ALL-HALLOWE’EN.
“Where are those children?” Mrs. Holmes was saying when, in answer to a
ring at the door, Prue announced two ladies to see “Mr. and Mrs. Holmes
and the young ladies.”
On going to the drawing-room the host and hostess were greeted by a
tall, spare person in deep mourning, who remarked, in sepulchral tones,
“We have come to see you on a matter of great importance.” There was
a little sound from the second visitor. Was it a laugh or a cough?
This shorter individual wore a long cloak, while a black veil was tied
closely over the face.
While Mr. Holmes was bowing politely and Mrs. Holmes was waiting
expectantly for further remark, suddenly every light went out, and
when the gas was relighted not a sign of the guests could be seen, but
a chorus of unearthly groans and shrieks proceeded from no one knew
where, to the terror of Mellicent, who cried, “Oh, mamma, what is it?”
Again the gas went out, and the groans and wails seemed directly in
their ears. Then in the darkness three white figures glimmered ghostly,
but a second relighting showed no one there.
“This is really uncanny!” ejaculated Lisa.
“My dear,” said grandma, who was smoothing Mellicent’s golden head
and calming the little girl’s fears, “don’t you know it is only those
witchy children?”
“I’ll warrant Persis is at the bottom of it,” cried Lisa. “She was so
down on the boys coming, and here she is the very first one to get them
into mischief.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said a voice, plaintively. “You’re always
blaming me for everything.” And Lisa turned, astonished to see Persis
curled up in an arm-chair by the bay-window, as if she had been taking
a nap there.
“Why, where did you come from?” And Lisa gave utterance to her question
in tones of astonishment. “I know you haven’t been there all this time.”
“How do you know? Can you take your oath on it?”
“I don’t take oaths; but I haven’t the least recollection of seeing you
since dinner, when you were playing with the boys in the hall.”
“Well, your memory is not to be relied upon,” observed Persis,
jauntily. “If I should tell you how long I have been here you wouldn’t
believe it.”
“I am going to light the lamp,” Lisa remarked. “I don’t want any more
Stygian darkness. Why, where is it? I thought it was on the table.
Prue must have forgotten to bring it back when she took it out to fill
it.” But, as she was in the act of leaving the room, again all was dark.
“I’ll catch those tricksters,” said Mr. Holmes. “This is getting too
much of a joke,” and he secreted himself behind the door as the three
white-sheeted forms appeared. The first two were too quick for him, but
the last one was grabbed, and as Lisa brought in the lighted lamp Basil
was discovered.
The poor boy was covered with confusion at being found the culprit,
and Persis came to the rescue by saying, “Papa, it was not his fault;
we coaxed him into it, Porter and I, and it was I who blew down the
gas-pipes to put the lights out. It is All-Hallowe’en, you know.”
A grim smile passed over Mr. Holmes’s face. “Then I suppose you expect
me to let you off,” he replied.
“Oh, yes, papa, please. It is the boys’ first evening here, and I don’t
want them to think just yet that you are an ogre.”
This was too much for Mr. Holmes, and he laughed. “How much did that
remark imply, I wonder, you sauce-box?” he said.
“Why? Oh, why, papa?” And Persis covered her face with both hands. “I
believe I did insinuate that you were really ogrish at all times, and
you aren’t a bit ever. He isn’t, boys; he is usually a dear; but once
in a while, when we are very bad, he can be terrible. I warn you that
when papa is seriously offended he is not savage exactly, but so ’way,
’way up—so stately and solemn—that he can scare you out of your wits.”
“Thank you for the reputation,” returned Mr. Holmes. “I am glad you
are ready to back me up in maintaining proper discipline. Now, no more
tricks to-night.”
“Not even apple-bobbing or meal balls?” said Mellicent, dolefully.
“Meal balls are silly,” sniffed Persis. “Who wants to waste time on
stupid names rolled up in a ball of chicken food? I’d rather run around
the block with my mouth full of water.”
“What’s that for?” queried Porter.
“Oh, you hear your future husband’s name called, they say. I like the
fun of it. It is so hard to run and keep the water in your mouth at the
same time. Then salt-cake is fun, too, only I always laugh and nearly
always say something when I oughtn’t to speak.”
“I think apple-bobbing will do for to-night,” said Mrs. Holmes. “You
can go in the kitchen if you like.”
“Oh! And mayn’t we make some taffy, too, mamma?” pleaded Mellicent.
“Grandma will help us; won’t you grandma?”
“To be sure,” was the ready response.
And so it was settled, while the tricksters congratulated themselves
that they were let off so easily and that such a pleasant prospect was
theirs.
