"Miss Bailey, it's like this. You don't need to care sooner you ain't got on'y six prizes. Seven prizes I guess costs bunches und bunches from money. So six prizes comes on Patrick's yard, that's all right. Stands one boy what don't needs no prize."
"He must be a strange little boy," commented Teacher. "I never before heard of a boy who didn't like prizes."
"Oh, he likes 'em; how he likes 'em. I ain't said he ain't got feelin's over 'em. On'y it's like this: he don't needs you shall buy prizes for him the whiles you got to buy six prizes already."
"I think I understand, dear," Teacher answered, and she set out for the shopping district and bought six prizes of great glitter and little worth. But the seventh was such a watch as a boy might use and treasure through all the years of his boyhood.
The great day dawned bright and clear. Miss Bailey's entrance, punctual and parcel-laden, in a festive frilly frock and a flowery hat, caused something almost like silence to fall upon the scene of the coming tournament. Eva Gonorowsky clasped Teacher's unoccupied hand, Sarah Schodsky and Yetta Aaronsohn relieved her of her bundles. Sadie Gonorowsky gesticulated madly from the place upon the sofa which she was reserving with all the expanse of her outspread skirt.
Teacher approached the grand stand and took her place. The feminine First Readers swarmed upon the soap boxes. But neither leg nor arm nor even eye was moved by the seven masculine First Readers drawn up in the centre of the yard. Flags waved in such profusion and such uniformity that even Miss Bailey's obligation to her hosts could not blind her to the fact that she had at last found the fifty-two American flags pasted together by the First Reader Class when Washington's Birthday was in the air and the offing. Two weeks ago she had missed them out of the cupboard, and neither janitor nor Monitor could give her tidings of them. They looked very well, she was forced to admit, dangling from high fence and clothes line. And very bright and joyant was the whole scene. The little girls in their bright colors. The sky so blue. Mrs. Brennan's pear tree in sturdy bloom. All was brilliant with a sense of Spring save the seven dark-clothed figures in the centre of the yard.
"Can you guess what kind from party it is?" shrieked Sadie Gonorowsky from the top of a tottering soap box to which she had withdrawn.
"Why, it's—" Teacher began, recognizing some elements of the scene, but made uncertain by the seven dark little figures, "of course it's——"
"It's 'Games in Gardens,'" shouted the little girls, waving their flags like mad and "scupping" so energetically that two disappeared, "it's Games in Gardens, und you're goin' to have a s'prise."
One of the dark and silent figures found speech and motion.