On all sides of them they heard laughing and talking, for the cords were wound in and out, and some of them crossed. At about the same time everyone reached the farmhouse door—the kitchen door Elizabeth Ann knew it was, because she had often been in the Gould kitchen.
But when the kitchen door opened for them—someone must have seen them coming—lo and behold the kitchen was a cave. It looked just like a cave, and there was a great iron pot over the fire in the fire place and the witch sat there, waiting for them.
The fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles were there, too, and everyone sat down at a long table and drank the hot cocoa the witch had ready for them and ate brown bread sandwiches and sugary doughnuts. There was a toy pumpkin filled with salted peanuts for each guest and after they had finished eating Uncle Hiram said it was high time mortals went to bed so the bats and the owls and the black cats could have their parties.
“We’ll take you home, Roger,” Elizabeth Ann heard him say, and when she climbed sleepily into the car a few minutes later, Roger was on the front seat with Uncle Hiram.
“I’m glad to-morrow is Saturday,” murmured Elizabeth Ann. “We won’t have to get up in time to go to school.”
CHAPTER XVI
BAD NEWS
“Well, who was the witch then?” said Doris.
She and Elizabeth Ann were talking over the party. It was the next morning and they had slept till ten o’clock. They had just had breakfast and were sitting in the sun on the steps, with Tony between them. It was so cold now—the first of November—that they needed their hats and coats on, even to sit in the sun.
Doris had been insisting that Mrs. Gould was the witch. When Elizabeth Ann pointed out to her that Catherine’s mother had sat at the table near Doris, at the same time the witch was passing the cocoa, Doris had to admit that Mrs. Gould could not have been the witch.