HALLOWEEN.
Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock
when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better;
that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might
have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on
for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as
easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old
habits as his strength permitted.
Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The
family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had
threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that
grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill.
He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for
among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands.
He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and
then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again,
and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the
excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the
barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come
back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the
midst of the storm.
The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of
gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in
trust to father for his wife and children.
"I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing
money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever
since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of
my boys ever paid me any _board_. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives
things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening;
and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my
other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but
I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't
go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of _them_; what
little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I
never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest
comprehension,--and Roderick and John are both honest,--if I left it
as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden,
and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it."
That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it;
there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done
in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they
came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really
seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never
mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had
mentioned it at all.
"He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said,
"unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he
must come across that."
"He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect.
We can be sure of nothing."
But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October
Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise.
Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded
it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it.
She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up
stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping
with,--
"If I had gone to New York--" and there she stopped, as if she had
accidentally said what she did not intend.
"If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you
mean?"
"Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked
me, that is all. Of course I couldn't."
"Of course you're just a glorious old _noblesse oblige_-d! Why didn't
you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have
helped. I'd have lent you--that garnet and white silk!"
Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be
kissed.
After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always
the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that
young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a
woman's way.
The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses
of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves,
and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and
hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes
morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how
pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here
at Westover.
"How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great
open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!"
"So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?"
"To tea?"
"No. Only to the fun,--and some supper. We can have that all ready in
the other room."
"They'll see the cooking-stove."
"They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara.
"We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth.
"The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That _would_ be a make-shift. Who
ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open,
and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to
take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope,
and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll
have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper,
bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they
get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover
that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,--that piece
of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque
of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all
goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is
brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof,
you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to
seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere."
"It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara.
"They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be
Marchbanksy."
Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own
special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in
utilizing them.
But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not?
"Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion.
Just the neighbors,--right around here."
"That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said
Ruth, quietly.
"O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond.
"Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real'
nice!"
"That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts _are_
real."
Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things.
She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come,
and like each other.
"What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,--your
nose is crocheted,--and your mouth is--tatted! I shall have to come
and ravel you out."
"I'm thinking; that is all."
"How to build the fence?"
"What fence?"
"That fence round the pond,--the old puzzle. There was once a pond,
and four men came and built four little houses round it,--close to the
water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly
behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the
little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you
know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant
people are so apt to be nearest the good time!"
"I like to satisfy everybody."
"You won't,--with a squirm-fence!"
If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently
as possible, and invited them--Marchbankses and all--to our Halloween
frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music
lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were
Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of
her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the
Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four
houses, Ruth heard everything.
All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing,
Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite
until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and
Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that
the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in
transports because they were to be allowed to go.
"Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond.
"Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke
before I thought."
"What did you tell her?"
"I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And
Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we
might try to arrange something."
But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and
Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted
that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a
compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another
word.
In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by,
homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans.
"They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have
stopped."
"Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth.
"Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her
clearest, quietest tones.
Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite
the Hobarts," she said.
"That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara.
"Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out.
The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly
come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday
Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it.
From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z----, and asked Leslie
Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if
she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have
his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening.
Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then
she met Lucilla Waters in the street.
"I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to
you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her
gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic
in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding.
"We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You
will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie."
Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for
Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to
her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks.
She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to
find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the
Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to
the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come
together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little
frolic, and we have begun, too, you see."
Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria
Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would
divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was
different from other invites. One might take liberties."
Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last
of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington.
It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over,
at last, and proffered her invitation.
"You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity
to divide. We want the same people, of course,--the Hendees, and the
Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we
ourselves were an afterthought.
Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she
was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts,
and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,--Helen
Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much,
after all.
Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that
moment.
Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her
friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note,
of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's
verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw
in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had
said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not
then asked.
Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed
it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it.
"Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation
for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see
you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some
of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it
were possible to have both pleasures."
That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "But
Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little
bumble-bee!"
How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand.
It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it
seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at
once, quietly and of course, asserted.
Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was
beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the
salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before.
"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but
it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?"
Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I
think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've
had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own."
It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between."
Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the
bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide
chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced
sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid
logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to
finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped
through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor,
and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an
outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look
at: and they never tumbled down.
She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak
to Miss Pennington.
"Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.'
That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up."
Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made
pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly.
"I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still
looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?"
"Miss Pennington! Would you come?"
"I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you
going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that."
"We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the
name."
"That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games
nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and
superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and
we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at
Christmas, when we were all at home."
"O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!"
"Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly
meddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me."
How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out!
And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when
things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will
take, now and then, even in this vexed world.
There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have
servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are
entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after
all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last
touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress.
The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put
together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from
whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and
garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little
macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of
spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold
room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the
last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put
them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the
white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to
worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the
whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which
Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of
ours. Truly it is a charming thing,--all to itself, in a family!
To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner
that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and
the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could
shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish
everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet
and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the
very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might
have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy,
chatty cup of tea.
The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and
pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for
the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the
wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up
three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open
piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some
of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that
Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we
played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost
mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss
Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and
there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great
damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with
Barbara into the dining-room.
"This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing
from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white
bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until
after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the
brown room.
We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought
over Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and
they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until
they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated
needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched
them turn and swim and draw together,--some point to point, some heads
and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the
margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or
an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it
into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars;
and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and
pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a little
palette with a hole in it.
[Illustration]
And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each
girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little
secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and
surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some
little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its
companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight
together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these
were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began,
but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped
into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and
some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes.
Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the
larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off
a little way, right in toward the blaze.
"Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then
crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again,
with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and
they both dropped quietly down against the fender together.
"What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington.
"O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen,
looking on.
Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone
with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the
stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said
to her:--
"Round and round, O stars so fair!
Ye travel, and search out everywhere.
I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me,
This night, who my future husband shall be!"
Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the
reason.
"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl
who tried it once, and saw a shroud!"
But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She
took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a
shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off.
"Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward
all the way."
So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant
after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped
backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in.
Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a
friend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said,
introducing him by his full name.
We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army
surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a
stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in
front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side.
And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and
shouted.
It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon.
We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered
the oysters.
Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her
with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the
full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier
in all her life.
After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her
snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze.
Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date.
"Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing.
Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing.
"You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt.
"A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy.
"It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her
shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned.
Ruth got a sugared almond.
"Only a _kernel_," said the merry doctor's wife, again.
The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag.
"Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside.
"And tolerably pungent," said the doctor.
Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica.
Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything.
"That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of
getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all."
It was great fun, though.
Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening.
If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant
something. And the year is not out yet, you see.
But there was no doubt of one thing,--that our Halloween at Westover
was a famous little party.
* * * * *
"How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the
hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she
had picked up about the carpet into the coals.
We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them
on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the
girl," said Barbara. It _is_ a comfort to put by things, with a clear
conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the
Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there
would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we
should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning.
"How do you feel about it?"
"I feel as if we had had a real _own_ party, ourselves," said Ruth;
"not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't
anybody to _show us how_!"
"Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come?
Nobody can say now--"
"What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very
nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party.
Otherwise, why shouldn't she?"