She turned, and saw to her surprise that Emma Two Bears, who had come behind her to the porch, was gathering up her wood.  Emma often helped to fill the wood-box in the music room, as an especial friend of hers attended to that work, and Cordelia feared her wood was being boldly captured for that purpose.  She was about to cry out sharply, but restrained herself and fell back silently, while Emma passed into the house.  Cordelia followed her, and saw with sinking heart that Emma took a straight track through the playroom for the music room; but on the threshold of the room she whirled about, and, walking to the playroom wood-box, dropped the wood in.

“Thank you very much!” exclaimed Cordelia, in sign language on her fingers.  Etiquette forbade her to employ her tongue in the expression of her gratitude, seeing that the girls had placed a ban on it.  A curious contortion of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet was used among the Indian girls when pride forbade the use of speech.

“You need not thank me.  I am only punishing Hannah Straight Tree,” Emma answered, likewise with her fingers.

This exchange of compliments was read without scruple by the many pairs of eyes, including Hannah’s, that were watching the affair.

“Emma Two Bears talks deaf-and-dumb to her.  Now we can plan crack-the-whip with her, for that is not a speaking game,” observed a middle-sized girl, who had been a comrade of Cordelia’s heretofore.

“She will not have time to crack the whip,” said Hannah.  “She is going to the south dormitory, where she sits her whole playtime helping sew the red dress for Susie, so she can look nicer than the other little home sisters and the little schoolgirls.”

“You are very jealous-minded, and you try hard to spite Cordelia Running Bird,” said the recent comrade.

“You can talk that way because you have no little sister,” grumbled Hannah.

Cordelia passed upstairs with quick steps.

“Just like the large and middle-sized girls—­only Hannah Straight Tree—­ will again be speaking to me pretty soon,” she said to Jessie Turning Heart, who sat beside a sunny window in the south dormitory sewing briskly on the little red waist.

“They cannot speak to you till Christmas day, because they all said they would not,” Jessie answered.  “Then if you ap-ol-ogize and say you do not wish them to be cripples any more, and that you will stop talking vain, they will again speak to you, and they will walk heel or tiptoe on your floor.”

“I shall write an ap-ol-ogy in Dakota on three papers Christmas morning, and pin them on a side of the three dormitories, but you must not tell, because I do not wish to brag what I shall do,” Cordelia said, in strictest confidence.

“I think it would be better if you had but one shoes and stockings and best dress for Susie.  But you cannot help it now,” the playroom girl replied.  “Two best dresses and two shoes and stockings look too many, when the other little home sisters have not one best thing.”