Big and Little Sisters | Page 7

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,