Part 6 (1/2)
”You need not thank me. I am only punis.h.i.+ng Hannah Straight Tree,” Emma answered, likewise with her fingers.
This exchange of compliments was read without scruple by the many pairs of eyes, including Hannah's, that were watching the affair.
”Emma Two Bears talks deaf-and-dumb to her. Now we can plan crack-the-whip with her, for that is not a speaking game,” observed a middle-sized girl, who had been a comrade of Cordelia's heretofore.
”She will not have time to crack the whip,” said Hannah. ”She is going to the south dormitory, where she sits her whole playtime helping sew the red dress for Susie, so she can look nicer than the other little home sisters and the little schoolgirls.”
”You are very jealous-minded, and you try hard to spite Cordelia Running Bird,” said the recent comrade.
”You can talk that way because you have no little sister,” grumbled Hannah.
Cordelia pa.s.sed upstairs with quick steps.
”Just like the large and middle-sized girls--only Hannah Straight Tree-- will again be speaking to me pretty soon,” she said to Jessie Turning Heart, who sat beside a sunny window in the south dormitory sewing briskly on the little red waist.
”They cannot speak to you till Christmas day, because they all said they would not,” Jessie answered. ”Then if you ap-ol-ogize and say you do not wish them to be cripples any more, and that you will stop talking vain, they will again speak to you, and they will walk heel or tiptoe on your floor.”
”I shall write an ap-ol-ogy in Dakota on three papers Christmas morning, and pin them on a side of the three dormitories, but you must not tell, because I do not wish to brag what I shall do,” Cordelia said, in strictest confidence.
”I think it would be better if you had but one shoes and stockings and best dress for Susie. But you cannot help it now,” the playroom girl replied. ”Two best dresses and two shoes and stockings look too many, when the other little home sisters have not one best thing.”
Cordelia Running Bird was quite strongly tempted to confide still further in the friendly playroom girl, who had sustained her through the trying tempest of events, but she resisted and began to hem the little skirt in silence.
”Ee! how short you have it!” Jessie noticed suddenly. ”You must think Susie is to grow the other way before she wears it.”
Cordelia's only answer was a noncommittal smile which Jessie failed to understand. This thought, however, suddenly impressed Cordelia:
”Now it is too short for Susie, and the hem is not one bit too wide, so I could not let it down. What if Hannah Straight Tree is so cross she will not let Dolly wear it? And there is no other little home sister just the size of Dolly that could wear it, and is coming Christmas. Just like Hannah will not take it and will keep on hating me forever and ever, so I cannot do her good.”
Whether this foreboding was fulfilled, or otherwise, will be explained in Hannah's letter to the King's Daughter in the Far East, who had sent the little Bible and the loving message to the King's Daughter in the Far West:
”_Dear Helen Merriam_: Now I shall write you a letter, for Cordelia Running Bird cannot, for she says it, would be bragging. It is all about Christmas, and our big and little sisters. Cordelia's big sister is now in heaven, and Cordelia wrote good-by to you from Annie.
My big sister is now in the First Reader, but she cannot help it, for my mother died, and so Lucinda had to stay at home and keep Dolly, and that is my little sister.