“And you will feel so proud because the visitors and the school will look at Susie, and the middle-sized and little girls will always choose her in the games.  They would not choose my little sister if she played,” 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 the ring if they should choose her, and she would not know the way to choose back,” answered Cordelia Running Bird.

“Ee!  She would!  She would!” disputed Hannah Straight Tree.  “Dolly is as brave and smart as Susie—­smarter, too, for she is shorter!  She could play the games if I would let her!”

“But you will not,” replied the other; “you must not scold about my little sister.  Susie knows the motions in the Jack Frost song so well the teachers says that she can motion with the children in the Christmas entertainment.”

“She does not motion right,” said Hannah Straight Tree.  “She gets behind, 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 will laugh at her and praise her,” said Cordelia Running Bird, undismayed.  “She will not wear the blue dress in the Jack Frost song.  She will wear a red dress from my mission box.  I asked the white mother if I could not buy the red cloth for an entertainment dress for Susie with the money that she paid because I tended baby one month till the nurse-girl came.  And she said if I wished I could put a nickel on the missionary plate 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.  She keeps 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, so all the school can hear, when Amy Swimmer passes you the plate!” cried Hannah Straight Tree.  “Just like it says, ’Ee!  I am putting on a nickel, 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 girl to cut it fine and help make the red dress very fast.  The sewing teacher has not time for such dresses.  Ver-r-y pr-r-etty it will look!” Cordelia Running Bird smiled prospectively, displaying small white teeth and two round dimples.  “Christmas evening I shall curl Susie’s hair with a slate pencil, and she will wear fine shoes, and black stockings with the red dress.  My father brought them with the blue dress, and I keep them in my cupboard.”