Grandmamma Estabrook was a famous maker of taffy. “She always knows
just when it is done,” Persis informed Porter. “And it never gets
burnt, and never is the least bit too soft. I am always in such a hurry
that I am very apt to take it up before it is done, and it gets, oh, so
sticky. This will be fine, I know. We will bob for apples while it is
boiling.”
So, although Prue at first looked askance at seeing her kitchen
invaded, she was soon ready to lend her services to the furnishing of
amusement for “Holly Eve,” and brought in a big tub, which the children
filled half-full of water, and the merry game began. After much
sputtering and splashing, Porter managed to grasp an apple with his
teeth, and Mellicent followed suit.
“They are the slipperiest things I ever saw,” declared Basil, lifting
a dripping face from the tub. “Just as I think I have one sure over
it rolls and I am cheated. I think I’ll be more of a success at
taffy-pulling. My, that looks good!” for Mrs. Estabrook was pouring
the seething mass into pans, and the children carried them to the
summer-kitchen to cool.
While the others were laughing and talking over their sticks of taffy,
Basil was turning over in his mind the advisability of trying to win
Mrs. Estabrook’s approval of bicycle riding for girls. This amusement
was at that time in the early stage of its popularity, and was looked
upon with discredit by many persons. Basil’s attentive, thoughtful
ways evidently produced a good impression upon grandma, and she talked
cheerily to him of his coming work, of his life at home, and such
topics as she thought might interest him.
“I hope you are not going to be homesick,” she said.
“I don’t believe we shall be,” answered Basil, cordially. “You’re all
so awfully jolly,—I mean so nice and homelike,—and you know Port and I
never had sisters, so we’ll learn a lot about girls, I expect.”
Grandma smiled at the naïve speech. “Have you no girl cousins?” she
asked.
“Yes, we have one who lives near us. She’s awfully nice, too; and when
we go out on our bikes very often she goes along.”
“Oh, she rides a bicycle!” And Basil saw disapproval of this “nice”
cousin written on Mrs. Estabrook’s face.
“She’s such a real good girl. She’s the rector’s daughter, you know,”
he hastened to say.
“What! Dr. Allison’s daughter? He is your rector, I have heard your
mother say.”
“So he is, and he’s one of the finest fellows you ever saw.”
“Yes, that is what I have always been told,” assented Mrs. Estabrook,
“and therefore I can hardly reconcile my idea of his good judgment to
the fact of his daughter’s riding a bicycle.”
“Why, don’t you think it’s good for girls? I wish you could see the
difference it has made in Mabel Allison. She used to be so delicate.
She had dyspepsia and all sorts of things, and now she looks like
another girl. Say, Mrs. Estabrook, don’t you think it would be nice for
Persis?”
“I don’t think Persis needs it.”
“But it would be fun for her. You would not mind our teaching her,
would you? It wouldn’t do any harm for her to know how.”
“No, I suppose not. I know she is very anxious to learn; but I should
dislike very much to see her in public mounted on a wheel.”
“Oh, well, we won’t let any one see her. We’ll go into the side street,
and you can watch us from your window.”
Mrs. Estabrook did not reply, and Basil, taking silence for consent,
went over to Persis and told her with great satisfaction that she was
to learn to ride as soon as the boys’ wheels should come.
The part of the city where the Holmes family lived was quite suburban,
although only fifteen minutes’ ride by trolley to the heart of the
city and within a short distance of the university where Mr. Holmes
held a professorship. Theirs was a corner house, and the quiet street
which ran along the side of the garden was at times in the day almost
deserted, and it was here that the boys intended to initiate Persis
into the mysteries of bicycle riding.
A more excited girl than Persis was over the prospect could scarcely
be found. “When once grandma sees how I can ride she’ll not say a word
against it,” she confided to Lisa. “Then you’ll learn, and we’ll all go
out together. Won’t it be fine? I’m so glad Basil and Porter have come.”
“You sang another song this morning,” returned Lisa.
This was after the taffy had been pulled till it was a delicate
straw-color, and the young people, having eaten all they could manage,
had said their good-nights with much complacency, feeling that the
evening had furnished them with all the amusement they could have
expected.
“Grandma, you’re a dear, sweet darling. I love you to pieces,” Persis
said. “I’m so happy to think you don’t mind my learning to ride.”
“Who said I didn’t mind?”
“Why, Basil. Didn’t you mean it?” And for a moment Persis’s hopes fell.
Grandma was too tender-hearted to declare she had never said anything
of the kind, and so she only kissed the eager face and said, “Well, my
child, I am old-fashioned, I suppose, but you will not go off the side
street, will you? I can’t quite stand the thought of seeing you in a
more public place.” And Persis’s hopes rose again.
“I think it has been a perfectly lovely Hallowe’en,” she avowed to
Lisa, as she vigorously brushed her hair.
