"That's why," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "and now what are you going to do?"
"I guess I'll play on the porch."
"I guess not" laughed mother, "because it's beginning to rain. I'm afraid you'll have to play in the nursery. Why not play school?"
"I'm going to," replied Mary Jane, who always made up her mind very quickly. "I'm going to right now because Alice showed me how." And she skipped off gayly to the nursery.
There she pulled out every doll she had and set them in a long row on the floor.
"Marie Georgiannamore, you shall be lady-come-to-visit because you're the biggest and you are clean and new. I'll be teacher because I know the most. My sailor boy and Mary Jane, Jr., shall be the graduating class like Alice is and all the rest shall be the baby room."
Such a bustle and a hurry as there was after that! Mary Jane got out all her doll chairs, every one, and set them in two rows—one for the graduating class (a very short row of two chairs) and one for the baby room (a very long row of many chairs). She dragged out her little piano to play the songs on and got out fresh chalk for the blackboard.
"There, now, I guess we're ready to begin!" she said and she sat down in the teacher's chair up front.
For a while everything went splendidly. The sailor boy must have known his lessons well for he received very good marks—right up on the blackboard where everybody could see they were, too—and the teddy bears sat up straight and minded the rule about no whispering. But the straighter the teddy bears sat, the more particular their teacher became about the others.
"Tommy!" she announced suddenly (Tommy was the sailor doll), "I should think you would be ashamed to sit so slouchy when this good little bear sits so straight—sit up nice now!" She picked up Tommy and sat him straight in his chair, oh, so very straight—that he couldn't sit still that way, he just tumbled off onto the floor!