HALLOWE'EN
"You're as good as gold to come out and help these youngsters enjoy
themselves," was Mrs. Morton's greeting to Edward Watkins when he
appeared in the evening with Tom and Della.
"It's they who are as good as gold to let me come," he returned, smiling
pleasantly. He was a handsome young man of about twenty-five, a doctor
whose profession, as yet, did not make serious inroads on his time.
"What are these people going to make us do first," he wondered as Roger
began a distribution of colored bands.
"These are to tie your eyes with," he explained: "Yellow, you see;
Hallowe'en color. The girls insist on my explaining all their fine
points for fear they won't be appreciated," he said to the doctor.
"Quite right. I never should have thought about the color."
"Mother, this is George Foster," said Helen, welcoming a tall boy who
was not a member of the U. S. C. but who had helped at the Club
entertainment by taking part in the minuet. He shook hands with Mrs.
Morton and Mrs. Smith and then submitted to having his eyes bandaged. He
was followed by Gregory Patton, another high school lad, and to the
great joy of everybody, James, after all, came on his crutches with
Margaret.
"Now, then, my blindfolded friends," said Roger, "Grandfather tells me
that it is the custom in Scotland where fairies and witches are very
abundant, for the ceremony that we are about to perform to open every
Hallowe'en party. He has it direct from Bobby Burns."
"Then it's right," came a smothered voice from beneath James' bandage.
"James is of Scottish descent and he confirms this statement, so we can
go ahead and be perfectly sure that we're doing the correct thing. Of
course, we all want to know the future and particularly whatever we can
about the person we're going to marry, so that's what we're going to try
to find out at the very start off."
"Take off my bandage," cried Dicky. "I know the perthon I'm going to
marry."
A shout of laughter greeted this assertion from the six-year-old.
"Who is it, Dicky?" asked Helen, her arm around his shoulders.
"I'm going to marry Mary," he asserted stoutly.
There was a renewed peal at this, and Roger went on with his
instructions.
"I'll lead you two by two to the kitchen door and then you'll go down
the flight of steps and straight ahead for anywhere from ten to twenty
steps. That will land you right in the middle of what the frost has left
of the Morton garden. When you get there you'll 'pull kale'."
"Meaning?" inquired George Foster.
"Meaning that you'll feel about until you find a stalk of cabbage and
pull it up."
"I don't like cabbage," complained Tom Watkins.
"You'll like this because it will give you a lot of information. If it's
long or short or fat or thin your future husband or wife will correspond
to it."
"That's the most unromantic thing I ever heard," exclaimed Margaret
Hancock. "I certainly hope my future husband won't be as fat as a
cabbage!"
"You can tell how great a fortune he's going to have--or she--by the
amount of earth that clings to the stem."
"Watch me pull mine so g-e-n-t-l-y that not a grain of sand slips off,"
said Tom.
"If you've got courage enough to bite the stem you can find out with
perfect accuracy whether your beloved will have a sweet disposition or
the opposite."
"In any case he'd have a disposition like a cabbage," insisted Margaret,
who did not like cabbage any more than Tom did.
"Ready?" Roger marshalled his little army. "Two by two. Doctor and Ethel
Blue, Tom and Dorothy, James and Helen, George and Ethel Brown, Gregory
and Margaret. Come on, Della," and he led the way through the kitchen
where Mary and the cook were hugely entertained by the procession.
With cries and stumbling they went forth into the cabbage patch, where
they all possessed themselves of stalks which they straightway brought
in to the light of the jack-o'-lanterns to interpret.
"My lady love will be tall and slender--not to say thin," began Dr.
Watkins. "I see no information here as to the color of her hair and
eyes. Fate cruelly witholds these important facts. I regret to say that
I wooed her so vigorously that I shook off any gold-pieces she may have
had clinging about her so I can only be sure of the golden quality of
her character which I have just discovered by biting it."
Amid general laughter they all began to read their fortunes. Tom
announced that his beloved was so thin that she was really a candidate
for the attentions of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, and that he couldn't find out anything about her character
because there wasn't enough of her to bite.
Margaret had pulled a stalk that fulfilled all her expectations as to
size, for it was so short and fat that she could see no relation between
it and anything human and threw it out of the window in disgust. The
rest found themselves fitted out with a variety of possibilities.
"There doesn't seem to be a real tearing beauty among them all," sighed
Roger. "That's what I'd set my heart on."
"What do you expect from a cabbage?" demanded Margaret scornfully.
"I want to know whether I'm going to marry a bachelor or a widower or
not marry at all," cried Helen. "Let's try the 'three luggies' next."
