nine o'clock
she said brightly . `` I 'm sure some of the children will not be able to come to-day . The trolley cars have stopped , Miss Davis tells me , and Lottie Carr and her sister live in the suburbs , you know . '' When the nine o'clock bell rang all the children in Miss Davis ' room were there , except the two Carr girls . They could not come because there were no trolley cars running and they lived too far away to walk . There were three or four little girls in Miss May 's room who stayed at home , too , but nearly every one came . The children thought it great fun to scramble through the snow , and then , when they reached Miss May 's , to have Maria stand them on a mat of linoleum and brush them off with a whisk broom so that they should not carry snow into the school rooms .