Elizabeth Ann and Doris had just finished their breakfast when Catherine Gould called for them. Catherine wore the prettiest dress—perhaps a little too “fussy” for school, but a beautiful green color. She had a fancy lunch box, too, with all sorts of compartments, for her sandwiches and a bottle to keep her soup hot in.

Aunt Grace had packed a nice lunch for Elizabeth Ann and one just like it for Doris; she had told them that their dresses were pretty, too—Elizabeth Ann wore a blue and white gingham dress and Doris had a pink one.

“I wanted Daddy to take me as far as the cross-roads in his car every morning,” said Catherine, “but just because he walked to school when he was a little boy, he thinks I need exercise. I hate walking.”

“I like it,” Elizabeth Ann declared, kissing Aunt Grace good-by.

“Do you like living in that funny place?” asked Catherine, as the three little girls walked down the lane which led to the road they were to take.

“Why, it’s the nicest house I ever lived in!” Elizabeth Ann said enthusiastically. “Doris is crazy about it—aren’t you, Doris? We go up and down ladders instead of stairs, and we sleep in bunks instead of beds. And the roof is a deck, and it’s the nicest place to play you ever saw.”

“Yes it is,” declared Doris, forgetting her shyness. “And Elizabeth Ann can tell ship-time—she learns everything.”

“Oh, Doris, I only know a little bit about it,” Elizabeth Ann protested, turning red. “I have to stop and count, and most of the time I get it all wrong.”

Catherine did not seem to be listening. She was peering down the road.

“Here comes that awful Roger Calendar,” she said crossly. “It will be just like him to try to walk with us; don’t pay any attention to him and maybe he’ll let us alone.”

Now Doris might have done as Catherine asked—Doris was apt to do whatever anyone asked of her. But Elizabeth Ann liked to do her own thinking, and she remembered what Uncle Hiram had said about Roger.

“I think he is a nice boy,” said Elizabeth Ann, “and I mean to speak to him. He lives on the farm next to us; Uncle Hiram said so.”

“He only lives with the Bostwicks who own the farm,” said Catherine scornfully. “Roger is a taken boy—didn’t you hear me tell you that yesterday? He used to live at the poor farm, until the Bostwicks took him. He works for them, and the only reason they send him to school is because the Board of Education makes them.”

Roger was waiting at the Bostwick mailbox as they came up to him. He did not seem to notice that Catherine looked straight and pretended not to see him.

“Hello, Catherine,” said Roger. “Good morning, Elizabeth Ann. How are you, Doris? Are you glad or sorry school has started?”

Roger fell into step beside Elizabeth Ann. He carried a small brown paper parcel in his hand—his lunch, probably, thought Elizabeth Ann, who also suspected that there could not be more than a couple of sandwiches in such a small package. Two sandwiches were not much lunch for a hungry boy, she thought. Aunt Grace had insisted on making four apiece for her and Doris.

“I like school,” said Elizabeth Ann, as Doris didn’t answer and Catherine continued to stare straight ahead. “I’m not sure about this school, but maybe I’ll like it.”

“If you’re in our class, you’ll like school,” declared Roger. “We have the finest teacher in the whole school, haven’t we, Cathy?”

Catherine whirled upon him.

“Roger Calendar, if you don’t stop calling me ‘Cathy,’ I’ll do something awful to you!” she scolded. “I’ve told you twenty times I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Roger. “I keep forgetting. Isn’t Miss Owen a nice teacher, Catherine?” Catherine tossed her head.

“You may like her,” she said coldly. “I never could see anything in her to rave about. Sometimes she gets too cross for words.”

“She’s a fine teacher,” declared Roger. “You’ll like her, Elizabeth Ann.”

“Here comes Mattie Harrison,” Catherine announced, waving her hand to a little girl who came running across a plowed field.

Mattie Harrison was quite breathless when she reached them. She was short and fat and her brown eyes twinkled as Catherine introduced her. Elizabeth Ann liked her at once because she spoke to Roger and asked him if he had had a nice summer.

“I guess he worked the same as usual,” said Catherine in what she may have intended to be a low voice, but which Roger heard, for his face flushed.

He said nothing, however, and went on talking to Elizabeth Ann and Doris, while Catherine and Mattie walked ahead.

Elizabeth Ann knew when they were coming to the cross-roads because she saw a group of children waiting there. She counted a dozen boys and girls, and all of them knew Catherine and Mattie and Roger, for they called them by name. Doris was quite overwhelmed at the sight of so many strangers, and she tried to hide behind Elizabeth Ann, but Mattie proved to be an expert at helping people to know each other and before the bus came she had introduced Doris to a little girl almost as shy as herself, and the two were talking like old friends. This other little girl’s name was Coralie—Coralie Slade, and Doris liked her.

“Honk! Honk! Honk!” sounded a deep hoarse horn presently.

Down the road came a great gray, lumbering bus. It stopped within three feet of the waiting children and the grinning young driver looked out at them.

“Line up,” he commanded. “Who’s the little girl in the blue and white dress? Did she ride with me last winter?”

“She’s Elizabeth Ann Loring, Dave,” said Roger Calendar. “And this is her cousin, Doris Mason. They’re going to spend the winter with Uncle Hiram and go to our school.” “Let company get in first,” Dave, the driver, directed. “Hop in, Elizabeth Ann Loring, and Doris Mason.”

Dave evidently had his passengers well trained. None of the children moved after they had formed themselves into a straight line. They waited to see what Dave wanted them to do.

Elizabeth Ann and Doris stepped into the bus. It had long seats down either side and these were about half filled with boys and girls. Some were older—they afterward learned that these were pupils in the higher grades.

“Glad to know you,” said Dave from behind his wheel. “Sit down anywhere you like. Now then, line move up—one at a time and anyone who crowds goes to the foot of the class.”

One by one the boys and girls filed into the bus and took seats. Elizabeth Ann, watching, saw at once how wise Dave was to make them enter one at a time. If they had tried to board the bus in a struggling crowd, it would mean only confusion and delay. Dave kept an eagle eye on the entering line and no one dared push his neighbor. Elizabeth Ann saw that the girls came first—Dave had taught the boys to wait their turn.

“All right,” said Dave, when the last pupil was safely in. “I hope you’ll all study your books and improve your time on the way to school.”

This was a joke and everyone laughed at it. Of course there were no lessons to be studied the first day of school. Instead the boys and girls talked to each other, and as the bus made a great noise the children had to shout to make themselves heard. Dave did not seem to mind the noise—— Roger told Elizabeth Ann that he was used to it, since he had driven the school bus for three years. But while Dave didn’t mind noise, he wouldn’t allow anyone to leave his seat and play in the aisle. It was the rule—Roger told Elizabeth Ann this, too—that if anyone left his seat Dave would stop the bus at once, and refuse to go ahead until the boy or girl sat down again.

“We haven’t any too much time and if Dave stops even once or twice, we may be late,” Roger shouted to Elizabeth Ann. “Once the whole bus load was late, and we had to stay an hour after school. That made us miss the bus home and we all had to walk. Dave won’t stand for any skylarking, and the kids know he means what he says.”

The bus made two more stops, picking up four boys and two girls at one place, and three girls and three boys at another. Then it was comfortably filled and Dave drove steadily and at a fair rate of speed until they came in sight of a large brick building with a fenced in yard in front of it, and a flag on the flag pole near the gate.

“There’s our school,” said Roger as the bus stopped.