"I must say I don't believe there ever was anybody but Washington that
didn't tell a lie. It's awfully hard to be exactly truthful always," said
Lluella. "You remember that time in the primary grade, just after we'd
come here to Briarwood, Belle?"

"Do I?" laughed Belle Tingley. "You fibbed all right then, Miss."

"It wasn't very bad--and I did _want_ to see the whole school so much.
So--so I took one of my pencils to our teacher and asked her if she would
ask the other scholars if it was theirs.

"Of course, all the other girls in our room said it wasn't," proceeded
Lluella. "Then teacher said just what I wanted her to say: 'You may
inquire in the other classes.' So I went around and saw all the other
classes and had a real nice time.

"But when I got back with the pencil in my hand still, Belle come near
getting me into trouble."

"Uh-huh!" admitted Belle, nodding.

"How?" asked somebody.

"She just whispered--right out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you
know it!' And I had to say--right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what
could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, I s'pose."

The assembled girls laughed. But Ann Hicks was still seriously inclined
not to go into the woods, although she had no idea of telling a fib about
it. And because she was too proud to say to the teacher in charge that she
feared Miss Mitchell's tongue, the western girl joined the
greens-gathering party at the very last minute.

There were two four-seated sleighs, for there was a hard-packed white
track into the woods toward Triton Lake. Old Dolliver drove one, and his
helper manned the other. The English teacher was in charge. She hoped to
find bushels of holly berries and cedar buds as well as the materials for
wreaths.

One pair of the horses was western--high-spirited, hard-bitted mustangs.
Ann Hicks recognized them before she got into the sleigh. How they pulled
and danced, and tossed the froth from their bits!

"I feel just as they do," thought the girl. "I'd love to break out, and
kick, and bite, and act the very Old Boy! Poor things! How they must miss
the plains and the free range."

The other girls wondered what made her so silent. The tang of the frosty
air, and the ring of the ponies' hoofs, and the jingle of the bells put
plenty of life and fun into her mates; but Ann remained morose.

They reached the edge of the swamp and the girls alighted with merry shout
and song. They were all armed with bi