It was May Day, and all the children who went to school in the little brick schoolhouse at the foot of the hill were going "Maying."

Every sunny morning in April they had begged their teacher to go with them to the woods to gather flowers; but Miss Heath kept telling them to wait until the days were a little warmer, and the woods less damp.

"By the first of May," she said, "there will be ever so many more flowers. If May Day is bright and sunny we will have no school,—except the school of the woods, no lessons but those the birds and flowers teach us. Wear your oldest clothes, and don't forget your lunches. You will be as hungry as squirrels when you have played out of doors all the morning."The first morning in May was warm and sunny enough to make everyone long to spend the whole day in the woods.

At half-past eight all the pupils in Miss Heath's school were at the schoolhouse door, eager for the Maying. There were only sixteen of them, and they were of all ages, from five to fourteen, for the little brick schoolhouse was in the country, far away from the graded city schools.

The mothers had not forgotten the lunches, and it was a happy band of boys and girls that set off at nine o'clock for the woods. They climbed the hill and followed a cart-path until they came to a shady hollow where a tiny brook rippled over its stony bed.

"We'll stay here for a little while and watch the birds," said Miss Heath. "Sit down under this pine tree, and keep as still as mice until you have seen five different birds."

Joe Thorpe saw the first one,—a robin that came down to the brook for a drink of water. Alice Fletcher caught sight of a black and white warbler that was hopping about in the pine tree, and Grace Atkins pointed out a woodpecker that was rapping on the trunk of an old oak.

A golden oriole flew to the top of a tall elm and called down to them, "Look, look, look! Look up here! Look up here! Look up here!" But the fifth bird was hard to find. They had almost given him up when Miss Heath held up her hand. "Listen!" she whispered, and in a moment a song sparrow that had lighted in a little bush near by sang them his sweetest song,—sang it over and over, with his head held high and his tiny throat swelling with the music.

"There are the five birds," said Miss Heath, when the song sparrow flew away; "now for our flowers!" and she jumped up and led the way across the brook and down a gentle slope toward an old pasture that was half overgrown with underbrush.

"You must notice all the different shades of green in the new leaves on the trees, with the yellows and reds on the bushes," she said, as they stood looking across the pasture. "There are almost as many colors among the trees in the spring as there are in the fall, but they are not so brilliant.

"Now, run and look for flowers," she added, when they had climbed over a stone wall and found a narrow foot-path across the pasture. "I will wait here, under this chestnut tree, and you can come back when you are ready; but if I call, you must come at once. It will be lunch-time almost before you know it."

That old pasture was a splendid place to find spring flowers, and the children scattered in all directions, by twos and threes, peeping under bushes and poking away dead leaves to hunt for sprays of arbutus, or Mayflowers as they always called them.

Grace and Alice found some beautiful clusters of the fragrant pink and white blossoms, but poor little Joe Thorpe didn't have good luck at all, so he wandered off by himself to look for hepaticas.

He found them, too, among the rocks at the farther end of the field, blue ones and white ones, and some that were pink and lavender; and when he had picked a good handful for Miss Heath, he saw some "spring beauties," white blossoms striped with pink that swayed gently on their slender stems.

Just then he heard the call to lunch, and although he hurried back to the big chestnut tree he found all the children there before him, their hands filled with flowers. There were bunches of blue violets and white violets, hepaticas and spring beauties. One girl had found yellow adder's tongues with their spotted leaves, and a boy brought a Jack-in-the-pulpit, standing up stiff and straight to preach its little sermon.

After Miss Heath had admired all the flowers, and had sent three of the boys back to the brook for water, the children opened the baskets and spread their lunch on newspaper tablecloths.

Then what a merry picnic they had! They exchanged cakes and cookies, gingerbread and doughnuts. They shared pickles and apples, and divided turnovers and saucer pies,—and they all picked out the very best of everything for Miss Heath, until she laughingly declared that she couldn't eat another single mouthful.

After lunch they told stories and played games, until, all at once, the teacher noticed that the sun had hidden his face behind a heavy cloud.

"I am afraid it is going to rain," she said; "we must hurry home."

