CHAPTER XI.
A HALLOWE'EN PARTY.
NOTHING worse than rats and spiders haunted the old house of HartwellHollow, but set far back from the road in a tangle of vines and cedars,it looked lonely and neglected enough to give rise to almost any report.The long unused road, winding among the rockeries from gate to house,was hidden by a rank growth of grass and mullein. From one of the treesbeside it an aged grape-vine swung down its long snaky limbs, as if abunch of giant serpents had been caught up in a writhing mass and leftto dangle from tree-top to earth. Cobwebs veiled the windows, and deadleaves had drifted across the porches until they lay knee-deep in someof the corners.
As Miss Allison paused in front of the doorstep with the keys, a snakeglided across her path and disappeared in one of the tangled rockeries.Both the coloured women who were with her jumped back, and one screamed.
"It won't hurt you, Sylvia," said Miss Allison, laughingly. "An oldpoet who owned this place when I was a child made pets of all thesnakes, and even brought some up from the woods as he did the wildflowers. That is a perfectly harmless kind."
"Maybe so, honey," said old Sylvia, with a wag of her turbaned head,"but I 'spise 'em all, I sho'ly do. It's a bad sign to meet up wid oneright on de do'step. If it wasn't fo' you, Miss Allison, I wouldn't putfoot in such a house. An' I tell you p'intedly, what I says is gospeltruth, if I ketch sound of a han't, so much as even a rustlin' on deflo', ole Sylvia gwine out'n a windah fo' you kin say _scat_! Don'tketch dis ole niggah foolin' roun' long whar ghos'es is. Pete's got togo in first an' open de house."
But not even the rats interrupted Sylvia in her sweeping and garnishing,and by four o'clock all the rooms which were to be used were as clean asthree of Mrs. MacIntyre's best trained servants could make them.
"Even ole Miss would call that clean," said Sylvia, looking around onthe white floors and shining window-panes with a satisfied air.
Mrs. Sherman had driven down some time before, with a carriage-load ofJack-o'-lanterns, and was now arranging them in rows on all theold-fashioned black mantels. She looked around as Sylvia spoke.
"It would have been spookier to have left the dust and cobwebs," shesaid, "but this is certainly nicer and more cheerful."
Fires were blazing on every hearth, in parlour, dining-room, and hall,to dissipate the dampness of the long unused rooms. A kettle was singingon the kitchen stove, and tables and chairs had been brought over andarranged in the empty rooms. All that the woods could contribute in theway of crimson berries, trailing vines, and late autumn leaves, had beenbrought in to brighten the bare walls and festoon the uncurtainedwindows. The chestnuts, the apples, the tubs of water, the lead, andeverything else necessary for the working of the charms was inreadiness; the refreshments were in the pantry, and on the kitchen tableLloyd was arranging the ingredients for the fate cake.
"There couldn't be a bettah place for a Hallowe'en pahty," she said,looking around the rooms when all was done. "No mattah how much we rompand play, there's nothing that can be hurt. Won't it look shivery whenall the Jack-o'-lanterns are lighted? Just as if some old ogah of aBluebeard lived heah, who kept the heads of all his wives and neighbourssittin' around on all the mantels an' shelves."
It was in the ruddy glow of the last bright October sunset that theydrove away from the house to go home to dinner. Even then the groundslooked desolate and forlorn; but it was doubly gruesome when they cameback at night. The Little Colonel and her mother were first to arrive.They had offered to come early and light the lanterns, as Miss Allisonwas expecting all her nieces and nephews on the seven o'clock train, andwanted to go down to meet them.
The wind was blowing in fitful gusts, rustling the dead leaves andswaying the snaky branches of the grape-vine until they seemedstartlingly alive. Now and then the moon looked out like a pale blearedeye.
"It is a real Tam O'Shanter night," said Miss Allison, as she led theway up the winding walk to the front door. "I can easily imagine witchesflying over my head. Can't you?" she asked, turning to the little groupsurrounding her. There were eight children. For not only Ranald and hissisters had come with Malcolm and Keith, but Rob Moore and his cousinAnna had been invited to come out from town to try their fortunes atHartwell Hollow, and spend the night in the Valley where they alwayspassed their happy summers.
"Oh, auntie! What's that?" cried little Elise, holding tightly to MissAllison's hand, as she caught sight of Lloyd's old Popocatepetl,grinning a welcome by the front door. He looked like a mammoth dragon,spouting fire from nose, eyes and mouth.
Elise clung a little closer to Miss Allison's side as they drew nearer."What awful teeth it's got, hasn't it?"
"Nothing but grains of corn, dear. Lloyd stuck them in. You haven'tforgotten the Little Colonel, have you? She is inside the house now,waiting to see you." Then Miss Allison turned to the others. "Step high,children, every one of you, when you come to this broomstick lyingacross the door-sill. Be sure to step over it, or some witch might slipin with you. It is the only way to keep them out on Hallowe'en. Stephigh, Elise! Here we go!"
