“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.