A schoolteacher brings her children outside the school to play a game which she calls Buttony, where the students secretly pass along a button and have to guess who has it. She gives the button to Joseph at first, a boy who is heavily favored by her and the rest of the class. The class passes the button along, and savor the times when Joseph picks them. However, when Joseph picks the teacher to hold the button, the class becomes angry that they cannot find the button among their classmates. They start to cry, look in the teacher's pockets, and yank her hairpins out. The teacher cries out.