Every now and then they would look out of the window toward the green fields, and the cool, pleasant woods, where the yellow and purple violets were growing, and they wished they were out there instead of in school.
“My, it’s hot!” whispered Bully to Bawly, and of course it was wrong to whisper in school, but perhaps he didn’t think.
“Yes, I wish we could go swimming,” answered Bawly, and the teacher heard the frog brothers talking together.
“Oh, Bully and Bawly,” she said, as she turned around from the blackboard, where she was drawing a picture of a house, so the children could better learn how to spell it, “I am sorry to hear you whispering. You will both have to stay in after school.”
Well, of course Bully and Bawly didn’t like that, but when you do wrong you have to suffer for it, and when the other animal boys and girls ran out after school, to play marbles and baseball, and skip rope, and jump hop-scotch and other games, the frog boys had to stay in.
They sat in the quiet schoolroom, and the robin teacher did some writing in her books. And Bawly looked out of the window over at the baseball game. And Bully looked out of the window over toward the swimming pond. And the teacher looked out of the window at the cool woods, where those queer flowered Jack-in-the-pulpits grew, and she too, wished she was out there instead of in the schoolroom.
“Well, if you two boys are sorry you whispered, and promise that you won’t do it again, you may go,” said the teacher after a while, when she had looked out of the window once more. “You know it isn’t really wicked to whisper in school, only it makes you forget to study, and sometimes it makes other children forget to study, and that’s where the wrong part comes in.”
“I’m sorry, teacher,” said Bully.
“You may go,” said the young robin lady with a smile. “How about you, Bawly?”
“I’m not!” he exclaimed, real cross-like, “and I’ll whisper again,” for all the while Bawly had been thinking how mean the teacher was to keep him in when he wanted to go out and play ball.