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