The children nodded. They weren’t quite sure how to talk to a witch, and it seemed safer just to nod their heads.
“A party, eh?” said the witch. “Well—well. How would you like to come to my cave? I’ll have a party for you there, if you’ll come.”
“We don’t know where you live,” said Elizabeth Ann, as no one answered.
“Oh, I can tell you how to get to my cave,” the witch croaked.
“Shall we go?” whispered Elizabeth Ann to Catherine.
“Might as well,” Catherine said, who was evidently as surprised to see a witch at her party as the other children were.
“I can’t go with you, because I ride through the sky, and will get there ahead of you,” said the witch. “But you take these little rolls of silk I give you—one roll for each boy and girl—and follow them. You’ll find my cave without a bit of trouble.”
She brushed aside a few corn stalks and there, in a little mound lay a heap of what looked like bobbins of silk. They were each a different color.
“Stand in two lines,” said the witch, picking up the bobbins, “girls in one line, boys in the other. That’s right.”
Roger Calendar slipped into place beside Elizabeth Ann.