Big and Little Sisters | Page 2

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