Many pleasant things were waiting to be done on their return; first and foremost, Miss Covert had come to live at the Big Brick House, to teach the children when holiday time should be over, and to be a help generally to Mrs. Merrithew. Also, according to Mrs. Merrithew's plans, to have a little real home life and happiness,—for Katherine had been an orphan since her childhood, and for five years had taught school steadily, although it was work that she did not greatly like, and that kept her in a state of perpetual nervous strain. Teaching a few well-bred and considerate children, whom she already loved, would be quite different, and almost entirely a pleasure.
CHAPTER VI.
In the delightful autumn days that followed, the children, accompanied sometimes by Mrs. Merrithew, sometimes by Katherine, spent much of their time in the woods, and taking long strolls on the country roads. In October the woods were a blaze of colour,—clear gold, scarlet, crimson, coppery brown, and amber. The children brought home great bunches of the brilliant leaves, and some they pressed and varnished, while others Katherine dipped in melted wax. They found that the latter way was the best for keeping the colours, but it was rather troublesome to do. They pressed many ferns, also, and, when the frosts became keener, collected numbers of white ferns, delicately lovely. Most of these treasures, with baskets full of velvety moss and yards of fairy-like wild vines, were stowed away in a cool storeroom to be used later in the Christmas decorations.
When the last of October drew near, Mrs. Merrithew made up her mind to give a little Hallow-eve party. She let the children name the friends they wished her to ask, and added a few of her own; then they all busied themselves in preparations, and in making lists of Hallow-eve games and tricks. At last came the eventful evening, and with it about thirty merry people, old and young, but chiefly young. All of the Greys were there, of course; also Mr. Will Graham, who was taking his last year at college, and who spent most of his spare time at Mr. Merrithew's. So the whole camping-party met again, and the camp-days, dear and fleeting, came back in vivid pictures to their minds.
In the Big Brick House was a large room known as "the inner kitchen," but used as a kitchen only in the winter. This room Mrs. Merrithew had given up to the entertainment of the Hallow-eve party. It was lighted—chiefly, that is, for a few ordinary lamps helped out the illumination—by lanterns made of hollowed pumpkins. Ears of corn hung around the mantel, and a pyramid of rosy apples was piled high upon it. There was a great old-fashioned fireplace here, and a merry fire sparkled behind the gleaming brass andirons. Every trick that their hostess's brain could conjure up was tried. Those who cared to, bobbed for apples in a tub of water, and some were lucky enough to find five-cent pieces in their russets and pippins. An apple was hung on a string from the middle of a doorway, then set swinging, and two contestants tried which could get the first bite,—and this first bite, gentle reader, is not so easy as you might imagine! A pretty little ring was laid on a mound of flour, and whoever could lift it out between their lips, without breaking down the mound, was to win the ring. This necessitated a great many remouldings of the flour,—but finally the prize was captured by Miss Covert. A little later, Dora noticed it hanging on Mr. Graham's watch-guard.
Some of the braver spirits took turns in walking backward down the garden steps, and to the end of the middle path, a looking-glass in one hand and a lamp in the other. What each one saw in the looking-glass, or whether, indeed, they saw anything, was, in most cases, kept a secret, or confided only to the very especial chum! Then there were fortunes told by means of cabbages,—a vegetable not usually surrounded with romantic associations. Marjorie was the first to try this mode of divination. Well-blindfolded, she ventured alone into the garden, and came back soon with a long, lean, straggly cabbage with a great deal of earth attached to its roots. This foretold that her husband would be tall and thin, and very rich!
There were many other quaint methods of fortune-telling, most of them derived from Scottish sources. After these had been tried, amid much merriment, they played some of the old-fashioned games dear to children everywhere,—blind-man's buff, hunt-the-feather, post-towns, and other favourites. By and by, when the fun began to flag, and one or two little mouths were seen to yawn, a long table was brought in and soon spread with a hearty (but judiciously chosen) Hallow-eve supper.
When the days began to grow short and bleak, and the evenings long and cosey, the children were thrown more and more upon indoor occupations for their entertainment. It was on one of these bleak days, when a few white flakes were falling in a half-hearted way, and the sky was gray and gloomy, that Jackie had a brilliant idea. Four of them—Katherine, Marjorie, Dora, and Jackie himself—were sitting by the fire in Mrs. Merrithew's "Den," the very cosiest room in the house. Mr. Merrithew had a den, too, but he called his a study. Somehow it looked too much like an office to suit the children very well. Most of the volumes on his shelves, too, were clumsy law-books; all the books that any one wanted to read, except the children's own, were in "mother's den." Then, one could come to mother's room at any hour of the day or night, while sometimes no one, excepting Mrs. Merrithew, was admitted to the study. On this particular day Katherine was reading "Rob Roy," and Jack building a castle of blocks, while Dora dreamed in the window-seat, watching the scanty flakes, and Marjorie, on the hearth-rug, tried to teach reluctant Kitty Grey to beg.