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

by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER III.

  The girls had finished working in the dormitories and had gone below.Cordelia Running Bird was relieved that she would not have to meet themand endure such looks as they might give, though not allowed to speak toher.

  Going to her corner in the south dormitory, she put on her nightgown andcrept into bed. She hid her head beneath the blankets to shut out thesounds below, in which she was to have no part for several hours.

  But though Cordelia Running Bird was in solitude, her sharp ears caughtthe noise of romping children in the playroom, and the frequent droppingof the sliding-doors upon the narrow individual cupboards, indicating anexcessive rummaging of shelves. Cordelia knew full well the pryinghabits of the Indian children.

  "I am glad I have the red dress in my trunk, but they will meddle withmy other things and look at Susie's blue dress, and then roll it up insuch bad wrinkles," she said to herself. "Just like they will drop askein of feather-stitching silk and tramp it with their feet till it isvery dirty. Then some girl will pick it up to sew her doll clothes, andthere will not be enough for Susie's dress."

  Cordelia Running Bird held her breath as these thoughts came to her.

  "But I do not know if I can feather-stitch it now, for there is no oneto teach me, that I know of. Just like Hannah Straight Tree and thedormitory girls will tell the whole school to hate me, and they will.If I cannot get a large girl to help make the red dress, and I try to doit all alone, it will fit so bad, and I cannot get it done in time.What if I should tell my mother to have Susie stay at camp, and not oncecome inside the yard Christmas time? Then she would not need thedresses, and they could not call them issue goods, and not choose Susiein the games, and shut their eyes at her."

  Cordelia lay very still, but the thought of Susie's missing thefestivities by staying in the big building in the mission pasture, wherethe Indian visitors camped in winter, was put from her in short order.

  "Susie shall not stay in camp. I shall find a way to get the dressesdone, and she shall motion Jack Frost and see the Christmas tree. Ishall tell them I am tired of playing silly games, and Susie shall notplay, either, so they cannot leave her out. And I shall tell the schoolthey must not watch Susie motion, for they are such horrid Indians theywould scare her very bad. When Hannah Straight Tree's big and littlesister come into the playroom I shall walk close up to them and pull mydress away, and look at it so sharp, and say, so Hannah hears me, 'Thosewild Indians have so many grease spots I am much afraid of catchingthem.'"

  While plotting these misdeeds Cordelia Running Bird fell asleep. Ayoung girl from the teachers' table brought her dinner on a tray and setit by the bed without awaking her. She did not wake up until near themiddle of the afternoon. She found that the white mother had stoleninto the dormitory with a small book which she had placed upon thepillow. There was a narrow white ribbon, frayed and yellow, woundaround the book and tied on one side in a bow. The rooms below now werequiet, for the wind had lulled and the entire school was out of doors.

  Looking from the window near her bed, Cordelia saw the broad, whiteplains illumined with brilliant sunshine and the girls exercising on theglittering crust of snow occasioned by the thaw. The little girls weresliding down hill on boards and broken shovels, cast-off dripping-pansand ash-pans--everything, indeed, that could be seized on for coasting.A group of large and middle-sized girls were walking over the missionpasture, stretching for a mile on every side. Another band of girls waspacked into a long, wide bob-sled on the point of starting with thewhite mother to the little log post office down the river.

  "Very lots of fun, and I am being punished here in bed!" Cordelia saidto herself, mournfully. "Now the bob-sled starts, and very loud thesleigh-bells ring. The white mother drives, and she must hold the linesso tight, for very fast the horses want to go. We go to the post officeby the al-pha-bet on Saturday, and this day it is the P's and R's--thereare no Q's--so it is my turn. Very fast I meant to feather-stitch, so Icould spare the time to go. Ee! There is Hannah Straight Tree in myplace. She made me talk Dakota and get punished. Now she gets mysleigh-ride!" And Cordelia Running Bird threw herself back upon thepillow, giving vent to wild, resentful tears.

  When the tears had spent themselves the Indian girl raised her head andsaw the little book on the other pillow.

  "Tokee! The white mother put it here. She always keeps it, and itmeans that I can look at it now."

  Cordelia unwound the ribbon, opening the little book.

  "Annie's Bible, and I never thought of her to-day! Just like I amforgetting her so fast. Here is Helen's letter. I shall read thatfirst."

  She read the little note slowly.]

  She took a little white note from a dainty envelope and read it slowly,but with understanding that spoke of previous acquaintance with thewords:

  "_Dear Annie_: Will you let this little Bible be your friend and guide, as I have tried to have it for my friend and guide since I have been a King's Daughter? I have marked some verses I have learned and have recited in the meeting of our circle, and I wish that you might care to learn them and recite them in your meeting at the school.

