Big and Little Sisters | Page 6

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