The Chinese Kitten

CHAPTER IX
THE KITTEN’S STORY

When they reached home, both Lucy and Dora talked a great deal. They had to tell Father and Mother all the things they had seen and done in Boston. Father was especially interested in the marionettes and asked many questions about them.

Some of the questions the children could not answer, so Father said that the next time they went to the Public Library, he wished they would ask Miss Perkins for a book on marionettes. Dora said she would do so.

Uncle Dan liked to hear about the church with the beautiful picture windows and the wonderful music. He said that once he had been there to a choir festival.

After a time Father went to see Mr. Baker, and Uncle Dan took his hat and went out through the kitchen. Dora ran after him.

“Are you going to see Olive?” she asked. “Please tell her that I love my new ribbons. And tell her I have been in Boston and that is why I haven’t said ‘thank you’ for them.”

Uncle Dan said that he would tell Olive. Dora went back into the parlor and sat on Mother’s lap.

“I must tell you about my Chinese kitten,” she said. “Oh, Mother, Aunt Margaret liked the piece of birthday cake so much! She said to tell you she wished she could make cake like that. She did not have any of her own, Mother.”

“Next year we will make her a birthday cake,” said Mrs. Merrill, and she looked pleased. “What about the Chinese kitten?”

“First of all,” Dora began, “Aunt Margaret showed me the star she named it for. Last night it was very bright, and I can find it now for Uncle Dan. At least, I think I can. And then she told me about the kitten.

“When Aunt Margaret’s grandfather,” Dora went on, “was about as old as Uncle Dan, he went on a long voyage on a ship that sailed to China. When he came home, he brought with him a set of ivory chess-men. Do you know what they are, Mother?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Chess is a game, played on a board with squares marked off,—a checker-board, like yours,—and a set of counters. You and Lucy have counters for your game of parchesi.”

“Yes,” said Dora, “but those are flat and round. These chess-men were different. They stood up tall, and the pieces which counted most,—the kings and queens and knights and bishops—were cats, big cats, made out of ivory. And the littler pieces, the pawns, were kittens. Half the pieces were white and half were blue. There were eight blue kittens and eight white ones.”

“They must have been very pretty,” Mrs. Merrill agreed. “What became of them?’

“Some were lost,” said Dora, “and Aunt Margaret thinks her boy cousins took the cats when they visited their grandmother. So many chess-men were gone that people couldn’t play the game any more. The grandmother thought, since the boys had taken the cats, she would divide the kittens between the little girl cousins.

“She gave Aunt Margaret four kittens,” Dora went on, “two blue ones and two white.”

Dora stopped. Lucy was calling Timothy at the back door. Dora looked to see that Lucy was beyond hearing. Even then, she whispered the rest.

“Aunt Margaret told me that she is going to give Lucy a white kitten for Christmas. You will keep it a secret, won’t you, Mother?”

“I will try to,” said Mrs. Merrill. “But what with your pincushion and now this white kitten, and its being only September, I think we are getting Lucy’s Christmas started early.”

“I know she will like it,” said Dora happily. “I told Aunt Margaret so. In the beginning the kittens didn’t have anything around their necks, but Aunt Margaret took Vega to a jeweler, and had him put on a silver collar and ring, so I could wear her on my chain. Lucy’s white kitten will have a collar, too. And that is why Vega sits down so hard and flat, Mother, so as not to tip over on the chess-board.”

Next, Dora told Mother about the babies, and how one had cried real tears until Miss Perrin comforted it. Lucy came back and they both talked of the little black baby.

“Would you have minded if we had brought it home?” asked Lucy.

“I should prefer a white one,” said Mother.

“But this was more unusual,” explained Lucy.

“It would be in our family,” agreed Mrs. Merrill. Then she said they must go to bed early, because, after two such exciting days, she knew they were tired.

Quite soon after Dora’s birthday, Jack Frost took out his paints and colored all the leaves. Some were yellow and some red, mixed with green. Some, he turned a faded brown. All over Westmore, the leaves began to flutter down and carpet the streets with bright spots of color.

Then one night, Jack took a look at the flower-beds. Evidently he didn’t approve of people’s raising flowers in gardens; he cared only for things which grew wild. For the flowers did not become bright colors; they turned black and shriveled.

Uncle Dan cut down the tall hollyhocks which had been so pretty all summer. Many of them towered far above his head. Lucy and Dora dragged the stalks to a place where they could be burned. Some of the seeds went into their hair and some went down their necks. And hollyhock seeds tickle when they slip inside one’s clothes.

Mother asked Uncle Dan to trim the rose-bushes on either side of the back door. She said she was tired of having them snatch out her hairpins every time she tried to hang up clothes. The children thought Mother was joking, but Uncle Dan cut off one long sprout and on it, there really sat a hairpin. Dora took it straight to Mother who put it in her hair and said she was glad to see it again.

