Halloween fell on Saturday that year. That made Friday a very busy time for Maida and the other members of the W.M.N.T. In the afternoon, they all worked like making -o’-lanterns of the dozen that Granny had ordered. Maida and Rosie and Dicky hollowed and scraped them. Arthur did all the hard work—the cutting out of the features, the putting-in of candle-holders. These lanterns were for decoration. But Maida had ordered many paper jack-o’-lanterns for sale. The W.M.N.T.’s spent the evening rearranging the shop. Maida went to bed so tired that she could hardly drag one foot after the other. Granny had to undress her.  
But when the school-children came flocking in the next morning, she felt more than repaid for her work. The shop with the “Oh mys,” and “Oh looks,” of their surprise and delight.
 
Indeed, the room seemed full of twinkling yellow faces. Lines of them grinned in the . Rows of them from the shelves. A , close-set as peas in a pod, from the molding. The jolly-looking pumpkin , that Arthur had made, were piled in a pyramid in the window. The biggest of them all—“he looks just like the man in the moon,” Rosie said—smiled benignantly at the passers-by from the top of the heap. about everywhere among the lanterns were groups of little paper brownies, their tiny heads turned as if, in the greatest , they were examining these monster beings.
 
The jack-o’-lanterns sold like hot cakes. As for the brownies, “Granny, you’d think they were marching off the shelves!” Maida said. By dark, she was diving breathlessly into her surplus stock. At the first touch of , she lighted every lantern left in the place. Five minutes afterwards, a crowd of children had gathered to gaze at the flaming faces in the window. Even the grown-ups stopped to admire the effect.
 
More customers came and more—a great many children whom Maida had never seen before. By six o’clock, she had sold out her entire stock. When she sat down to dinner that night, she was a very happy little girl.
 
“This is the best day I’ve had since I opened the shop,” she said . She was not tired, though. “I feel just like going to a party to-night. Granny, can I wear my prettiest Roman sash?”
 
“You can wear annyt’ing you want, my lamb,” Granny said, “for ’tis the good, busy little choild you’ve been this day.”
 
Granny dressed her according to Maida’s choice, in white. A very, simple, soft little frock, it was, with many tiny tucks made by hand and many insertions of a beautiful, fine lace. Maida chose to wear with it pale blue silk stockings and , a sash of blue, striped in pink and white, a string of pink Venetian .
 
“Now, Granny, I’ll read until the children call for me,” she suggested, “so I won’t my dress.”
 
But she was too excited to read. She sat for a long time at the window, just looking out. Presently the jack-o’-lanterns, lighted [Pg 226]now, began to make blobs of gold in the darkness of the street. She could not at first make out who held them. It was strange to watch the , grinning heads, flying, bodiless, from place to place. But she identified the lanterns in the court by the houses from which they emerged. The three small ones on the end at the left meant Dicky and Molly and Tim. Two big ones, mounted on sticks, came from across the way—Rosie and Arthur, of course. Two, just alike, side by side betrayed the Clark twins. A baby-lantern, swinging close to the ground—that could be nobody but Betsy.
 
The crowd in the Court began to march towards the shop. For an instant, Maida watched the spots of brilliant color dancing in her direction. Then she slipped into her coat, and seized her own lantern. When she came outside, the sidewalk seemed crowded with faces, all laughing at her.
 
“Just think,” she said, “I have never been to a Halloween party in my life.”
 
“You are the queerest thing, Maida,” Rosie said in perplexity. “You’ve been to Europe. You can talk French and Italian. And yet, you’ve never been to a Halloween party. Did you ever hang May-baskets?”
 
Maida shook her head.
 
“You wait until next May,” Rosie gleefully.
 
The crowd crossed over into the Court Two motionless, yellow faces, grinning at them from the Lathrop steps, showed that Laura and Harold had come out to meet them. On the lawn they broke into an game of tag which the jack-o’-lanterns seemed to enjoy as much as the children: certainly, they whizzed from place to place as quickly and, certainly, they smiled as hard.
 
The game ended, they left their lanterns on the and trooped into the house.
 
“We’ve got to play the first games in the kitchen,” Laura announced after the coats and hats had come off and Mrs. Lathrop had greeted them all.
 
Maida wondered what sort of party it was that was held in the kitchen but she asked no questions. Almost bursting with curiosity, she joined the long line marching to the back of the house.
 
In the middle of the kitchen floor stood a tub of water with apples floating in it.
“Bobbing for apples!” the children exclaimed. “Oh, that’s the greatest fun of all. Did you ever bob for apples, Maida?”
 
