"I wish Cordelia Running Bird were a little different," said the
school-teacher. "She leads her class, and is a credit to the school in
most respects, but she is rather too ambitious to outdo others. It
creates jealousy."
"I have observed that she is notional in the making of her dresses,"
said the sewing teacher. "She is apt to want the skirt a little wider
and the hem a half-inch deeper than the regular uniform. And she asks
to have more buttonholes, which means more buttons, and an extra ruffle
on the waist. But she begs me so politely and appears so thankful, if I
grant these trifling favors, that I find myself indulging her too
frequently. She does the extra work herself, cheerfully and neatly, if
not speedily, but closely watched by others. She has learned as if by
intuition that variety is the spice of life, but she seems unconscious
of the fact that she makes the other girls discontented. But she is so
pleasant and obedient, as a rule, that minor faults may be forgiven
her," the white mother charitably concluded.
CHAPTER II.
As something quite unusual at that season in the Dakotas, there had been
a thaw the day before, and a great quantity of mud had been tracked in
on the girls' side by the sewing classes coming from the schoolhouse,
separate from the main mission building, to the upstairs room in which
the sewing work was done.
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