"That's one of the nice things about auntie," Kitty confided to AnnaMoore as they followed. "She acts as if she really believes those oldcharms, and that makes them seem so real that we enjoy them so muchmore."
The Little Colonel, waiting in the hall for the guests to arrive, hadbeen feeling a little shy about renewing her acquaintance with Ranaldand his sisters. It seemed to her that they must have seen so much andlearned so much in their trip around the world, that they would notcare to talk about ordinary matters. But when they all came tumbling inover the broomstick, they seemed to tumble at the same time from thepedestals where her imagination had placed them, back into the oldfamiliar footing just where they had been before they went away.
Lloyd had thought about Ranald many times since Miss Allison's accountof him had made him a hero in her eyes. She could not think of him inany way but as dressed in a uniform, riding along under fluttering flagsto the sound of martial music. So when Miss Allison called, "Here is thecaptain, Little Colonel," her face flushed as if she were about to meetsome distinguished stranger. But it was the same quiet Ranald whogreeted her, much taller than when he went away, but dressed just likethe other boys, and not even bronzed by his long marches under thetropical sun. The year that had passed since his return had blotted outall trace of his soldier life in his appearance, except, perhaps, themilitary erectness with which he held himself.
Kitty, after catching Lloyd by the shoulders for an impulsive hug andkiss, started at once to examine the haunted house.
"There'll be mischief brewing in a little bit, I'll promise you," saidMiss Allison, as Kitty's head with its short black hair dodged past her,and there was a flash of a red dress up the stairway. "She is lookingfor the 'ghos'es' that Sylvia told her were up there."
Elise clung to Allison's hand, for the little sister wanted theprotection of the big one, in those ghostly-looking rooms, lighted onlyby the fires and the yellow gleam of those rows of weird, uncannyJack-o'-lantern faces. Like Kitty, both Allison and Elise had big darkeyes that might have been the pride of a Spanish senorita, they were solarge and lustrous. Kitty's curls had been cut, but theirs hung thickand long on their shoulders. The sight of them moved Rob to acompliment.
"You and Anna Moore make me think of night and morning," he said,looking from Anna's golden hair to Allison's dusky curls. "One is solight and one is so black. You ought to go around together all the time.You look fine together."
"Rob is growing up," laughed Anne. "Two years ago he wouldn't havethought about making pretty speeches about our hair; he'd just havepulled it."
"Here comes a whole crowd of people," exclaimed Allison, as the dooropened again. "I wonder how many of the girls I'll know. Oh, there'sCorinne and Katie and Margery and Julia Forrest. Why, nobody seems tohave changed a bit. Come on, Lloyd, let's go and speak to them."
"I'm glad that everybody is coming early," said Lloyd, "so that we canbegin the fate cake."
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nbsp; That was the first performance. When the guests had all arrived, theywere taken into the kitchen. Under the ban of silence (for the speakingof a word would have broken the charm) they stood around the table,giggling as the cake was concocted, out of a cup of salt, a cup offlour, and enough water to make a thick batter. A ring, a thimble, adime, and a button were dropped into it, and each guest gave the mixturea solemn stir before the pan was put into the oven, and left in chargeof old Mom Beck.
By that time the two tubs of water had been carried into the hall.Several dozen apples were set afloat in them, with a folded strip ofpaper pinned to each bearing a hidden name. By the time these had beenlifted out by their stems in the teeth of the laughing contestants, thelead was melted ready to use.
They tried their fate with that next, pouring a little out into a plateof water, to see into what shapes the drops would instantly harden.Strangely enough, Ranald's took the shape of a sword. Malcolm's was alion and Keith's a ship, the Little Colonel's a star and Rob's a spur.Some could have been called almost anything, like the one little Elisefound in her plate. She could not decide whether to call it a sugar-bowlor a chicken. But Miss Allison explained them all, giving some funnymeaning to each, and setting them all to laughing with the queerfortunes she declared these lead drops predicted.
They tried all the old customs they had ever heard of. They poppedchestnuts on a shovel, they counted apple-seeds, they threw the paringsover their heads to see what initials they would form in falling. Theyblindfolded each other and groped across the room to the table, on whichstood three saucers, one filled with ashes, one with water, and onestanding empty, to see whether life, death, or single blessednessawaited them in the coming year.
In the midst of these games Kitty beckoned the boys aside and led themout on the porch. "What do you think?" she whispered. "After all thetrouble auntie has taken to plan different entertainments, Cora Ferrisisn't satisfied. I heard her talking to some of the older girls. Shetold Eliza Hughes that she expected some excitement when she came, andthat she was dying to go down cellar backward with a looking-glass inone hand and a candle in the other. You know if you do that, the personwhom you're to marry will come and look over your shoulder, and you cansee him in the glass.
