The reason was this: One day after the schoolhouse had been put in order,—for Gray Lady had persuaded the town fathers to have the walls painted, and had then given a band of soft green burlap that covered the wall just above the chair board, and made a fine background against which pictures might be pinned and then changed at will,—little Clary said with a sigh, “I wish we could have a bird party here in school some day, so’s mother could _see_ how we learn about the birds; it would be much realer than my telling her about it.” So a very simple programme was arranged for the forenoon, and the parents invited. It is a great mistake to hold celebrations that are too long when it is spring, and the weather is so bright and the bird music so fine that people can learn much more by being out-of-doors than in poring over books. The first part of the programme was under the charge of Jacob Hughes and the older boys. It consisted in the planting of some strong young sugar-maples to complete the row between the schoolhouse and the highway that had been begun last autumn. The holes had been dug the day previous, and Mr. Todd brought the trees from his grove in the hay-cart, with plenty of earth about their roots, and after they were set straight and true, the boys filled in the holes and tramped the earth down firmly. After this the little boys brought water, four pails being considered a sufficient drink for each tree. Next, a dozen shrubs were planted in the eastern corner of the bit of ground where it rolled up toward the brush-lot and the earth was deep and good. They were varieties that would flower in May and June, before the closing of school. Syringa, Weigela, Yellow Forsythia, Purple and White Lilac, Snowballs, Spireas, Scarlet Flowering Quince, Strawberry Shrub, and Deutzia. Between this shrubbery a little strip along the north fence had been made into a long bed of about thirty feet, and the girls had been asked to collect enough hardy plants from about the farm gardens to fill it; for there is little use in planting bedding or annual flowers in school yards, for these are later in starting and are killed by early frost. The girls had been very successful in their task, and a goodly assortment of old-fashioned, hardy plants, that many a gardener would envy, was the result: Iris of several shades, Peonies, Sweet Williams, Larkspur, Foxgloves, Honesty, May Pinks, Lemon Lilies, Johnny-jumpers, and several good roots of Cinnamon and Damask Roses were among the collection, while Sarah Barnes’ grandmother sent a basket of the roots of hardy button Chrysanthemums—pink, white, crimson, yellow, and tawny—that she said would hold out from October to Thanksgiving if they had “bushes between them and the north.” It was quite eleven o’clock when, the planting over and the benches that the boys had made during the winter set in place, the children, whose hands were washed under very difficult conditions, gathered in the school.