"You're as good as gold to come out and help these youngsters enjoy themselves," was Mrs. Morton's greeting to Edward Watkins when he appeared in the evening with Tom and Della.

"It's they who are as good as gold to let me come," he returned, smiling pleasantly. He was a handsome young man of about twenty-five, a doctor whose profession, as yet, did not make serious inroads on his time. "What are these people going to make us do first," he wondered as Roger began a distribution of colored bands.

"These are to tie your eyes with," he explained: "Yellow, you see; Hallowe'en color. The girls insist on my explaining all their fine points for fear they won't be appreciated," he said to the doctor.

"Quite right. I never should have thought about the color."

"Mother, this is George Foster," said Helen, welcoming a tall boy who was not a member of the U. S. C. but who had helped at the Club entertainment by taking part in the minuet. He shook hands with Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith and then submitted to having his eyes bandaged. He was followed by Gregory Patton, another high school lad, and to the great joy of everybody, James, after all, came on his crutches with Margaret.

"Now, then, my blindfolded friends," said Roger, "Grandfather tells me that it is the custom in Scotland where fairies and witches are very abundant, for the ceremony that we are about to perform to open every Hallowe'en party. He has it direct from Bobby Burns."

"Then it's right," came a smothered voice from beneath James' bandage.

"James is of Scottish descent and he confirms this statement, so we can go ahead and be perfectly sure that we're doing the correct thing. Of course, we all want to know the future and particularly whatever we can about the person we're going to marry, so that's what we're going to try to find out at the very start off."

"Take off my bandage," cried Dicky. "I know the perthon I'm going to marry."

A shout of laughter greeted this assertion from the six-year-old.

"Who is it, Dicky?" asked Helen, her arm around his shoulders.

"I'm going to marry Mary," he asserted stoutly.

There was a renewed peal at this, and Roger went on with his instructions.

"I'll lead you two by two to the kitchen door and then you'll go down the flight of steps and straight ahead for anywhere from ten to twenty steps. That will land you right in the middle of what the frost has left of the Morton garden. When you get there you'll 'pull kale'."

"Meaning?" inquired George Foster.

"Meaning that you'll feel about until you find a stalk of cabbage and pull it up."

"I don't like cabbage," complained Tom Watkins.

"You'll like this because it will give you a lot of information. If it's long or short or fat or thin your future husband or wife will correspond to it."

"That's the most unromantic thing I ever heard," exclaimed Margaret Hancock. "I certainly hope my future husband won't be as fat as a cabbage!"

"You can tell how great a fortune he's going to have—or she—by the amount of earth that clings to the stem."

"Watch me pull mine so g-e-n-t-l-y that not a grain of sand slips off," said Tom.

"If you've got courage enough to bite the stem you can find out with perfect accuracy whether your beloved will have a sweet disposition or the opposite."

"In any case he'd have a disposition like a cabbage," insisted Margaret, who did not like cabbage any more than Tom did.

"Ready?" Roger marshalled his little army. "Two by two. Doctor and Ethel Blue, Tom and Dorothy, James and Helen, George and Ethel Brown, Gregory and Margaret. Come on, Della," and he led the way through the kitchen where Mary and the cook were hugely entertained by the procession.

With cries and stumbling they went forth into the cabbage patch, where they all possessed themselves of stalks which they straightway brought in to the light of the jack-o'-lanterns to interpret.

"My lady love will be tall and slender—not to say thin," began Dr. Watkins. "I see no information here as to the color of her hair and eyes. Fate cruelly witholds these important facts. I regret to say that I wooed her so vigorously that I shook off any gold-pieces she may have had clinging about her so I can only be sure of the golden quality of her character which I have just discovered by biting it."

Amid general laughter they all began to read their fortunes. Tom announced that his beloved was so thin that she was really a candidate for the attentions of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and that he couldn't find out anything about her character because there wasn't enough of her to bite.

Margaret had pulled a stalk that fulfilled all her expectations as to size, for it was so short and fat that she could see no relation between it and anything human and threw it out of the window in disgust. The rest found themselves fitted out with a variety of possibilities.

"There doesn't seem to be a real tearing beauty among them all," sighed Roger. "That's what I'd set my heart on."

"What do you expect from a cabbage?" demanded Margaret scornfully.

"I want to know whether I'm going to marry a bachelor or a widower or not marry at all," cried Helen. "Let's try the 'three luggies' next."

"First cabbages, then 'luggies'," said Della "What are 'luggies'?"

"'Luggies' are saucers," explained Helen, while James brought a small table and Ethel Brown arranged three saucers upon it. "In one of them I put clear water, in another one, sandy water, and nothing at all in the third. Anybody ready to try? Come, Della."

Della came forward briskly, but hesitated when she found that she must be blindfolded.

"There isn't any trick about it?" she asked suspiciously. "I shouldn't like to have anything happen to that saucer of sandy water."

