It was ten o’clock when Catherine appeared, to the surprise of everyone, including Miss Owen who had marked her absent. At recess Catherine, whose eyes were red from crying, told Elizabeth Ann that she had missed the bus and had turned around and gone home.
“I’d rather be absent than tardy,” she sniffed, “but my father saw me coming back and he said I’d have to go to school. He wouldn’t drive me, either—I had to walk all the way. I wouldn’t have come, only he said if I didn’t I couldn’t have the party. After I’d told everybody about the party, I just couldn’t give it up.”
When Doris heard that, she said she was glad. If there was one thing Doris wanted to go to it was that Hallowe’en party. Elizabeth Ann looked forward to it, too, but she was more interested to learn what the others said when they saw Roger Calendar in his embroidered silk costume, than anything else.
Catherine kept telling them something new about the party every day, and the afternoon before it was actually to take place she confided that it was to be held in her daddy’s big barn.
“We’ve moved the piano out there and everything,” said Catherine proudly. “We’re going to have a lovely time. Do come early.”
CHAPTER XIV
AT THE PARTY
Elizabeth Ann discovered that there was a pleasant custom in Gardner and the farms nearby, of asking the fathers and mothers to come to the parties too. So Uncle Hiram and Aunt Grace were going with Elizabeth Ann and Doris; and they would visit with Mr. and Mrs. Gould in the big farmhouse while the boys and girls had their party in the barn. Catherine had a young aunt—Aunt Nan she called her—who knew how to make everyone have a good time and she would be on hand to see that no guest was neglected, or left out of any of the games.
The party was to start at seven o’clock—“six bells,” as Elizabeth Ann proudly told Doris. This was so that no one need be up very late. Aunt Grace had supper early Hallowe’en night and then Elizabeth Ann and Doris dressed in their cat costumes, put on their domino masks, and climbed giggling into the car. They had to wear coats over their costumes for it was a chilly night.
They saw the lights burning in the Gould barn long before they reached it—in fact they could see the lights as soon as they made the first turn in the road. It was a longer drive or walk by way of the road to the Gould farm, than across fields, but of course when you are going to a party, you go by way of the regular road.