Produced by Prepared by Al Haines.
A Story of an Indian Mission School
By THEODORA R. JENNESS
It was a Saturday morning in December at the Indian Mission School.Two young Sioux girls were going up the stairs—Hannah Straight Tree andCordelia Running Bird. It was their Saturday for cleaning. The twogirls drew a heavy breath in prospect of the difficult task thatconfronted them. The great unplastered mission building was a chillyplace throughout the winter, and the halls and stairway that morningwere drafty from the blustering wind that swept the Dakota plains andcame through the outer doors below, where restless children kept goingto and fro continually. The young hall-girls shivered on the upperlanding, and stepped back in a sheltered niche in which the brooms werehanging. They had thrown their aprons over their heads and shoulders,and were dreading to begin their work.
"My floor and stairs always look nicer than your floor and stairs," said
Hannah Straight Tree to Cordelia Running Bird.
"Because you have the teachers' side, and that's always nicer, to beginwith, than the girls' side," answered Cordelia Running Bird. "You knowthe teachers never walk whole-feet when you are scrubbing. If they haveto go by, they walk tiptoe, and their toes are sharp and clean and donot make big tracks. But all the children on my side walk whole-feetover the wet floor when I am scrubbing, and their shoes are big andmuddy. Ugh! big tracks they make! But I have learned the motto, everyword, and I can speak that when I feel discouraged with my work."Cordelia Running Bird gazed at the motto, while the dormitory girlsflocked by, and when the hall was quiet she repeated it in the peculiarmonotonous tone with which an Indian pupil usually recites:
"Those who faithfully perform the task of keeping clean the dark places,the cold places and the rough places, are they to whom it may indeed besaid, 'Well done.'"
"I shall not try to learn the motto, for it makes my memory tired," saidHannah Straight Tree. "I do not like to think hard or work hard. I amglad I have the teachers' side."
"If you do not think hard you will have a heart that is a dark place,like the scrub-pail closet, and it will he hard to keep it clean ofwrong thoughts, like the white mother talked about in Sunday-school.The motto means inside of us as well as places where we live. I like tothink hard," said Cordelia Running Bird. "I heard the teacher tell thewhite mother that I had the best memory of any middle-sized girl, andshe said it was as good as many white girls' memories of my age, andthat is 'most fourteen. So I am to speak the longest middle-sized piecein the Christmas entertainment."
"Ee!" cried Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a whitememory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed to tell it!"
"She will not praise you, for you are always very dumb in school. Youwill not try to speak a lesson only with the class in concert," saidCordelia Running Bird. "I shall try to finish very fast this morning.There are only two more Saturdays till Christmas, and to-day I want tofeather-stitch the little new blue dress for Susie. She will wear itevery day when she is here Christmas. Many white and Indian visitorswill be here."
"And you will feel so proud because the visitors and the school willlook at Susie, and the middle-sized and little girls will always chooseher in the games. They would not choose my little sister if sheplayed," said Hannah Straight Tree, wi