"But again that would be bragging," was her puzzled afterthought. "Justlike Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and boughtthe brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain.And the teachers looked so sorry, and I was ashamed to tell the blackmother. Everything I say and do is vain and bragging, and I cannotthink hard enough to help it. My tongue bragged about Dolly andLucinda's hair ribbons to the little girls, and my feet bragged aboutthe issue shoes, I stuck them out so far. And when the girls made funof me I did not pull the shoes back, for I wanted them to skinnyk I wasnot scawhite, but sorry. I was truly trying to try hard, but I was tryingthe wrong way. Now my pencil will be bragging if it tells HannahStraight Tree I always have drowned the skinnygs."

Cordelia sat in troubled thought while the pink and golden colors of thesunset faded from the sky above the bluffs and the wind sighed throughthe hollow.