"It won't touch anything but your finger tips, and perhaps not those," Helen reassured her. "What you are to do is to dip the fingers of your left hand into one of these saucers. If it proves to be the one with the clear water you'll marry a bachelor; if it's the sandy one he'll be a widower, and if it's the empty one you'll be a spinster to your dying day."

"You have three tries," cried Ethel Blue, "and the saucers are changed after each trial, so you have to touch the same one twice to be sure you really know your fate. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," and Della bravely though cautiously dipped the finger tips of her left hand into the bowl of sandy water.

A cheer greeted this result.

"A widower, a widower," they all cried.

Helen changed the position of the saucers and Della made another trial. This time the Fates booked her as a spinster.

"That's the least trouble of anything," decided roly poly Della who took life carelessly.

A third attempt proved that a widower was to be her future helpmate, for her fingers went into the sandy saucer for a second time.

"I only hope he won't be an oldy old widower," said Della thoughtfully. "I couldn't bear to think of marrying any one as old as Edward."

"I'll thank you to take notice that I haven't got a foot in the grave just yet, young woman," retorted her brother.

While some of the others tried their fate by the saucer method, the rest endeavored to learn their future occupations by means of pouring melted lead through the handle of a key. Roger brought in a tiny kettle of lead from the kitchen where Mary had heated it for them and set it down on a small table on a tea pot stand, so that the heat should not injure the wood. Taking a large key in his left hand he dipped a spoon into the lead with his right and poured the contents slowly through the ring at the end of the handle of the key into a bowl of cold water. The sudden chill stiffened the lead into curious shapes and from them those who were clever at translating were to discover what the future held for them in the way of occupation.

"Mine looks more like a spinning wheel than anything else," said Roger who had done it first so that the rest might see how it was accomplished.

"Perhaps that means that you'll be a manufacturer of cloth," suggested Margaret. "Mine looks more like a cabbage than anything else. You don't think it can mean that I shall have to devote myself to that husband I pulled out of the cabbage patch?"

"It may. Or it might mean that you'll be a gardener. Lots of women are going in for gardening now. By the time you're ready to start that may be a favored occupation for girls," said Dr. Watkins.

"Here are several things that we can do one at a time while the rest of us are doing something else," said Helen. "They have to be done alone or the spell won't work."

"Let's hear them," begged Gregory, while he and the others grouped themselves about the open fire in the living room and prepared to burn nuts.

"The first one, according to Burns, is to go alone to the kiln and put a clew of yarn in the kiln pot."

"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.

"This is to see if you and I will always be friends. That right hand nut is you and the left hand is me—no, I." Conscientious Ethel Blue interrupted herself to correct her grammar. "If we burn cosily side by side we'll stay friends a long time, but if one of us jumps or burns up before the other, she'll be the one to break the friendship."

"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?"

"Not a thing has happened in your absence. Just tell us how you managed it."

"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.

"I was measuring the barley stack," explained Tom breathlessly, "and just as I made the third round and was eagerly expecting my future bride to rush into my arms, something did rush into my arms, but I'll leave it to the opinion of the meeting whether this can be my future bride!" and he held at arm's length by the coat collar the laughing, squirming figure of 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.

"See that?" he commented. "That just proves that the flag of the U.S.A. can never perish," and the others greeted his words with cheers.

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.

Again the voice was heard:—"Gather, gather about the festal board."

"We must obey the witches," urged Helen, and they sat down in the chairs which they found placed at the table in just the right number. Into the dim room from the kitchen came two figures dressed in long black capes and pointed red hats and bearing each a dish heaped high with cakes of some sort.

"I just have to tell you what these are," said Ethel Brown in her natural voice as she and Ethel Blue marched around the table and placed one dish before Roger at one end and another before Helen at the other. "It's sowens."

"Sowens? What in the world are sowens?" everybody questioned.

"Grandfather told us that Burns says that sowens eaten with butter always make the Hallowe'en supper, so we looked up in the Century Dictionary how to make them and this is the result."

"Do you think they're safe?" inquired Della.

"There's a doctor here to take care of us if anything happens," laughed James. "I'm game. Give me a chance at them."

Roger and Helen began a distribution of the cakes.

"Sowens is—or are—good," decided Dr. Watkins, tasting his cake slowly, and pronouncing judgment on it after due deliberation.

"We tried them yesterday to make sure they were eatable by Americans, and we thought they were pretty good, smoking hot, with butter on them, just as Burns directed."

"Right. They are," agreed all the boys promptly, and the girls agreed with them, though they were not quite so enthusiastic in their expression of appreciation as the boys.

Baked apples, nuts and raisins, countless cookies of various lands and hot gingerbread made an appetizing meal. As it was coming to an end Helen rapped on the table.

"Please let me pretend this is a club meeting for a minute or two instead of a party. I want to tell the people here who aren't members of the U. S. C. what it is we are trying to do."

