"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.
"And it was about Susie—that is Cordelia's little sister— that I got so mean and jealous, for she had a nice Christmas things—two kinds—and Dolly would not have one kind, and she would look so horrid. So I called Cordelia Running Bird proud, vain, cross, mean. And I talked about her so the girls got cross at her. And I made her push a pail of scrub water downstairs, so she talked Dakota and had to lie in bed and could not feather-stitch the blue dress, for it smutted so the silk would be too dirty. But she feather-stitched the red dress, and she sold her Indian doll, and it was her grandmother's when she was Cordelia's age, so she bought the brown shoes and stockings.
"And Cordelia read the King's Daughters' verses, 'Love your enemies,' and 'It is more blessed to give than to receive,' so she put the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings and two hair ribbons in a box, and Jessie Turning Heart tied a blue scarf round my eyes so tight I could not see, and led me to the chicken house. And I put my hand on the box, and Jessie pulled off the scarf, and I uncovered the box and found the things. And Cordelia Running Bird had pinned a piece of paper on the red dress, and these words were written on it: 'Dear Hannah Straight Tree, I am your friend, so I shall give you these best Christmas things for Dolly. And will you please take the hair ribbons, for they are not very cotton silk?'
"And I was very 'shamed, and said I would not take them, I had been so mean. But Cordelia Running Bird said I must, for she had made the red dress too short for Susie, so if I did not it would be wasted. So I told her I would take it if she would excuse my meanness, but I should not take the brown shoes and stockings—only just the black ones. But she begged so hard just like I had to. And Cordelia and I scrubbed Dolly very hard in a tub, for Lucinda has not learned the neat way, and she did not cry, only laughed. And the white mother found some very little underclothes for her, and we curled her hair with a slate pencil, and she wore the best things and looked so pretty. And the brown shoes were a little bit too large, but they did not show.
"And Dolly motioned Jack Frost very cunning, and they looked at Dolly more than Susie, but Cordelia Running Bird did not care. And my father was so happier he laughed and laughed when Dolly nipped her nose and pinched her toes just right, and when the song stopped he slapped his knees and cried very loud, he was so glad about Dolly.
"And after the Christmas tree my father told the teachers (and Emma Two Bears was interpreter): 'Your school is a good place, for it makes the Indian children very smart, and you treat the Indian visitors very kind, so I shall let Dolly stay, and then Lucinda will stay, too.' Very fast Lucinda stopped being sad, for she thought before my father would not let Dolly stay till she was ten birthdays, and Lucinda loves her so she would not stay without her.