“How did you ever guess it?” Ward asked respectfully.
It was a question that each one had wanted to ask.
“Well, you see,” Margy explained, “I can’t guess riddles unless I have time to think about ’em. I thought and thought and thought about this one. Every time I sat down to practice, I thought some more. Then I heard Miss Elliott talking to the music supervisor one day, and she said something about our school piano being out of date.
“‘No school uses the old square pianos if they can get uprights,’ she said.
“I looked ‘upright’ up in the dictionary,” Margy went on, “and I found there was more than one meaning and one meant ‘honest and square’; so I guessed both words could count. And Mattie Helms told me one day in school that she was going to take music lessons as soon as her mother bought a grand piano—and there I had another word to use. They all fitted in, so I just used them.”
“Good for you, Margy!” cried Mr. Larue, clapping his hands. “You deserve to win the prize.”
They all clapped Margy, and she settled down happily again on the window seat, between Artie and Jess.
“Now we’ll ask the riddle,” said Polly. “Margy, you begin, because you won.”
“Daddy Williamson,” said Margy, seriously, “What is that which by losing an eye has nothing left but a nose?”
“A one-eyed man?” guessed Mr. Williamson.