"The girls begged her not to, and told her that she'd be frightened todeath if she saw anybody, but she whispered to Eliza that she knew shewouldn't be scared, for she was sure Walter Cummins was her fate, andwould have to be down in the cellar if she tried the charm, and that shewouldn't be afraid of going into a lion's den if she thought Walterwould be there. And Eliza giggled and threatened to tell, and Cora gotred and put her hand over Eliza's mouth, and carried on awfully silly.It made me tired. But she's bound to go down cellar after awhile, andsomebody has told Walter what she said, and he's going, just for fun.Now I think it would be lots of fun to watch Walter, and keep him fromgoing, on some excuse or another, and then one of you boys look over hershoulder."
"Rob, you're the biggest, and almost as tall as Walter. You ought to bethe one to go," suggested Keith.
"Down in that spook cellar?" demanded Rob. "Not much, Keithie, my son. Imight see something myself, without the help of a looking-glass orcandle. I am not afraid of flesh and blood, but I vow I'm not ready tohave my hair turn white in a single night. I have been brought up onstories of the haunts that live in that cellar. My old black mammy usedto live here, and she has made me feel as if my blood had turned toice-water, lots of times, with her tales."
"You go, captain," said Malcolm, turning to Ranald. "You've been underfire, and oughtn't to be afraid of anything. You've got a reputation tokeep up, and here is a chance for you to show the stuff you are madeof."
"I am not afraid of the cellar," said the little captain, stoutly, "butI'm not going to be the one to look over her shoulder into thelooking-glass. I don't want to run any risk of marrying that fat CoraFerris."
A shout of laughter went up at his answer.
"You won't have to, goosey," said Rob. "There's nothing in those oldsigns."
"Well, I am not going to take any chances with her," he persisted,backing up against the wall. That settled it. They could have moved therock foundation of the house itself easier than the captain, when hetook that kind of a stand. Looking at it from Ranald's point of view,none of the boys were willing to go down cellar, for they could easilyimagine how the others would tease them afterward. Kitty's prank wouldhave fallen through, if she had not been quicker than a weasel atplanning mischief.
"What's to hinder fixing up a dummy man, and putting him down there?"she suggested. "You boys can run home and get Uncle Harry's rubberboots, and his old slouch hat, and some pillows, and that military capethat Ginger's father left there, and she'll think it is an army officerthat's she's going to marry. Won't she be fooled?"
The boys were as quick to act as Kitty was to plan. A noisy game ofblind man's buff was going on inside the house, so no one missed theconspirators, although they were gone for some time.
"We just ran home a minute for something," was Keith's excuse, when heand Malcolm and Ranald came in, red-faced and breathless. Rob and Kittywere still in the cellar, putting the finishing touches to the armyofficer. Kitty was recklessly fastening the dummy together with bigsafety-pins, regardless of the holes she was making in her Uncle Harry'shigh rubber hunting-boots.
"Isn't he a dandy!" exclaimed Rob, putting the slouched hat on thepillow head at a fierce angle, and fastening the military cape uparound the chin as far as possible. "Come on now, Kitty, let us make ourescape before anybody comes."
"SHE BEGAN THE OLD RHYME."]
Meanwhile, the boys had corralled Walter Cummins, and Cora, seeing himleave the room, thought that the proper time had come. Slipping thehand-mirror from the dressing-table in the room where they had lefttheir wraps, she took a candle from one of the Jack-o'-lanterns on theside porch, and signalled the girls who had agreed to follow her. Shewas nearly sixteen, but the three girls who groped their way across thecourtyard in the flickering light of her candle were much younger.
The cellar was entered from the courtyard, by an old-fashioned door, thekind best adapted to sliding, and it took the united strength of all thegirls to lift it. A rush of cold, damp air greeted them, and an earthysmell that would have checked the enthusiasm of any girl lesssentimental than Cora.
"I am frightened to death, girls," she confessed at the last moment, herteeth chattering. Yet she was not so frightened as she would have beenhad she not been sure that Walter had gone down the steps ahead of her.
"Hold the door open," she said, preparing to back slowly down. Herfluffy light hair stood out like an aureole in the yellowcandle-light, and the face reflected in the hand-mirror was prettyenough to answer every requirement of the old spell, despite the sillysimper on her lips. When she was nearly at the bottom of the cellarsteps she began the old rhyme:
"If in this glass his face I see, Then my true love will marry me."
