Then school began, and her new friend made no sign, and Sarah began to wonder if her meeting with Gray Lady had been one of the dreams she so often had when she sat on the orchard fence in June watching the bobolinks fly over the clover and waiting for things to happen. II A RAINY DAY It was the first Friday of the fall term and there were only fifteen scholars at the weather-beaten shingled schoolhouse at Foxes Corners. The usual number in winter was twenty-five, but some of the older pupils did not return until late in October, for these boys and girls helped their fathers and mothers either about the farm work or in the house, and as this school district was located in pretty rolling hill country, with woods and a river close by, city people came to board at the farm-houses and often did not go away until they had seen the leaves redden and fall. Miss Wilde, the teacher, was very glad to begin with only fifteen scholars. She was not very strong; the children were always restless during the first month after their vacation. Then, too, it is more difficult for a teacher to interest scholars that range from five to fifteen than where she has children all of an age. Miss Wilde was very patient, for she loved outdoors and liberty herself, and she knew just how hard it was in these first shut-in days for the children to look out the open windows and see the broad fields stretching out to the woods, and hear the water rushing over the dam at Hull’s Mill, and then take any interest in bounding the Philippine Islands and remembering why they are of special value to the United States. Tommy Todd was what is usually called the “bad boy” of the school. He was thirteen, keen-witted and restless. He learned his lessons quickly, and then when Miss Wilde was hearing the little ones drone out their “twice one is two,” “twice two is four,” he often sat idle in his seat devising mischief that he sometimes put in motion before school was over. Then there were some days when it seemed as if Tommy would leave his desk and fly out of the window in spite of himself. Poor Miss Wilde had been obliged to make him change desks twice already. From his first place he could look at a pasture, where a family of woodchucks had their burrows, and he had caused several stampedes, not only among the boys, but girls also, by calling out: “Hi! there goes a buster! I bet its hide’s worth more’n a quarter! Now Jones’ yaller dog is after him! Hi! there! good work! he’s headin’ of it off! Gee, Hog’s reared and give him a bite! There they go round the hill! If the hole back t’other side I stuffed Saturday’s got loosed out, I bet on the hog!” (Ground-hog being the familiar name for the woodchuck in this region.)