Read Ebook: Ethel Morton's Holidays by Smith Mabell S C Mabell Shippie Clarke

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Ebook has 842 lines and 31561 words, and 17 pages

"What does that mean translated into Rosemont language?" demanded James.

"James the Scotsman asks for information! However, there's some excuse for him. Translated into Rosemont language it means that you go to the laundry and put a ball of yarn into the wash boiler."

"Easy so far."

"Take an end of the ball and begin to wind the yarn into a new ball. When you come near the end you'll find that something or some one will be holding it--"

"Roger, I'll bet!"

"You demand to know the name of your future wife and a hollow voice from out the wash boiler will tell you her name."

"I shan't try that one. There's too good a chance for Roger to put in some of his tricks. What's the next?"

"Take a candle and go to the Witches' Cave--that's the dining room--and stand in front of the looking glass that's on a little table in the corner, and eat an apple. The face of your future wife or husband will appear over your shoulder."

"I'll try that. I could stand a face that kept still, but to have an unknown creature pulling my yarn and bawling my wife's name would upset my nerves!"

"Here's the last one. Go into the garden just as we did to pull the kale. Over at the right hand side there's a stack of barley. It's really corn, but we've re-christened it for tonight. You measure it three times round with your arms and at the end of the third round your beloved will rush into them."

"If he proves to be my cabbage spouse you'll hear loud shrieks from little Margaret!" declared that young woman.

"Here are my nuts to burn," said Ethel Blue, putting two chestnuts side by side on the hearth. "One is Della and the other is Ethel Blue," and she tapped them in turn as she gave them their names.

"What's this for?" asked Della, hearing her name used.

"I hope I shan't be the one," and both girls sat down on the rug to watch their namesakes closely.

"Here are Margaret and her cabbage man," laughed Tom. "This delicate, slender chestnut is Margaret and this big round one is Mr. Stalk of the Cabbage Patch. Now we'll see how that match is going to turn out."

Margaret laughed good naturedly with the rest and they watched this pair as well as the others.

"Roger and I had a squabble yesterday," admitted Ethel Brown. "Here is Roger and here is Ethel Brown. Let's see how we are going to get on in the future."

"Where is Roger really?" some one asked, but at that instant Ethel Blue's nut and Della's caught fire and burned steadily side by side without any demonstrations, and every one looking on was so absorbed in translating the meaning of the blaze that no one pursued the question.

That is, not until a shriek from the Witches' Cave rang through the house and sent them all flying to see who was in trouble. Dorothy was found coming out of the dining room, mirror in hand, and a strange tale on her lips.

"If there's any truth in this Hallowe'en prophecy," she said with trembling voice, "my future husband will be worse than Margaret's cabbage man. The face that looked over my shoulder was exactly like a jack-o'-lantern's."

"It was? Where's Roger?" Dr. Watkins demanded instantly, while James hobbled to the front door and announced that the jack had disappeared from the front porch.

"Did any one ask for Roger?" demanded a cool voice, and Roger was seen coming down stairs.

"Yes, sir, numerous people asked for Roger. How did you do it?"

"Do what? Has anything happened in my absence?"

"I know," guessed Helen. "He went outside and took the jack from the porch and carried it through the kitchen, into the dining room where it smiled over Dorothy's shoulder, and then he went into the kitchen again and up the back stairs. Wasn't that it, Roger?"

"Young woman, you are wiser than your years," was all that Roger would say.

While they were teasing him a shouting in the garden sent them all to the back windows and doors. In the dim light of the young moon two figures were seen wrestling. It was evidently a good natured struggle, for peals of laughter fell on the ears of the listeners. When one of them dragged the other toward the house the figures proved to be Tom Watkins and George Foster.

It was unanimously agreed that George did not have the appearance of a bride, and then they went back to the hall to bob for apples. Roger spread a rubber blanket on the floor and drew the tub from its hiding place in the corner where it had been waiting its turn in the games.

While the boys were making these arrangements Dorothy and Helen were busily trying to dispose of the two ends of the same string which stretched from one mouth to the other with a tempting raisin tied in the middle to encourage them to effort. It was forbidden to use the hands and tongues proved not always reliable. Now Dorothy seemed ahead, now Helen. Finally the victory seemed about to be Helen's, when she laughed and lost several inches of string and Dorothy triumphantly devoured the prize.

When the girls turned to see what the boys were doing, Gregory and James were already bobbing for apples. One knelt at one side of the tub and the other at the other, and each had his eye, when it was not full of water, fixed on one of the apples that were bouncing busily about on the waves caused by their own motions.

"I speak for the red one," gasped Gregory.

"All right! I'll go for the greening," agreed James, and they puffed and sputtered, and were quite unable to fix their teeth in the sides of the slippery fruit until James drove his head right down to the bottom of the tub where he fastened upon the apple and came up dripping, but triumphant.

Stimulated by the applause that greeted James, Tom and Roger tossed in two apples and began a new contest.

"This isn't a girls' game is it?" murmured Helen as Tom won his apple by the same means that James had used.

"Not unless you're willing to forget your hair," replied Dr. Watkins.

"You can't forget it when it takes so long to dry it," Helen answered. "I'm content to let the boys have this entirely to themselves."

While the half drowned boys went up to Roger's room to dry their faces the girls prepared nut boats to set sail upon the same ocean that had floated the apples. They had cracked English walnuts carefully so that the two halves fell apart neatly, and in place of the meats they had packed a candle end tightly into each.

"We have the comfort of the apple even when we're defeated," said Gregory, coming down stairs, eating the fruit that he had not been able to capture without the use of his hands. "What have you got there?"

"Here's a boat apiece," explained Helen. "We must each put a tiny flag of some sort on it so that we can tell which is which."

"This way?" George asked. "I've put a pin through a scrap of corn husk and stuck it on to the end of this craft."

"That's right. We must find something different for each one. Mine is a black-alder berry. See how red and bright it is?"

It was not hard for each to find an emblem.

"Watch me hoist the admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, however, and was not injured.

It was a pretty sight--the whole fleet afloat, each bit of candle burning clearly and each little craft tossing on the waves that Dr. Watkins produced by gently tipping the tub.

"This is also an attempt to gain some knowledge of the future," said Helen. "We must watch these boats and see which ones stay close together and which go far apart, and whether any of them are shipwrecked, and which ones seem to have the smoothest voyage."

"Della's and mine are sticking together just the way our nuts did," cried Ethel Blue, and she slipped her hand into Della's and gave it a little squeeze.

After the loss of its mainmast at the very beginning Roger's craft had no more mishaps. It slid alongside of James's and together they bobbed gently across life's stormy seas.

"It looks as if you and I were going into partnership, old man," James interpreted their behavior.

The other boats seemed to need no especial companionship but floated on independently, only Gregory's coming to an untimely end from a heavy wave that washed over it and capsized it.

"I seem to hear a summons from the Witches' Cave," murmured Helen in an awed whisper as a sound like the wind whistling through pine trees fell on their ears, resolving itself as they listened into the words, "Come! Come! Come!"

Quietly they arose and tiptoed their way toward the dining room. They could only enter it by penetrating the thicket of boughs that barred the door. As they came nearer the voice retreated--"Almost as if it were going into the kitchen," whispered Margaret to Tom who happened to be next to her. The only light in the room came from a pan of alcohol and salt burning greenly in a corner and casting an unnatural hue over their faces. The black cats, their eyes touched with phosphorus, glared down from the plate rail.

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