Big and Little Sisters: A Story of an Indian Mission School

by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER V.

  Sunday morning there was wonder in the school to see Cordelia RunningBird in the heavy government shoes that had been lying in her cupboardsince the distribution of the clothing early in the fall. And when itwas observed that she had dressed for Sunday-school and had not changedthe shoes the wonder grew to pure amazement.

  "Ee! What ails the vainest girl in South Dakota? She will now bewearing issue shoes to Sunday-school!" exclaimed a dormitory girl, amonga group of large and middle-sized pupils gathered in the music room,adjoining the playroom, in Sunday-school attire.

  Cordelia sat in a corner with her eyes upon her Sunday-school lesson.Her feet were planted side by side as if with studied care.

  "Just like she is very scared because the large and middle-sized girlsdo not speak to her since yesterday. She is not sorry, only scared,"said Hannah Straight Tree. "See, she sticks her feet out very far, sowe will see the shoes and think she is not vain; but we will not believeher. She has found the dustpan, too, because she is so scared of me.She bragged so much she made me cross, so I told her she must find itand take up my dirt, yesterday. She minded me this morning."

  "She will be more scared before we speak to her," remarked the breadgirl. "Ver-r-y ugly issue shoes! She ought to wear a dragging dress tohide them."

  There was a burst of laughter, while the keen, black eyes of the entiregroup were fixed upon Cordelia Running Bird's feet. She did not drawthem back nor lift her eyes, but suddenly her dusky face grew scarlet,and there was a nervous trembling of her lips that moved persistently inan attempted study of the lesson. She had heard the words, as the girlsintended she should. They were speaking in Dakota without fear of beingunderstood by the white mother, who was in the playroom passing penniesfor the missionary plate.

  The white mother heard the laugh and stepped into the space between thesliding doors, which were ajar. She saw the girls' resentment at aglance, and that it was directed at Cordelia Running Bird. She wastroubled, but could not combat the feeling that had spread throughoutthe school, to mar the peace and quiet of the Sabbath, which theseIndian girls were wont to keep in reverent spirit.

  "She has bought another pair of shoes for Susie--stockings, too--notblack ones, like the little schoolgirls have to wear for best, but verystylish brown ones," Hannah Straight Tree said. "She put them in hertrunk last night. I crept upstairs and watched her, for the childrensaid she had them in her pocket. The large and middle-sized girls mustnot see them till the entertainment, but the little girls keep sayingthey are like the ones the little white visitor that wore the dress thatwas pink dim-i-ty, had on. Ver-ry white-minded shoes! She wants tohire me to like her, if she does not wish to have Dolly in the JackFrost song with Susie, so she bought new hair ribbons at the store forDolly and Lucinda. She told the little girls because she knew theywould tell me. But Dolly and Lucinda shall not wear them. Very cottonsilk, of course."

  The ringing of the bell for Sunday-school relieved Cordelia Running Birdof the torment she was undergoing. Conversation was suspended, and thegirls put on their hoods and marched in a procession to theschool-house, guided by the teachers.

  Cordelia had a trying hour in Sunday-school. The middle-sized girls,her companions in the white mother's class, indulged in frequentwhispering at her expense and kept deep silence when she tried to leadthe class, as she was wont, in reading reference verses and in concertrecitation of the memory verses and the Golden Text. Thus it happenedthat she read a reference verse alone, in faltering accents, with theeyes of all the class upon her:

  "'_Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessedto give than to receive_.'"

  "She gives a nickel every Sunday, so she minds the verse and gets thered dress very cheap," Hannah Straight Tree whispered from the seatbehind.

  The white mother heard the whisper, but the words were in Dakota, so shefailed to understand. She saw Cordelia Running Bird shrink and colorand her face grow very grave. Seeing this the class ceased whispering,but the white mother's faithful teachings went unheeded, and she saw thelesson was a failure. In fact, the whole room was in sad disorder fromthe opening to the close of Sunday-school, and all three teachers wereperplexed and disappointed by the strange behavior of their usuallyattentive pupils.

