The great excitement at present was the near approach of All-Hallows Eve, when it was the custom for the whole school to meet and spend the evening in 'apple bobbing' and other amusements.
"Miss Kaye gets a whole cask," said Linda, "those lovely big American ones, and we have such fun! We all sit up till half-past eight, even the babies, and nobody minds how much noise we make. I don't know which is nicest, Hallowe'en or Guy Fawkes Day."
"Oh, I like the fifth of November!" said Nina Forster. "We don't do Hallowe'en properly here. 'Apple bobbing' is nothing."
"What do you do at home then?" asked Sylvia.
"We have a large party, and put bowls of water in front of the fire, and touch them blindfolded, to see who'll be married first. My big sister once combed her hair before the looking glass at midnight to see if the shadow of her future husband would appear peeping over her shoulder, and my brother Alec crept in and got behind her, and pulled a horrible face, and she shrieked and shrieked. Sometimes, too, we go into the garden, and drag up cabbage stalks, to try our luck."
"Miss Kaye won't let us do any of those things," said Linda; "she says it's silly superstition. She was dreadfully cross one evening with Trissie Knowles and Marjorie Ward because she caught them both curtsying to the new moon. But she lets us have fun with the apples, and that's all I care about."
At seven o'clock, therefore, on October 31st, when evening preparation was finished, the four classes collected for the promised entertainment. Sylvia, whose home life had been a very quiet one, had never been present on such an occasion, and she anticipated it with much delight. As Linda had said, Miss Kaye had been liberal enough to provide a whole barrel of apples, which stood on two chairs placed together near her desk, the ripest, roundest, rosiest ones which could possibly be. Several long strings had been fastened to a beam which ran across the roof, and to the end of each of these an apple was fastened. The girls in turn had their hands tied behind their backs, and had to try to take a bite from an apple as it swung to and fro at the end of its string—a very difficult performance, since it generally bobbed, and wriggled, and slid away just at the critical moment when they were about to put their teeth into it, causing a great deal of mirth and merriment, and much triumph to the lucky one who managed at last to take a successful mouthful, and so secure the coveted treasure.
Three large footbaths had also been brought into the schoolroom, and put on forms, where they were filled with water, and apples. Then the girls were allowed to gather round, and, holding forks in their mouths, to drop them into the water in the hope of spearing an apple; not nearly such an easy feat as it looked, and one which seemed to depend mostly on good fortune. Of course it was great fun, especially when Miss Kaye tried it herself, and her fork just stuck in the largest and juiciest, and then rolled out again, or when Connie Camden, in despair of having any success, dipped her whole head and shoulders into the bath, getting so dreadfully drenched in the process that she was promptly sent upstairs to bed, a sadder and wiser girl; for Miss Kaye had strictly forbidden any wetting of hair under penalty of instant expulsion from the room, and she invariably kept to her word. Sylvia won two apples, both with a fork; she did not prove clever at catching them with her teeth, though Linda carried away four, and Marian Woodhouse six altogether, which, however, she shared with Gwennie, who had had bad luck and gained nothing.
The evening ended with some rousing games of hunt the slipper, dumb crambo, and drop the handkerchief. Even Miss Arkwright ran about and played, and was so pleasant and jolly that Sylvia hardly knew her; and Miss Kaye was the life and soul of it all, managing to include everybody, to see that the little ones got a fair chance, that nobody cheated or took an undue advantage, suppressing quarrels, arranging turns, and directing her flock like the wise shepherd that she always proved herself to be.
It was a quarter to nine before the girls, hot and flushed, and with most untidy hair, said goodnight, and filed upstairs to their rooms, where they were obliged to sober down when the monitresses went their rounds, and go to bed with a due regard for order and decorum, rules and regulations being strictly enforced even on Hallowe'en.