cordelia feared her wood was being boldly +captured for that purpose. She was about to cry out sharply, but +restrained herself and fell back silently, while Emma passed into the +house. Cordelia followed her, and saw with sinking heart that Emma took +a straight track through the playroom for the music room; but on the +threshold of the room she whirled about, and, walking to the playroom +wood-box, dropped the wood in. + +"Thank you very much!" exclaimed Cordelia, in sign language on her +fingers. Etiquette forbade her to employ her tongue in the expression +of her gratitude, seeing that the girls had placed a ban on it. A +curious contortion of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet was used among the +Indian girls when pride forbade the use of speech. + +"You need not thank me. I am only punishing Hannah Straight Tree," Emma +answered, likewise with her fingers. + +This exchange of compliments was read without scruple by the many pairs +of eyes, including Hannah's, that were watching the affair. + +"Emma Two Bears talks deaf-and-dumb to her. Now we can plan +crack-the-whip with her, for that is not a speaking game," observed a +middle-sized girl, who had been a comrade of Cordelia's heretofore. + +"She will not have time to crack the whip," said Hannah. "She is going +to the south dormitory, where she sits her whole playtime helping sew +the red dress for Susie, so she can look nicer than the other little +home sisters and the little schoolgirls." + +"You are very jealous-minded, and you try hard to spite Cordelia Running +Bird," said the recent comrade. + +"You can talk that way because you have no little sister," grumbled +Hannah. + +Cordelia passed upstairs with quick steps. + +"Just like the large and middle-sized girls--only Hannah Straight Tree-- +will again be speaking to me pretty soon," she said to Jessie Turning +Heart, who sat beside a sunny window in the south dormitory sewing +briskly on the little red waist. + +"They cannot speak to you till Christmas day, because they all said they +would not," Jessie answered. "Then if you ap-ol-ogize and say you do +not wish them to be cripples any more, and that you will stop talking +vain, they will again speak to you, and they will walk heel or tiptoe on +your floor." + +"I shall write an ap-ol-ogy in Dakota on three papers Christmas morning, +and pin them on a side of the three dormitories, but you must not tell, +because I do not wish to brag what I shall do," Cordelia said, in +strictest confidence. + +"I think it would be better if you had but one shoes and stockings and +best dress for Susie. But you cannot help it now," the playroom girl +replied. "Two best dresses and two shoes and stockings look too many, +when the other little home sisters have not one best thing." + +Cordelia Running Bird was quite strongly tempted to confide still +further in the friendly playroom girl, who had sustained her through the +trying tempest of events, but she resisted and began to hem the little +skirt in silence. + +"Ee! how short you have it!" Jessie noticed suddenly. "You must think +Susie is to grow the other way before she wears it." + +Cordelia's only answer was a noncommittal smile which Jessie failed to +understand. This thought, however, suddenly impressed Cordelia: + +"Now it is too short for Susie, and the hem is not one bit too wide, so +I could not let it down. What if Hannah Straight Tree is so cross she +will not let Dolly wear it? And there is no other little home sister +just the size of Dolly that could wear it, and is coming Christmas. Just +like Hannah will not take it and will keep on hating me forever and +ever, so I cannot do her good." + +Whether this foreboding was fulfilled, or otherwise, will be explained +in Hannah's letter to the King's Daughter in the Far East, who had sent +the little Bible and the loving message to the King's Daughter in the +Far West: + + "_Dear Helen Merriam_: Now I shall write you a letter, + for Cordelia Running Bird cannot, for she says it, + would be bragging. It is all about Christmas, and our + big and little sisters. Cordelia's big sister is now in + heaven, and Cordelia wrote good-by to you from Annie. + My big sister is now in the First Reader, but she cannot + help it, for my mother died, and so Lucinda had to stay + at home and keep Dolly, and that is my little sister. + + "And it was about Susie--that is Cordelia's little sister-- + that I got so mean and jealous, for she had a nice + Christmas things--two kinds--and Dolly would not have + one kind, and she would look so horrid. So I called + Cordelia Running Bird proud, vain, cross, mean. And + I talked about her so the girls got cross at her. And + I made her push a pail of scrub water downstairs, so she + talked Dakota and had to lie in bed and could not + feather-stitch the blue dress, for it smutted so the silk + would be too dirty. But she feather-stitched the red dress, + and she sold her Indian doll, and it was her grandmother's + when she was Cordelia's age, so she bought the brown shoes + and stockings. + + "And Cordelia read the King's Daughters' verses, + 'Love your enemies,' and 'It is more blessed to give than + to receive,' so she put the red dress and the brown shoes + and stockings and two hair ribbons in a box, and Jessie + Turning Heart tied a blue scarf round my eyes so tight + I could not see, and led me to the chicken house. And + I put my hand on the box, and Jessie pulled off the scarf, + and I uncovered the box and found the things. And + Cordelia Running Bird had pinned a piece of paper on the + red dress, and these words were written on it: 'Dear + Hannah Straight Tree, I am your friend, so I shall give + you these best Christmas things for Dolly. And will + you please take the hair ribbons, for they are not very + cotton silk?' + + "And I was very 'shamed, and said I would not take + them, I had been so mean. But Cordelia Running Bird + said I must, for she had made the red dress too short for + Susie, so if I did not it would be wasted. So I told her + I would take it if she would excuse my meanness, but I + should not take the brown shoes and stockings--only just + the black ones. But she begged so hard just like I had to. + And Cordelia and I scrubbed Dolly very hard in a tub, + for Lucinda has not learned the neat way, and she did + not cry, only laughed. And the white mother found some + very little underclothes for her, and we curled her hair + with a slate pencil, and she wore the best things and + looked so pretty. And the brown shoes were a little bit + too large, but they did not show. + + "And Dolly motioned Jack Frost very cunning, and + they looked at Dolly more than Susie, but Cordelia + Running Bird did not care. And my father was so happier + he laughed and laughed when Dolly nipped her nose and + pinched her toes just right, and when the song stopped he + slapped his knees and cried very loud, he was so glad + about Dolly. + + "And after the Christmas tree my father told the + teachers (and Emma Two Bears was interpreter): 'Your + school is a good place, for it makes the Indian children + very smart, and you treat the Indian visitors very kind, + so I shall let Dolly stay, and then Lucinda will stay, too.' + Very fast Lucinda stopped being sad, for she thought + before my father would not let Dolly stay till she was ten + birthdays, and Lucinda loves her so she would not stay + without her. + + "And the doll they hung me on the Christmas tree was + bigger than Cordelia Running Bird's, and its hairs and + clothes were prettier, so I told Cordelia, 'I am your + friend, and I shall give you my doll.' And she did not + want to take it, but I made her. So she said, 'I am your + friend, and I shall give you my doll, but it is not so nice + as yours.' + + "And Cordelia Running Bird and I now walk together + all the time, and again I shall never be mean to her. And + they did not choose Susie quite so much as Dolly in the + games, but Cordelia says that makes her glad. And it + was because she read the King's Daughters' verses. + + "Now I shall put an end to this too long letter. Many + days have I been writing it, and the girls, said just like + I was writing a book. And Cordelia sends her love. + + "From your unknown American Indian friend, + "HANNAH STRAIGHT THEE." + + "P. S.--Cordelia Running Bird nearly drowned both + kinds of Christmas clothes, and then she thought to give + the best kind to Dolly. And Susie did not care because + she had to wear the blue dress, and it smutted so her + hands and face got dirty, and the black shoes and stockings. + She was just as happier. And the teacher saved Cordelia's + Indian doll and gave it back to her, because she knew + she loved it very hard. And Cordelia was so glad + she hugged it very tight. + + "Again P. S.--Cordelia wrote, 'Peace on earth, good-will + toward men. I do not wish the dormitory girls were + cripples, and I will stop talking vain and will always + wear the issue shoes every day. And will they please + excuse me?' And they did. And now they walk heel or + tiptoe on Cordelia's wet floor. Lucinda will now learn + the neat way, and they will grow Dolly more white-minded, + for she came to school so short. And again I say it was + the King's Daughters' verses. And I do not like to think + hard, but I shall try to learn them, too. And we did + not shut our eyes at Susie when she motioned Jack Frost, + as we meant to just for spite. And the girls all said + Cordelia was so generous, she said she nearly got vain + again. So I shall stop this time." + +[Illustration: Helen read the letter to her King's Daughters circle.] + +Helen read the letter to her King's Daughters Circle, and a young +member, thinking of the little Sioux maiden at the far Northwestern +Mission who had tried to overcome her faults and love her enemies, +repeated softly: + + "'For thou hast a little strength, and thou hast kept + my word and hast not denied my name.'" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Big and Little Sisters, by Theodora R. Jenness + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10902 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf5490e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10902 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10902) diff --git a/old/10902.txt b/old/10902.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c984e84 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10902.