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 space 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 rushing 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 passive 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.
[Illustration: 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 shell 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-stitches; 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. And it smuts 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 apron, 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.