This particular book was written in, I believe, the 1930s, and is about a fairly large family; the youngest daughter is named Mary Ann/Marianne, but is known in the family as Pigeon. A large part of the plot toward the end of the book involves a new teacher who is mean to all of her students; someone decides to set off a stink bomb or something similar, and the teacher ends up keeping Pigeon after school until she tells her who did it, because she admits that she knows but can’t tell. While Pigeon is sitting at her desk, she notices the teacher is crying, and quietly walks up and offers her a sandwich from her lunch, at which point the teacher puts her head down on the desk and starts sobbing. She finally asks Pigeon why the kids don’t like her, and the reply is “Because you don’t like us,” which clearly gives the teacher pause. The teacher is about to let Pigeon go when one of her brothers shows up to get her for a family picnic (it’s wintertime); they bring the teacher along, and she (the teacher) makes friends w/the family and becomes a much kinder and happier person. That spring, Pigeon is picking flowers for the teacher before school when she falls down an embankment and almost into a river, getting very muddy in the process; she ends up being rescued by a young man, who turns out to be the teacher’s former fiance (now we know why she was so miserable at first!), who is hoping to mend their broken relationship. The teacher and fiance are reunited and decide to get married after the school year ends, and ask Pigeon to be in the wedding, because she helped bring them back together. There’s also a subplot at one point involving a young boy whose mother died when he was very young, who finds out that his father is planning to remarry and immediate worries that he’s going to end up with an awful stepmother. While he’s out in the woods, he runs into a very friendly, outdoorsy young woman who’s camping, who ends up telling him that she’s getting married soon to a man with a little boy, and is worried he won’t like her–needless to say, this is the prospective stepmother, and all ends happily for them. Anyway, I can’t remember the title of the book or the author, and I’d love to find it again!