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 beavers making jack-o’-lanterns of the dozen pumpkins 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 pumpkin 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 resounded 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 doorway. rows of them smirked from the shelves. a frieze, close-set as peas in a pod, grimaced from the molding. the jolly-looking pumpkin jacks, 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. standing about everywhere among the lanterns were groups of little paper brownies, their tiny heads turned upwards as if, in the greatest astonishment, 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 twilight, 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 contentedly. 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 slippers, a sash of blue, striped in pink and white, a string of pink venetian beads.
“now, granny, i’ll read until the children call for me,” she suggested, “so i won’t rumple 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 furry darkness of the street. she could not at first make out who held them. it was strange to watch the fiery, 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, trotting 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 grotesque 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 prophesied 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 impromptu 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 piazza 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 apron 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 giggling at her. she tried another scheme, making vicious little dabs 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 jeered. “you know you said it was so easy.”
maida giggled 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 poked a big rosy 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 adepts. 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, rosebud mouth, seized one of the apples with her hand, sat down on the floor and calmly ate it. but the climax 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 shrieked. 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 scampered 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 backwards 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 sneaking 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 foot. next came a moment of silence, of waiting as tense above as below. then came a burst of rosie’s jolly laughter. she came running up to them, her cheeks like roses, her eyes like stars.
they crowded around her. “what did you see?” “tell us about it?” they clamored.
rosie shook her head. “no, no, no,” she maintained, “i’m not going to tell you what i saw until you’ve been down yourself.”
it was arthur’s turn next. they listened again. the same thing happened—awkward stumbling down the stairs, a pause, then a roar of laughter.
“oh what did you see?” they implored when he reappeared.
“try it yourself!” he advised. “i’m not going to tell.”
dicky went next. again they all listened and to the same mysterious doings. dicky came back smiling but, like the others, he refused to describe his experiences.
now it was maida’s turn. she took the candle and the mirror from dicky and plunged into the shivery darkness of the stairs. it was doubly difficult for her to go down backwards because of her lameness. but she finally arrived at the bottom and stood there expectantly. it seemed a long time before anything happened. suddenly, she felt something stir back of her. a lighted jack-o’-lantern came from between the folds of a curtain which hung from the ceiling. it grinned over her shoulder at her face in the mirror.
maida burst into a shriek of laughter and scrambled upstairs. “i’m going to marry a jack-o’-lantern,” she said. “my name’s going to be mrs. jack pumpkin.”
“i’m going to marry laura’s sailor-doll,” rosie confessed. “my name is mrs. yankee doodle.”
“i’m going to marry laura’s big doll, queenie,” arthur admitted.
“and i’m going to marry harold’s teddy-bear,” dicky said.
after that they blew soap-bubbles and roasted apples and chestnuts, popped corn and pulled candy at the great fireplace in the playroom. and at maida’s request, just before they left, laura danced for them.
“will you help me to get on my costume, maida?” laura asked.
“of course,” maida said, wondering.
“i asked you to come down here, maida,” laura said when the two little girls were alone, “because i wanted to tell you that i am sorry for the way i treated you just before i got diphtheria. i told my mother about it and she said i did those things because i was coming down sick. she said that people are always fretty and cross when they’re not well. but i don’t think it was all that. i guess i did it on purpose just to be disagreeable. but i hope you will excuse me.”
“of course i will, laura,” maida said heartily. “and i hope you will forgive me for going so long without speaking to you. but you see i heard,” she stopped and hesitated, “things,” she ended lamely.
“oh, i know what you heard. i said those things about you to the w.m.n.t.’s so that they’d get back to you. i wanted to hurt your feelings.” laura in her turn stopped and hesitated for an instant. “i was jealous,” she finally confessed in a burst. “but i want you to understand this, maida. i didn’t believe those horrid things myself. i always have a feeling inside when people are telling lies and i didn’t have that feeling when you were talking to me. i knew you were telling the truth. and all the time while i was getting well, i felt so dreadfully about it that i knew i never would be happy again unless i told you so.”
“i did feel bad when i heard those things,” maida said, “but of course i forgot about them when rosie told me you were ill. let’s forget all about it again.”
but maida told the w.m.n.t.’s something of her talk with laura and the result was an invitation to laura to join the club. it was accepted gratefully.
the next month went by on wings. it was a busy month although in a way, it was an uneventful one. the weather kept clear and fine. little rain fell but, on the other hand, to the great disappointment of the little people of primrose court, there was no snow. maida saw nothing of her father for business troubles kept him in new york. he wrote constantly to her and she wrote as faithfully to him. letters could not quite fill the gap that his absence made. perhaps billy suspected maida’s secret loneliness for he came oftener and oftener to see her.
one night the w.m.n.t.’s begged so hard for a story that he finally began one called “the crystal ball.” a wonderful thing about it was that it was half-game and half-story. most wonderful of all, it went on from night to night and never showed any signs of coming to an end. but in order to play this game-story, there were two or three conditions to which you absolutely must submit. for instance, it must always be played in the dark. and first, everybody must shut his eyes tight. billy would say in a deep voice, “abracadabra!” and, presto, there they all were, maida, rosie, laura, billy, arthur and dicky inside the crystal ball. what people lived there and what things happened to them can not be told here. but after an hour or more, billy’s deepest voice would boom, “abracadabra!” again and, presto, there they all were again, back in the cheerful living-room.
maida hoped against hope that her father would come to spend thanksgiving with her but that, he wrote finally, was impossible. billy came, however, and they three enjoyed one of granny’s delicious turkey dinners.
