Part 5 (1/2)
”I, too,” admitted a south dormitory girl. ”I threw a few drops of scrub water on a girl that walked whole-feet.”
”I told a girl her tracks were so big, just like she had on snowshoes,”
said a north dormitory girl, relentingly.
”Of course, I made the very biggest kind of tracks on Cordelia Running Bird's wet floor,” said the largest girl; ”but if we walk tiptoe all the other girls will laugh and say, 'See how she nips along. She tries to walk so nice, just like the teachers.' And if we are walking on our heels they say, 'Very awkward; hear her tramp just like a steer.' But it is not kind to walk whole-feet.”
The race mood was upon the wane, and Hannah Straight Tree was fast losing influence.
”I would not have cared so much about the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings, but she bought the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings, when her little sister does not need them,” Hannah argued in an injured tone.
”She did not buy them with your money,” said the playroom girl. ”You would not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plum picnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You are much too lazy.”
”Now I shall not stay another minute!” springing from the stile in deep chagrin. ”You all can like Cordelia Running Bird if you want to, but I shall not like her.”
Hannah Straight Tree ran into the house, and those remaining turned again to watch Cordelia. She had reached a sloping bluff, down which the fence extended to the flats beside the river. She stood a moment on the edge, then wrapped her clothes about her and sat down on the crust.
Presently she disappeared.
”She has slid down hill,” observed the playroom girl. ”She must be going to the river.”
”She should not. It will soon be dark, and she is all alone,” said Emma Two Bears, in a tone betraying some anxiety.
CHAPTER VI.
Cordelia Running Bid held her clothes about her with one hand, steering with her feet, and reached the flats in safety. She arose and stood still and looked toward the river to a s.p.a.ce of open water on the near side of a sandbar, half way over.
She took a few steps forward rather slowly, then her pace quickened more and more, till she was running breathlessly, as if in fear of losing her resolve to carry out some plan she was intent upon.
In rus.h.i.+ng through a hollow lined with willow trees she slipped and almost lost her footing, and in struggling to regain it she released her hold upon a well-filled gingham bag which she had hid beneath her coat and dropped it on the ground. She picked it up and hung it by the draw-string on her arm, but with this interruption of her headlong course there came a corresponding halt of purpose. So she turned aside and walked a few yards down the hollow, where she found a log on which to seat herself.
Presently she murmured in the pa.s.sive monotone of a despairing Indian girl: ”Just like I have to stop and think before I do it. If I drown the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for she will not let me speak to her: 'Now you see I truly am not vain, for I have put the Christmas clothes for Susie in my workbag, and a stone, so it would sink, and I have drowned them in the airhole in the middle of the river.'
”But again that would be bragging,” was her puzzled afterthought. ”Just like Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and bought the brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain.
And the teachers looked so sorry, and I was ashamed to tell the white mother. Everything I say and do is vain and bragging, and I cannot think hard enough to help it. My tongue bragged about Dolly and Lucinda's hair ribbons to the little girls, and my feet bragged about the issue shoes, I stuck them out so far. And when the girls made fun of me I did not pull the shoes back, for I wanted them to think I was not scared, but sorry. I was truly trying to try hard, but I was trying the wrong way. Now my pencil will be bragging if it tells Hannah Straight Tree I have drowned the things.”
Cordelia sat in troubled thought while the pink and golden colors of the sunset faded from the sky above the bluffs and the wind sighed through the hollow.
”The white mother says it is not right to even waste a pin, and many nice things that have cost much money would be wasted if I drowned them.
I shall look at them and think again what I can do.”
She drew the contents from the bag and spread them on her lap. First she gave attention to the little blue dress she had helped to make at the expense of many play hours.
[Ill.u.s.tration: She drew the contents from her bag and spread them on her lap.]
”Emma Two Bears made the waist so nice and said she would not take one thing for pay, but I made her take a sh.e.l.l necklace that was very pretty; but I did not care for it myself, it was so Indian-minded. Emma is so generous. I wish I could be generous. If I should give the blue dress to Dolly, and the black shoes and stockings, just like I should be some generous. What if I should truly do it?” with a sudden interest in her tone. ”She would look as pretty as the little schoolgirls then, and she could motion Jack Frost, and Hannah and the others could not say Susie did not need the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings. I am 'most sure Jessie Turning Heart will help me make the red dress, if I bring the playroom wood for her, till we change work next month. She hates to bring wood, for her foot gets cold, and then the sore bunch pinches her much worse. She is very fast and stylish making dresses, and she feather-st.i.tches; and she says she is not cross at me. She said one time she liked to sew so much, just like she would be getting up and sewing in her sleep. So I shall ask her to trade work.
”But Hannah Straight Tree says she hates light blue, for it makes a copper-colored Indian look much blacker; and she hates one tuck, and there would have to be one, for the blue dress is too long for Dolly.