“No.”
 
“Let Maida try it first, then,” Laura said. “It’s very easy, Maida,” she went on with twinkling eyes. “All you have to do is to kneel on the floor, clasp your hands behind you, and pick out one of the apples with your teeth. You’ll each be allowed three minutes.”
 
“Oh, I can get a half a dozen in three minutes, I guess,” Maida said.
 
Laura tied a big around Maida’s waist and stood, watch in hand. The children gathered in a circle about the tub. Maida knelt on the floor, clasped her hands behind her and reached with a wide-open mouth for the nearest apple. But at the first touch of her lips, the apple bobbed away. She reached for another. That bobbed away, too. Another and another and another—they all bobbed clean out of her reach, no matter how delicately she touched them. That method was unsuccessful.
 
“One minute,” called Laura.
 
Maida could hear the children at her. She tried another scheme, making vicious little at the apples. Her beads and her hair-ribbon and one of her long curls dipped into the water. But she only succeeded in sending the apples spinning across the tub.
 
“Two minutes!” called Laura.
 
“Why don’t you get those half a dozen,” the children . “You know you said it was so easy.”
 
Maida too. But inwardly, she made up her mind that she would get one of those apples if she dipped her whole head into the tub. At last a brilliant idea occurred to her. Using her chin as a guide, she a big apple over against the side of the tub. Wedging it there against another big apple, she held it tight. Then she dropped her head a little, gave a sudden big bite and arose amidst applause, with the apple secure between her teeth.
 
After that she had the fun of watching the other children. The older ones were . In three minutes, Rosie secured four, Dicky five and Arthur six. Rosie did not get a drop of water on her but the boys emerged with dripping heads. The little children were not very successful but they were more fun. Molly swallowed so much water that she choked and had to be patted on the back. Betsy after a few snaps of her little, mouth, seized one of the apples with her hand, sat down on the floor and calmly ate it. But the was reached when Tim Doyle suddenly lurched forward and fell headlong into the tub.
 
“I knew he’d fall in,” Molly said in a matter-of-fact voice. “He always falls into everything. I brought a dry set of clothes for him. Come, Tim!”
 
At this announcement, everybody . Molly disappeared with Tim in the direction of Laura’s bedroom. When she reappeared, sure enough, Tim had a dry suit on.
 
Next Laura ordered them to sit about the kitchen-table. She gave each child an apple and a knife and directed him to pare the apple without breaking the peel. If you think that is an easy thing to do, try it. It seemed to Maida that she never would accomplish it. She spoiled three apples before she succeeded.
 
“Now take your apple-paring and form in line across the kitchen-floor,” Laura commanded.
 
The flock to obey her.
 
“Now when I say ‘Three!’” she continued, “throw the parings back over your shoulder to the floor. If the paring makes a letter, it will be the initial of your future husband or wife. One! Two! THREE!”
 
A dozen apple-parings flew to the floor. Everybody raced across the room to examine the results.
 
“Mine is B,” Dicky said.
 
“And mine’s an O,” Rosie declared, “as plain as anything. What’s yours, Maida?”
 
“It’s an X,” Maida answered in great perplexity. “I don’t believe that there are any names beginning with X except Xenophon and Xerxes.”
 
“Well, mine’s as bad,” Laura laughed, “it’s a Z. I guess I’ll be Mrs. Zero.”
 
“That’s nothing,” Arthur laughed, “mine’s an &—I can’t marry anybody named ——‘and.’”
 
“Well, if that isn’t successful,” Laura said, “there’s another way of finding out who your husband or wife’s going to be. You must walk down the cellar-stairs with a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other. You must look in the mirror all the time and, when you get to the foot of the stairs, you will see, reflected in it, the face of your husband or wife.”
 
This did not interest the little children but the big ones were wild to try it.
 
“Gracious, doesn’t it sound scary?” Rosie said, her great eyes snapping. “I love a game that’s kind of spooky, don’t you, Maida?”
 
Maida did not answer. She was watching Harold who was out of the room very quietly from a door at the side.
 
“All right, then, Rosie,” Laura caught her up, “you can go first.”
 
The children all crowded over to the door leading to the cellar. The stairs were as dark as pitch. Rosie took the mirror and the candle that Laura handed her and slipped through the opening. The little audience listened breathless.
 
They heard Rosie stumble awkwardly down the stairs, heard her pause at the fo............