But the couplet ended in a scream, so terrifying, so ear-splitting, soblood-curdling, that Katie dropped in a cold, trembling little heap onthe ground, and Eliza Hughes sank down on top of Katie, weak andshivering. Cora had seen the pillow-man in the cellar. Dropping thelooking-glass with a crash, but clinging desperately to the candle, shedashed up the steps shrieking at every breath. Just at the top shestepped on the front of her skirt, and fell sprawling forward. Shedropped the candle then, but not before it had touched her hair and setit afire.
The soft fluffy bangs blazed up like tow, and too terrified to move,Eliza Hughes still sat on top of Katie, screaming louder than Cora haddone. The sight brought Katie to her senses, however, and scrambling upfrom under Eliza, she flew at Cora and began beating out the fire withher bare hands. Cora, who had not discovered that her hair was ablaze,did not know what to make of such strange treatment. Her first thoughtwas that Katie had gone crazy with fright, and that was why she hadflown at her and begun to beat her on the head. It was all over in aninstant, and the fire put out so quickl
y that only Cora's bangs werescorched, and Katie's fingers but slightly burned.
But the screams had reached through the uproar of blind man's buff, andthe whole party poured out into the courtyard to see what had happened.There was great excitement for a little while, and Kitty, enjoying theconfusion she had stirred up, giggled as she listened to Cora'sstartling description of the man that had peeped over her shoulder. "Hedidn't look like any one I'd ever seen before," she declared. "He wastall and handsome and dressed like a soldier."
"Oh, surely not, Cora," answered Miss Allison, who saw that some of thelittle girls gathered around her were badly frightened. "That couldn'tbe, you know. The cellar is quite empty. Give me the candle, and I'll godown and show you."
"Oh, no, please, auntie, don't go down," cried Kitty, seeing that thetime had come to confess. "It is just a Hallowe'en joke. We didn'tsuppose that Cora would be scared. We just wanted to tease her becauseshe seemed so sure that she would find Walter down there. Go and bringhim up, boys."
Ranald and Rob started down the stairs, with Keith carrying a candle,and Malcolm calling for Walter to come on and help carry out his rival.The four boys, picking up the dummy as if it had been a real man,carried it up the steps and laid it carefully on the ground. So comicaldid it look with its pudgy pillow face, that everybody laughed exceptCora. She was furiously angry, and not all Kitty's penitent speeches orthe boys' polite apologies could appease her. If it had not been forMiss Allison she would have flounced home in high displeasure. But sheas usual poured oil on the troubled waters, and talked in such a tactfulway of her harum-scarum niece's many pranks, that there was no resistingsuch an appeal. She allowed herself to be led back to the house, but shewould not join in any of the games.
"Mom Beck says I'll have bad luck for seven years because I broke thatlooking-glass," she said, mournfully.
"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Allison. "Don't give it another thought,dear, it is only an old negro superstition."
She might have added that it was to herself and brother the ill luck hadcome, since it was her silver mirror that was broken, and Harry's rubberboots that would be henceforth useless for wading because of the holesthoughtless Kitty had made in them with safety-pins, when she fastenedthem to the pillows.
Refreshments were served soon after they went back to the house. Not thecakes and ices that usually attended parties in the Valley, but thingssuggestive of Hallowe'en. Pop-corn, nuts, and apples, doughnuts andmolasses candy. Then the fate cake was cut, and everybody took a sliceto carry home to dream on.
"Eat it the last thing before you retire," said Miss Allison. "Then walkto bed backwards without taking a drink of water or speaking anotherword to-night. It is so salty that it is likely you will dream of beingthirsty, and of somebody bringing you water. They say if you dream ofits being brought in a golden goblet you will marry into wealth. If in atin cup poverty will be your lot. The kind of vessel you see in yourdream will decide your fate. Ah, Walter got the button in his slice.That means he will be an old bachelor and sew his own buttons on all hislife."
Anna Moore got the dime, and Eliza Hughes the ring, which foretold thatshe would be the first one in the company to have a wedding. The thimblefell to no one, as it slipped out between two slices in the cutting."That means none of us will be old maids," said little Elise. MissAllison slipped it on Kitty's finger. "To mend your mischievous wayswith," she said, and everybody who had enjoyed the pillow-man laughed.
The moon was hiding behind a cloud when at last the merry party saidgood-night, so Miss Allison provided each little group with aJack-o'-lantern to light them on their homeward way. As the grotesqueyellow heads with their grinning fire-faces went bobbing down the lonelyroad, it was well for Tam O'Shanter that he need not pass that way. Allthe witches of Allway Kirk could not have made such a weird procession.Well, too, for old Ichabod Crane that he need not ride that nightthrough the shadowy Valley. One pumpkin, in the hands of the headlessrider, had been enough to banish him from Sleepy Hollow for ever. Whatwould have happened no one can tell, could he have met the longprocession of bodiless heads that straggled through the gate thatHallowe'en, from the haunted house of Hartwell Hollow.