"First cabbages, then 'luggies'," said Della "What are 'luggies'?"
"'Luggies' are saucers," explained Helen, while James brought a small
table and Ethel Brown arranged three saucers upon it. "In one of them I
put clear water, in another one, sandy water, and nothing at all in the
third. Anybody ready to try? Come, Della."
Della came forward briskly, but hesitated when she found that she must
be blindfolded.
"There isn't any trick about it?" she asked suspiciously. "I shouldn't
like to have anything happen to that saucer of sandy water."
"It won't touch anything but your finger tips, and perhaps not those,"
Helen reassured her. "What you are to do is to dip the fingers of your
left hand into one of these saucers. If it proves to be the one with the
clear water you'll marry a bachelor; if it's the sandy one he'll be a
widower, and if it's the empty one you'll be a spinster to your dying
day."
"You have three tries," cried Ethel Blue, "and the saucers are changed
after each trial, so you have to touch the same one twice to be sure you
really know your fate. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," and Della bravely though cautiously dipped the finger tips
of her left hand into the bowl of sandy water.
A cheer greeted this result.
"A widower, a widower," they all cried.
Helen changed the position of the saucers and Della made another trial.
This time the Fates booked her as a spinster.
"That's the least trouble of anything," decided roly poly Della who took
life carelessly.
A third attempt proved that a widower was to be her future helpmate, for
her fingers went into the sandy saucer for a second time.
"I only hope he won't be an oldy old widower," said Della thoughtfully.
"I couldn't bear to think of marrying any one as old as Edward."
"I'll thank you to take notice that I haven't got a foot in the grave
just yet, young woman," retorted her brother.
While some of the others tried their fate by the saucer method, the rest
endeavored to learn their future occupations by means of pouring melted
lead through the handle of a key. Roger brought in a tiny kettle of lead
from the kitchen where Mary had heated it for them and set it down on a
small table on a tea pot stand, so that the heat should not injure the
wood. Taking a large key in his left hand he dipped a spoon into the
lead with his right and poured the contents slowly through the ring at
the end of the handle of the key into a bowl of cold water. The sudden
chill stiffened the lead into curious shapes and from them those who
were clever at translating were to discover what the future held for
them in the way of occupation.
"Mine looks more like a spinning wheel than anything else," said Roger
who had done it first so that the rest might see how it was
accomplished.
"Perhaps that means that you'll be a manufacturer of cloth," suggested
Margaret. "Mine looks more like a cabbage than anything else. You don't
think it can mean that I shall have to devote myself to that husband I
pulled out of the cabbage patch?"
"It may. Or it might mean that you'll be a gardener. Lots of women are
going in for gardening now. By the time you're ready to start that may
be a favored occupation for girls," said Dr. Watkins.
"Here are several things that we can do one at a time while the rest of
us are doing something else," said Helen. "They have to be done alone or
the spell won't work."
"Let's hear them," begged Gregory, while he and the others grouped
themselves about the open fire in the living room and prepared to burn
nuts.
"The first one, according to Burns, is to go alone to the kiln and put a
clew of yarn in the kiln pot."
"What does that mean translated into Rosemont language?" demanded James.
"James the Scotsman asks for information! However, there's some excuse
for him. Translated into Rosemont language it means that you go to the
laundry and put a ball of yarn into the wash boiler."
"Easy so far."
"Take an end of the ball and begin to wind the yarn into a new ball.
When you come near the end you'll find that something or some one will
be holding it--"
"Roger, I'll bet!"
"You demand to know the name of your future wife and a hollow voice from
out the wash boiler will tell you her name."
"I shan't try that one. There's too good a chance for Roger to put in
some of his tricks. What's the next?"
"Take a candle and go to the Witches' Cave--that's the dining room--and
stand in front of the looking glass that's on a little table in the
corner, and eat an apple. The face of your future wife or husband will
appear over your shoulder."
"I'll try that. I could stand a face that kept still, but to have an
unknown creature pulling my yarn and bawling my wife's name would upset
my nerves!"
"Here's the last one. Go into the garden just as we did to pull the
kale. Over at the right hand side there's a stack of barley. It's really
corn, but we've re-christened it for tonight. You measure it three times
round with your arms and at the end of the third round your beloved will
rush into them."
"If he proves to be my cabbage spouse you'll hear loud shrieks from
little Margaret!" declared that young woman.
"Here are my nuts to burn," said Ethel Blue, putting two chestnuts side
by side on the hearth. "One is Della and the other is Ethel Blue," and
she tapped them in turn as she gave them their names.
"What's this for?" asked Della, hearing her name used.
