“It would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?” Fred decided. “I wonder if we can get animal false-faces? I’m going to ask Dad to-night.”
Mr. Williamson kept the department store in River Bend, and he always carried a stock of false-faces for Hallowe’en. Fred was sure that if there were such things as “animal faces” his father would have them.
“Let’s not tell what kind of animals we’re going to be,” suggested Polly. “I love to be surprised.”
“You’d better tell your mother, Margy,” said Ward. “If she sees a bunch of animals coming to her house Hallowe’en night, she may think a circus broke loose somewhere and not let us in.”
“You can’t scare my mother,” declared Margy, proudly. “I don’t believe she’d be afraid of an elephant, if she met him. Not on Hallowe’en, at any rate.”
“We’re going to have the house to ourselves—did you know that?” said Fred. “Everything we need for the party will be all ready in the kitchen, and Mother is going to leave things to eat in the pantry. She and Dad are going over to Ward’s house. And Mr. and Mrs. Marley, too.”
“They’ll have a party of their own, I guess,” said Jess. “I don’t believe it is much fun for them to duck for apples and do the things we do. They would rather listen to Mrs. Marley play the piano and my mother play her violin than fuss around with Hallowe’en games.”
“They’re going to have the radio set that night, too,” Ward announced. “Fred said he’d take it down from the clubroom and set it up in the parlor. There’s a big musical program from some city that night.”
Fred was the wireless expert of the Riddle Club. He had first put up the handsome radio set the club had been given for their share in the capture of some radio thieves, and had taken it down and set it up in camp that summer as well. Then, when the time came to come home, he had taken down the tree aerials and had brought the set back to the Larue barn and set it up again in the clubroom. Now for this special night he would attach a loud speaker and arrange it in the Larue parlor so that the listening parents might enjoy the concert.
But the girls and boys could not talk long of this grown-up affair when their own thrilling party was yet to be arranged. They were used to planning their parties, and their mothers thought that in this way they had twice the usual amount of fun. Nearly every one can go to a party, if invited, but not every one could plan a party if he had to. The members of the Riddle Club did do both nicely.