When the School Yard was White

Ellen D. Masters


Snow did not cover the school yard at Hamlet so often as not to cause a
great deal of excitement among the boys and girls, especially a deep
snow--deep enough for making snowballs and forts and snowmen.

So the day after the big snow that fell there one night, Mr. Newman, who
had charge of the third grade boys of the Hamlet School, found it a hard
day to keep order in his room; and a good many of the boys got low marks
for the first time that term.

How they did hate to leave the white school yard when the bell would put
an end to the short recesses!

[Illustration: How they did hate to leave the white school yard.]

"I think it's a pity we have to be shut up in the schoolhouse all the
time and not get any good of it--when it doesn't snow here like this
more than once till you're grownup," Mr. Newman heard one little fellow
complain.

Their teacher had liked to play in the snow as well as any of them when
he was a boy, and he wished that he had not been obliged to ring the
school bell and spoil their fun so soon.

When it was time to dismiss school that day, Mr. Newman looked very
solemn and said: "I think everyone of you boys deserves to be kept an