Big and Little Sisters | Page 6

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."