In the first scene at her school, Mrs Teachum intended as a gift to her 9 pupils a basket of apples. She is called away before she is able to distribute the apples, and leaves them in the care of Miss Jenny Peace, her eldest student. Jenny is told to make sure that the present is divided evenly, and it should have worked out perfectly, except that one apple appears to be substantially larger than the others. The students begin to clamour to be the one given the larger prize. The noise made by the students was too much for Jenny to overcome. Her decision was that none should have it, and so threw it over the hedge. Instead of solving the problem this leads to a rather large scrum among the girls, involving kicking, biting and pulling of hair over who "should" have had the apple. As Miss Jenny is attempting to break them up, Mrs Teachum returns to a scene of complete chaos. The children attempt to blame each other for causing the fight, none willing to take the responsibility. The narrative does not explain the method of Mrs Teachum's punishment, but describes it as "the most severe Punishment she had ever inflicted on these wicked Girls, who had been thus fighting, and pulling one another to Pieces, for a sorry Apple."