noon
The teacher had to bite her lips to keep from smiling . Frank noticed it , and said , `` It was Sally , Miss Norton , that put that into Fanny 's head ; but we have reason to feel badly , for if it had not been for us , the little bird would have been alive now . '' When they had told Miss Norton about it , she said that she did not wonder that they should feel bad , and the children saw that they had her sympathy also . At noon , their grandmother thought there would scarcely be time for them to go down to the woods , and back , between dinner and school time ; so the funeral was again postponed . But after school was out in the afternoon , the children hastened home , and bearing the little box , still covered with the black cambric , they walked slowly down through the meadows , stopping just at the edge of the woods , a few rods from the tree that contained the nest , from which Frank had taken the little bird only two days before . When they heard the notes of the brother and sister birds , Fanny thought , that had it not been for her , the little one that they carried would have been chirping as merrily as they , and this made her cry again . She sat down on a little mount of grass , and watched Frank as he prepared the grave .