But it was usually safe to think that what Uncle Hiram planned would be pleasant. And when Elizabeth Ann found herself in a small square dark room, in the hold of the ship, according to Uncle Hiram—and the cellar as Aunt Grace called it—she began to feel a thrill of excitement. Doris had gone home with Catherine directly from the bus, and would not come till supper time.

Uncle Hiram turned on the electric light and Elizabeth Ann saw that Tony was purring against her legs—he had followed them down. It had taken Tony a little time to learn to go up and down ladders, but now he could do it beautifully.

“Oh-h, what are they?” asked Elizabeth Ann, staring. All around the room were dark, polished boxes. They had lids and locks and there were little keys in each lock.

“Chests,” said Uncle Hiram, enjoying her surprise. “Seamen’s chests, my dear. And in one of them, unless I’m greatly mistaken, we’ll find something that Roger Calendar will be proud to wear to the party.”

Uncle Hiram unlocked the lid of one chest and showed Elizabeth Ann a neatly typewritten list pasted inside the lid.

“I did that to every chest as I packed it,” he explained. “I can tell what is in every chest. These things are all trifles I picked up on my voyages—things your Aunt Grace doesn’t want to keep in the first cabin. She couldn’t keep them all up there, anyway—isn’t enough room.”

Elizabeth Ann almost forgot about Roger and the party as she turned over the things in the different chests as Uncle Hiram unlocked one after the other. There were strings of beads, and marvelously colored shells and dried star fish and pebbles with flecks of shining gold in them. There were yards and yards of beautiful silks from far away countries and perfumes and spices that filled the air with fragrance as soon as the chest in which they were kept, was opened. There were bits of carved wood, and fans made of silk, and other fans made of shell. There were combs and ear-rings and funny lacquered shoes. There were little ivory figures—like the ones Elizabeth Ann had seen in Aunt Isabel’s cabinets when she visited her in New York. In fact there were so many things tucked away in those chests that Elizabeth Ann felt as though she might be visiting Santa Claus and looking over all the things he must have put away. Only these were not toys—Uncle Hiram hadn’t collected toys, though he did have a couple of odd-looking dolls made from carved bones.

“Now this is what I had in mind for Roger,” said Uncle Hiram, unlocking the last chest. “It may be a little large for him, but your Aunt Grace can take a tuck or two in it. She’s handy with her needle. How do you think Roger would like this?”

He drew out something made of dark blue silk and held it up for Elizabeth Ann to see. There were long trousers and a jacket almost solidly embroidered in vivid colors—red and blue and silver and gold and green. As Elizabeth Ann looked at it, she saw that there were gold dragons cunningly placed in the embroidery. A little silk skull cap went with the costume and embroidered silk slippers.

“No one around here has ever seen this,” said Uncle Hiram. “I think it will disguise Roger pretty thoroughly. I believe we have some masks around the house—your Aunt Grace will remember where they are—just large enough to cover your eyes. Roger might as well have one of those.”

Aunt Grace, when she saw the costume, said it would be very easy to alter it to fit Roger. And he stopped in for a few minutes the next Saturday morning—he didn’t dare stay long, for he was supposed to do most of his farm work on Saturday when there was no school—and Aunt Grace made him put on the costume while she went all over it and marked it with pins where she was to make it smaller or shorter. “Suppose something happens to it?” Roger kept asking nervously. “I never wore silk clothes—they must be expensive. Suppose somebody spills something on me?”

“Let ’em spill,” said Uncle Hiram calmly. “I’ve had that Chinese costume for twenty years or so and it’s never done anybody a bit of good; it’s high time it began to earn a little interest. You wear it Roger, and if you tear it or sit down on an apple pie, I won’t say a word.”

Aunt Grace hunted through her things and found three little masks—“dominoes,” she called them. These went across the eyes and Elizabeth Ann didn’t think they were much help. She was sure that anyone would know her if she didn’t cover up more of her face than that. But when she looked at herself in the glass with her domino on, she was forced to admit that she didn’t look at all like Elizabeth Ann Loring.

“Why I might be Doris,” said the astonished Elizabeth Ann. “And Doris looks as much like me as she looks like herself. Perhaps dominoes are good masks, after all.” Of course Elizabeth Ann was interested in her own costume. Now that she knew Roger was provided with something to wear, Elizabeth Ann could plan for herself and Doris. And she decided that they would go to Catherine’s party dressed as two little black cats.

“It’s easy,” said Elizabeth Ann when Doris said she didn’t see what they could wear that would make them look like black cats. “Aunt Grace will make us the suits out of that old black coat she has—she said the other day she meant to cut it up for carpet rags. And we’ll wear white gloves and our white canvas shoes and that will make us look as though we had white paws.”

