Part 5 (2/2)

And it s.m.u.ts some, too, and is not soft and fine. Hannah would not want it. She would say Susie looked much nicer in the red dress, and Dolly should not motion Jack Frost in the blue one.”

Cordelia put the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings back into the bag, and spread the red cashmere across her lap and smoothed it lovingly.

”It feels so soft I like to rub it. Just the color of the one rose on the white mother's window bush.” She held it up, luxuriating in its warm red glow. ”Ver-ry sw-e-et and pretty--and the brown shoes and stockings, too. I shall put them on the clean snow and look at them.”

She spread the things on the hard white crust and viewed them with increasing admiration. Suddenly she caught them up and hid them in her ap.r.o.n, for the sight of them was far too tempting; then she locked her hands together in her lap and sat so still a wood-mouse dared to leave his hole beneath the log and frisk about her feet.

”The baby was so cross I could not play one bit the whole four weeks,”

she said at length, in supplicating tones. ”Just like I earned the dress so hard. I thought I did not care much for the Indian doll, but my grandmother cannot make another, for she now has par-a-lay-sis in her hands--the doctor says it is. And I sold the Indian doll to get the brown shoes and stockings. Dolly has a round face, and her eyes are pretty. Susie has a thin face, and she is a very little cross-eyed, so she needs a prettier dress to look as nice as Dolly.

”But Lucinda cannot come to school if Dolly cannot, and she feels so sad. If Dolly's father saw her looking very pretty in a red dress and a brown shoes and stockings, just like he would feel so happier he would let her come to school. Then Lucinda would be glad, and she would learn the neat way, and they would grow Dolly more white-minded. The verse I read yesterday was a King's Daughters' verse. Helen marked it--Annie, too.

”What if Annie should be looking down from up there,”--pointing to a newly glimmering star--”and speaking just like this: 'Dear Cordelia, these words I tell you--” It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

I would give the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings to the little girl named Dolly Straight Tree.'”

Cordelia looked another minute at the star.

”Of course Annie cannot speak those words up there, but she would like to have me do it, and my father and my mother would not care, for I should tell them just like Annie thought I ought to; and they always let me do a thing I want to, anyhow.

”If an Indian likes another Indian very much he will give him a big present. My father told an Indian man one time, 'I am your friend, so I shall give you a pony.' And he did. And the Indian man told my father, 'I am your friend, so I shall give you a steer.' And a white man laughed and said it was a good trade. But the Indians did not laugh.

They said my father and the other Indian were very generous.

”Now I have found the right way, and it makes me very happier, and I shall not change my thoughts.” in firm relief. ”I shall do this kind: Till Dolly and Lucinda come I shall not say one word to any girl, or even tell the white mother. Then Susie's best things I shall give to Hannah Straight Tree in a way that will surprise her. Tokee! there rings the half-hour bell till supper, and I am down here, and it is moonlight.”

Cordelia hastily replaced the best things in the bag and scampered home.

CHAPTER VII.

Cordelia Running Bird carried out her plan of asking Jessie Turning Heart, the playroom girl, to help her make the red dress, and the latter willingly agreed to ”trade work,” and escape bringing in the wood to the torture of her lame foot.

Cordelia found that she had undertaken no light task, for there were violent snowstorms in the next two weeks, and an enormous quant.i.ty of wood was swallowed by the great stove in the playroom, which must needs be kept red-hot from long before dawn until bedtime, to dispel the freezing atmosphere within.

Owing to the influence of the playroom girl, the large and middle-sized girls in general ceased to be intensely hostile to Cordelia, but they did not break the seal of silence, so she could not ask help from among them. The small girls showed their friends.h.i.+p for Cordelia now and then by marching in a line behind her from the wood-yard laden with what fuel they could bring, or even going down the path the older girls had broken to the flats for willow f.a.gots, which they tied upon their backs and brought to her for kindling.

Hannah Straight Tree tried Cordelia's resolution to do good to her by stealthy persecutions that escaped the notice of the teachers, who remarked to one another in relief that Hannah and the other girls appeared in better humor toward Cordelia, and the fatter had regained her cheerful spirits.

Hannah took her station in the little outside hall one bl.u.s.tering afternoon, watching through the side window till Cordelia climbed the porch steps loaded to her chin with wood; then Hannah braced her back against the outside door. Cordelia spared one hand with difficulty, tugging at the door with wind-tossed garments, all in vain. She dropped her wood to use both hands. The door would sometimes stick when lightly closed, and thinking this to be the case, she threw her weight against it in a forcible attempt to burst it open. Hannah jumped away and darted through the inside door in silent glee.

Cordelia fell full length into the hall and struck her head against the inner threshold. She lay in a dazed condition for a little, then aroused herself, to catch a glimpse of Hannah peering through the window of the inside door. She vanished instantly, but the expression of her face had told Cordelia where the mischief lay.

”She will not let me like her,” thought Cordelia, struggling to her feet with aching head, and blinking back the tears. ”Just like I shall have to hate her just a little while I do her good.”

She turned, and saw to her surprise that Emma Two Bears, who had come behind her to the porch, was gathering up her wood. Emma often helped to fill the wood-box in the music room, as an especial friend of hers attended to that work, and Cordelia feared her wood was being boldly captured for that purpose. She was about to cry out sharply, but restrained herself and fell back silently, while Emma pa.s.sed into the house. Cordelia followed her, and saw with sinking heart that Emma took a straight track through the playroom for the music room; but on the threshold of the room she whirled about, and, walking to the playroom wood-box, dropped the wood in.

”Thank you very much!” exclaimed Cordelia, in sign language on her fingers. Etiquette forbade her to employ her tongue in the expression of her grat.i.tude, seeing that the girls had placed a ban on it. A curious contortion of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet was used among the Indian girls when pride forbade the use of speech.

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