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2070 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Big and Little Sisters, by Theodora R. Jenness + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Big and Little Sisters + +Author: Theodora R. Jenness + +Release Date: February 1, 2004 [EBook #10902] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIG AND LITTLE SISTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Prepared by Al Haines. + + + + +BIG AND LITTLE SISTERS + +A Story of an Indian Mission School + +By THEODORA R. JENNESS + + +CHAPTER I. + +It was a Saturday morning in December at the Indian Mission School. +Two young Sioux girls were going up the stairs--Hannah Straight Tree and +Cordelia Running Bird. It was their Saturday for cleaning. The two +girls drew a heavy breath in prospect of the difficult task that +confronted them. The great unplastered mission building was a chilly +place throughout the winter, and the halls and stairway that morning +were drafty from the blustering wind that swept the Dakota plains and +came through the outer doors below, where restless children kept going +to and fro continually. The young hall-girls shivered on the upper +landing, and stepped back in a sheltered niche in which the brooms were +hanging. They had thrown their aprons over their heads and shoulders, +and were dreading to begin their work. + +"My floor and stairs always look nicer than your floor and stairs," said +Hannah Straight Tree to Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Because you have the teachers' side, and that's always nicer, to begin +with, than the girls' side," answered Cordelia Running Bird. "You know +the teachers never walk whole-feet when you are scrubbing. If they have +to go by, they walk tiptoe, and their toes are sharp and clean and do +not make big tracks. But all the children on my side walk whole-feet +over the wet floor when I am scrubbing, and their shoes are big and +muddy. Ugh! big tracks they make! But I have learned the motto, every +word, and I can speak that when I feel discouraged with my work." +Cordelia Running Bird gazed at the motto, while the dormitory girls +flocked by, and when the hall was quiet she repeated it in the peculiar +monotonous tone with which an Indian pupil usually recites: + +"Those who faithfully perform the task of keeping clean the dark places, +the cold places and the rough places, are they to whom it may indeed be +said, 'Well done.'" + +"I shall not try to learn the motto, for it makes my memory tired," said +Hannah Straight Tree. "I do not like to think hard or work hard. I am +glad I have the teachers' side." + +"If you do not think hard you will have a heart that is a dark place, +like the scrub-pail closet, and it will he hard to keep it clean of +wrong thoughts, like the white mother talked about in Sunday-school. +The motto means inside of us as well as places where we live. I like to +think hard," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I heard the teacher tell the +white mother that I had the best memory of any middle-sized girl, and +she said it was as good as many white girls' memories of my age, and +that is 'most fourteen. So I am to speak the longest middle-sized piece +in the Christmas entertainment." + +"Ee!" cried Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white +memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed to tell it!" + +"She will not praise you, for you are always very dumb in school. You +will not try to speak a lesson only with the class in concert," said +Cordelia Running Bird. "I shall try to finish very fast this morning. +There are only two more Saturdays till Christmas, and to-day I want to +feather-stitch the little new blue dress for Susie. She will wear it +every day when she is here Christmas. Many white and Indian visitors +will be here." + +"And you will feel so proud because the visitors and the school will +look at Susie, and the middle-sized and little girls will always choose +her in the games. They would not choose my little sister if she +played," said Hannah Straight Tree, with a sudden downcast look. + +"Dolly is so shy I do not know if she would go into the middle of the +ring if they should choose her, and she would not know the way to choose +back," answered Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Ee! She would! She would!" disputed Hannah Straight Tree. "Dolly is +as brave and smart as Susie--smarter, too, for she is shorter! She +could play the games if I would let her!" + +"But you will not," replied the other; "you must not scold about my +little sister. Susie knows the motions in the Jack Frost song so well +the teachers says that she can motion with the children in the Christmas +entertainment." + +"She does not motion right," said Hannah Straight Tree. "She gets +behind, and when they sing: + + "'He nips little children on the nose, + He pinches little children on the toes, + He pulls little children by the ears, + And brings to their eyes the big, round tears,' + +she is only nipping her nose when the rest are pulling their ears." + +"But she is so little she looks cute, and the visitors and school will +laugh at her and praise her," said Cordelia Running Bird, undismayed. +"She will not wear the blue dress in the Jack Frost song. She will wear +a red dress from my mission box. I asked the white mother if I could +not buy the red cloth for an entertainment dress for Susie with the +money that she paid because I tended baby one month till the nurse-girl +came. And she said if I wished I could put a nickel on the missionary +plate twenty Sundays, which would be one dollar, and so buy the cloth. +She said it would be teaching me to give, as well as to receive. She +keeps the nickel with the school pennies, and I take one every Sunday." + +"And you lift your hand so high and drop the nickel very too loud, so +all the school can hear, when Amy Swimmer passes you the plate!" cried +Hannah Straight Tree. "Just like it says, 'Ee! I am putting on a +nickel, and the rest can only give one penny! And _I_ earned my money, +and the pennies are money that their people sent them.'" + +"You are very jealous," was the calm reply. "I shall hire a large girl +to cut it fine and help make the red dress very fast. The sewing +teacher has not time for such dresses. Ver-r-y pr-r-etty it will look!" +Cordelia Running Bird smiled prospectively, displaying small white teeth +and two round dimples. "Christmas evening I shall curl Susie's hair +with a slate pencil, and she will wear fine shoes, and black stockings +with the red dress. My father brought them with the blue dress, and I +keep them in my cupboard." + +"You are much vain because your father is an agency policeman and earns +money, so he buys nice things for Susie," Hannah Straight Tree said, +with growing envy. "Dolly has to wear the issue goods, and she will not +look pretty Christmas time! Her dress will be a kind that looks black, +and Lucinda only knows a way to make it look like an Indian dress. She +will wear cowskin shoes so much too large, and very ugly-colored +stockings. If her dress gets torn before she comes, Lucinda will not +mend it nice--only draw it up so puckery. Very lots of grease spots +will be on it, and her hair will be so snarly I shall have to comb her +very fast." + +"My little sister is not torn and dirty any time," said Cordelia Running +Bird, "for my mother came to mission school when she was young and +learned the neat way." + +"My big sister only went to camp school just a little while," said +Hannah Straight Tree. "When my mother died she had to stay at home and +work and keep my little sister. Now again my father has got married, +and Lucinda wants to come to school and bring my little sister. Dolly +was five birthdays last Thanksgiving dinner." + +"Susie was five birthdays while I was at home vacation. I would be so +glad if she could stay at school next time she comes, but she was +sliding on the ice, and she fell and broke herself right here." +Cordelia touched her collarbone. "She is mended, but my mother is +afraid to leave her with the children now," she added. "But next year +she will leave her. If your big and little sister come to school they +will have nice mission things." + +"But they cannot for my father," Hannah Straight Tree said, with +deepening gloom. "He would let Lucinda, but he says Dolly is too short; +she must be ten birthdays when she comes. Lucinda loves Dolly, so she +will not leave her, and my stepmother is cross-tempered. Lucinda will +be twenty-one birthdays--much too old to come to school--when Dolly is +ten birthdays." + +"You can tell your father the teachers like the Indian children come to +school when they are very short, so they can grow them more +white-minded," said Cordelia Running Bird. + +"I told him, but he says he does not want his children very +white-minded. He says I came to school so short that they have grown me +too white-minded. I tell him I am very Indian-minded, but he tells me I +do not know white from Indian. Lucinda is so sad she will not try. She +looks so horrid--Dolly, too--I am much ashamed of them. I shall not +speak to them before the white visitors and the teachers--only down at +camp." + +"Then you will be very wrong," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I would not +be ashamed to speak to my own people anywhere." + +"Ee! You talk so good because your father wears a grand policeman's +coat and trousers, and your mother's head is in a hood!" said Hannah +Straight Tree, excitedly. "My father wears a very funny Indian clothes, +and feathers in his hairs, and my big sister's head is in a shawl. All +the girls will say on Christmas, 'Susie looked just like a fairy in the +Jack Frost song. We shall give her very lots of candy from our +Christmas bags.' Dolly knows the Jack Frost motions; I taught her, and +she did them with the children down at camp. But I shall not tell the +teacher, for Dolly has no pretty things to wear. That is why I won't +let her play the games. If my father saw her in the Jack Frost songs +and games, he would be glad she is so smart and just like he would let +her come to school. But you would be so sorry if my big and little +sister came to school. You think Susie is a skin-white girl and Dolly +is a very copper-colored Indian." + +"You do not speak true," was the denial. "I should not be sorry, and I +do not think Susie is a skin-white girl. She is very copper-colored, +too." + +"But you do not wish Dolly would be in the Jack Frost song and wear a +red dress just like Susie's!" challenged Hannah Straight Tree, +disconcerting her companion with the piercing gaze habitual to her race. + +Though not quite innocent of all the charges laid to her, Cordelia +Running Bird was a truthful girl, and she would not disown a failing +plainly set before her by another. She evaded her companion's gaze in +silence. + +"You are thinking hard! You cannot say it!" was the fierce indictment +from Hannah Straight Tree. + +"But--I wish she could be in another motion song--and wear a--green +dress," came the hesitating answer. + +"Ee! You think they would not watch Susie all the time if Dolly +motioned Jack Frost, too, and looked like Susie! And you do not wish +that Dolly had a blue dress--only ugly green--and looked like Susie in +the games," said Hannah Straight Tree. + +"But little white girls do not need to wear alike dresses," was Cordelia +Running Bird's argument. "Because the little white visitor last summer +looked just like a fairy in the pretty pink with white lace, did her +sister have to wish another little white girl looked the very too same?" +she asked. + +"There is a difference, but I cannot tell," answered Hannah Straight +Tree, taking down her broom in puzzled moodiness. + +The two girls went about their work in a most unfortunate state of mind. +Hannah's discontent at Dolly's lack and Susie's plenty, and the prospect +of Cordelia's triumphs through the petted little sister, grew upon her, +and resulted in unlooked-for trials to Cordelia, who was much +discomfited by the force of her companion's criticisms. + +Cordelia Running Bird was a bright, attractive girl, quite conscientious +in discharging her industrial and school duties, and much interested in +the Sunday-school; but in a private talk the very day before, the +teachers had referred to her in some perplexity. + +"I wish Cordelia Running Bird were a little different," said the +school-teacher. "She leads her class, and is a credit to the school in +most respects, but she is rather too ambitious to outdo others. It +creates jealousy." + +"I have observed that she is notional in the making of her dresses," +said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider +and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks +to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle +on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I +grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too +frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if +not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by +intuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconscious +of the fact that she makes the other girls discontented. But she is so +pleasant and obedient, as a rule, that minor faults may be forgiven +her," the white mother charitably concluded. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +As something quite unusual at that season in the Dakotas, there had been +a thaw the day before, and a great quantity of mud had been tracked in +on the girls' side by the sewing classes coming from the schoolhouse, +separate from the main mission building, to the upstairs room in which +the sewing work was done. + +Hannah Straight Tree quickly swept her portion of the hall, for there +was but little mud on the teachers' side, and was proceeding to her +stairs before Cordelia Running Bird was half way along her floor. + +"You have not taken up your dirt! You have swept it over on my side!" +exclaimed Cordelia Running Bird, who, with all her close attention to +her own work, kept a sharp eye on the other's movements. + +"There is little, and it will not be much work to take it up with +yours," was Hannah's reply. "When we finished yesterday I lent our +dustpan to the middle dormitory girls--they said theirs was too broken +--and they lost it. Now they say they can borrow the south dormitory +dustpan, and they shall not hunt ours. You can always find things better +than I can, so you must hunt it and take up my dirt," was Hannah +Straight Tree's demand. + +"Tokee! How strange you talk!" exclaimed Cordelia Running Bird, in +amazement. "The dormitory girls must ask for a new dustpan if they +break theirs. It is not the rule to lend things, for it makes +confusion; if you lent the dustpan you must find it and take up your +dirt, for I have more to do than you. It is Number 8, and you can tell +it when you see it." + +"You are very cross as well as proud and vain--and you have learned the +motto, every word. If I had learned the motto I should try to be good," +said Hannah Straight Tree. + +"The motto does not say a girl can tell us we must do a work that is not +ours, and we must mind her. I shall sweep your dirt back," was the warm +reply. + +Cordelia Running Bird gave her broom a sudden push and sent the +sweepings flying backward in a cloud. + +"Now look how mean you are! Again I have to sweep my floor!" cried +Hannah Straight Tree, angrily. "Proud--vain--cross--mean!" She +counted the four failings on her fingers. + +"Not the least bit do I care," replied Cordelia Running Bird, stung +beyond endurance by Hannah's taunts. "I was not cross at first, but now +I am, because you call me four bad names. I am now glad your little +sister cannot play the games, or motion in one song, or even have an +ugly green dress. I am not sorry that your big and little sister cannot +come to school, and very much I wish I had not learned the motto." + +Here the young Sioux girl, who was compelled to battle with hereditary +pride and stubbornness in every effort to do right, forgot the white +mother's admonition that the heart might be a dark place and a cold +place needing to be cleansed of evil thoughts. + +Hannah Straight Tree did not hunt the dustpan, but with perseverance +worthy of a better cause, she brushed the sweepings from her floor and +stairs upon a ragged palm-leaf fan which she discovered in a corner, +and, dropping them into the scrub-pail, took them out of doors. Cordelia +brought a shoe-box from her cupboard in the playroom and applied it as +an inconvenient dustpan. Meanwhile dustpan Number 8 remained in the +darkest corner of the middle dormitory closet, where it had been pushed +in the rush of clearing up the day before. + +Cordelia Running Bird's work of making clean her floor and stairs was +even harder than she had expected. Never had there seemed so many +errands to and fro by those who did the weekly cleaning in the three +dormitories, numbering quite a force. The thaw had ended in a freezing +snow squall in the night, but a sufficient quantity of mud was clinging +to the broad soles of the government shoes that tramped across +Cordelia's wet floor to insure a startling trail of footprints. + +"I cannot keep them up, they come again so fast," she murmured to +herself in grim despair, while wringing out her mop-rag to attack a line +of tracks imprinted by the largest girl in school, in going to and from +the laundry to dispose of laid-off sheets and pillow-cases. "_Ver-ry +hor-r-i-d_ pictures of the ugly issue shoes. I will not wear them. I +am wearing kid store shoes my father buys for every day. The dormitory +girls are shovel-feeted, and I Wish they could not walk one step--only +lie in bed!" + +She was overheard by Hannah Straight Tree, coming up the girls' stairs +at that moment. Hannah's own work had been done with little difficulty, +and she had obtained permission to help the middle dormitory girls, for +reasons all her own. + +The reckless speech was repeated to the dormitory girls by Hannah +Straight Tree, much to their displeasure. + +"The dormitory girls are shovel-feeted, and she wishes they could not +walk one step, only lie in bed!" exclaimed the largest girl, sitting +down on a straw-tick to discuss the matter. "Then we should be +cripples, and, tokee! how many cripples there would be!" + +"If they came from both the other dormitories into this to lie down with +the middle dormitory girls, there would be one cripple in each bed, and +in one there would be two cripples," said a broom girl, who was quite +expert at figures, having studied on the problem with the aid of +broom-straws representing cripples. + +This portrayal of the startling situation, if Cordelia Running Bird's +wish could be fulfilled, increased the shock of indignation in the +dormitories. + +"Ee!" cried one, "we hate the ugly government shoes, of course, and wish +that we could wear the nice shoes from our mission boxes every day. But +we cannot, only Sundays--and we have to change them after Sunday-school +--and when we wear our best clothes for white visitors. Cordelia Running +Bird will not wear the government shoes because her father is an agency +policeman, and can buy store shoes for every day." + +"I was always much ashamed of my big feet, and now I am more ashamed," +complained the largest girl. "If the dormitory girls are shovel-feeted, +every large girl in this school is shovel-feeted." + +"Cordelia was very cross about the dustpan, too, but we can pay her +back," said Hannah Straight Tree, adding fresh fuel to the fire. + +"Now I shall not show her how to feather-stitch the little blue dress," +said the largest girl, who was quite famous at embroidery, and had +partly promised to instruct Cordelia Running Bird in her work that day. + +"And I shall not help her make the little red dress, as she will be +wanting me next week," resolved a south dormitory bed girl, Emma Two +Bears, who was standing in the doorway. Emma was the most experienced +dressmaker of the large girls' class and was generous, as a rule, in +helping younger girls. "I am sorry now that I cut and made the little +blue waist, but I did not think she would so soon be wishing me a +cripple." + +"And you need not praise the little blue and red dresses if she gets +them done; but I am sure she cannot," gloried Hannah Straight Tree. + +"Ee! We will not. We will call them ugly issue goods," said one of the +girls. + +"Or watch her little sister in the Jack Frost song," said another. + +"We will shut our eyes!" exclaimed another. + +"And the middle-sized and short girls need not choose Susie in the +games," came from another. + +"We will tell them not to. They will choose Dolly," cried a fifth. + +"But Dolly looks so horrid, I am much ashamed of her," was Hannah +Straight Tree's answer. + +Cordelia Running Bird heard the fierce discussion through the open door, +near which she knelt at work, and the bitter tears ran down her face. + +When at length her work was done as well as she was able, and the last +stair wiped, she went back upstairs on tiptoe to inspect her floor and +see if it was dry. She was met by Hannah Straight Tree on the upper +landing, carrying a pail of scrub water, mixed with ashes, from the +dormitory. Hannah set it on the top stair, and then glanced wickedly at +Cordelia through half-closed eyes that meant mischief. + +"What if I should tip it over?" she said. + +"Ee! You must not. It would freeze, and I should have to scald my hands +with too hot water, thawing it!" exclaiming Cordelia Running Bird, +rushing to prevent her. + +In her haste to keep the pail from being overturned Cordelia hit it with +her foot, upsetting it herself. The stairs were deluged with the +contents, Hannah Straight Tree fell back with a laugh. "Now see what +you have done yourself! I did not spill one drop. You cannot say I +did." + +Cordelia Running Bird burst into upbraiding exclamations in Dakota, +which, because they wished them to learn to speak English, was a +forbidden language in the school except on Sundays and on holidays. By +an odd mishap of memory, Cordelia was apt to break the rule in moments +of excitement, and she knew the penalty too well. + +"Now you have talked Dakota, and you must report yourself," Hannah +Straight Tree said triumphantly. "You wished the dormitory girls would +have to lie in bed--now you must lie in bed yourself. You cannot +feather-stitch or speak to anyone." + +The unclean water froze upon the stairs, and Cordelia Running Bird's +work of thawing it with hot water was a long and painful process. When +it was accomplished, though but poorly, she went upstairs a second time, +passing through the front hall to the white mother's room to report that +she had spoken in Dakota. + +"Again, Cordelia? How can you forget so often?" said the young white +mother in a seriously inquiring tone. + +The little Indian girl's excitement had now given place to +discouragement. She was silent for some time, then she murmured an +original defense. + +"The cross thoughts come in Indian, and I speak them out that way. +Che-cha (hateful) means much more in Indian than in English. Dakota +is my own language, and it tells me how to scold just right." + +"No, dear, just wrong," was the reply. Then looking at the draggled +little figure with head drooped moodily and smarting hands locked +tightly at the sides, the white mother added, "You have had a cold, hard +time this morning in the hall, I know. Have you been cross about your +work?" The gentle voice invited confidence, but it did not melt +Cordelia Running Bird. + +"Yes, ma'am. I was very cross at Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory +girls. I called the dormitory girls a name, and then a pail of very +dirty water was tipped over on my stairs, so again I had to clean them, +and I screamed at Hannah Straight Tree in Dakota." + +"Did Hannah tip it over?" + +"No, ma'am, I tipped it over." + +With all her sense of injury, Cordelia Running Bird would not tell tales +to divide the blame. + +The white mother saw that there was more than she knew of connected with +the trouble in the hall, but seeing that the race mood was upon +Cordelia, she forbore all further questions. + +"It has often been explained that if the older pupils spoke Dakota very +much the little ones would speak it, too, and not learn English as they +should," she said. "I'm sorry that the cross thoughts caused you to +forget, Cordelia Running Bird." + +"I am very cross now," said Cordelia, fearing her confession might be +misconstrued as a repentance. "I have enemies that I am hating very +hard. I shall be thinking Indian thoughts about them while I lie in +bed." + +"I hope the cross thoughts will leave you if you lie in bed, where you +can be alone, and try to drive them out. I will send your dinner to the +dormitory," said the white mother. + +"I cannot eat one bite for many days. I wish to starve," Cordelia +Running Bird said, as she turned away. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The girls had finished working in the dormitories and had gone below. +Cordelia Running Bird was relieved that she would not have to meet them +and endure such looks as they might give, though not allowed to speak to +her. + +Going to her corner in the south dormitory, she put on her nightgown and +crept into bed. She hid her head beneath the blankets to shut out the +sounds below, in which she was to have no part for several hours. + +But though Cordelia Running Bird was in solitude, her sharp ears caught +the noise of romping children in the playroom, and the frequent dropping +of the sliding-doors upon the narrow individual cupboards, indicating an +excessive rummaging of shelves. Cordelia knew full well the prying +habits of the Indian children. + +"I am glad I have the red dress in my trunk, but they will meddle with +my other things and look at Susie's blue dress, and then roll it up in +such bad wrinkles," she said to herself. "Just like they will drop a +skein of feather-stitching silk and tramp it with their feet till it is +very dirty. Then some girl will pick it up to sew her doll clothes, and +there will not be enough for Susie's dress." + +Cordelia Running Bird held her breath as these thoughts came to her. + +"But I do not know if I can feather-stitch it now, for there is no one +to teach me, that I know of. Just like Hannah Straight Tree and the +dormitory girls will tell the whole school to hate me, and they will. +If I cannot get a large girl to help make the red dress, and I try to do +it all alone, it will fit so bad, and I cannot get it done in time. +What if I should tell my mother to have Susie stay at camp, and not once +come inside the yard Christmas time? Then she would not need the +dresses, and they could not call them issue goods, and not choose Susie +in the games, and shut their eyes at her." + +Cordelia lay very still, but the thought of Susie's missing the +festivities by staying in the big building in the mission pasture, where +the Indian visitors camped in winter, was put from her in short order. + +"Susie shall not stay in camp. I shall find a way to get the dresses +done, and she shall motion Jack Frost and see the Christmas tree. I +shall tell them I am tired of playing silly games, and Susie shall not +play, either, so they cannot leave her out. And I shall tell the school +they must not watch Susie motion, for they are such horrid Indians they +would scare her very bad. When Hannah Straight Tree's big and little +sister come into the playroom I shall walk close up to them and pull my +dress away, and look at it so sharp, and say, so Hannah hears me, 'Those +wild Indians have so many grease spots I am much afraid of catching +them.'" + +While plotting these misdeeds Cordelia Running Bird fell asleep. A +young girl from the teachers' table brought her dinner on a tray and set +it by the bed without awaking her. She did not wake up until near the +middle of the afternoon. She found that the white mother had stolen +into the dormitory with a small book which she had placed upon the +pillow. There was a narrow white ribbon, frayed and yellow, wound +around the book and tied on one side in a bow. The rooms below now were +quiet, for the wind had lulled and the entire school was out of doors. + +Looking from the window near her bed, Cordelia saw the broad, white +plains illumined with brilliant sunshine and the girls exercising on the +glittering crust of snow occasioned by the thaw. The little girls were +sliding down hill on boards and broken shovels, cast-off dripping-pans +and ash-pans--everything, indeed, that could be seized on for coasting. +A group of large and middle-sized girls were walking over the mission +pasture, stretching for a mile on every side. Another band of girls was +packed into a long, wide bob-sled on the point of starting with the +white mother to the little log post office down the river. + +"Very lots of fun, and I am being punished here in bed!" Cordelia said +to herself, mournfully. "Now the bob-sled starts, and very loud the +sleigh-bells ring. The white mother drives, and she must hold the lines +so tight, for very fast the horses want to go. We go to the post office +by the al-pha-bet on Saturday, and this day it is the P's and R's--there +are no Q's--so it is my turn. Very fast I meant to feather-stitch, so I +could spare the time to go. Ee! There is Hannah Straight Tree in my +place. She made me talk Dakota and get punished. Now she gets my +sleigh-ride!" And Cordelia Running Bird threw herself back upon the +pillow, giving vent to wild, resentful tears. + +When the tears had spent themselves the Indian girl raised her head and +saw the little book on the other pillow. + +"Tokee! The white mother put it here. She always keeps it, and it +means that I can look at it now." + +Cordelia unwound the ribbon, opening the little book. + +"Annie's Bible, and I never thought of her to-day! Just like I am +forgetting her so fast. Here is Helen's letter. I shall read that +first." + +[Illustration: She read the little note slowly.] + +She took a little white note from a dainty envelope and read it slowly, +but with understanding that spoke of previous acquaintance with the +words: + + "_Dear Annie_: Will you let this little Bible be your + friend and guide, as I have tried to have it for my friend + and guide since I have been a King's Daughter? I have + marked some verses I have learned and have recited in + the meeting of our circle, and I wish that you might care + to learn them and recite them in your meeting at the + school. + + "The King's Daughters in the Far East love to think + about the Indian girls away out West, who are also + members of our circle. Isn't it a sweet thought, Annie, + that although so widely separated, we are all the children + of one family in Christ, and are cared for by the same + heavenly Father? + + "Yours with loving interest, + "HELEN MERRIAM, Hartford, Conn. + "Aged 16." + +"It came in Annie's mission box, and Helen was her unknown white +friend," said Cordelia Running Bird, as she put the letter back into the +envelope. "I shall next read Annie's letter." And she took another +little missive from the Bible, written with a pencil on the tablet paper +of the school, in wavering penmanship that showed the weakness of the +writer's hand. Cordelia read: + + "_Dear Cordelia_: Annie Running Bird will leave this + Bible to Cordelia Running Bird, my sister, for I cannot + carry it to heaven, and in heaven I shall not need to read + the words that Jesus spoke on earth, for I shall hear him + speak up there. But Cordelia will not just yet be bearing + Jesus speak up there, and she will need to read this Bible + and must mind just what it tells her. Dear Cordelia, + you can have this Bible for your own when you are + fourteen birthdays, so you will be old enough to take + good care of it and read it very lots. But if you want + to borrow it before it is your own, the white mother will + please lend it to you, so you always give it back, and do + not lose the letters and the pieces of my hairs that will + be in it. I did not learn all of Helen's verses for the + King's Daughters' meeting, for I got too sick to study, + and my memory feels so queer. I have put a cross behind + the ones I learned, and, dear Cordelia, wilt you try to + learn them, too, and all the rest that Helen marked? + The one I tried to think of most is St. Matthew, chapter 5:44. + + "Good-by, dear sister, for I cannot live much longer, + I am so pained with the hard coughing all the time. These + words I write so you will not forget me. I wish to see + my father and my mother and my little sister very much. + But if I cannot, you must give my love to them, and all + my other friends, and tell them they must meet me in + the better world. And you must, too. + + "So again I say good-by, dear sister, + "ANNIE RUNNING BIRD, + "Aged 16." + + "P. S.--Write good-by to Helen and my love." + +"She lies at the agency. She sleeps with those that are happy," mused +Cordelia, looking at the lock of hair with reverent eyes. "It was very +cold one year ago this winter, when she had the whooping-cough so hard +it made her lungs so sick she could not live. + +"My mother had the fever very long and hard at home and could not come +to watch her; my father came, but could not stay long, for my mother was +so sick. But the teachers took good care of Annie, and the large girls +helped them. I could only sit by her in daytime, for the teachers said +I was too young to stay up nights. The dormitory girls were very kind +to Annie, and they used to sit up nights, when they had worked all day +and were so tired, to watch her. + +"Emma Two Bears has a sweet song, and one night when she was watching +Annie, and there was a blizzard, and the wind cried very loud, like many +dogs all round the house, Annie was afraid; so she asked would Emma sing +'The Sweet By and By,' and Emma sang it louder than the wind, but very +sweet. Annie said it made her feel so happy that again she would not be +afraid. + +"And once more when Annie could not eat one bite of anything and was so +very faint, Hannah Straight Tree thought that she could drink some +rosebud porridge, so she ran away without permission, and waded through +the deep snow to the rosebushes up the river, to pick off some buds to +make the porridge. She froze her shortest right side toe, and a wild +steer watched her very fierce, but Hannah Straight Tree did not care, +for she was all the time thinking Annie was so faint. And Annie drank a +little porridge and told Hannah she was very glad indeed. And they did +not punish Hannah, for the rosebuds were for Annie. + +"When the Indian preacher told at Annie's funeral how she was so good +and learned so many Bible verses for the King's Daughters' meetings, +there was much crying in the schoolhouse, for the girls all felt so bad. +And before I got into the wagon with my father, when we carried Annie to +the agency, Hannah Straight Tree whispered that she did not want to +sleep with anyone but me, and if they put another girl in bed with her +she would be sure to turn her back and never say one word to her. + +"Now the dormitory girls and Hannah Straight Tree are my enemies. The +verse that Annie tried to think of most is all about enemies. I cannot +read it just now. I shall read some other verses first." + +Many of the verses her sister had marked were familiar to Cordelia, for, +as Annie had requested, she had been allowed to take the little Bible +when in thoughtful mood, perhaps when kept within doors on a stormy +Sunday afternoon. She had read them often, asking explanation of the +hard words from the teachers, and had learned a number of the simplest +ones in preparation for her own admission to the King's Daughters +Circle, which would be before long, she had hoped. + +"Here is one about the tongue, that has the straight marks Helen made, +and Annie's cross behind it. This I have not learned to say." + +Cordelia Running Bird read aloud slowly: "'_Even so the tongue is a +little member, and boast-eth great things. Behold how great a matter a +little fire kind-leth_.' + +"That means to brag with the tongue and make folks very cross. Hannah +Straight Tree bragged because her floor and stairs are always nicer than +my floor and stairs," Cordelia said. "But just like I have bragged +some, too," she added. "My tongue has talked so much because my father +is an agency