"This is to see if you and I will always be friends. That right hand nut
is you and the left hand is me--no, I." Conscientious Ethel Blue
interrupted herself to correct her grammar. "If we burn cosily side by
side we'll stay friends a long time, but if one of us jumps or burns up
before the other, she'll be the one to break the friendship."
"I hope I shan't be the one," and both girls sat down on the rug to
watch their namesakes closely.
"Here are Margaret and her cabbage man," laughed Tom. "This delicate,
slender chestnut is Margaret and this big round one is Mr. Stalk of the
Cabbage Patch. Now we'll see how that match is going to turn out."
Margaret laughed good naturedly with the rest and they watched this pair
as well as the others.
"Roger and I had a squabble yesterday," admitted Ethel Brown. "Here is
Roger and here is Ethel Brown. Let's see how we are going to get on in
the future."
"Where is Roger really?" some one asked, but at that instant Ethel
Blue's nut and Della's caught fire and burned steadily side by side
without any demonstrations, and every one looking on was so absorbed in
translating the meaning of the blaze that no one pursued the question.
That is, not until a shriek from the Witches' Cave rang through the
house and sent them all flying to see who was in trouble. Dorothy was
found coming out of the dining room, mirror in hand, and a strange tale
on her lips.
"If there's any truth in this Hallowe'en prophecy," she said with
trembling voice, "my future husband will be worse than Margaret's
cabbage man. The face that looked over my shoulder was exactly like a
jack-o'-lantern's."
"It was? Where's Roger?" Dr. Watkins demanded instantly, while James
hobbled to the front door and announced that the jack had disappeared
from the front porch.
"Did any one ask for Roger?" demanded a cool voice, and Roger was seen
coming down stairs.
"Yes, sir, numerous people asked for Roger. How did you do it?"
"Do what? Has anything happened in my absence?"
"Not a thing has happened in your _absence_. Just tell us how you
managed it."
"I know," guessed Helen. "He went outside and took the jack from the
porch and carried it through the kitchen, into the dining room where it
smiled over Dorothy's shoulder, and then he went into the kitchen again
and up the back stairs. Wasn't that it, Roger?"
"Young woman, you are wiser than your years," was all that Roger would
say.
While they were teasing him a shouting in the garden sent them all to
the back windows and doors. In the dim light of the young moon two
figures were seen wrestling. It was evidently a good natured struggle,
for peals of laughter fell on the ears of the listeners. When one of
them dragged the other toward the house the figures proved to be Tom
Watkins and George Foster.
"I was measuring the barley stack," explained Tom breathlessly, "and
just as I made the third round and was eagerly expecting my future bride
to rush into my arms, something did rush into my arms, but I'll leave it
to the opinion of the meeting whether _this_ can be my future bride!"
and he held at arm's length by the coat collar the laughing, squirming
figure of George Foster.
It was unanimously agreed that George did not have the appearance of a
bride, and then they went back to the hall to bob for apples. Roger
spread a rubber blanket on the floor and drew the tub from its hiding
place in the corner where it had been waiting its turn in the games.
While the boys were making these arrangements Dorothy and Helen were
busily trying to dispose of the two ends of the same string which
stretched from one mouth to the other with a tempting raisin tied in the
middle to encourage them to effort. It was forbidden to use the hands
and tongues proved not always reliable. Now Dorothy seemed ahead, now
Helen. Finally the victory seemed about to be Helen's, when she laughed
and lost several inches of string and Dorothy triumphantly devoured the
prize.
When the girls turned to see what the boys were doing, Gregory and
James were already bobbing for apples. One knelt at one side of the tub
and the other at the other, and each had his eye, when it was not full
of water, fixed on one of the apples that were bouncing busily about on
the waves caused by their own motions.
"I speak for the red one," gasped Gregory.
"All right! I'll go for the greening," agreed James, and they puffed and
sputtered, and were quite unable to fix their teeth in the sides of the
slippery fruit until James drove his head right down to the bottom of
the tub where he fastened upon the apple and came up dripping, but
triumphant.
Stimulated by the applause that greeted James, Tom and Roger tossed in
two apples and began a new contest.
"This isn't a girls' game is it?" murmured Helen as Tom won his apple by
the same means that James had used.
"Not unless you're willing to forget your hair," replied Dr. Watkins.
"You can't forget it when it takes so long to dry it," Helen answered.
"I'm content to let the boys have this entirely to themselves."
While the half drowned boys went up to Roger's room to dry their faces
the girls prepared nut boats to set sail upon the same ocean that had
floated the apples. They had cracked English walnuts carefully so that
the two halves fell apart neatly, and in place of the meats they had
packed a candle end tightly into each.
