THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY
It had become an established custom now for Tess and Dot to call on Mrs.
Eland each Monday afternoon.
"She is such a nice lady. I wish you could meet my Mrs. Eland," Tess
said to Mrs. Adams, who lived not far from the old Corner House, on
Willow Street, and who was one of the first friends the Kenway sisters
had made in Milton.
Tess had been sent to Mrs. Adams on an errand for Mrs. MacCall, and now
lingered at the invitation of the lady who loved to have any of the
Corner House girls come in. "I wish you could meet my Mrs. Eland,"
repeated Tess. "I believe it would do her good to have more callers.
They'd liven her up--and she's so sad nowadays. I know _you'd_ liven her
up, Mrs. Adams."
"Well, child, I hope I wouldn't make her unhappy, I'm sure. I believe in
folks being lively if they can. I haven't a particle of use for
_grumps_--no, indeed! 'Laugh and grow fat' is a pretty good motto."
"But you're not fat," suggested Tess; "and you are 'most always
laughing."
"That's a fact; but it's not worrying that keeps me lean. 'Care killed
the cat' my mother used to say; but care never killed her, I'm certain!
Some folks is born for leanness, and I'm one of 'em."
"Well, it's real becoming to you," said Tess, kindly, eyeing the rather
bony woman with reflective gaze. "And you're not as thin as Briggs, the
baker. Mrs. MacCall says he doesn't cast a shadow."
"My soul! No!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. "And his loaves of bread have got
so't they don't cast much of a shadow. I've been complaining to him
about his bread. The rise in the price of flour can't excuse altogether
the stinginess of his loaves.
"He came here the other day about dark, and I had my porch door locked.
I heard him knock and I asks, 'Who's there?'
"'It's the baker, ma'am,' says he. 'Here's your bread.'
"'Well, bring it in,' says I, forgetting the door was locked.
"'I don't see how I can, ma'am,' he says, ''nless I put it through the
keyhole, ma'am,' and he begun to giggle. But I put the come-up-ance on
him," declared Mrs. Adams, with satisfaction. I says:
"'I don't see what's to stop you, Myron Briggs. The goodness knows your
loaves are small enough to go through the keyhole.' And he didn't have
nothin' more to say to me."
"Why, I think that's very funny," said Tess, in her sober way. "I'll
tell that to Mrs. Eland. Maybe it will amuse her."
But on the next occasion when the two younger Corner House girls went to
the hospital, Tess did not try to cheer the matron's spirits by
repeating Mrs. Adams's joke on the baker.
Mrs. Eland had been crying. Even usually unobservant Dot noticed it. Her
eyes were red and her face pale and drawn. The pretty pink of her cheeks
and the ready twinkle in her gray eyes, were missing.
On the table by the matron's side were some faded old letters--quite a
bundle of them, in fact--tied with a faded tape. They were docketed
carefully on their ends with ink that had yellowed with age.
"These are letters from my uncle--'Lemon' Aden, as our little Dot called
him," Mrs. Eland said, with a sad smile. "To my--my poor father. Those
letters he put into my hand to take care of when we knew that awful fire
that destroyed most of our city, was going to sweep away our home.
"I took the letters and Teeny by the hand----"
"Was Teeny your sister's name, Mrs. Eland?" asked Tess, deeply
interested.
"So we called her," the matron said. "She was such a little fairy! As
small and delicate as Dot, here. Only she was light--a regular
milk-and-rose complexion and with red-gold hair."
"Like Tess' teacher's hair?" asked Dot, curiously. "She's got red hair."
"Oh, goodness!" cried Tess, "she's not pretty. That's sure, if her hair
is red!"
"Teeny's hair was lovely," said Mrs. Eland, ruminatively. "I can
remember just how she looked. I was but four years older than she; but I
was a big girl."
"You mean when that awful fire came?" asked Tess.
"Yes, my dear. Father told me to take care of these letters; they were
important. And to keep tight hold of Teeny's hand."
"And didn't you?" asked Dot, to whose thoroughly Sunday-school-trained
mind, all punishment directly followed disobedience.
"Oh, yes. I did as he told me. He went back into the house to get
mother. She was an invalid, you know."
"Like Mrs. Buckham," suggested Tess.
A spasm of pain crossed the hospital matron's face, and she turned away
for a moment. After a little she continued her story.
"And then the fire came so suddenly that it swallowed the house right
up!"
"Oh!" gasped Dot.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Eland," whispered Tess, patting her arm.
"It was very dreadful," said the gray lady, softly. "Teeny and I were
grabbed up by some men in a wagon, and the horses galloped us away to
safety. But our poor mother and father were buried in the ruins of the
house."