policeman and my little sister has nice things. And I +bragged about my white memory and my store shoes. But I was only +talking to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and Hannah Straight Tree +went and told it." + +She turned the leaves and found another text: "'_A soft answer turneth +away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger_.' I did not speak soft +when I told Hannah Straight Tree she was very dumb in school, and I was +glad Dolly could not motion in a single song, or even have an ugly green +dress, and I was not sorry that her big and little sister could not come +to school. And Dolly and Lucinda have not said mean things to me, so +why should I be cross at them? But Hannah would not find the dustpan +and take up her dirt, and that was very mean. Now here is one that I +have learned. I can say it without looking at the book." + +Cordelia Running Bird shut her eyes and carefully re-peated: "'_Pride +goeth before de-struction, and a haught-y spirit before a fall_.' +Haughty means to feel stuck-up. The pail fell downstairs and made me +talk Dakota, so I had to come to bed, because I was stuck-up and made +Hannah Straight Tree cross. Just like they all would not be hating me +if I had not been haught-y. But the dormitory girls were very mean to +walk whole-feet on my wet floor. If they had walked heel or tiptoe I +should not have scolded to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and called +them shovel-feeted, and wished they had to lie in bed. But I did not +wish them to be cripples--only have a good long rest till I was through +scrubbing. But Hannah was mean to go and tell. I can find no verse +that will excuse her and the dormitory girls." + +Here Cordelia Running Bird fell to pitying herself anew. + +"I shall now read Annie's best verse, but it will be very hard to mind +those words that Jesus spoke." + + + + +Cordelia Running Bird wound the ribbon round the little Bible, tying it +with care, and laid the book close by her on the bed; then she ate her +dinner with a hearty relish. She had hardly finished when the door from +the front hall was opened, and the young white mother, rosy from her +sleigh-ride, looked into the dormitory. She saw the little Bible lying +near Cordelia, glanced inquiringly at the dark-faced girl, and then +smiled and nodded, to receive a cheerful smile in answer. + +"Jump up quickly, dear, and dress," she said. "Some little girls are +going up the river to the store, and one of the girls is Cordelia +Running Bird." + +Cordelia started out of bed in joyful haste. + +"Are you ready to give back the Bible?" asked the white mother, coming +to the bed. + +"Yes, ma'am," replied Cordelia Running Bird, handing her the little +book. "Thank you very much. It made me think of Annie, so I read it, +and it told me I must love my enemies, so just like I shall do it now." + +"I am very glad the cross thoughts have left you," was the answer. "Now +put on your plaid dress and be ready in ten minutes." + +Cordelia flew to get the plaid dress from the closet, and was ready and +downstairs in a twinkling. The little girls selected for the drive were +in the playroom putting on their hoods and coats in great delight. +Cordelia hurriedly put on her own, and, opening her cupboard, she +unlocked a doll trunk, taking out a tiny purse for coins, whose portly +sides bespoke some wealth within. She looked an instant at the blue +dress and the silk for feather-stitching, finding to her great relief +that they had not been touched. She locked them in the doll trunk, put +the little key into the purse, and whisked away. + +"The store is much nicer than the post office," was her joyous +reflection, as she slipped the purse into her pocket on her way +outdoors. "Very long have I been saving this last part of all the money +that I earned tending baby; now I have a chance to spend it with my own +eyes." + +Down the steep hill went the bob-sled to the great Missouri River, where +it took the straight, smooth road on the snow-laden ice. The sewing +teacher drove the horses, giving them free rein. The school-teacher sat +beside her on the seat, and Cordelia and the girls were snuggled down in +hay upon the bottom of the sled, with comforters for lap-robes. + +The little log store was but two miles distant, and the party were not +long in reaching it. It stood upon a steep bluff on the opposite shore. +The white man who kept it dealt to some extent in Indian curiosities, of +which the two teachers were in quest to send as Christmas gifts to +Eastern friends. + +"We wish to look especially at moccasins and Indian dolls," said the +school-teacher to the trader when they had made known their errand. + +[Illustration: "We wish to look especially at moccasins and Indian +dolls," said the teacher.] + +"I've got some first-class moccasins, both porcupined and beaded, but no +Indian dolls," replied the trader. "Indian dolls are growing mighty +scarce, now the young squaws get so much put into their minds to do. +Only the old-timers understand the trick of making dolls." + +"I am disappointed that you have none, for I wished to send one to my +little niece. But I must wait and try to get one elsewhere." + +While the two teachers were examining the moccasins, Cordelia Running +Bird and the children were absorbed in looking at the china dolls and +other articles displayed upon the shelves and hanging from a wire +stretched above the counter. + +"I was telling Hannah Straight Tree I should buy a big doll for Susie, +and a red silk handkerchief for my father, and a blue silk handkerchief +for my mother, and should hang them on the Christmas tree," said +Cordelia, partly to herself and partly to the little girls. + +"Kee! I would not hang them," said a prudent little maid of ten years. +"Hannah Straight Tree told the other girls, and they are very yelous-- +that is not the word, but I forget it--for they say they cannot hang +their people anything. They say you think the name 'Running Bird' is +very stylish, and you wish to hear it called so often at the Christmas +tree." + +"Of course I shall not hang them," said Cordelia, firmly. "And I shall +not buy a doll for Susie, for my father always buys her one. I was +going to brag about her having two," she added candidly. "And I shall +not buy the silk handkerchiefs. They have the issue cotton ones and +some other ones that my father bought;" and she withdrew her eyes from +the display of cheap and gaudy handkerchiefs of so-called silk material +suspended from the wire. "I shall buy a cake pan with a steeple for my +mother, and a hairbrush for my father, for his hairs stick up so +straight and stiff. And I shall give the presents very still at camp, +so the school will not be jealous." + +Having thus subdued her vanity, Cordelia Running Bird shyly bought the +articles she had selected from the trader's boy, who helped his father +in the store. She also bought four hair ribbons and a little bag of +candy, having left two silver quarters. She was considering how to +spend them when her eyes alighted on some little brown shoes and a pair +of stockings matching them, beneath a small glass show-case. + +"Ver-r-y st-y-lish little shoes and stockings!" she exclaimed, +forgetting in her rapture to be shy before the trader's boy. + +The small girls crowded upon tiptoe at the show-case, peering through +the glass sides to inspect the little wonders. + +"Just the color of an Indian," observed a little maid of seven, holding +up her slim hand to compare it with the red-brown shoes and stockings. +"But they made them for a little white girl. They are like the ones the +little white visitor with the pink dress wore last summer." + +"They are just as pretty for a little Indian girl," replied Cordelia. +"They would be just right for Susie," with a longing eye. + +"But Susie does not need them," said the prudent little girl. "She has +a black shoes and stockings in your cupboard that are very nice." + +"But she could have two pairs. These would be so pretty with the red +dress in the Jack Frost song. She could wear the black ones with the +blue dress," said Cordelia, seized anew with her besetting sin and +growing helpless in its grasp. + +She asked the number of the shoes, finding it the same that Susie wore. +Then she asked the price. She could buy the shoes and stockings for a +dollar and a half. + +"One dollar more than I have got," she said in feverish regret. She was +intently silent for a little, then she turned, and, running quickly to +the school-teacher, drew her to one side, where they could talk unheard. + +"The Indian doll my grandmother made for me is very nice and new, for I +have kept it in my trunk so much. I will give it to you if you please to +give me one dollar--that is what they gave my grandmother for her dolls +when she would sell them at the agency," Cordelia said, in eager +undertone. + +"Why, child, you surely cannot wish to sell your Indian doll that has a +beaded buckskin dress just like the one your grandmother wore when she +was your age?" said the school-teacher in surprise. "No, thank you, +dear. You wish to give me pleasure, but I cannot accept it, for I know +you love the little Indian grandmother better than you could the +prettiest white doll in the Christmas box," she added, gratefully. + +"It is very Indian-minded, and I do not now care for it," replied the +girl, with a clouded face. "I wish to buy the little brown shoes and +stockings in the glass box," pointing to the show-case. "I have only +fifty cents." + +"Why, of course, Cordelia, if you really wish to sell it," was the +response. "The shoes and stockings are for Susie, I suppose, but are +not the black ones nice enough?" + +Cordelia had displayed the little black shoes and stockings to the +teachers with a deal of pride. + +"But the brown ones are much prettier for the Jack Frost song," she +argued, pressingly. + +"Very well," replied the teacher, opening her purse and handing her the +dollar, with a sorry look. "Perhaps, however, we would better see the +little things before you buy them." + +The brown shoes and stockings were examined by the teachers and were +thought quite satisfactory for the price. Cordelia bought them +breathlessly and hid them in her coat pocket to insure their safety. + +But the home-going in the early moonlight evening was less joyous than +had been the journey to the store. To the young Sioux girl the +sleigh-bells seemed to jingle harshly, and the gumbo hills, whose tops +were bare of snow, seemed frowning blackly from across the river. + +Cordelia Running Bird passed some peppermints to the children, which +awoke a burst of gratitude. + +"We little girls shall always choose Susie in the games," said one. + +"Yes," exclaimed another, "Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory girls +have told us not to, but we shall." + +"Ee! Talk lower so the teacher will not hear you," said Cordelia, with +a sudden flutter of the breath. "You must choose Dolly half the time-- +if Susie plays." + +"She is too bad-looking," said a third. "Susie has two pairs of pretty +shoes, and two nice dresses, and we like her better." + +"But you must not talk that way before the larger girls," Cordelia +cautioned in an undertone. "Doily has a new hair ribbon like the red +one I have bought for Susie--both are in my lap. And I have bought a +pink one for Lucinda. I wish to do them good--Hannah Straight Tree, +too. You must tell the larger girls you like Dolly just as well as +Susie. If they wear alike ribbons on their braids it will be nice." + +"A new ribbon cannot dress Dolly up," remarked the prudent little girl. +"The points of her hairs will look like Susie's points, and that is +all." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Sunday morning there was wonder in the school to see Cordelia Running +Bird in the heavy government shoes that had been lying in her cupboard +since the distribution of the clothing early in the fall. And when it +was observed that she had dressed for Sunday-school and had not changed +the shoes the wonder grew to pure amazement. + +"Ee! What ails the vainest girl in South Dakota? She will now be +wearing issue shoes to Sunday-school!" exclaimed a dormitory girl, among +a group of large and middle-sized pupils gathered in the music room, +adjoining the playroom, in Sunday-school attire. + +Cordelia sat in a corner with her eyes upon her Sunday-school lesson. +Her feet were planted side by side as if with studied care. + +"Just like she is very scared because the large and middle-sized girls +do not speak to her since yesterday. She is not sorry, only scared," +said Hannah Straight Tree. "See, she sticks her feet out very far, so +we will see the shoes and think she is not vain; but we will not believe +her. She has found the dustpan, too, because she is so scared of me. +She bragged so much she made me cross, so I told her she must find it +and take up my dirt, yesterday. She minded me this morning." + +"She will be more scared before we speak to her," remarked the bread +girl. "Ver-r-y ugly issue shoes! She ought to wear a dragging dress to +hide them." + +There was a burst of laughter, while the keen, black eyes of the entire +group were fixed upon Cordelia Running Bird's feet. She did not draw +them back nor lift her eyes, but suddenly her dusky face grew scarlet, +and there was a nervous trembling of her lips that moved persistently in +an attempted study of the lesson. She had heard the words, as the girls +intended she should. They were speaking in Dakota without fear of being +understood by the white mother, who was in the playroom passing pennies +for the missionary plate. + +The white mother heard the laugh and stepped into the space between the +sliding doors, which were ajar. She saw the girls' resentment at a +glance, and that it was directed at Cordelia Running Bird. She was +troubled, but could not combat the feeling that had spread throughout +the school, to mar the peace and quiet of the Sabbath, which these +Indian girls were wont to keep in reverent spirit. + +"She has bought another pair of shoes for Susie--stockings, too--not +black ones, like the little schoolgirls have to wear for best, but very +stylish brown ones," Hannah Straight Tree said. "She put them in her +trunk last night. I crept upstairs and watched her, for the children +said she had them in her pocket. The large and middle-sized girls must +not see them till the entertainment, but the little girls keep saying +they are like the ones the little white visitor that wore the dress that +was pink dim-i-ty, had on. Ver-ry white-minded shoes! She wants to +hire me to like her, if she does not wish to have Dolly in the Jack +Frost song with Susie, so she bought new hair ribbons at the store for +Dolly and Lucinda. She told the little girls because she knew they +would tell me. But Dolly and Lucinda shall not wear them. Very cotton +silk, of course." + +The ringing of the bell for Sunday-school relieved Cordelia Running Bird +of the torment she was undergoing. Conversation was suspended, and the +girls put on their hoods and marched in a procession to the +school-house, guided by the teachers. + +Cordelia had a trying hour in Sunday-school. The middle-sized girls, +her companions in the white mother's class, indulged in frequent +whispering at her expense and kept deep silence when she tried to lead +the class, as she was wont, in reading reference verses and in concert +recitation of the memory verses and the Golden Text. Thus it happened +that she read a reference verse alone, in faltering accents, with the +eyes of all the class upon her: + +"'_Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed +to give than to receive_.'" + +"She gives a nickel every Sunday, so she minds the verse and gets the +red dress very cheap," Hannah Straight Tree whispered from the seat +behind. + +The white mother heard the whisper, but the words were in Dakota, so she +failed to understand. She saw Cordelia Running Bird shrink and color +and her face grow very grave. Seeing this the class ceased whispering, +but the white mother's faithful teachings went unheeded, and she saw the +lesson was a failure. In fact, the whole room was in sad disorder from +the opening to the close of Sunday-school, and all three teachers were +perplexed and disappointed by the strange behavior of their usually +attentive pupils. + +"How unfortunate that the race mood has attacked the school when +Christmas is approaching, and we wish the girls to do their best and be +their happiest," said the white mother, lingering; for a minute in the +schoolroom after the dismissal. "Cordelia seems about the only one, +except the little girls, who isn't out of sorts to-day, yet she is the +one they are all against. The older girls all seem displeased at her." + +"The large girls worried me with loud and constant whispering and +inattention to the lesson," was the school-teacher's sorrowful report. +"There were so many, with the superintendent's class combined with mine, +I found it quite impossible to keep good order, as you probably +observed." + +The superintendent was not present. He had started for the distant +railroad station two days previously to get the Christmas boxes. + +"I have never had the slightest trouble with both classes, heretofore, +but to-day they seemed to throw off all restraint, and I was simply in +despair," added the young teacher with a strained expression in her +voice. "They whispered in Dakota, and their meaning was a mystery, but I +heard Cordelia Running Bird's name and Hannah Straight Tree's very +often, also Susie, Dolly and Lucinda." + +"There was some trouble in the hall yesterday, which made Cordelia +Running Bird moody for a time, but she recovered her good-nature in the +afternoon and seems to be behaving nicely now, although much hurt by the +treatment which she is receiving from the girls," the white mother said. + +"The children were excited also," said the teacher, who had taught the +infant class. "They whispered much in English, and I gathered from +their talk that the unusual wardrobe which Cordelia is preparing for her +little sister to appear in during her Christmas visit, has to do with +the disturbance. I was forced to hear about the red dress and the brown +shoes and stockings, and the blue dress and the black shoes and +stockings, till I knew not what to do. It seems that Hannah is vexed +about the little things, and the other girls are sympathizing with her, +and they seem to have some grievance of their own, besides." + +"That explains it," said the white mother. "Perhaps it was unwise to +let Cordelia have the red cashmere for the little dress, but she is +paying for it by contributing a portion of her hard-earned money to the +missionary fund. Her patience with the baby, who was very fretful, was +quite wonderful. She cheerfully devoted all her playtime for a month to +baby, while I gave attention to the little children, and I thought it +but a just reward to let her have the little dress, especially as it was +in her mission box. Her father had not brought the blue dress then, But +dear me! She has added brown shoes and stockings, which I didn't in the +least expect." + +The children in their bedtime talk had told the white mother of Cordelia +Running Bird's purchase at the store, and later in the evening the +second teacher had informed her of the barter of the Indian doll. + +"The brown shoes and stockings must be laid to my account. Whatever can +be done?" exclaimed the school-teacher, in dismay. + +"Nothing," said the white mother, firmly. "I wish Cordelia was less +extravagant, and we will be careful to restrain her after this. But +Indian girls must learn as well as white girls to respect the right of +property. The girls have been allowed much freedom in the spending of +what money they could call their own, but it has mostly gone for hair +ribbons and candy, and there has been no trouble before. I hope the +feeling will subside, however, in a day or two. So many Christmas +pleasures are in prospect that the girls will surely have no room for +strife and envy in their hearts." + +Here the teachers hastened to the mission building to discharge the +duties that devolved upon them after Sunday-school. + +Just before sun\et Monday afternoon a flock of girls were gathered at +the stile in front, watching with intensity a solitary little figure +moving slowly on a far side of the pasture, near the barbed wire fence. + +"Again there walks Cordelia Running Bird very far away," said Hannah +Straight Tree. "She has walked alone two afternoons. She must be +thinking very hard." + +"She is going on the mourner's walk," observed the girl who kept the +playroom. "When an Indian walks alone, so far and very slow, that means +they are too sad. She cannot be happy, for the large girls--only me--and +the middle-sized girls do not talk to her. Then, too, of course, she +thinks of Annie. It was just one year ago this Monday that they took +her to the agency. The large girls did not wash, because there was a +funeral." + +"And Cordelia Running Bird was so proud because the girls all cried," +said Hannah. "Now I wish we had not cried." + +"Kee! You must not be so mean as that," exclaimed the largest girl, in +shocked surprise. "Of course we cried for Annie. She was very kind to +everyone--not cross like us." + +"She was a very little cross, sometimes, because she was an Indian. She +tried much harder than Cordelia Running Bird." + +"I am glad I sang 'The Sweet By and By' when she was so afraid," said +Emma Two Bears. + +The girls were silent for a little, stirred by memories of the +schoolmate who had passed into the life beyond. + +Meantime the solitary girl in the snowy pasture continued her walk. + +"I can wish I had not told Cordelia Running Bird that I would not sleep +with anyone but her," said Hannah. "I am glad she is not in the middle +dormitory now." + +"They put her in our dormitory so that she can go and tell the teachers +if a little girl is sick, or cries," remarked the prudent little girl, +who had arrived upon the scene with several other children. "The +teachers say she wakes up easy, and is braver in the dark than any other +girl." + +"Ee! Cordelia Running Bird is a dress pattern for the other girls--I +mean a pattern!" Hannah cried. "Cordelia is the bravest, and she has a +white memory, so she has the longest piece. Cordelia is polite. She +keeps her clothes so clean and does not tear them, so the missionary +ladies send her prettier things, for the teachers write she is so nice. +The visitors always talk about Cordelia Running Bird very lots. They do +not think the girls are listening, but they are." + +"They should not listen. That is stealing talk, the white mother says," +replied the prudent little girl. "We like Cordelia Running Bird, for +she does not scold us little girls and tell us we are in the way, as you +do," was the bold defense. "We shall choose Susie in the games." + +"If the little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can +pull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threat +from Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say their +hairs were snarly and we could not help it." + +"Ee! We shall not pull the little girls' hairs and tell a lie," said +Emma Two Bears, rallying her honest principles. "We can treat Cordelia +Running Bird cross because she called us shovel-feeted, and is very +vain, so we