  "The King's Daughters in the Far East love to think about the Indian girls away out West, who are also members of our circle. Isn't it a sweet thought, Annie, that although so widely separated, we are all the children of one family in Christ, and are cared for by the same heavenly Father?

  "Yours with loving interest, "HELEN MERRIAM, Hartford, Conn. "Aged 16."

  "It came in Annie's mission box, and Helen was her unknown whitefriend," said Cordelia Running Bird, as she put the letter back into theenvelope. "I shall next read Annie's letter." And she took anotherlittle missive from the Bible, written with a pencil on the tablet paperof the school, in wavering penmanship that showed the weakness of thewriter's hand. Cordelia read:

  "_Dear Cordelia_: Annie Running Bird will leave this Bible to Cordelia Running Bird, my sister, for I cannot carry it to heaven, and in heaven I shall not need to read the words that Jesus spoke on earth, for I shall hear him speak up there. But Cordelia will not just yet be bearing Jesus speak up there, and she will need to read this Bible and must mind just what it tells her. Dear Cordelia, you can have this Bible for your own when you are fourteen birthdays, so you will be old enough to take good care of it and read it very lots. But if you want to borrow it before it is your own, 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," musedCordelia, looking at the lock of hair with reverent eyes. "It was verycold one year ago this winter, when she had the whooping-cough so hardit made her lungs so sick she could not live.

  "My mother had the fever very long and hard at home and could not cometo watch her; my father came, but could not stay long, for my mother wasso sick. But the teachers took good care of Annie, and the large girlshelped them. I could only sit by her in daytime, for the teachers saidI was too young to stay up nights. The dormitory girls were very kindto Annie, and they used to sit up nights
, when they had worked all dayand were so tired, to watch her.

  "Emma Two Bears has a sweet song, and one night when she was watchingAnnie, and there was a blizzard, and the wind cried very loud, like manydogs 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 verysweet. Annie said it made her feel so happy that again she would not beafraid.

  "And once more when Annie could not eat one bite of anything and was sovery faint, Hannah Straight Tree thought that she could drink somerosebud porridge, so she ran away without permission, and waded throughthe deep snow to the rosebushes up the river, to pick off some buds tomake the porridge. She froze her shortest right side toe, and a wildsteer 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 alittle porridge and told Hannah she was very glad indeed. And they didnot punish Hannah, for the rosebuds were for Annie.

  "When the Indian preacher told at Annie's funeral how she was so goodand 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 tothe agency, Hannah Straight Tree whispered that she did not want tosleep with anyone but me, and if they put another girl in bed with hershe 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. Theverse that Annie tried to think of most is all about enemies. I cannotread 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 Biblewhen in thoughtful mood, perhaps when kept within doors on a stormySunday afternoon. She had read them often, asking explanation of thehard words from the teachers, and had learned a number of the simplestones in preparation for her own admission to the King's DaughtersCircle, 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 alittle member, and boast-eth great things. Behold how great a matter alittle fire kind-leth_.'

  "That means to brag with the tongue and make folks very cross. HannahStraight Tree bragged because her floor and stairs are always nicer thanmy floor and stairs," Cordelia said. "But just like I have braggedsome, too," she added. "My tongue has talked so much because my fatheris an agency policeman and my little sister has nice things. And Ibragged about my white memory and my store shoes. But I was onlytalking to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and Hannah Straight Treewent and told it."

  She turned the leaves and found another text: "'_A soft answer turnethaway wrath, but grievous words stir up anger_.' I did not speak softwhen I told Hannah Straight Tree she was very dumb in school, and I wasglad Dolly could not motion in a single song, or even have an ugly greendress, and I was not sorry that her big and little sister could not cometo school. And Dolly and Lucinda have not said mean things to me, sowhy should I be cross at them? But Hannah would not find the dustpanand take up her dirt, and that was very mean. Now here is one that Ihave learned. I can say it without looking at the book."

  Cordelia Running Bird shut her eyes and carefully re-peated: "'_Pridegoeth before de-struction, and a haught-y spirit before a fall_.'Haughty means to feel stuck-up. The pail fell downstairs and made metalk Dakota, so I had to come to bed, because I was stuck-up and madeHannah Straight Tree cross. Just like they all would not be hating meif I had not been haught-y. But the dormitory girls were very mean towalk whole-feet on my wet floor. If they had walked heel or tiptoe Ishould not have scolded to myself about the ugly issue shoes, and calledthem shovel-feeted, and wished they had to lie in bed. But I did notwish them to be cripples--only have a good long rest till I was throughscrubbing. But Hannah was mean to go and tell. I can find no versethat will excuse her and the dormitory girls."

  Here Cordelia Running Bird fell to pitying herself anew.

  "I shall now read Annie's best verse, but it will be very hard to mindthose words that Jesus spoke."