e gathered at
the stile in front, watching with intensity a solitary little figure
moving slowly on a far side of the pasture, near the barbed wire fence.

"Again there walks Cordelia Running Bird very far away," said Hannah
Straight Tree. "She has walked alone two afternoons. She must be
thinking very hard."

"She is going on the mourner's walk," observed the girl who kept the
playroom. "When an Indian walks alone, so far and very slow, that means
they are too sad. She cannot be happy, for the large girls--only me--and
the middle-sized girls do not talk to her. Then, too, of course, she
thinks of Annie. It was just one year ago this Monday that they took
her to the agency. The large girls did not wash, because there was a
funeral."

"And Cordelia Running Bird was so proud because the girls all cried,"
said Hannah. "Now I wish we had not cried."

"Kee! You must not be so mean as that," exclaimed the largest girl, in
shocked surprise. "Of course we cried for Annie. She was very kind to
everyone--not cross like us."

"She was a very little cross, sometimes, because she was an Indian. She
tried much harder than Cordelia Running Bird."

"I am glad I sang 'The Sweet By and By' when she was so afraid," said
Emma Two Bears.

The girls were silent for a little, stirred by memories of the
schoolmate who had passed into the life beyond.

Meantime the solitary girl in the snowy pasture continued her walk.

"I can wish I had not told Cordelia Running Bird that I would not sleep
with anyone but her," said Hannah. "I am glad she is not in the middle
dormitory now."

"They put her in our dormitory so that she can go and tell the teachers
if a little girl is sick, or cries," remarked the prudent little girl,
who had arrived upon the scene with several other children. "The
teachers say she wakes up easy, and is braver in the dark than any other
girl."

"Ee! Cordelia Running Bird is a dress pattern for the other girls--I
mean a pattern!" Hannah cried. "Cordelia is the bravest, and she has a
white memory, so she has the longest piece. Cordelia is polite. She
keeps her clothes so clean and does not tear them, so the missionary
ladies send her prettier things, for the teachers write she is so nice.
The visitors always talk about Cordelia Running Bird very lots. They do
not think the girls are listening, but they are."

"They should not listen. That is stealing talk, the white mother says,"
replied the prude