Red, White, and Blue were correct, each having a big round O on their slates. So was number four, called Silver Ribbon. Several of the others were incorrect. Black Ribbon wrote down that he thought the parrot was right, but that after all he wasn't sure if the nuts were bad. He had a big head, a loving heart, and open honest brown eyes, and when the teacher saw what was written down he laughed and took him up in his arms and kissed him. "My simple pet," said Robin, "you have as good a head as the others, but you have not been so long in the class; and, besides, your mamma is a poor, sick widow and unable to help you with your lessons." Silver Ribbon (whose constant position for a certain reason was against the apple-tree) was the oftenest correct of all the class; but though very frolicsome and good-looking, she had a strange sly look about her face, very different from Black Ribbon's. Chattie was pleased to hear her master sympathise with Black Ribbon, and desiring that no one might overlook his remark, she very distinctly said-- "Failure does not always mean a faulty head." She had quite a liking for Black Ribbon, and well she might: he was a splendid climber of trees, and a magnificent leaper from branch to branch, his best feats being performed too whether the others were looking on or not. He was also civil and kind to everyone, and was most helpful to his sick mother at home. For these reasons, Chattie had lately taken his arithmetic in hand, but she was a great joker, and sometimes led the simple-minded little fellow astray. She was very sorry for his helpless mother, and therefore she visited her every day, prepared her meals, chatted with her, made her bed and swept the house with her tail. Indeed widow Black Ribbon's final recovery was due to Chattie's careful nursing, rather than to Dr. Beaver's baths and poplar pills. CHAPTER IV. THE ADVICE OF HUG-GRIPPY, THE AFFECTIONATE. The class was just finishing when Hug-grippy, the chief of the Chippewa bears, appeared upon the scene. He had come on a friendly visit, and to get a breakfast of ripe raspberries and honey that Robin had promised him for saving the white pony, Plumpy, from the horns of a huge elk. He had indulged in a recent meal evidently, for his ribs bulged out so much and so comically that Chattie shrieked with laughter and cried out-- "There is more nourishment in fasting sometimes than in eating over much." Hug-grippy himself laughed, although had he been thin-skinned he would not, but he was good-natured, and looking up he merely remarked that Miss Chattie appeared to him to be uttering a contradiction in some way or other. For his entertainment the teacher gave the class another question in division, and Hug-grippy wondered at their cleverness. "As for me," said he, "I am bad at any kind of counting, but I can't do division at all. I suppose it's because I----"