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

  Produced by Prepared by Al Haines.

  BIG AND LITTLE SISTERS

  A Story of an Indian Mission School

  By THEODORA R. JENNESS

  CHAPTER I.

  It was a Saturday morning in December at the Indian Mission School.Two young Sioux girls were going up the stairs--Hannah Straight Tree andCordelia Running Bird. It was their Saturday for cleaning. The twogirls drew a heavy breath in prospect of the difficult task thatconfronted them. The great unplastered mission building was a chillyplace throughout the winter, and the halls and stairway that morningwere drafty from the blustering wind that swept the Dakota plains andcame through the outer doors below, where restless children kept goingto and fro continually. The young hall-girls shivered on the upperlanding, and stepped back in a sheltered niche in which the brooms werehanging. They had thrown their aprons over their heads and shoulders,and were dreading to begin their work.

  "My floor and stairs always look nicer than your floor and stairs," saidHannah Straight Tree to Cordelia Running Bird.

  "Because you have the teachers' side, and that's always nicer, to beginwith, than the girls' side," answered Cordelia Running Bird. "You knowthe teachers never walk whole-feet when you are scrubbing. If they haveto go by, they walk tiptoe, and their toes are sharp and clean and donot make big tracks. But all the children on my side walk whole-feetover the wet floor when I am scrubbing, and their shoes are big andmuddy. Ugh! big tracks they make! But I have learned the motto, everyword, and I can speak that when I feel discouraged with my work."Cordelia Running Bird gazed at the motto, while the dormitory girlsflocked by, and when the hall was quiet she repeated it in the peculiarmonotonous tone with which an Indian pupil usually recites:

  "Those who faithfully perform the task of keeping clean the dark places,the cold places and the rough places, are they to whom it may indeed besaid, 'Well done.'"

  "I shall not try to learn the motto, for it makes my memory tired," saidHannah Straight Tree. "I do not like to think hard or work hard. I amglad I have the teachers' side."

  "If you do not think hard you will have a heart that is a dark place,like the scrub-pail closet, and it will he hard to keep it clean ofwrong thoughts, like the white mother talked about in Sunday-school.The motto means inside of us as well as places where we live. I like tothink hard," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I heard the teacher tell thewhite mother that I had the best memory of any middle-sized girl, andshe said it was as good as many white girls' memories of my age, andthat is 'most fourteen. So I am to speak the longest middle-sized piecein the Christmas entertainment."

  "Ee!" cried Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a whitememory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed to tell it!"

  "She will not praise you, for you are always very dumb in school. Youwill not try to speak a lesson only with the class in concert," saidCordelia Running Bird. "I shall try to finish very fast this morning.There are only two more Saturdays till Christmas, and to-day I want tofeather-stitch the little new blue dress for Susie. She will wear itevery day when she is here Christmas. Many white and Indian visitorswill be here."

  "And you will feel so proud because the visitors and the school willlook at Susie, and the middle-sized and little girls will always chooseher in the games. They would not choose my little sister if sheplayed," said Hannah Straight Tree, with a sudden downcast look.

  "Dolly is so shy I do not know if she would go into the middle of thering if they should choose her, and she would not know the way to chooseback," answered Cordelia Running Bird.

  "Ee! She would! She would!" disputed Hannah Straight Tree. "Dolly isas brave and smart as Susie--smarter, too, for she is shorter! Shecould play the games if I would let her!"

  "But you will not," replied the other; "you must not scold about mylittle sister. Susie knows the motions in the Jack Frost song so wellthe teachers says that she can motion with the children in the Christmasentertainment."

  "She does not motion right," said Hannah Straight Tree. "She getsbehind, and when they sing:

  "'He nips little children on the nose, He pinches little children on the toes, He pulls little children by the ears, And brings to their eyes the big, round tears,'

  she is only nipping her nose when the rest are pulling their ears."

  "But she is so little she looks cute, and the visitors and school willlaugh at her and praise her," said Cordelia Running Bird, undismayed."She will not wear the blue dress in the Jack Frost song. She will weara red dress from my mission box. I asked the white mother if I couldnot buy the red cloth for an entertainment dress for Susie with themoney that she paid because I tended baby one month till the nurse-girlcame. And she said if I wished I could put a nickel on the missionaryplate twenty Sundays, which would be one dollar, and so buy the cloth.She said it would be teaching me to give, as well as to receive. Shekeeps the nickel with the school pennies, and I take one every Sunday."

  "And you lift your hand so high and drop the nickel very too loud, soall the school can hear, when Amy Swimmer passes you the plate!" criedHannah Straight Tree. "Just like it says, 'Ee! I am putting on anickel, and the rest can only give one penny! And _I_ earned my money,and the pennies are money that their people sent them.'"

  "You are very jealous," was the calm reply. "I shall hire a large girlto cut it fine and help make the red dress very fast. The sewingteacher has not time for such dresses. Ver-r-y pr-r-etty it will look!"Cordelia Running Bird smiled prospectively, displaying small white teethand two round dimples. "Christmas evening I shall curl Susie's hairwith a slate pencil, and she will wear fine shoes, and black stockingswith the red dress. My father brought them with the blue dress, and Ikeep them in my cupboard."

