If I had learned the motto I should try to be good,"
said Hannah Straight Tree.
"The motto does not say a girl can tell us we must do a work that is not
ours, and we must mind her. I shall sweep your dirt back," was the warm
reply.
Cordelia Running Bird gave her broom a sudden push and sent the
sweepings flying backward in a cloud.
"Now look how mean you are! Again I have to sweep my floor!" cried
Hannah Straight Tree, angrily. "Proud--vain--cross--mean!" She
counted the four failings on her fingers.
"Not the least bit do I care," replied Cordelia Running Bird, stung
beyond endurance by Hannah's taunts. "I was not cross at first, but now
I am, because you call me four bad names. I am now glad your little
sister cannot play the games, or motion in one song, or even have an
ugly green dress. I am not sorry that your big and little sister cannot
come to school, and very much I wish I had not learned the motto."
Here the young Sioux girl, who was compelled to battle with hereditary
pride and stubbornness in every effort to do right, forgot the white
mother's admonition that the heart might be a dark place and a cold
place needing to be cleansed of evil thoughts.
Hannah Straight Tree did not hunt the dustpan, but with perseverance
worthy of a better cause, she brushed the sweepings from her floor and
stairs upon a ragged palm-leaf fan which she discovered in a corner,
and, dropping them into the scrub-pail, took them out of doors.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25