"We have the comfort of the apple even when we're defeated," said
Gregory, coming down stairs, eating the fruit that he had not been able
to capture without the use of his hands. "What have you got there?"
"Here's a boat apiece," explained Helen. "We must each put a tiny flag
of some sort on it so that we can tell which is which."
"This way?" George asked. "I've put a pin through a scrap of corn husk
and stuck it on to the end of this craft."
"That's right. We must find something different for each one. Mine is a
black-alder berry. See how red and bright it is?"
It was not hard for each to find an emblem.
"Watch me hoist the admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the
match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the
candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard,
however, and was not injured.
"See that?" he commented. "That just proves that the flag of the U. S. A.
can never perish," and the others greeted his words with cheers.
It was a pretty sight--the whole fleet afloat, each bit of candle
burning clearly and each little craft tossing on the waves that Dr.
Watkins produced by gently tipping the tub.
"This is also an attempt to gain some knowledge of the future," said
Helen. "We must watch these boats and see which ones stay close together
and which go far apart, and whether any of them are shipwrecked, and
which ones seem to have the smoothest voyage."
"Della's and mine are sticking together just the way our nuts did,"
cried Ethel Blue, and she slipped her hand into Della's and gave it a
little squeeze.
After the loss of its mainmast at the very beginning Roger's craft had
no more mishaps. It slid alongside of James's and together they bobbed
gently across life's stormy seas.
"It looks as if you and I were going into partnership, old man," James
interpreted their behavior.
The other boats seemed to need no especial companionship but floated on
independently, only Gregory's coming to an untimely end from a heavy
wave that washed over it and capsized it.
"I seem to hear a summons from the Witches' Cave," murmured Helen in an
awed whisper as a sound like the wind whistling through pine trees fell
on their ears, resolving itself as they listened into the words, "Come!
Come! Come!"
Quietly they arose and tiptoed their way toward the dining room. They
could only enter it by penetrating the thicket of boughs that barred the
door. As they came nearer the voice retreated--"Almost as if it were
going into the kitchen," whispered Margaret to Tom who happened to be
next to her. The only light in the room came from a pan of alcohol and
salt burning greenly in a corner and casting an unnatural hue over their
faces. The black cats, their eyes touched with phosphorus, glared down
from the plate rail.
Again the voice was heard:--"Gather, gather about the festal board."
"We must obey the witches," urged Helen, and they sat down in the chairs
which they found placed at the table in just the right number. Into the
dim room from the kitchen came two figures dressed in long black capes
and pointed red hats and bearing each a dish heaped high with cakes of
some sort.
"I just have to tell you what these are," said Ethel Brown in her
natural voice as she and Ethel Blue marched around the table and placed
one dish before Roger at one end and another before Helen at the other.
"It's sowens."
"Sowens? What in the world are sowens?" everybody questioned.
"Grandfather told us that Burns says that sowens eaten with butter
always make the Hallowe'en supper, so we looked up in the Century
Dictionary how to make them and this is the result."
"Do you think they're safe?" inquired Della.
"There's a doctor here to take care of us if anything happens," laughed
James. "I'm game. Give me a chance at them."
Roger and Helen began a distribution of the cakes.
"Sowens is--or are--good," decided Dr. Watkins, tasting his cake slowly,
and pronouncing judgment on it after due deliberation.
"We tried them yesterday to make sure they were eatable by Americans,
and we thought they were pretty good, smoking hot, with butter on them,
just as Burns directed."
"Right. They are," agreed all the boys promptly, and the girls agreed
with them, though they were not quite so enthusiastic in their
expression of appreciation as the boys.
Baked apples, nuts and raisins, countless cookies of various lands and
hot gingerbread made an appetizing meal. As it was coming to an end
Helen rapped on the table.
"Please let me pretend this is a club meeting for a minute or two
instead of a party. I want to tell the people here who aren't members of
the U. S. C. what it is we are trying to do."
"We know," responded George. "You're working for the Christmas Ship.
Didn't I dance in your minuet?"
"We are working for the Christmas Ship, but that is only one thing that
the Club does."
"What do the initials mean?" asked Gregory.
"United Service Club. You see Father is in the Navy and Uncle Richard is
in the Army so we have the United Service in the family. But that is
just a family pun. The real purpose of the Club is to do some service
for somebody whenever we can."
"Something on the Boy Scout idea of doing a kindness every day," nodded
Dr. Watkins.
