Aunt Polly and the twins went out of the room, and in three minutes there pranced back the cunningest little bear you ever saw. He wobbled about on his four legs, opened a red flannel mouth and yawned, shook hands with the delighted boys and girls and behaved altogether as a well-brought-up bear should.
"Let me do it!" shouted the other boys and girls. "Let me! Let me!"
The bear was unbuttoned down his back by smiling Aunt Polly, and the flushed and triumphant twins stepped out.
"Didn't we do it right?" they demanded happily. "Isn't it fun? But you can't be a bear—Aunt Polly said so. There's only one of everything."
Then Aunt Polly, who had cut out and stitched the white muslin case for the bear and painted his nose and lined his red flannel mouth, explained that for every two children there could be an animal. The play would be an animal play. They would act and talk as people would, only the actors would be lions and tigers and other animals.
"Choose what you would like to be to-night, and I will measure you and start work on the cases," she said. "And if you do not tell outsiders what kind of an animal you are going to be, that will double the fun."
So the other children, long after the twins had gone reluctantly up to bed, paired off and argued about their choice of an animal and changed their minds and finally decided. Then they were measured by Aunt Polly, and it was announced that three rehearsals a week would be held till the Saturday set for the fair. Mother Blossom brought in a plate of cookies and a basket of apples, and after these were eaten it was time to go home.
With all the preparations for the play and fair, school went on as usual. The children sometimes thought that it might be interrupted for a week or two without loss to any one, but the school committee never took kindly to this idea. They were sure that nothing in the wide world could be of more importance than regular attendance at school.
"I know enough now," grumbled Bobby one morning, scowling at his oatmeal.
"We could stay at home and play with the animal bags," said Meg, who never tired of trying on the muslin cases that so quickly transformed them into different animals. "It's really snowing ever so hard, Mother."