  "How unfortunate that the race mood has attacked the school whenChristmas is approaching, and we wish the girls to do their best and betheir happiest," said the white mother, lingering; for a minute in theschoolroom after the dismissal. "Cordelia seems about the only one,except the little girls, who isn't out of sorts to-day, yet she is theone they are all against. The older girls all seem displeased at her."

  "The large girls worried me with loud and constant whispering andinattention to the lesson," was the school-teacher's sorrowful report."There were so many, with the superintendent's class combined with mine,I found it quite impossible to keep good order, as you probablyobserved."

  The superintendent was not present. He had started for the distantrailroad station two days previously to get the Christmas boxes.

  "I have never had the slightest trouble with both classes, heretofore,but to-day they seemed to throw off all restraint, and I was simply indespair," added the young teacher with a strained expression in hervoice. "They whispered in Dakota, and their meaning was a mystery, but Iheard Cordelia Running Bird's name and Hannah Straight Tree's veryoften, also Susie, Dolly and Lucinda."

  "There was some trouble in the hall yesterday, which made CordeliaRunning Bird moody for a time, but she recovered her good-nature in theafternoon and seems to be behaving nicely now, although much hurt by thetreatment which she is receiving from the girls," the white mother said.

  "The children were excited also," said the teacher, who had taught theinfant class. "They whispered much in English, and I gathered fromtheir talk that the unusual wardrobe which Cordelia is preparing for herlittle sister to appear in during her Christmas visit, has to do withthe disturbance. I was forced to hear about the red dress and the brownshoes and stockings, and the blue dress and the black shoes andstockings, till I knew not what to do. It seems that Hannah is vexedabout the little things, and the other girls are sympathizing with her,and they seem to have some grievance of their own, besides."

  "That explains it," said the white mother. "Perhaps it was unwise tolet Cordelia have the red cashmere for the little dress, but she ispaying for it by contributing a portion of her hard-earned money to themissionary fund. Her patience with the baby, who was very fretful, wasquite wonderful. She cheerfully devoted all her playtime for a month tobaby, while I gave attention to the little children, and I thought itbut a just reward to let her have the little dress, especially as it wasin her mission box. Her father had not brought the blue dress then, Butdear me! She has added brown shoes and stockings, which I didn't in theleast expect."

  The children in their bedtime talk had told the white mother of CordeliaRunning Bird's purchase at the store, and later in the evening thesecond teacher had informed her of the barter of the Indian doll.

  "The brown shoes and stockings must be laid to my account. Whatever canbe done?" exclaimed the school-teacher, in dismay.

  "Nothing," said the white mother, firmly. "I wish Cordelia was lessextravagant, and we will be careful to restrain her after this. ButIndian girls must learn as well as white girls to respect the right ofproperty. The girls have been allowed much freedom in the spending ofwhat money they could call their own, but it has mostly gone for hairribbons and candy, and there has been no trouble before. I hope thefeeling will subside, however, in a day or two. So many Christmaspleasures are in prospect that the girls will surely have no room forstrife and envy in their hearts."

  Here the teachers hastened to the mission building to discharge theduties that devolved upon them after Sunday-school.

  Just before sunet Monday afternoon a flock of girls were gathered atthe stile in front, watching with intensity a solitary little figuremoving slowly on a far side of the pas
ture, near the barbed wire fence.

  "Again there walks Cordelia Running Bird very far away," said HannahStraight Tree. "She has walked alone two afternoons. She must bethinking very hard."

  "She is going on the mourner's walk," observed the girl who kept theplayroom. "When an Indian walks alone, so far and very slow, that meansthey are too sad. She cannot be happy, for the large girls--only me--andthe middle-sized girls do not talk to her. Then, too, of course, shethinks of Annie. It was just one year ago this Monday that they tookher to the agency. The large girls did not wash, because there was afuneral."

  "And Cordelia Running Bird was so proud because the girls all cried,"said Hannah. "Now I wish we had not cried."