“Yes, it has been great fun for you. After all your talk about those
boys coming, I notice you are the first one to be hand and glove with
them. That’s just like you, always at one extreme or the other,” Lisa
retorted. She could not entirely forgive Persis for having been the
first to win the boys’ good graces.
“Well, I’d like to know if you didn’t have the same chance for a good
time that I did. You should have made the most of your opportunities.
That’s just like you, Lisa. You’re always complaining that I have good
times, when you have exactly the same chances that I have. The only
difference is, that I go and meet the chances, and you sit and wait for
them to come to you, because you’re so terribly afraid that somehow
you’ll be called upon to step down from your pedestal. If you didn’t
cling so close to that pedestal of yours you’d have a better time. I
don’t sit still all the time looking for homage. I’d have a pretty
stupid time if I did.”
“And precious little you’d get if you looked for it,” asserted Lisa,
now more ruffled than before. “I am the eldest, and of course certain
things are due me.”
“Oh, dear!” thought Persis. “I wish Lisa were not so terribly
tenacious of her prerogatives. They are always getting in my way,
and I get snubbed because I don’t regard them. I wonder if I would
be so top-lofty and sniffy if I were the eldest. Maybe I would be.”
And she suppressed a smile as Lisa threw her a haughty glance from
under half-closed lids,—a glance which was meant to convey a sense of
superiority.
“Lisa, you would surely have been a Pharisee if you had lived in Bible
times,” remarked the irrepressible Persis.
“Then I suppose you would have been a publican and sinner. You don’t
have to go back to those times to be the latter.”
Persis laughed, but she was inwardly annoyed, and, jumping up, she
opened the door which led into Mellicent’s little room, leaving her
elder sister alone.
“Mell, I’m going to sleep with you,” she announced. “Lisa is on her
high horse to-night, and there’s not room for her to canter around
while I am there.”
Mellicent sleepily moved over to give Persis room. She was used to
these little disturbances between her two sisters; and, although it
was always Persis who left Lisa in possession, it was sometimes one
and sometimes the other who received Mellicent’s sympathies. She was
easily influenced, and any little appeal to her vanity, or a properly
phrased remark as to the state of her health, generally won her favor.
Therefore when Persis said, “I hope that taffy didn’t give you a
headache,” she replied, “I had one this morning; but I’m quite used to
them, you know.” This with a martyr-like air.
“So it’s a question of headache with or without taffy, isn’t it?”
returned Persis, comfortably. “I’ll take mine with this time. Did you
know, Mell, that I am going to ride a wheel? And if ever I get one of
my own you shall share it with me for letting me share your bed, and
Miss Lisa can whistle for a ride.”
“Audrey is going to get a wheel,” Mellicent informed her sister.
“Is she? Then of course you’ll want to ride with her. Well, I’ll teach
you, and you shall use mine—when I get it. Oh, don’t you hope we can
have one?”
“I didn’t care till Audrey made up her mind about it,” returned
Mellicent.
“What a loyal little subject you are! What makes you like Audrey so
much?”
“Why, Persis, she is so lovely, and you know she thinks she is
descended from the same family of Vanes as that to which Sir Harry Vane
belonged. Don’t you know, that dear Sir Harry whose statue we saw in
the Boston Public Library last summer? It is so dreadful to think of
his having been beheaded.”
“Yes, so it is, but I don’t see that it adds anything special to
Audrey’s attractions. I think I must hunt up a headless ancestor. I
wonder if we haven’t one hanging somewhere on our family tree.”
“Oh, Persis! how could he hang on a tree without a head?”
“Sure enough, he couldn’t, could he? He’d have to perch there with his
head under his arm like—who was it?—oh, yes, St. Denis, who carried
his head in his hands after he was beheaded. I don’t believe I’d care,
myself, for an ancestor who had to hang. I’ll tell you, Mell, who I
think is a nice girl.”
“Who?”
“Annis Brown.”
“What! that quiet little thing? She hasn’t a bit of style; she’s as
plain as a pipe-stem.”
“I know it, but I like her.”
“Audrey says she is a parvenu.”
“Humph! Just because her mother keeps boarders. That sounds like
Audrey.”
“Now, Persis, I won’t have you run down Audrey.”
“I won’t, then. I’m not going to get into any more squabbles to-night.
Audrey is an awfully nice girl, only she does brag a little too much.”
“She has something to brag about.”
“Well, I’m going to find out if some other people haven’t just as much.
Never mind, Mell, Audrey’s all right, and so are you. Here we are
talking ourselves wide-awake, and it will be morning before we’re ready
for it. Let’s turn over and go to sleep,” which they proceeded to do.
[Illustration: Decoration]