"It's Hallowe'en," added Florence; "and we've been asked to come to celebrate it."
"Oh-h-h!" And a new light dawned on Polly. "It's a surprise party, is it? Who started it? You, Jerusalem?"
"Why don't you take your little friends into the parlor and converse with them, Polly?" asked Aunt Jane's prim voice. "Don't you know that it isn't polite to leave them standing here?"
A sharp reply was trembling on the tip of Polly's tongue; but she caught her mother's warning glance, so she resolutely turned her back on the blue satin bow which Aunt Jane had donned for the party, and led the way into the parlor.
Then the fun began, for Mrs. Adams had studied to find all the amusing tricks, whether they belonged to Hallowe'en or not. She was the gayest of the gay, entering into all the frolic, and doing her best to make Aunt Jane unbend and have a share in the games. But there must be a skeleton at every feast, and Miss Roberts played the part to perfection, sitting back against the wall, and only smiling indulgently, now and then, as the room rang with the shouts of the young people. It all started with a tub and a plate of apples which mysteriously appeared in the dining-room, and soon they were all in a kneeling circle around the tub, bobbing for the apples, that took a malicious delight in ducking under the water and rolling away, just as the white teeth were ready to seize the stem. The captured apples were only just pared and the seeds counted, when Mrs. Adams called them away to try their fate on one single apple which hung by a string from the top of the room.
"It is an unfailing test," she said. "If you can take a bite out of this apple without touching it, except with your teeth, you will live to get married. Otherwise, you will die an old maid."
Now, it sounds like a very easy matter to bite an apple; but when it is free to swing this way and that as you touch it, the success is not so sure. Alan first chased the apple up and down, gnashed his teeth and retired. Next Florence took her turn, with no better success. Jessie, too, failed to get a taste, even of the skin. Then Jean advanced to the charge.
"Now watch," she said, laughing. "I'm going at this on scientific principles. See here!"
She hit the apple with such force as to throw it far up and out, waited with wide-open mouth until, pendulum-like, it swung back and, at the instant of its reaching her, before it had turned, she struck her strong, young teeth into the side and brought away a generous mouthful.
"There!" said she triumphantly, as she marched back to her place.
"I defy anybody to do better than that."