Big and Little Sisters | Page 8

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 mood, perhaps when kept within doors on a stormy Sunday afternoon. She had read them often, asking explanation of the hard words from the teachers, and had learned a number of the simplest ones in preparation for her own admission to the King's Daughters Circle, which would be before long, she had hoped.
"Here is one about the tongue, that has the straight marks Helen made, and Annie's cross behind it. This I have not learned to say."
Cordelia Running Bird read aloud slowly: "'_Even so the tongue is a little member, and boast-eth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kind-leth_.'
"That means to brag with the tongue and make folks very cross. Hannah Straight Tree bragged because her floor and stairs are always