mile, "but we shall have
a little play. I'll fix some curtains across the platform where my desk
stands, and that will be the stage. You children--at least some of
you--will be the actors and actresses. It will be a very simple little
play, and I think you can do it. If you do it well perhaps we may give
our play out on the large platform in the big room before the whole
school."

"We had a play in Uncle Dan's barn once in the country," said Flossie.

"I was in it, too," spoke up Freddie, "and I fell down in a hen's nest
and got all eggs."

Even the teacher laughed at this.

"Well, we hope you'll not fall in any hen's nest in our little school
play," said the teacher.

She picked out Flossie, Freddie, Alice Boyd, Johnnie Wilson and some
others to be in the play, and they began to study their parts.

The play was to be called "Mother Goose and her Friends," and the
children would take the parts of the different characters so well known
to all. The teacher was to be Mother Goose herself, with a tall peaked
hat, and a long stick.

"And will you ride on the back of a goosey-gander?" Freddie asked. "It's
that way in the book."

"No, I hardly think I shall ride on the back of a gander," answered the
teacher. "But we will have it as nearly like Mother Goose as we can. You
will be Little Boy Blue, Freddie, for you have blue eyes."

"And what can I be?" asked Flossie.

"I think I'll call you Little Miss Muffet."

"Only I'm not afraid of spiders," Flossie said. "That is I'm not afraid
of them if they don't get on me. One can come and sit down beside me and
I won't mind."

"I guess for the spider we'll get a make-believe one, from the
five-and-ten-cent store," said Miss Earle, the teacher. "Now I'll give
out the other parts."

There were about a dozen children who were to take part in the little
play. They were to dress up with clothes which they could bring from
home. Freddie had a blue suit, so he looked exactly like Boy Blue.

One Friday afternoon the little play was given in the school room. The
teacher had strung a wire across in front of her platform, and had hung
a red curtain on this. Flossie, Freddie and the other players were
behind the curtain, while the remaining children sat at their desks to
watch the play.

"Are you all ready now?" asked Miss Earle of the children behind the
curtain. "All ready! I'm going to pull the curtain back in a minute.
Remember you are to walk out first, Freddie, and you a