But even before the children could gather up their baskets and flowers, the big rain-drops began to patter down on their heads.

"I don't care," said little Joe Thorpe. "It is nothing but an April shower."

"April showers bring Mayflowers!" quoted Grace and Alice, and then they held their thumbs together and wished, because they had both said just the same thing at just the same moment.

"They bring wet dresses, too," said Miss Heath, "and not one of us has an umbrella. Let's run over to that little pine grove and play the trees are umbrellas. That's what the birds do when it rains."

The children ran down the narrow path and gathered under the spreading branches of the pines, and the trees held out their arms and tried to keep them dry. But the rain-drops came down faster and faster, and it was not long before the little girls' cotton dresses were wet through.

As soon as the shower was over Miss Heath said, "Now you must run home as fast as you can, and put on dry clothing. I don't want anyone to catch cold when we have had such a happy day together."

So away the children scampered, some in one direction, some in another. At the foot of the hill Alice stopped suddenly and said to Grace, "My mother will not be at home. She was going to the village this afternoon to do some marketing."

"Come to my house," said Grace. "You can put on one of my dresses while yours is getting dry."

When they reached Grace's house her mother was not at home, either; but Grace found the key to the back door behind the window blind, and the two little girls went into the kitchen.

Then they took off their wet dresses and put on dry ones, and Grace climbed up in a chair to hang Alice's dress on the clothes-bars over the stove."It will not dry very fast until we open the dampers and let the fire burn up," she said; so she opened both dampers wide, and then took Alice up to the play-room to see the new doll which her aunt had sent her for a birthday gift. The doll had a whole trunkful of dresses, coats, hats, and shoes, and the two little girls had such a good time trying them on that they forgot all about the kitchen stove.

Suddenly Grace cried, "I can smell smoke, Alice. Something is burning!"

"It must be my dress," exclaimed Alice, jumping up and running down the back stairs.

She opened the kitchen door just in time to see the dress burst into flames. "Oh, what shall we do?" she cried. "My dress is on fire! Put it out! Put it out! Quick! Quick!"

"I can't!" screamed Grace. "Oh, Mother! Mother! Come home! Come home!"Just then a man, who was driving by with a load of wood, saw the flames through the window and came running in to see what was the matter. He snatched the burning dress from the clothes-bars, threw it into the sink, and pumped water over it to put out the fire.

Then he closed the dampers in the stove, which was now red hot, and opened the windows at the top to let out the smoke; while all the time the two little girls stood in the middle of the floor, sobbing and crying.

"That was a very careless thing to do," said the man, when at last they told him how the dress happened to catch fire. "You should never hang anything over the stove. Tell your mother to take down those clothes-bars this very afternoon, and put them on the other side of the kitchen; and remember never to go out of the room again when you have started up the fire. A red-hot stove will sometimes set wood-work on fire, even if there isn't a cotton dress near by to help it along."

"I don't believe I shall forget it very soon," said Grace, as she lifted the handful of wet black rags out of the sink.

"Nor I," cried Alice. "I am glad Miss Heath told us to wear our old clothes."

"And I am glad that I came along before you set the house on fire," said the man. "Don't ever try to dry wet clothes in a hurry again."

Then he went out and climbed up on his load of wood, muttering to himself, "That's what comes of leaving children alone in the house. They are never satisfied unless they are lighting matches or starting a fire."

Why did Grace hang the dress over the stove?

How did it catch fire?

What material was the dress made of?

Would a woollen dress burn as easily?

Damp clothing, or clothes that have just been ironed, should never be hung over a hot stove, for, as the moisture dries out, the clothes quickly ignite. Clothes-bars or a clothes-line should never be hung over a stove, and a clothes-horse should not be set too near it. Many fires have resulted from an overloaded clothes-horse falling on a hot stove, especially when there was no one in the kitchen to watch it.

Children should never be permitted to open the dampers of a stove, or to have anything whatever to do with the kitchen fire. They should not set a kettle on the stove or take one off, and they should be cautioned against climbing into a chair near the stove, as they might fall and be badly burned.