A window happened to be open, and all of a sudden the ball blew into the school, though it was still tied to the string on the tree branch. All the animal children in the hollow-stump school laughed and so did the teacher.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the lady bug of Toodle and Noodle, when they told her about their balloon, and when the window had been shut so it couldn't come in again.
"Make a football of it," answered Toodle.
"Only we have to cover it with leather," said Noodle, "so it won't break."
"Oh, I'll do that for you," said the lady bug teacher, who liked boys. So that night she took the red balloon home with her and she made a leather cover for it, bringing it back next morning. Oh, it was a fine football then!
"Let's have a game!" cried Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he gave the new football a kick that sent it away over the fence. It was so light you see—the football I mean, not the fence—that it flew all over.
"All right, we'll have some fun!" cried Toodle, and then he and Noodle and Billie Bushytail and Sammie Littletail and all the animal boys, including Munchie Trot, the pony, played football in the school yard until it was time to go in.
