. She had been
crying.

"If--if you please, Teacher, I went there first," she stammered.

"Well, I think your fright has been punishment enough for you," said
Miss Bradley kindly, "and we will say nothing more about it. But if any
of you go near that hole again he or she will be kept in after school.
It isn't that I mind your seeing what the workmen are doing, it is just
that it would be dangerous for even grown folks to go too near the edge
of the trench, and much more so for you little folk. So keep away from
the hole. I hope the pipes will be in this week, and the hole closed up.
Now do you all promise to keep away?" she asked. "Raise your hands!"

Every hand went up, for the boys and girls were fond of their teacher
and did not want to cause her worry.

It was a solemn moment, for they all felt that something dreadful might
have happened to Helen had the dirt caved in on her.

"Hands down," said Miss Bradley, and down they went.

Just then the bell rang. Recess was over, and the lines of boys and
girls marched into the schoolhouse once again.

Charlie Star reached for his handkerchief, which he had again stuffed
over his toy automobile after he had crowded that toy into his pocket
when going back into school after recess. As he pulled out his
handkerchief the auto came with it and fell to the floor.

Suddenly there was a strange buzzing sound in the room. Neither the
teacher nor the girls knew what it was, but Bunny and the boys knew it
was Charlie Star's new toy automobile which he had bought from Mrs.
Golden.

With a buzz the busy auto ran from Charlie's desk straight down the
aisle toward Miss Bradley, who was standing in front of her platform.

CHAPTER VII

THE BARN STORE

For a second or two Miss Bradley seemed to pay no attention to the
buzzing sound which Bunny, Charlie, and some of the other pupils heard
only too plainly. The teacher was busy thinking whether she had done
enough talking to make sure her boys and girls would not again go near
the deep hole in the school yard.

"I wouldn't want any of them to get hurt," thought Miss Bradley. "I had
better scare them a little now than have any of them harmed the least
bit."

She was thinking what else she might say, to impress on the pupils the
danger of the hole, when she seemed to hear, for the first time, the
buzzing of Charlie's auto.

"What's that?" asked Miss Bradley.

No one answered, except that, here and there in the room,