"And you saved the letters?" said Tess.
"But lost Teeny," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "There was such confusion in
the camp of the refugees that many families were separated. By and by I
came East--and I brought these letters. But--but they do me no good now.
I can prove nothing by them. 'Corroborative evidence,' so the lawyers
say, is lacking----
"Well, well, well!" she said, breaking off suddenly. "All that does not
interest you little ones."
"So you couldn't give the letters to your Uncle Lem-u-el?" questioned
Dot, careful to get the name right this time.
"I never could even see my Uncle Lemuel," said Mrs. Eland, with a sigh.
"I believe he knew I was searching for him during the last few years of
his life; but he always kept out of my way."
"Oh! wasn't that bad of him!" cried Tess.
"I don't know. His end was most miserable. People said he must have at
one time accumulated a great deal of money. He was supposed to be as
rich a man as lived in Milton--richer than your Uncle Peter Stower. But
he must have squandered it all in some way. He died finally in the
Quoharis poorhouse. He did not belong in that town; but he wandered
there in a storm and they took him in."
"And didn't they find lots of money in his clothes when he was dead?"
queried Dot, who had heard something about misers.
"Mercy, no! He had no money, I am quite sure," said the lady,
confidently. "The old townfarm keeper over there tells me that Mr.
Lemuel Aden left nothing but some worthless papers and letters and a
little memorandum book, or diary. I suppose they are hardly worth my
claiming them. At least, I never have done so, and Uncle Lemuel died
quite fifteen years ago."
After that Mrs. Eland had no more to say about Lemuel Aden for the time
being, but tried to amuse her little visitors, as usual. And Tess never
told that joke about Briggs, the baker.
This brings us, naturally, to the eve of All Saints, an occasion much
given over to feasting and foolery. "When churchyards yawn--if they ever
do yawn," suggested Neale, as he and the two oldest Corner House girls
set forth on the crisp evening in question, to walk out to Carrie
Poole's place.
"I guess folks yarn about them, more than the graves yawn," said Agnes,
roguishly. "Remember the garret ghost, Ruth?"
"You mean what Dot thought was a goat?" laughed the older girl. "I
believe you!" she went on, caught in the contagion of slang.
"That was before my time in Milton," said Neale, cheerfully. "But I have
heard how you Corner House girls laid the ghost that had haunted the old
place so long."
[Illustration: They saw two huge pumpkin lanterns grinning a welcome
from the gateposts. Page 173]
"I believe Uncle Peter must have known what it really was," said Ruth,
thoughtfully. "But it delighted him, I suppose, to have people talk
about the old house, and be afraid to visit him. He was a recluse."
"And a miser, they say," Neale observed bluntly.
"I don't think we should say that," Ruth replied quickly. "Everybody
tried to get money from Uncle Peter. Everybody but our mother and
father, I guess. That is why he left most everything to us."
"Well," Agnes said, "they all declared he haunted the place himself
after he died."
"That's a wicked story!" Ruth sharply exclaimed. "I don't believe there
is such a thing as a ghost, anyway!"
"And you, going to a ghost party right now?" cried Neale, laughing.
"These will be play ghosts," returned Ruth.
"Oh, _will_ they? You just wait and see," chuckled the boy, for he and
his close chum, Joe Eldred, were masters of ceremonies, and they had
promised to startle Carrie and her guests with "real Hallowe'en ghosts."
Before the Corner House girls and their escort reached the top of the
hill on which the Poole house stood they saw the two huge pumpkin
lanterns grinning a welcome from the gateposts. There was a string of
smaller Hallowe'en lanterns across the porch before the entrance to the
house. And every time anybody pushed open the gate, a ghostly
apparition with a glowing head rose up most astonishingly behind the
porch railing to startle the visitor.
Neale and Joe had been at the house all the afternoon, putting up these
and other bits of foolery. Joe's father, who was superintendent of the
Milton Electric Light Company, allowed his son considerable freedom in
the shops. Joe and Neale had brought out a good-sized battery outfit and
the necessary wires and attachments; and when the girls stopped on the
mat at the door to remove their overshoes, each got a distinct shock, to
the great delight of the earlier guests who stood in the hall to observe
the fun.
"A ghost pushed you, Ruth Kenway!" cried Carrie, from the stairs.
"Do you dare look down the well with a candle and see if you will see
your future husband's face floating in the water, Aggie?" demanded Lucy
Poole, Carrie's cousin.
"Don't want to see my future husband," declared Agnes. "It will be bad
enough to see him in reality when the awful time arrives."