Presently she murmured in the passive monotone of a despairing Indian girl:  “Just like I have to stop and think before I do it.  If I drown the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for she will not let me speak to her:  ’Now you see I truly am not vain, for I have put the Christmas clothes for Susie in my workbag, and a stone, so it would sink, and I have drowned them in the airhole in the middle of the river.’

“But again that would be bragging,” was her puzzled afterthought.  “Just like Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and bought the brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain.  And the teachers looked so sorry, and I was ashamed to tell the white mother.  Everything I say and do is vain and bragging, and I cannot think hard enough to help it.  My tongue bragged about Dolly and Lucinda’s hair ribbons to the little girls, and my feet bragged about the issue shoes, I stuck them out so far.  And when the girls made fun of me I did not pull the shoes back, for I wanted them to think I was not scared, but sorry.  I was truly trying to try hard, but I was trying the wrong way.  Now my pencil will be bragging if it tells Hannah Straight Tree I have drowned the things.”

Cordelia sat in troubled thought while the pink and golden colors of the sunset faded from the sky above the bluffs and the wind sighed through the hollow.

“The white mother says it is not right to even waste a pin, and many nice things that have cost much money would be wasted if I drowned them.  I shall look at them and think again what I can do.”

She drew the contents from the bag and spread them on her lap.  First she gave attention to the little blue dress she had helped to make at the expense of many play hours.

[Illustration:  She drew the contents from her bag and spread them on her lap.]

“Emma Two Bears made the waist so nice and said she would not take one thing for pay, but I made her take a shell necklace that was very pretty; but I did not care for it myself, it was so Indian-minded.  Emma is so generous.  I wish I could be generous.  If I should give the blue dress to Dolly, and the black shoes and stockings, just like I should be some generous.  What if I should truly do it?” with a sudden interest in her tone.  “She would look as pretty as the little schoolgirls then, and she could motion Jack Frost, and Hannah and the others could not say Susie did not need the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings.  I am ’most sure Jessie Turning Heart will help me make the red dress, if I bring the playroom wood for her, till we change work next month.  She hates to bring wood, for her foot gets cold, and then the sore bunch pinches her much worse.  She is very fast and stylish making dresses, and she feather-stitches; and she says she is not cross at me.  She said one time she liked to sew so much, just like she would be getting up and sewing in her sleep.  So I shall ask her to trade work.