“Well, how is it going?” asked Miss Mason, as they came up, damp and rosy, in answer to the noon bell.  “I watched you from the window for a few moments, but I couldn’t tell what you were building.”

Couldn’t tell what they were building!  If that wasn’t like a woman!  For a second Bobby was completely discouraged, and then he thought that of course Miss Mason couldn’t be expected to know.  She probably had no idea what a really good snow fight was.

“We were making forts,” he explained.  “Tim’s is down by the gate and mine is under the chestnut tree.  We’ve got a lot of ammunition made, too.”

School was out at three o’clock, and a good many of the teachers came upstairs to Miss Mason’s room to watch the fight from her windows.  Only first and second grade pupils were supposed to take part, but the third and fourth grade children seemed naturally to drift in the direction of the piled up snowballs.

“We’ll help you make ’em,” they offered.

“That’s fair enough,” said Mr. Carter, who was to be referee.  “You fourth graders help the first, and the third grade can be a reserve force for the second.”

When enough snowballs were ready to begin with, the general of the Blacks retired behind the white walls of his fort and the forces of the Orange did the same.  Mr. Carter blew shrilly on his whistle, and the battle raged.

Whenever a head popped up over the wall of either fort, whiz! a snowball would be flung toward it.  Sometimes the head ducked, sometimes it was caught fairly.

“Gee, don’t they sting!” Palmer Davis danced about, holding one hand to his ear.  “Just you let me have a whack at ’em!”

The girls were aiming furiously, if blindly.  And though Meg closed her eyes tight every time she threw a snowball, Bobby reported that several of her shots had hit a victim.  Thanks to the good work of the fourth grade pupils, the supply of ammunition held out well.

Suddenly Bobby, who was standing on a little snow mound that raised him slightly above the wall, received a snowball squarely in the eye.  He cried out with the pain, though he tried to smother the sound with his hand over his mouth.

“That was dipped in water and packed!” said Palmer angrily, picking up the ball and examining it.  “That’s no fair.  Mr. Carter said packed snowballs weren’t to be used.  Let’s see your eye, Bobby.  Is it swelling?”

“Don’t say anything,” begged Bobby, letting Palmer inspect his eye, which was rapidly swelling.  “Mr. Carter would stop the fight if he heard about the ball.”

CHAPTER VII

A BIRTHDAY PARTY

Palmer knew this to be true, for Mr. Carter had expressly said that at the first sign of unfair play the battle would be called off.  He made few rules for his pupils, but those he did make were never to be lightly broken.