"
"You can speak to her, because she could not call you shovel-feeted, for
the white mother lets you always wear the mission shoes," said Hannah
Straight Tree, growing bold again.
"Because I have an onion--no, a bunion--on my foot. The issue shoes
would make it worse. Just like there is no girl in school that does not
hate to have the horrid whole-feet tracks on her wet floor."
"I hate them--some," confessed a middle dormitory girl.
"I, too," admitted a south dormitory girl. "I threw a few drops of
scrub water on a girl that walked whole-feet."
"I told a girl her tracks were so big, just like she had on snowshoes,"
said a north dormitory girl, relentingly.
"Of course, I made the very biggest kind of tracks on Cordelia Running
Bird's wet floor," said the largest girl; "but if we walk tiptoe all the
other girls will laugh and say, 'See how she nips along. She tries to
walk so nice, just like the teachers.' And if we are walking on our
heels they say, 'Very awkward; hear her tramp just like a steer.' But
it is not kind to walk whole-feet."
The race mood was upon the wane, and Hannah Straight Tree was fast
losing influence.
"I would not have cared so much about the blue dress and the black shoes
and stockings, but she bought the red dress and the brown shoes and
stockings, when her little sister does not need them," Hannah argued in
an injured tone.
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