id="id00172">"Why, child, you surely cannot wish to sell your Indian doll that has a beaded buckskin dress just like the one your grandmother wore when she was your age?" said the school-teacher in surprise. "No, thank you, dear. You wish to give me pleasure, but I cannot accept it, for I know you love the little Indian grandmother better than you could the prettiest white doll in the Christmas box," she added, gratefully.

"It is very Indian-minded, and I do not now care for it," replied the girl, with a clouded face. "I wish to buy the little brown shoes and stockings in the glass box," pointing to the show-case. "I have only fifty cents."

"Why, of course, Cordelia, if you really wish to sell it," was the response. "The shoes and stockings are for Susie, I suppose, but are not the black ones nice enough?"

Cordelia had displayed the little black shoes and stockings to the teachers with a deal of pride.

"But the brown ones are much prettier for the Jack Frost song," she argued, pressingly.

"Very well," replied the teacher, opening her purse and handing her the dollar, with a sorry look. "Perhaps, however, we would better see the little things before you buy them."

The brown shoes and stockings were examined by the teachers and were thought quite satisfactory for the price. Cordelia bought them breathlessly and hid them in her coat pocket to insure their safety.

But the home-going in the early moonlight evening was less joyous than had been the journey to the store. To the young Sioux girl the sleigh-bells seemed to jingle harshly, and the gumbo hills, whose tops were bare of snow, seemed frowning blackly from across the river.

Cordelia Running Bird passed some peppermints to the children, which awoke a burst of gratitude.

"We little girls shall always choose Susie in the games," said one.

"Yes," exclaimed another, "Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory girls have told us not to, but we shall."

"Ee! Talk lower so the teacher will not hear you," said Cordelia, with a sudden flutter of the breath. "You must choose Dolly half the time— if Susie plays."

"She is too bad-looking," said a third. "Susie has two pairs of pretty shoes, and two nice dresses, and we like her better."

"But you must not talk that way before the larger girls," Cordelia cautioned in an undertone. "Doily has a new hair ribbon like the red one I have bought for Susie—both are in my lap. And I have bought a pink one for Lucinda. I wish to do them good—Hannah Straight Tree, too. You must tell the larger girls you like Dolly just as well as Susie. If they wear alike ribbons on their braids it will be nice."

"A new ribbon cannot dress Dolly up," remarked the prudent little girl. "The points of her hairs will look like Susie's points, and that is all."

CHAPTER V.

Sunday morning there was wonder in the school to see Cordelia Running Bird in the heavy government shoes that had been lying in her cupboard since the distribution of the clothing early in the fall. And when it was observed that she had dressed for Sunday-school and had not changed the shoes the wonder grew to pure amazement.

"Ee! What ails the vainest girl in South Dakota? She will now be wearing issue shoes to Sunday-school!" exclaimed a dormitory girl, among a 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 girls do not speak to her since yesterday. She is not sorry, only scared," said Hannah Straight Tree. "See, she sticks her feet out very far, so we will see the shoes and think she is not vain; but we will not believe her. 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 it and take up my dirt, yesterday. She minded me this morning."

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

There was a burst of laughter, while the keen, black eyes of the entire group were fixed upon Cordelia Running Bird's feet. She did not draw them back nor lift her eyes, but suddenly her dusky face grew scarlet, and there was a nervous trembling of her lips that moved persistently in an attempted study of the lesson. She had heard the words, as the girls intended she should. They were speaking in Dakota without fear of being understood by the white mother, who was in the playroom passing pennies for the missionary plate.

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

"She has bought another pair of shoes for Susie—stockings, too—not black ones, like the little schoolgirls have to wear for best, but very stylish brown ones," Hannah Straight Tree said. "She put them in her trunk last night. I crept upstairs and watched her, for the children said she had them in her pocket. The large and middle-sized girls must not see them till the entertainment, but the little girls keep saying they are like the ones the little white visitor that wore the dress that was pink dim-i-ty, had on. Ver-ry white-minded shoes! She wants to hire me to like her, if she does not wish to have Dolly in the Jack Frost song with Susie, so she bought new hair ribbons at the store for Dolly and Lucinda. She told the little girls because she knew they would tell me. But Dolly and Lucinda shall not wear them. Very cotton silk, of course."

The ringing of the bell for Sunday-school relieved Cordelia Running Bird of the torment she was undergoing. Conversation was suspended, and the girls put on their hoods and marched in a procession to the school-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 frequent whispering at her expense and kept deep silence when she tried to lead the class, as she was wont, in reading reference verses and in concert recitation of the memory verses and the Golden Text. Thus it happened that she read a reference verse alone, in faltering accents, with the eyes of all the class upon her:

"'Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

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

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

"How unfortunate that the race mood has attacked the school when Christmas is approaching, and we wish the girls to do their best and be their