Nancy Byrd Turner

X

OCTOBER

It was a queer October place—
No house, you’d say, at all!
A wide brown wood with leaves for a floor,
And timbers straight and tall.
The little creatures that lived in there—
Fairies and furry things—
Scurried away when the children came,
With bashful scamperings.

As the travelers entered the woods, they heard funny little clicking sounds everywhere.

“It’s the sound a watch makes when you shut it,” Ann said.

“Maybe they have watches here instead of clocks,” remarked Amos.

“Not at all,” said a voice behind them. The voice came from a fat Brownie, who was sitting on a stone with his legs dangling. “They have clocks everywhere in Zodiac Town,” the Brownie resumed, “even out here in the suburbs. That noise is the Chestnut Chaps unbuckling their belts and throwing off their overcoats.”

The children looked as if they did not know whether he was serious or joking.

“It’s the honest truth,” said the Brownie. “Listen.

“Every little wing of wind,
Every tilt of breeze,
Stirs a sound of frolicking
In the tallest trees:
Scuffling, shuffling, shouldering,
Nudges, nips, and taps,
Watch and wait a moment, child—
It’s the Chestnut Chaps!

“Elbow crowding elbow hard
In their breeches brown,
If one comrade takes a leap,
Ten come bouncing down;
When the crackle of a leaf
Shakes one lad to laughter,
Till he tumbles from his perch,
Twenty tumble after.

“Frisky with the silver frost,
Wild with windy weather,
Half the autumn-tide they spend
Giggling all together.
Rough of coat but sweet of heart,
Jolly, glad—perhaps
Never finer fellows lived
Than the Chestnut Chaps!”

As he finished, there came a series of clicks overhead, and seven Chestnut Chaps landed suddenly at the travelers’ very feet. As they fell, two gray squirrels darted out to the end of a limb, their tails jerking with excitement; but the Brownie waved them back.

“In this wood,” he said, “squirrels are not allowed to feed on chestnuts.” He turned to the squirrels, who were scowling at him from a high branch. “And you know that very well,” he added.

The squirrels merely looked sulky, and so the Brownie addressed himself to Amos. “What,” he asked, “is your candid opinion about the wood-folk, anyway?”

“The wood-folk?” Amos said. He had not known that he had any opinion about the wood-folk, but just then a clock struck four, and suddenly he formed an opinion on the spot.

“The wood-folk scamper to and fro;
They have no tasks to do.
It’s here and there and high and low
For them, the whole day through;
Up to the tops of highest trees,
In holes and caves, and where they please.

“They have no clothes to guard with care,
No shoes upon their feet,—
For fur and feathers never tear,
And claws are always neat,—
No hooks to hook, no strings to tie.
Small wonder that they skip and fly!

“The wood-folk frolic everywhere,
With all the sky o’erhead,
A swaying bough for rocking-chair,
A hollow trunk for bed.
And yet, for all this woodland joy,
Who would not rather be a boy?”

“Well, everyone to his taste,” remarked an odd-looking elf, who appeared suddenly from nowhere in particular. “For my part, I prefer to be just exactly what I am. Once a witch changed me into a boy for ten minutes, and I give you my word I never was so uncomfortable in my life.”

“Are witches here?” cried Ann, as she fixed her big eyes on the elf.

“Certainly,” said the elf and the Brownie briskly, in one breath. “Don’t you have witches up your way?”

“Only at Hallowe’en,” Amos told them.

The elf looked thoughtful. “Oh, at Hallowe’en,” he said. Then his eyes began to twinkle, and he spoke as follows:—

“Suppose this year at Hallowe’en, without a bit of warning,
The roly-poly pumpkin heads we cut and carved that morning
Should grow slim bodies, legs, and feet,
And quick, from post and steeple,
Come skipping ’mongst us, pert and fleet,
Real, frisky pumpkin people!
Suppose that you and I had just completed one that minute,
As day grew late, down by the gate, and set a candle in it,
So that its eyes were deep and wide,
Its mouth a grinning yellow,
Then turn to find him at our side,
A living pumpkin fellow?
Suppose we ran with twinkling heels and met a throng advancing,
Their teeth a-row, their eyes aglow, all whirling, pranking, prancing;
Suppose they twirled us merrily,
The whole dark landscape lighting—
This Hallowe’en, I think, would be
A little too exciting!”