“What if I should tip it over?” she said.

“Ee!  You must not.  It would freeze, and I should have to scald my hands with too hot water, thawing it!” exclaiming Cordelia Running Bird, rushing to prevent her.

In her haste to keep the pail from being overturned Cordelia hit it with her foot, upsetting it herself.  The stairs were deluged with the contents, Hannah Straight Tree fell back with a laugh.  “Now see what you have done yourself!  I did not spill one drop.  You cannot say I did.”

Cordelia Running Bird burst into upbraiding exclamations in Dakota, which, because they wished them to learn to speak English, was a forbidden language in the school except on Sundays and on holidays.  By an odd mishap of memory, Cordelia was apt to break the rule in moments of excitement, and she knew the penalty too well.

“Now you have talked Dakota, and you must report yourself,” Hannah Straight Tree said triumphantly.  “You wished the dormitory girls would have to lie in bed—­now you must lie in bed yourself.  You cannot feather-stitch or speak to anyone.”

The unclean water froze upon the stairs, and Cordelia Running Bird’s work of thawing it with hot water was a long and painful process.  When it was accomplished, though but poorly, she went upstairs a second time, passing through the front hall to the white mother’s room to report that she had spoken in Dakota.

“Again, Cordelia?  How can you forget so often?” said the young white mother in a seriously inquiring tone.

The little Indian girl’s excitement had now given place to discouragement.  She was silent for some time, then she murmured an original defense.

“The cross thoughts come in Indian, and I speak them out that way.  Che-cha (hateful) means much more in Indian than in English.  Dakota is my own language, and it tells me how to scold just right.”

“No, dear, just wrong,” was the reply.  Then looking at the draggled little figure with head drooped moodily and smarting hands locked tightly at the sides, the white mother added, “You have had a cold, hard time this morning in the hall, I know.  Have you been cross about your work?” The gentle voice invited confidence, but it did not melt Cordelia Running Bird.

“Yes, ma’am.  I was very cross at Hannah Straight Tree and the dormitory girls.  I called the dormitory girls a name, and then a pail of very dirty water was tipped over on my stairs, so again I had to clean them, and I screamed at Hannah Straight Tree in Dakota.”

“Did Hannah tip it over?”

“No, ma’am, I tipped it over.”

With all her sense of injury, Cordelia Running Bird would not tell tales to divide the blame.

The white mother saw that there was more than she knew of connected with the trouble in the hall, but seeing that the race mood was upon Cordelia, she forbore all further questions.

“It has often been explained that if the older pupils spoke Dakota very much the little ones would speak it, too, and not learn English as they should,” she said.  “I’m sorry that the cross thoughts caused you to forget, Cordelia Running Bird.”