"Just now it's the Christmas Ship and after that sails we'll hunt up
something else. Why I told you about it now is because we planned to go
out in a few minutes and go up and down some of the streets, and--"
"Lift gates?" asked Gregory.
"No, not lift gates. That's the point. We couldn't very well be a
service club and do mean things to people just for the fun of it."
"Oh, lifting gates isn't mean."
"Isn't it! I don't believe you'd find it enormously entertaining to hunt
up your gate the next day and re-hang it, would you?"
Gregory admitted that perhaps it would not.
"So we're going out to play good fairies instead of bad ones, and if any
of you knows anybody we can do a good turn to, please speak up."
"That's the best scheme I've heard in some time," said Edward Watkins
admiringly. "Let's start. I'm all impatience to be a good fairy."
So they said "good-night" to Dicky, bundled into their coats and each
one of the boys took a jack-o'-lantern to light the way. Roger also
carried a kit that bulged with queer shapes, and the girls each had a
parcel whose contents was not explained by the president.
"Lead the way, Roger," she commanded as they left the house.
"Church Street first," he answered.
"Church Street? I wonder if he's going to do Mother and me a good turn,"
giggled Dorothy.
It proved that he was not, for he passed the Smith cottage and went on
until he came to the house in which lived the Misses Clark. Roger was
taking care of their furnace, together with his mother's and his Aunt
Louise's, in order to earn money for the expenses of the Club, and he
had discovered that these old ladies were not very happy in spite of
living in a comfortable house and apparently having everything they
needed.
"These Misses Clark are lonely," he whispered as they gathered before
the door. "They think nobody cares for them--and nobody does much, to
tell the honest truth. So here's where we sing two songs for them," and
without waiting for any possible objections he broke into "The Christmas
Ship" which they all knew, and followed it with "Sister Susie's Sewing
Shirts for Soldiers."
"Not very appropriate, but they'll do," whispered Roger to Dr. Watkins,
whose clear tenor supported him. Dorothy's sweet voice soared high,
Tom's croak made a heavy background, and the more or less tuneful voices
of the others added a hearty body of sound. There was no response from
the house except that a corner of an upstairs curtain was drawn aside
for an instant.
"They probably think they won't find anything left on their front porch
when they come down in the morning. They've had Hallowe'en visits
before, poor ladies," said Gregory as they tramped away.
The next visit was to a different part of the town. Here the girls left
two of their bundles which proved to contain apples and cookies.
"I don't believe these people ever have a cent they can afford to spend
on foolishness like this," Helen explained to Dr. Watkins, "but they
aren't the sort of people you can give things to openly, so we thought
we'd take this opportunity," and she smiled happily and went on behind
Roger's leadership.
This time the visit was to the Atwoods, the old couple down by the
bridge. Roger had been interested in them for a long time. They were not
suffering, for a son supported them, but both were almost crippled with
rheumatism and sometimes the old man found the little daily chores about
the house hard to do, and often the old woman longed for a little
amusement of which she was deprived because she could not go to visit
her friends. It was here that Roger's kit came into play. He took from
it several hatchets and distributed them to the boys.
"We're going to chop the gentleman's kindling and stack up the wood
that's lying round here while the girls sing to the old people," he
announced.
So the plan was carried out. The girls gathered about the doorstep, and,
led by Dorothy, sang cradle songs and folk songs and a hymn or two,
while the boys toiled away behind the house. Again there was no
response.
"Probably they've gone to bed," guessed Ethel Brown.
"I imagine they're lying awake, though," said Ethel Blue softly.
It is an old adage that "many hands make light work," and it is equally
true that they turn off a lot of it, so at the end of half an hour the
old peoples' wood pile was in apple pie order and the yard was in a
spick and span condition.
There were two more calls before the procession turned home and at both
houses bundles of goodies were left for children who would not be apt to
have them. On the way back to the house the U. S. C.'s came across the
trail of a Hallowe'en party of the usual kind, and they pleased
themselves mightily by hanging two gates which they found unhung, and by
restoring to their proper places several signs which some village
wit--"or witling," suggested Dr. Watkins--had misplaced.
The evening ended with the cutting of a cake in which was baked a ring.
"The one who gets the ring in his slice will be married first,"
announced Mrs. Morton, who had prepared the cake as a surprise for those
who had been surprising others.
They cut it with the greatest care and slowly, one after the other. To
the delight of all Dr. Watkins's slice proved to contain the ring.
"I rather imagine that's the most suitable arrangement the ring could
have made," laughed Mrs. Smith.
"If one of these youngsters had found it, it would have meant that I'd
have to wait a long time for my turn," he laughed back. "Wish me luck."