“Charles Black!” ejaculated Miss Mason, “what do you mean by this nonsense? You can’t go to the blackboard, and you can’t go downstairs. Are you sick? Why can’t you go?”

Charlie half rose from his seat, then sank back.

“I’m stuck fast!” he wailed. “It’s the taffy.”

The class began to laugh.

“That will do,” Miss Mason checked them. “Where did you get this taffy, Charles?”

“I took it,” admitted Charlie sullenly. “I was sitting on it to keep till after school, and it’s melted.”

Miss Mason sat down at her desk.

“The dismissal bell will ring in a few minutes,” she observed. “As usual, we shall have no afternoon school the first day. All those I have asked to remain will stay of course. I won’t have to ask you to stay after the session, Charles. You haven’t much choice in the matter. We’ll discuss this more fully later.”

“My, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes!” said Bobby, as he and Meg walked home. “Aren’t you hungry, Meg?”

“Starved,” agreed Meg. “What do you suppose the twins have been doing all the morning?”

As a matter of fact, the twins had been busy. The moment Bobby and Meg left they began to play school.

“I’ll be the teacher,” declared Twaddles, “and I want a lot of scholars. Get the dolls, Dot, and Philip and Annabel Lee.”

“And the crayons,” suggested Dot. “Where’ll we play?”

“In the sitting room,” decided Twaddles. “There’s more chairs.”

Dot collected Geraldine and another of her dolls, Totty-Fay, and Meg’s doll, Mary Maud, and trotted out to the garage to get Philip and the cat, Annabel Lee. When she returned with these pets, Twaddles had the chairs drawn up in two rows and the dolls already in their places.

“You and Philip and Annabel Lee can sit up in front,” he said generously. “This piano bench is my desk. Want to come to school, Mother?”

Mother Blossom, who had stopped in to see what they were doing, shook her head.

“Haven’t time to go to school this morning,” she said. “Twaddles, if you are the schoolmaster, wouldn’t you like these old rims to play with? I always used to want to wear glasses when I played school as a little girl.”

Twaddles took the horn-rimmed spectacles joyfully. There was no glass in them, but they gave him a very learned, important look. Indeed, Philip stared at him perfectly fascinated.

“The class in reading will now recite,” announced Teacher Twaddles in his severest voice. “Come up to the platform, little girl.”

Dot obediently rose and went up to the piano bench.

“Read the first page of this,” commanded Twaddles, handing her a book. “Make a bow first.”

Dot ducked stiffly. The dolls watched her unwinkingly and the dog and cat apparently wondered what would happen next.

“Now begin,” said Twaddles.

Neither he nor Dot could read, but they knew a number of poems by heart, and when they pretended to read they always held a book and repeated some of their favorite rhymes. So now Dot recited as much of “The Night Before Christmas” as she could remember.

“Very good,” said the teacher graciously. “Take your seat. The class in geography will please recite.”

Geraldine and Mary Maud obligingly moved forward and told the capital city of the United States, and which state was the nicest to live in and where the Atlantic Ocean was. They spoke in high, squeaky voices that made Philip prick up his ears suspiciously, but they received a “perfect” mark in the teacher’s book.

“I wish we could go to regular school,” mourned Dot suddenly. “Do you s’pose Meg and Bobby are having a good time?”

“Let’s ask Mother if we can go to meet ’em,” proposed Twaddles. “Come on.”

Mother Blossom, when they asked her, said that school would be out in ten or fifteen minutes and that she had no objection if they wanted to walk up town and meet the others.

Twaddles and Dot put the chairs back where they belonged and carried the dolls upstairs to the bedroom Meg and Dot shared together.

“We’ll take Philip and Annabel Lee,” said Dot. “I guess Meg will be glad to see them, she’s been gone so long.”

So as Meg and Bobby turned into their street, they saw the twins coming to meet them.

“How do you like school?” shouted Twaddles. “Is it fun? Did you have to recite? Look how glad Philip is to see you.”

Indeed the dog was leaping and barking about Meg as though she had been gone all summer instead of one morning.

“My goodness, what did you lug that cat for?” demanded Bobby, big-brother fashion. “You’ve torn some of the gathers in your dress, too, Dot.”

“Don’t care,” said Dot, giving Annabel Lee over to Meg with a sigh of relief, for the cat was heavy. “I caught it on a nail coming down the steps. Twaddles and I played school.”

“I led the line, going in to assembly,” reported Meg importantly. “Where’s Mother? I want to tell her.”

They had reached the house by this time, and the little Blossoms dashed up the stairs to find their mother and tell her all the news. The twins listened eagerly, for the slightest word about school never failed to enthrall them.

“So I think Tim Roon is hateful,” concluded Bobby, when he had finished telling Mother Blossom about the unfortunate snake. “And Charlie Black is just like him.”

“Now, children,” said Mother Blossom firmly, “you needn’t tell me any child is hateful, I don’t care who he is or what he does. You may think this Tim Roon hasn’t a single pleasant trait, but that doesn’t prove that he has none, only that you are not able to find it. Don’t let’s have talk like this. If you find your other classmates friendly and pleasant, think as little about the disagreeable ones as you can. There’s the lunch gong.”

After the meal the four children went out to the garage to find out what Sam Layton was going to do that afternoon, because he often had interesting plans.

“Thought you had to go to school,” Sam greeted Meg and Bobby. “Aren’t in the kindergarten, are you?”

“You know we’re not,” answered Bobby indignantly. “First day they always have one session, so’s the teachers can get their records fixed up. Are you going to take the car out, Sam?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Sam. “I’ve got orders to meet your father at the foundry at two o’clock.”

“Take us?” begged Meg. “Daddy won’t care. Dot, you run and ask Mother.”

“Can’t take you,” Sam informed her regretfully. “Your father’s going on to Clayton for a meeting. Maybe we won’t get back till eight or nine o’clock to-night.”

Meg thought this over.

“Take us as far as the foundry,” she suggested. “We can walk home.”

“Yes, and maybe I’ll find some specimens,” said Bobby. “I’ll go and get my bag and hammer.”

Bobby meant the little hammer he used to crack stones with and the bag he kept to put the cracked bits in. Bobby was very much interested in pebbles and stones. He thought some day he might succeed in finding a valuable piece of mineral.

“You ask your mother if it’s all right,” insisted Sam, beginning to brush his suit and getting out his cap and gloves from the wall closet. “You’re going to be on hand, Dot, aren’t you?”

Dot had already climbed into the car and was sitting on the front seat smiling serenely at the others. She looked very pretty in a fresh pink frock that had replaced the torn dress before lunch, and her cheeks were pink, too.

“Mother says all right, but we mustn’t go a bit further than the foundry,” reported Bobby, coming back in a few minutes with his precious hammer and little white canvas bag. “Let me drive, Sam?”

“I should say not,” responded Sam promptly. “I’ll teach you to drive, Bobby, the day you’re old enough to run a car and not one minute before. In with you now, Meg?”

Meg shook her head. It was impossible to induce her to get in the car and be comfortable while Sam was backing it down the long driveway into the street. The other children never thought anything about it, but Meg was always afraid that the car would tip over, and no amount of persuasion or reasoning could change her.

She ran down to the curb now, and waited till the car rolled out. Sam stopped and she jumped in. Sam was very fond of Meg and never made fun of her, as the twins often did, because she was afraid to trust him to get out of the driveway safely.

“It’s a fine day for a drive,” commented Sam, as the car moved off smoothly. “Mercy on us, what’s that under the seat?”