The old black cloth coat proved to be even better for cat costumes than Elizabeth Ann had suspected. For it was a material called zibelene and was covered with short fine hairs. You can see how cloth like that would make excellent cat fur for little girls to wear to a party.

Aunt Grace cut the costumes very much like the sleeping garments some children wear in winter—with long sleeves and legs that came down to the ankles. She made caps, too, with little perky ears that stood up. Elizabeth Ann and Doris had brought their white canvas shoes with them, but getting gloves was a more serious matter. Finally Uncle Hiram drove to town and bought them each a pair of the white canvas gloves that farmers use for much of their work. These of course were miles too large for the little girls, but clever Aunt Grace—who could do practically anything with a sewing machine or her needle—ripped the gloves apart, cut them to fit, and sewed them up again.

It did seem as though Hallowe’en would never come. The children at school talked so much about the party that Miss Owen said she was afraid they wouldn’t have anything to say to each other when they met at Catherine’s house. And Miss Owen said, too, that it would be better if they paid a little more attention to their lessons, and that she certainly could not excuse boys and girls who didn’t make any attempt to do their homework.

Catherine was one of these. She said she was so busy getting ready for the party that she had no time to study at home.

“You don’t get ready for a party at night,” Mattie Harrison told her. “You could study your homework after supper. Anyway, I don’t believe you do a thing about the party—your mother always does every single thing for you.”

But Catherine went right on, letting her homework go, and Miss Owen kept her in after school, and never paid any attention when she cried.

“Orders are orders,” Uncle Hiram always said when Elizabeth Ann told him about Catherine, who used to sit at her desk with the tears rolling down her face while the rest of the class marched out of the school at the end of the afternoon session.

If Catherine were kept in too late she missed the bus—which left half an hour after school closed on clear days and fifteen minutes after on stormy days. Miss Owen didn’t like to have anyone miss the bus, and if she could possibly dismiss her pupils she did it in time to let them make connections. It was a rule that all the children who had to wait for the bus must play in the school yard, and one of the teachers always stayed till the bus came. This was because some boys and girls were absent-minded and would have allowed the bus to go without them if a teacher had not been on hand to remind them to stop playing.

“I think,” said Uncle Hiram when he heard that Catherine had had to stay in for the third afternoon in one week, “I think Miss Owen will be glad when this party is over.”

Dave, the driver of the bus, had heard about the party, too. Catherine talked of nothing else. And once, when she missed the bus in the morning and had had to go home, because there wasn’t time to walk all the distance to school, she said that Dave was ahead of his time and that she meant to ask her father to complain to the School Board.

Elizabeth Ann told Doris that she thought perhaps it was better not to have your mother let you do just as you pleased—for Catherine apparently expected everyone else to let her do as she pleased. And it wasn’t always convenient. One morning, a few days before Hallowe’en, Elizabeth Ann and Doris were hurrying to make the bus. They were a little late for they had waited for Catherine as long as they dared. Finally Aunt Grace had telephoned Catherine’s mother who said that Catherine was just eating her breakfast. She said that Elizabeth Ann and Doris should go on and that Catherine’s daddy would take her in the car as far as the cross-roads.

It was a cold morning—all the lovely fall weather had gone and the sky was gray, while a keen wind blew over the fields—and Elizabeth Ann and Doris were glad to walk fast.

“I don’t believe we’ll make the bus,” panted Doris, turning around so that the wind wouldn’t blow in her face.

“Yes we will—come on—don’t stop—hurry!” commanded Elizabeth Ann.

“Oh—here comes Catherine!” Doris cried in some dismay. “She’s waving to us—she wants us to wait for her, Elizabeth Ann.”

Elizabeth Ann glanced over her shoulder. Far down the road was Catherine, not walking fast, not running, but moving along at an ordinary pace. She was waving her hand and calling to them.

“Hurry!” shouted Elizabeth Ann. “It’s late—hurry, Catherine, or you’ll miss the bus.”

That provoking Catherine wouldn’t hurry. She continued to walk as she always did, and she continued to call to Elizabeth Ann and Doris to stop and wait for her.

“We might as well stop,” said Elizabeth Ann with a sigh. “She slows us up making us turn round like this.”

They waited till Catherine caught up with them, though it was cold standing still. Catherine didn’t seem to think she had walked slowly at all.

“Daddy was cross and wouldn’t bring me in the car,” she explained. “He said if I got up when Mother first called me I would have had plenty of time to walk. I wanted to stay home to-day, but he wouldn’t let me do that, either.”

“I hear the bus!” cried Elizabeth Ann suddenly. “We’re late we’ll have to run.”