"We know," responded George. "You're working for the Christmas Ship. Didn't I dance in your minuet?"

"We are working for the Christmas Ship, but that is only one thing that the Club does."

"What do the initials mean?" asked Gregory.

"United Service Club. You see Father is in the Navy and Uncle Richard is in the Army so we have the United Service in the family. But that is just a family pun. The real purpose of the Club is to do some service for somebody whenever we can."

"Something on the Boy Scout idea of doing a kindness ever day," nodded Dr. Watkins.

"Just now it's the Christmas Ship and after that sails we'll hunt up something else. Why I told you about it now is because we planned to go out in a few minutes and go up and down some of the streets, and—"

"Lift gates?" asked Gregory.

"No, not lift gates. That's the point. We couldn't very well be a service club and do mean things to people just for the fun of it."

"Oh, lifting gates isn't mean."

"Isn't it! I don't believe you'd find it enormously entertaining to hunt up your gate the next day and re-hang it, would you?"

Gregory admitted that perhaps it would not.

"So we're going out to play good fairies instead of bad ones, and if any of you knows anybody we can do a good turn to, please speak up."

"That's the best scheme I've heard in some time," said Edward Watkins admiringly. "Let's start. I'm all impatience to be a good fairy."

So they said "good-night" to Dicky, bundled into their coats and each one of the boys took a jack-o'-lantern to light the way. Roger also carried a kit that bulged with queer shapes, and the girls each had a parcel whose contents was not explained by the president.

"Lead the way, Roger," she commanded as they left the house.

"Church Street first," he answered.

"Church Street? I wonder if he's going to do Mother and me a good turn," giggled Dorothy.

It proved that he was not, for he passed the Smith cottage and went on until he came to the house in which lived the Misses Clark. Roger was taking care of their furnace, together with his mother's and his Aunt Louise's, in order to earn money for the expenses of the Club, and he had discovered that these old ladies were not very happy in spite of living in a comfortable house and apparently having everything they needed.

"These Misses Clark are lonely," he whispered as they gathered before the door. "They think nobody cares for them—and nobody does much, to tell the honest truth. So here's where we sing two songs for them," and without waiting for any possible objections he broke into "The Christmas Ship" which they all knew, and followed it with "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers."

"Not very appropriate, but they'll do," whispered Roger to Dr. Watkins, whose clear tenor supported him. Dorothy's sweet voice soared high, Tom's croak made a heavy background, and the more or less tuneful voices of the others added a hearty body of sound. There was no response from the house except that a corner of an upstairs curtain was drawn aside for an instant.

"They probably think they won't find anything left on their front porch when they come down in the morning. They've had Hallowe'en visits before, poor ladies," said Gregory as they tramped away.

The next visit was to a different part of the town. Here the girls left two of their bundles which proved to contain apples and cookies.

"I don't believe these people ever have a cent they can afford to spend on foolishness like this," Helen explained to Dr. Watkins, "but they aren't the sort of people you can give things to openly, so we thought we'd take this opportunity," and she smiled happily and went on behind Roger's leadership.

This time the visit was to the Atwoods, the old couple down by the bridge. Roger had been interested in them for a long time. They were not suffering, for a son supported them, but both were almost crippled with rheumatism and sometimes the old man found the little daily chores about the house hard to do, and often the old woman longed for a little amusement of which she was deprived because she could not go to visit her friends. It was here that Roger's kit came into play. He took from it several hatchets and distributed them to the boys.

"We're going to chop the gentleman's kindling and stack up the wood that's lying round here while the girls sing to the old people," he announced.

So the plan was carried out. The girls gathered about the doorstep, and, led by Dorothy, sang cradle songs and folk songs and a hymn or two, while the boys toiled away behind the house. Again there was no response.

"Probably they've gone to bed," guessed Ethel Brown.

"I imagine they're lying awake, though," said Ethel Blue softly.

It is an old adage that "many hands make light work," and it is equally true that they turn off a lot of it, so at the end of half an hour the old peoples' wood pile was in apple pie order and the yard was in a spick and span condition.

There were two more calls before the procession turned home and at both houses bundles of goodies were left for children who would not be apt to have them. On the way back to the house the U. S. C.'s came across the trail of a Hallowe'en party of the usual kind, and they pleased themselves mightily by hanging two gates which they found unhung, and by restoring to their proper places several signs which some village wit—"or witling," suggested Dr. Watkins—had misplaced.

The evening ended with the cutting of a cake in which was baked a ring.

"The one who gets the ring in his slice will be married first," announced Mrs. Morton, who had prepared the cake as a surprise for those who had been surprising others.

They cut it with the greatest care and slowly, one after the other. To the delight of all Dr. Watkins's slice proved to contain the ring.

"I rather imagine that's the most suitable arrangement the ring could have made," laughed Mrs. Smith.

"If one of these youngsters had found it, it would have meant that I'd have to wait a long time for my turn," he laughed back. "Wish me luck."