It was a warm day in early August and the four children were sitting contentedly in the swing. They met almost every afternoon now, but were generally kept under strict surveillance by Miss Minerva.

“\'Twon\'t be long \'fore we\'ll all hafto go to school,” remarked Frances, “and I\'ll be mighty sorry; I wish we didn\'t ever hafto go to any old school.”

“I wisht we knowed how to read an\' write when we\'s born,” said Billy. “If I was God I\'d make all my babies so\'s they is already eddicated when they gits born. Reckon if we\'d pray evy night an\' ask God, He\'d learn them babies what He\'s makin\' on now how to read an\' write?”

“I don\' care nothing at all \'bout them babies,” put in Jimmy, “\'tain\'t going to do us no good if all the new babies what Doctor Sanford finds can read and write; it\'d jes\' make \'em the sassiest things ever was. \'Sides, I got plenty things to ask God for \'thout fooling long other folks\' brats, and I ain\'t going to meddle with God\'s business nohow.”

“Did you all hear what Miss Larrimore, who teaches the little children at school, said about us?” asked Lina importantly.

“Naw,” they chorused, “what was it?”

“She told the Super\'ntendent,” was the reply of Lina, pleased with herself and with that big word, “that she would have to have more money next year, for she heard that Lina Hamilton, Frances Black, William Hill, and Jimmy Garner were all coming to school, and she said we were the most notorious bad children in town.”

“She is the spitefullest woman they is,” Jimmy\'s black eyes snapped; “she \'bout the meddlesomest teacher in that school.”

“Who telled you \'bout it, Lina?” questioned the other little girl.

“The Super\'ntendent told his wife and you know how some ladies are,—they just can\'t keep a secret. Now it is just like burying it to tell mother anything; she never tells anybody but father, and grandmother, and grandfather, and Uncle Ed, and Brother Johnson, and she makes them promise never to breathe it to a living soul. But the Super\'ntendent\'s wife is different; she tells ever\'thing she hears, and now everybody knows what that teacher said about us.”

“Everybody says she is the crankiest teacher they is,” cried Jimmy, “she won\'t let you bring nothing to school \'cepting your books; you can\'t even take your slingshot, nor your air-gun, nor—”

“Nor your dolls,” chimed in Frances, “and she won\'t let you bat your eye, nor say a word, nor cross your legs, nor blow your nose.”

“What do she think we\'s goin\' to her of school fer if we can\'t have fun?” asked Billy. “Tabernicle sho\' had fun when he went to school. He put a pin in the teacher\'s chair an\' she set down on it plumb up to the head, an\' he tie the strings together what two nigger gals had they hair wropped with, an\' he squoze up a little boy\'s legs in front of him with a rooster foot tell he squalled out loud, an\' he th\'owed spitballs, an\' he make him some watermelon teeth, an\' he paint a chicken light red an\' tu............