Big and Little Sisters | Page 8

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