Big and Little Sisters by Theodora R. Jenness
page 6 of 55 (10%)
page 6 of 55 (10%)
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deepening gloom. "He would let Lucinda, but he says Dolly is too short;
she must be ten birthdays when she comes. Lucinda loves Dolly, so she will not leave her, and my stepmother is cross-tempered. Lucinda will be twenty-one birthdays--much too old to come to school--when Dolly is ten birthdays." "You can tell your father the teachers like the Indian children come to school when they are very short, so they can grow them more white-minded," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I told him, but he says he does not want his children very white-minded. He says I came to school so short that they have grown me too white-minded. I tell him I am very Indian-minded, but he tells me I do not know white from Indian. Lucinda is so sad she will not try. She looks so horrid--Dolly, too--I am much ashamed of them. I shall not speak to them before the white visitors and the teachers--only down at camp." "Then you will be very wrong," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I would not be ashamed to speak to my own people anywhere." "Ee! You talk so good because your father wears a grand policeman's coat and trousers, and your mother's head is in a hood!" said Hannah Straight Tree, excitedly. "My father wears a very funny Indian clothes, and feathers in his hairs, and my big sister's head is in a shawl. All the girls will say on Christmas, 'Susie looked just like a fairy in the Jack Frost song. We shall give her very lots of candy from our Christmas bags.' Dolly knows the Jack Frost motions; I taught her, and she did them with the children down at camp. But I shall not tell the teacher, for Dolly has no pretty things to wear. That is why I won't |
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