should punish her, but we will not be wicked." + +"I did not say we shall--I said we can," retracted Hannah, in confusion. + +"The girls were very mean to walk whole-feet where she was scrubbing," +said the playroom girl, who knew from sad experience what Cordelia's +trials must have been. "It makes me very cross because the little girls +will not stay out or, sit still on the benches when I scrub the +playroom, and they do not make big tracks, if they do walk whole-feet." + +"You can speak to her, because she could not call you shovel-feeted, for +the white mother lets you always wear the mission shoes," said Hannah +Straight Tree, growing bold again. + +"Because I have an onion--no, a bunion--on my foot. The issue shoes +would make it worse. Just like there is no girl in school that does not +hate to have the horrid whole-feet tracks on her wet floor." + +"I hate them--some," confessed a middle dormitory girl. + +"I, too," admitted a south dormitory girl. "I threw a few drops of +scrub water on a girl that walked whole-feet." + +"I told a girl her tracks were so big, just like she had on snowshoes," +said a north dormitory girl, relentingly. + +"Of course, I made the very biggest kind of tracks on Cordelia Running +Bird's wet floor," said the largest girl; "but if we walk tiptoe all the +other girls will laugh and say, 'See how she nips along. She tries to +walk so nice, just like the teachers.' And if we are walking on our +heels they say, 'Very awkward; hear her tramp just like a steer.' But +it is not kind to walk whole-feet." + +The race mood was upon the wane, and Hannah Straight Tree was fast +losing influence. + +"I would not have cared so much about the blue dress and the black shoes +and stockings, but she bought the red dress and the brown shoes and +stockings, when her little sister does not need them," Hannah argued in +an injured tone. + +"She did not buy them with your money," said the playroom girl. "You +would not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plum +picnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You are +much too lazy." + +"Now I shall not stay another minute!" springing from the stile in deep +chagrin. "You all can like Cordelia Running Bird if you want to, but I +shall not like her." + +Hannah Straight Tree ran into the house, and those remaining turned +again to watch Cordelia. She had reached a sloping bluff, down which +the fence extended to the flats beside the river. She stood a moment on +the edge, then wrapped her clothes about her and sat down on the crust. +Presently she disappeared. + +"She has slid down hill," observed the playroom girl. "She must be going +to the river." + +"She should not. It will soon be dark, and she is all alone," said Emma +Two Bears, in a tone betraying some anxiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Cordelia Running Bid held her clothes about her with one hand, steering +with her feet, and reached the flats in safety. She arose and stood +still and looked toward the river to a space of open water on the near +side of a sandbar, half way over. + +She took a few steps forward rather slowly, then her pace quickened more +and more, till she was running breathlessly, as if in fear of losing her +resolve to carry out some plan she was intent upon. + +In rushing through a hollow lined with willow trees she slipped and +almost lost her footing, and in struggling to regain it she released her +hold upon a well-filled gingham bag which she had hid beneath her coat +and dropped it on the ground. She picked it up and hung it by the +draw-string on her arm, but with this interruption of her headlong +course there came a corresponding halt of purpose. So she turned aside +and walked a few yards down the hollow, where she found a log on which +to seat herself. + +Presently she murmured in the passive monotone of a despairing Indian +girl: "Just like I have to stop and think before I do it. If I drown +the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and +the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for +she will not let me speak to her: 'Now you see I truly am not vain, for +I have put the Christmas clothes for Susie in my workbag, and a stone, +so it would sink, and I have drowned them in the airhole in the middle +of the river.' + +"But again that would be bragging," was her puzzled afterthought. "Just +like Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and bought +the brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain. +And the teachers looked so sorry, and I was ashamed to tell the white +mother. Everything I say and do is vain and bragging, and I cannot +think hard enough to help it. My tongue bragged about Dolly and +Lucinda's hair ribbons to the little girls, and my feet bragged about +the issue shoes, I stuck them out so far. And when the girls made fun +of me I did not pull the shoes back, for I wanted them to think I was +not scared, but sorry. I was truly trying to try hard, but I was trying +the wrong way. Now my pencil will be bragging if it tells Hannah +Straight Tree I have drowned the things." + +Cordelia sat in troubled thought while the pink and golden colors of the +sunset faded from the sky above the bluffs and the wind sighed through +the hollow. + +"The white mother says it is not right to even waste a pin, and many +nice things that have cost much money would be wasted if I drowned them. +I shall look at them and think again what I can do." + +She drew the contents from the bag and spread them on her lap. First +she gave attention to the little blue dress she had helped to make at +the expense of many play hours. + +[Illustration: She drew the contents from her bag and spread them on +her lap.] + +"Emma Two Bears made the waist so nice and said she would not take one +thing for pay, but I made her take a shell necklace that was very +pretty; but I did not care for it myself, it was so Indian-minded. Emma +is so generous. I wish I could be generous. If I should give the blue +dress to Dolly, and the black shoes and stockings, just like I should be +some generous. What if I should truly do it?" with a sudden interest in +her tone. "She would look as pretty as the little schoolgirls then, and +she could motion Jack Frost, and Hannah and the others could not say +Susie did not need the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings. I +am 'most sure Jessie Turning Heart will help me make the red dress, if I +bring the playroom wood for her, till we change work next month. She +hates to bring wood, for her foot gets cold, and then the sore bunch +pinches her much worse. She is very fast and stylish making dresses, +and she feather-stitches; and she says she is not cross at me. She said +one time she liked to sew so much, just like she would be getting up and +sewing in her sleep. So I shall ask her to trade work. + +"But Hannah Straight Tree says she hates light blue, for it makes a +copper-colored Indian look much blacker; and she hates one tuck, and +there would have to be one, for the blue dress is too long for Dolly. +And it smuts some, too, and is not soft and fine. Hannah would not want +it. She would say Susie looked much nicer in the red dress, and Dolly +should not motion Jack Frost in the blue one." + +Cordelia put the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings back into +the bag, and spread the red cashmere across her lap and smoothed it +lovingly. + +"It feels so soft I like to rub it. Just the color of the one rose on +the white mother's window bush." She held it up, luxuriating in its warm +red glow. "Ver-ry sw-e-et and pretty--and the brown shoes and +stockings, too. I shall put them on the clean snow and look at them." + +She spread the things on the hard white crust and viewed them with +increasing admiration. Suddenly she caught them up and hid them in her +apron, for the sight of them was far too tempting; then she locked her +hands together in her lap and sat so still a wood-mouse dared to leave +his hole beneath the log and frisk about her feet. + +"The baby was so cross I could not play one bit the whole four weeks," +she said at length, in supplicating tones. "Just like I earned the +dress so hard. I thought I did not care much for the Indian doll, but +my grandmother cannot make another, for she now has par-a-lay-sis in her +hands--the doctor says it is. And I sold the Indian doll to get the +brown shoes and stockings. Dolly has a round face, and her eyes are +pretty. Susie has a thin face, and she is a very little cross-eyed, so +she needs a prettier dress to look as nice as Dolly. + +"But Lucinda cannot come to school if Dolly cannot, and she feels so +sad. If Dolly's father saw her looking very pretty in a red dress and a +brown shoes and stockings, just like he would feel so happier he would +let her come to school. Then Lucinda would be glad, and she would learn +the neat way, and they would grow Dolly more white-minded. The verse I +read yesterday was a King's Daughters' verse. Helen marked it--Annie, +too. + +"What if Annie should be looking down from up there,"--pointing to a +newly glimmering star--"and speaking just like this: 'Dear Cordelia, +these words I tell you--" It is more blessed to give than to receive." +I would give the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings to the +little girl named Dolly Straight Tree.'" + +Cordelia looked another minute at the star. + +"Of course Annie cannot speak those words up there, but she would like +to have me do it, and my father and my mother would not care, for I +should tell them just like Annie thought I ought to; and they always let +me do a thing I want to, anyhow. + +"If an Indian likes another Indian very much he will give him a big +present. My father told an Indian man one time, 'I am your friend, so I +shall give you a pony.' And he did. And the Indian man told my father, +'I am your friend, so I shall give you a steer.' And a white man +laughed and said it was a good trade. But the Indians did not laugh. +They said my father and the other Indian were very generous. + +"Now I have found the right way, and it makes me very happier, and I +shall not change my thoughts." in firm relief. "I shall do this kind: +Till Dolly and Lucinda come I shall not say one word to any girl, or +even tell the white mother. Then Susie's best things I shall give to +Hannah Straight Tree in a way that will surprise her. Tokee! there rings +the half-hour bell till supper, and I am down here, and it is +moonlight." + +Cordelia hastily replaced the best things in the bag and scampered home. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Cordelia Running Bird carried out her plan of asking Jessie Turning +Heart, the playroom girl, to help her make the red dress, and the latter +willingly agreed to "trade work," and escape bringing in the wood to the +torture of her lame foot. + +Cordelia found that she had undertaken no light task, for there were +violent snowstorms in the next two weeks, and an enormous quantity of +wood was swallowed by the great stove in the playroom, which must needs +be kept red-hot from long before dawn until bedtime, to dispel the +freezing atmosphere within. + +Owing to the influence of the playroom girl, the large and middle-sized +girls in general ceased to be intensely hostile to Cordelia, but they +did not break the seal of silence, so she could not ask help from among +them. The small girls showed their friendship for Cordelia now and then +by marching in a line behind her from the wood-yard laden with what fuel +they could bring, or even going down the path the older girls had broken +to the flats for willow fagots, which they tied upon their backs and +brought to her for kindling. + +Hannah Straight Tree tried Cordelia's resolution to do good to her by +stealthy persecutions that escaped the notice of the teachers, who +remarked to one another in relief that Hannah and the other girls +appeared in better humor toward Cordelia, and the fatter had regained +her cheerful spirits. + +Hannah took her station in the little outside hall one blustering +afternoon, watching through the side window till Cordelia climbed the +porch steps loaded to her chin with wood; then Hannah braced her back +against the outside door. Cordelia spared one hand with difficulty, +tugging at the door with wind-tossed garments, all in vain. She dropped +her wood to use both hands. The door would sometimes stick when lightly +closed, and thinking this to be the case, she threw her weight against +it in a forcible attempt to burst it open. Hannah jumped away and +darted through the inside door in silent glee. + +Cordelia fell full length into the hall and struck her head against the +inner threshold. She lay in a dazed condition for a little, then aroused +herself, to catch a glimpse of Hannah peering through the window of the +inside door. She vanished instantly, but the expression of her face had +told Cordelia where the mischief lay. + +"She will not let me like her," thought Cordelia, struggling to her feet +with aching head, and blinking back the tears. "Just like I shall have +to hate her just a little while I do her good." + +She turned, and saw to her surprise that Emma Two Bears, who had come +behind her to the porch, was gathering up her wood. Emma often helped to +fill the wood-box in the music room, as an especial friend of hers +attended to that work, and Cordelia feared her wood was being boldly +captured for that purpose. She was about to cry out sharply, but +restrained herself and fell back silently, while Emma passed into the +house. Cordelia followed her, and saw with sinking heart that Emma took +a straight track through the playroom for the music room; but on the +threshold of the room she whirled about, and, walking to the playroom +wood-box, dropped the wood in. + +"Thank you very much!" exclaimed Cordelia, in sign language on her +fingers. Etiquette forbade her to employ her tongue in the expression +of her gratitude, seeing that the girls had placed a ban on it. A +curious contortion of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet was used among the +Indian girls when pride forbade the use of speech. + +"You need not thank me. I am only punishing Hannah Straight Tree," Emma +answered, likewise with her fingers. + +This exchange of compliments was read without scruple by the many pairs +of eyes, including Hannah's, that were watching the affair. + +"Emma Two Bears talks deaf-and-dumb to her. Now we can plan +crack-the-whip with her, for that is not a speaking game," observed a +middle-sized girl, who had been a comrade of Cordelia's heretofore. + +"She will not have time to crack the whip," said Hannah. "She is going +to the south dormitory, where she sits her whole playtime helping sew +the red dress for Susie, so she can look nicer than the other little +home sisters and the little schoolgirls." + +"You are very jealous-minded, and you try hard to spite Cordelia Running +Bird," said the recent comrade. + +"You can talk that way because you have no little sister," grumbled +Hannah. + +Cordelia passed upstairs with quick steps. + +"Just like the large and middle-sized girls--only Hannah Straight Tree-- +will again be speaking to me pretty soon," she said to Jessie Turning +Heart, who sat beside a sunny window in the south dormitory sewing +briskly on the little red waist. + +"They cannot speak to you till Christmas day, because they all said they +would not," Jessie answered. "Then if you ap-ol-ogize and say you do +not wish them to be cripples any more, and that you will stop talking +vain, they will again speak to you, and they will walk heel or tiptoe on +your floor." + +"I shall write an ap-ol-ogy in Dakota on three papers Christmas morning, +and pin them on a side of the three dormitories, but you must not tell, +because I do not wish to brag what I shall do," Cordelia said, in +strictest confidence. + +"I think it would be better if you had but one shoes and stockings and +best dress for Susie. But you cannot help it now," the playroom girl +replied. "Two best dresses and two shoes and stockings look too many, +when the other little home sisters have not one best thing." + +Cordelia Running Bird was quite strongly tempted to confide still +further in the friendly playroom girl, who had sustained her through the +trying tempest of events, but she resisted and began to hem the little +skirt in silence. + +"Ee! how short you have it!" Jessie noticed suddenly. "You must think +Susie is to grow the other way before she wears it." + +Cordelia's only answer was a noncommittal smile which Jessie failed to +understand. This thought, however, suddenly impressed Cordelia: + +"Now it is too short for Susie, and the hem is not one bit too wide, so +I could not let it down. What if Hannah Straight Tree is so cross she +will not let Dolly wear it? And there is no other little home sister +just the size of Dolly that could wear it, and is coming Christmas. Just +like Hannah will not take it and will keep on hating me forever and +ever, so I cannot do her good." + +Whether this foreboding was fulfilled, or otherwise, will be explained +in Hannah's letter to the King's Daughter in the Far East, who had sent +the little Bible and the loving message to the King's Daughter in the +Far West: + + "_Dear Helen Merriam_: Now I shall write you a letter, + for Cordelia Running Bird cannot, for she says it, + would be bragging. It is all about Christmas, and our + big and little sisters. Cordelia's big sister is now in + heaven, and Cordelia wrote good-by to you from Annie. + My big sister is now in the First Reader, but she cannot + help it, for my mother died, and so Lucinda had to stay + at home and keep Dolly, and that is my little sister. + + "And it was about Susie--that is Cordelia's little sister-- + that I got so mean and jealous, for she had a nice + Christmas things--two kinds--and Dolly would not have + one kind, and she would look so horrid. So I called + Cordelia Running Bird proud, vain, cross, mean. And + I talked about her so the girls got cross at her. And + I made her push a pail of scrub water downstairs, so she + talked Dakota and had to lie in bed and could not + feather-stitch the blue dress, for it smutted so the silk + would be too dirty. But she feather-stitched the red dress, + and she sold her Indian doll, and it was her grandmother's + when she was Cordelia's age, so she bought the brown shoes + and stockings. + + "And Cordelia read the King's Daughters' verses, + 'Love your enemies,' and 'It is more blessed to give than + to receive,' so she put the red dress and the brown shoes + and stockings and two hair ribbons in a box, and Jessie + Turning Heart tied a blue scarf round my eyes so tight + I could not see, and led me to the chicken house. And + I put my hand on the box, and Jessie pulled off the scarf, + and I uncovered the box and found the things. And + Cordelia Running Bird had pinned a piece of paper on the + red dress, and these words were written on it: 'Dear + Hannah Straight Tree, I am your friend, so I shall give + you these best Christmas things for Dolly. And will + you please take the hair ribbons, for they are not very + cotton silk?' + + "And I was very 'shamed, and said I would not take + them, I had been so mean. But Cordelia Running Bird + said I must, for she had made the red dress too short for + Susie, so if I did not it would be wasted. So I told her + I would take it if she would excuse my meanness, but I + should not take the brown shoes and stockings--only just + the black ones. But she begged so hard just like I had to. + And Cordelia and I scrubbed Dolly very hard in a tub, + for Lucinda has not learned the neat way, and she did + not cry, only laughed. And the white mother found some + very little underclothes for her, and we curled her hair + with a slate pencil, and she wore the best things and + looked so pretty. And the brown shoes were a little bit + too large, but they did not show. + + "And Dolly motioned Jack Frost very cunning, and + they looked at Dolly more than Susie, but Cordelia + Running Bird did not care. And my father was so happier + he laughed and laughed when Dolly nipped her nose and + pinched her toes just right, and when the song stopped he + slapped his knees and cried very loud, he was so glad + about Dolly. + + "And after the Christmas tree my father told the + teachers (and Emma Two Bears was interpreter): 'Your + school is a good place, for it makes the Indian children + very smart, and you treat the Indian visitors very kind, + so I shall let Dolly stay, and then Lucinda will stay, too.' + Very fast Lucinda stopped being sad, for she thought + before my father would not let Dolly stay till she was ten + birthdays, and Lucinda loves her so she would not stay + without her. + + "And the doll they hung me on the Christmas tree was + bigger than Cordelia Running Bird's, and its hairs and + clothes were prettier, so I told Cordelia, 'I am your + friend, and I shall give you my doll.' And she did not + want to take it, but I made her. So she said, 'I am your + friend, and I shall give you my doll, but it is not so nice + as yours.' + + "And Cordelia Running Bird and I now walk together + all the time, and again I shall never be mean to her. And + they did not choose Susie quite so much as Dolly in the + games, but Cordelia says that makes her glad. And it + was because she read the King's Daughters' verses. + + "Now I shall put an end to this too long letter. Many + days have I been writing it, and the girls, said just like + I was writing a book. And Cordelia sends her love. + + "From your unknown American Indian friend, + "HANNAH STRAIGHT THEE." + + "P. S.--Cordelia Running Bird nearly drowned both + kinds of Christmas clothes, and then she thought to give + the best kind to Dolly. And Susie did not care because + she had to wear the blue dress, and it smutted so her + hands and face got dirty, and the black shoes and stockings. + She was just as happier. And the teacher saved Cordelia's + Indian doll and gave it back to her, because she knew + she loved it very hard. And Cordelia was so glad + she hugged it very tight. + + "Again P. S.--Cordelia wrote, 'Peace on earth, good-will + toward men. I do not wish the dormitory girls were + cripples, and I will stop talking vain and will always + wear the issue shoes every day. And will they please + excuse me?' And they did. And now they walk heel or + tiptoe on Cordelia's wet floor. Lucinda will now learn + the neat way, and they will grow Dolly more white-minded, + for she came to school so short. And again I say it was + the King's Daughters' verses. And I do not like to think + hard, but I shall try to learn them, too. And we did + not shut our eyes at Susie when she motioned Jack Frost, + as we meant to just for spite. And the girls all said + Cordelia was so generous, she said she nearly got vain + again. So I shall stop this time." + +[Illustration: Helen read the letter to her King's Daughters circle.] + +Helen read the letter to her King's Daughters Circle, and a young +member, thinking of the little Sioux maiden at the far Northwestern +Mission who had tried to overcome her faults and love her enemies, +repeated softly: + + "'For thou hast a little strength, and thou hast kept + my word and hast not denied my name.'" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Big and Little Sisters, by Theodora R. 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