“i hoped that i would have found your daughter annie by this time, granny,” billy said. “i ask every irishman i meet if he came from aldigarey, county sligo or if he knows anybody who did, or if he’s ever met a pretty irish girl by the name of annie flynn. but i’ll find her yet—you’ll see.”
“i hope so, misther billy,” granny said respectfully. but maida thought her voice sounded as if she had no great hope.
dicky still continued to come for his reading-lessons, although maida could see that, in a month or two, he would not need a teacher. the quiet, studious, pale little boy had become a great favorite with granny flynn.
“sure an’ oi must be after getting over to see the poor lad’s mother some noight,” she said. “’tis a noice woman she must be wid such a pretty-behaved little lad.”
“oh, she is, granny,” maida said earnestly. “i’ve been there once or twice when mrs. dore came home early. and she’s just the nicest lady and so fond of dicky and the baby.”
but granny was old and very easily tired and, so, though her intentions were of the best, she did not make this call.
one afternoon, after thanksgiving, maida ran over to dicky’s to borrow some pink tissue paper. she knocked gently. nobody answered. but from the room came the sound of sobbing. maida listened. it was dicky’s voice. at first she did not know what to do. finally, she opened the door and peeped in. dicky was sitting all crumpled up, his head resting on the table.
“oh, what is the matter, dicky?” maida asked.
dicky jumped. he raised his head and looked at her. his face was swollen with crying, his eyes red and heavy. for a moment he could not speak. maida could see that he was ashamed of being caught in tears, that he was trying hard to control himself.
“it’s something i heard,” he replied at last.
“what?” maida asked.
“last night after i got to bed, doc o’brien came here to get his bill paid. mother thought i was asleep and asked him a whole lot of questions. he told her that i wasn’t any better and i never would be any better. he said that i’d be a cripple for the rest of my life.”
in spite of all his efforts, dicky’s voice broke into a sob.
“oh dicky, dicky,” maida said. better than anybody else in the world, maida felt that she could understand, could sympathize. “oh, dicky, how sorry i am!”
“i can’t bear it,” dicky said.
he put his head down on the table and began to sob. “i can’t bear it,” he said. “why, i thought when i grew up to be a man, i was going to take care of mother and delia. instead of that, they’ll be taking care of me. what can a cripple do? once i read about a crippled newsboy. do you suppose i could sell papers?” he asked with a gleam of hope.
“i’m sure you could,” maida said heartily, “and a great many other things. but it may not be as bad as you think, dicky. dr. o’brien may be mistaken. you know something was wrong with me when i was born and i did not begin to walk until a year ago. my father has taken me to so many doctors that i’m sure he could not remember half their names. but they all said the same thing—that i never would walk like other children. then a very great physician—dr. greinschmidt—came from away across the sea, from germany. he said he could cure me and he did. i had to be operated on and—oh—i suffered dreadfully. but you see that i’m all well now. i’m even losing my limp. now, i believe that doctor greinschmidt can cure you. the next time my father comes home i’m going to ask him.”
dicky had stopped crying. he was drinking down everything that she said. “is he still here—that doctor?” he asked.
“no,” maida admitted sorrowfully. “but there must be doctors as good as he somewhere. but don’t you worry about it at all, dicky. you wait until my father sees you—he always gets everything made right.”
“when’s your father coming home?”
“i don’t quite know—but i look for him any time now.”
dicky started to set the table. “i guess i wouldn’t have cried,” he said after a while, “if i could have cried last night when i first heard it. but of course i couldn’t let mother or doc o’brien know that i’d heard them—it would make them feel bad. i don’t want my mother ever to know that i know it.”
after that, maida redoubled her efforts to be nice to dicky. she cudgeled her brains too for new decorative schemes for his paper-work. she asked billy potter to bring a whole bag of her books from the beacon street house and she lent them to dicky, a half dozen at a time.
indeed, they were a very busy quartette—the w.m.n.t.’s. rosie went to school every day. she climbed out of her window no more at night. she seemed to prefer helping maida in the shop to anything else. arthur duncan was equally industrious. with no rosie to play hookey with, he, too, was driven to attending school regularly. his leisure hours were devoted to his whittling and wood-carving. he was always doing kind things for maida and granny, bringing up the coal, emptying the ashes, running errands.
and so november passed into december.