  "Kee! You must not be so mean as that," exclaimed the largest girl, inshocked surprise. "Of course we cried for Annie. She was very kind toeveryone--not cross like us."

  "She was a very little cross, sometimes, because she was an Indian. Shetried much harder than Cordelia Running Bird."

  "I am glad I sang 'The Sweet By and By' when she was so afraid," saidEmma Two Bears.

  The girls were silent for a little, stirred by memories of theschoolmate who had passed into the life beyond.

  Meantime the solitary girl in the snowy pasture continued her walk.

  "I can wish I had not told Cordelia Running Bird that I would not sleepwith anyone but her," said Hannah. "I am glad she is not in the middledormitory now."

  "They put her in our dormitory so that she can go and tell the teachersif a little girl is sick, or cries," remarked the prudent little girl,who had arrived upon the scene with several other children. "Theteachers say she wakes up easy, and is braver in the dark than any othergirl."

  "Ee! Cordelia Running Bird is a dress pattern for the other girls--Imean a pattern!" Hannah cried. "Cordelia is the bravest, and she has awhite memory, so she has the longest piece. Cordelia is polite. Shekeeps her clothes so clean and does not tear them, so the missionaryladies send her prettier things, for the teachers write she is so nice.The visitors always talk about Cordelia Running Bird very lots. They donot think the girls are listening, but they are."

  "They should not listen. That is stealing talk, the white mother says,"replied the prudent little girl. "We like Cordelia Running Bird, forshe does not scold us little girls and tell us we are in the way, as youdo," was the bold defense. "We shall choose Susie in the games."

  "If the little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls canpull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threatfrom Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say theirhairs were snarly and we could not help it."

  "Ee! We shall not pull the little girls' hairs and tell a lie," saidEmma Two Bears, rallying her honest principles. "We can treat CordeliaRunning Bird cross because she called us shovel-feeted, and is veryvain, so we should punish her, but we will not be wicked."

  "I did not say we shall--I said we can," retracted Hannah, in confusion.

  "The girls were very mean to walk whole-feet where she was scrubbing,"said the playroom girl, who knew from sad experience what Cordelia'strials must have been. "It makes me very cross because the little girlswill not stay out or, sit still on the benches when I scrub theplayroom, and they do not make big tracks, if they do walk whole-feet."

  "You can speak to her, because she could not call you shovel-feeted, forthe white mother lets you always wear the mission shoes," said HannahStraight Tree, growing bold again.

  "Because I have an onion--no, a bunion--on my foot. The issue shoeswould make it worse. Just like there is no girl in school that does nothate to have the horrid whole-feet tracks on her wet floor."

  "I hate them--some," confessed a middle dormitory girl.

  "I, too," admitted a south dormitory girl. "I threw a few drops ofscrub 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 RunningBird's wet floor," said the largest girl; "but if we walk tiptoe all theother girls will laugh and say, 'See how she nips along. She tries towalk so nice, just like the teachers.' And if we are walking on ourheels they say, 'Very awkward; hear her tramp just like a steer.' Butit is not kind to walk whole-feet."

  The race mood was upon the wane, and Hannah Straight Tree was fastlosing influence.

  "I would not have cared so much about the blue dress and the black shoesand stockings, but she bought the red dress and the brown shoes andstockings, when her little sister does not need them," Hannah argued inan injured tone.

  "She did not buy them with your money," said the playroom girl. "Youwould not have taken care of a cross baby four weeks, and missed a plumpicnic, and not played a leap, to earn pretty things for Dolly. You aremuch too lazy."

  "Now I shall not stay another minute!" springing from the stile in deepchagrin. "You all can like Cordelia Running Bird if you want to, but Ishall not like her."

  Hannah Straight Tree ran into the house, and those remaining turnedagain to watch Cordelia. She had reached a sloping bluff, down whichthe fence extended to the flats beside the river. She stood a moment onthe 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 goingto the river."

  "She should not. It will soon be dark, and she is all alone," said EmmaTwo Bears, in a tone betraying some anxiety.