  "You are much vain because your father is an agency policeman and earnsmoney, so he buys nice things for Susie," Hannah Straight Tree said,with growing envy. "Dolly has to wear the issue goods, and she will notlook pretty Christmas time! Her dress will be a kind that looks black,and Lucinda only knows a way to make it look like an Indian dress. Shewill wear cowskin shoes so much too large, and very ugly-coloredstockings. If her dress gets torn before she comes, Lucinda will notmend it nice--only draw it up so puckery. Very lots of grease spotswill be on it, and her hair will be so snarly I shall have to comb hervery fast."

  "My little sister is not torn and dirty any time," said Cordelia RunningBird, "for my mother came to mission school when she was young andlearned the neat way."

  "My big sister only went to camp school just a little while," saidHannah Straight Tree. "When my mother died she had to stay at home andwork and keep my little sister. Now again my father has got married,and Lucinda wants to come to school and bring my little sister. Dollywas five birthdays last Thanksgiving dinner."

  "Susie was five birthdays while I was at home vacation. I would be soglad if she could stay at school next time she comes, but she wassliding on the ice, and she fell and broke herself right here."Cordelia touched her collarbone. "She is mended, but my mother isafraid to leave her with the children now," she added. "But next yearshe will leave her. If your big and little sister come to school theywill have nice mission things."

  "But they cannot for my father," Hannah Straight Tree said, withdeepening gloom. "He would let Lucinda, but he says Dolly is too short;she must be ten birthdays when she comes. Lucinda loves Dolly, so shewill not leave her, and my stepmother is cross-tempered. Lucinda willbe twenty-one birthdays--much too old to come to school--when Dolly isten birthdays."

  "You can tell your father the teachers like the Indian children come
toschool when they are very short, so they can grow them morewhite-minded," said Cordelia Running Bird.

  "I told him, but he says he does not want his children verywhite-minded. He says I came to school so short that they have grown metoo white-minded. I tell him I am very Indian-minded, but he tells me Ido not know white from Indian. Lucinda is so sad she will not try. Shelooks so horrid--Dolly, too--I am much ashamed of them. I shall notspeak to them before the white visitors and the teachers--only down atcamp."

  "Then you will be very wrong," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I would notbe ashamed to speak to my own people anywhere."

  "Ee! You talk so good because your father wears a grand policeman'scoat and trousers, and your mother's head is in a hood!" said HannahStraight Tree, excitedly. "My father wears a very funny Indian clothes,and feathers in his hairs, and my big sister's head is in a shawl. Allthe girls will say on Christmas, 'Susie looked just like a fairy in theJack Frost song. We shall give her very lots of candy from ourChristmas bags.' Dolly knows the Jack Frost motions; I taught her, andshe did them with the children down at camp. But I shall not tell theteacher, for Dolly has no pretty things to wear. That is why I won'tlet her play the games. If my father saw her in the Jack Frost songsand games, he would be glad she is so smart and just like he would lether come to school. But you would be so sorry if my big and littlesister came to school. You think Susie is a skin-white girl and Dollyis a very copper-colored Indian."

  "You do not speak true," was the denial. "I should not be sorry, and Ido not think Susie is a skin-white girl. She is very copper-colored,too."

  "But you do not wish Dolly would be in the Jack Frost song and wear ared dress just like Susie's!" challenged Hannah Straight Tree,disconcerting her companion with the piercing gaze habitual to her race.

  Though not quite innocent of all the charges laid to her, CordeliaRunning Bird was a truthful girl, and she would not disown a failingplainly set before her by another. She evaded her companion's gaze insilence.

  "You are thinking hard! You cannot say it!" was the fierce indictmentfrom Hannah Straight Tree.

  "But--I wish she could be in another motion song--and wear a--greendress," came the hesitating answer.

  "Ee! You think they would not watch Susie all the time if Dollymotioned Jack Frost, too, and looked like Susie! And you do not wishthat Dolly had a blue dress--only ugly green--and looked like Susie inthe games," said Hannah Straight Tree.

  "But little white girls do not need to wear alike dresses," was CordeliaRunning Bird's argument. "Because the little white visitor last summerlooked just like a fairy in the pretty pink with white lace, did hersister have to wish another little white girl looked the very too same?"she asked.

  "There is a difference, but I cannot tell," answered Hannah StraightTree, taking down her broom in puzzled moodiness.

  The two girls went about their work in a most unfortunate state of mind.Hannah's discontent at Dolly's lack and Susie's plenty, and the prospectof Cordelia's triumphs through the petted little sister, grew upon her,and resulted in unlooked-for trials to Cordelia, who was muchdiscomfited by the force of her companion's criticisms.

  Cordelia Running Bird was a bright, attractive girl, quite conscientiousin discharging her industrial and school duties, and much interested inthe Sunday-school; but in a private talk the very day before, theteachers had referred to her in some perplexity.

  "I wish Cordelia Running Bird were a little different," said theschool-teacher. "She leads her class, and is a credit to the school inmost respects, but she is rather too ambitious to outdo others. Itcreates jealousy."

  "I have observed that she is notional in the making of her dresses,"said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little widerand the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asksto have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffleon the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if Igrant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her toofrequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, ifnot speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if byintuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconsciousof the fact that she makes the other girls discontented. But she is sopleasant and obedient, as a rule, that minor faults may be forgivenher," the white mother charitably concluded.