Dora read “Doctor Dolittle” through five times. Then she looked once more at every picture and returned the book to the library, just as clean and nice as when she took it. She told Miss Perkins that she liked that story best of any book she had ever read. Miss Perkins said she liked it herself. That was the reason she chose it for Dora to take to the beach.

Dora remembered to ask for the book for Father about the marionettes and she told Miss Perkins about seeing them in Boston. She was pleased to know that Miss Perkins had seen those very plays, the rabbit play and the one about Jack.

Miss Perkins found two books for Father to read about them. One was a big book and she thought it was rather heavy for Dora to carry, but Dora thought she could manage it. Once or twice on the way home, she would rest it on a wall.

The weather grew so cool that even the big girls played games at recess. It was pleasanter to run about than to stand still and let the wind blow right through one. To stand still, it was necessary to get into a corner where the sun shone brightly and the wind couldn’t come.

Miss Leger always dismissed her children before Miss Scott’s room came out, and Dora would wait for Lucy. One afternoon, Miss Scott’s class filed out, walking two and two across the school grounds to the sidewalk, where they broke ranks and began to skip and prance. Dora was waiting, but Lucy was not in the file.

“Where is Lucy?” she asked Dorothy Barrows.

“Miss Scott kept her after school,” said Dorothy. “Lucy has been very naughty, so naughty that we are none of us to tell what she did.”

Dora felt sorry to hear this, but she could not believe that Lucy had been more than a little naughty. The other children all went home, but Dora waited in the cold wind, trying to keep warm by jumping up and down. She kept looking at the schoolhouse to see when Lucy came.

It grew later and later and Dora was afraid that Mother would worry, but she could not leave Lucy to walk home alone. Lucy would need to be comforted when she came out.

After a long time Lucy did come, and her face was swollen with crying and her eyes were red. In her hand she held a note.

When Dora saw the note, she knew that Lucy had been really naughty. Anybody who was given a note to take home had done something shocking.

Dora ran to meet Lucy and kissed her. Then she held her arm and did not say a word. Lucy began to cry again and walked slower and slower. Dora was cold and wanted to walk fast.

“What is the matter?” Dora asked when they had gone about a block. “Was Miss Scott cross to you?”

Lucy nodded and choked. She tried to speak but only cried the harder.

When they reached the brown cottage, Mother was watching for them. She came and opened the door.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “You are very late and you know I want you always to come straight home after school.”

Then Mother saw how Lucy looked. Dora began to cry also, just because she was so sorry for Lucy.

Mother took them into the warm kitchen and asked what the matter was, but Dora did not know, and Lucy could not tell. She sobbed and held out the note. Mother read it.

Lucy cried harder than ever and so did Dora. For a minute Mother did not say anything at all. Then she told Dora to stop crying and told Lucy to go and wash her face.

When Lucy came out of the bathroom, Mother sat down in the rocker and took her in her arms. She told Dora to go into the parlor and work on the cushion for Olive.

Dora sewed until it began to grow dark, which was soon, because they had been so late coming from school. Mother never allowed her or Lucy to light the lamp on the table, so she looked out of the window and wished she could do something for Lucy.

After a time, she heard Lucy going up to their room and then Mother opened the door into the parlor. Dora ran to her at once.

“Please tell me, Mother,” she asked, with her arms about Mother’s waist.

Mrs. Merrill sat down and took Dora on her lap. “Lucy has done something very wrong,” she said. “She didn’t know how to do a problem in number-work, so she kept her book open under her desk and copied from it.”

“But she is very sorry,” said Dora, and the tears came into her eyes.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “She is so sorry that we will not say anything more to her about it. But you will never do it, will you, Dora?”

“No, Mother,” said Dora earnestly. “But I don’t need to, you see. I like number-work and the problems are easy for me.”

“I mean in anything,” said Mrs. Merrill. “It never does any good to cheat in this world, and it hurts only the one who does it.”

“I won’t, in anything,” said Dora. “May I go and tell Lucy that I love her and that we aren’t going to say anything about it?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “I told Lucy to lie down for a little while because she has cried so much that her head aches. It is her turn to help me get supper to-night, but if you want to, you may do it for her.”

Dora was glad to do this. She ran up-stairs and kissed Lucy and whispered in her ear, and then half-way down the stairs, she ran back and took the Chinese kitten out of the pink box where Arcturus used to live. She tucked it into Lucy’s hand.

“Vega is very comforting to hold,” she said. “When you come down to supper, please put her back in her pink box.”

Just then, Lucy didn’t think she should want any supper, but Dora and the kitten made her feel better, to say nothing of the talk with Mother. When Dora called, she put Vega away and came down.

Mother had told Father and Uncle Dan not to speak of Lucy’s red eyes, and they did not. Only, after supper, Father took her on his knee and talked to her a little while.

That night, after she and Dora were in bed, Lucy rolled over and cuddled close to Dora.

“I am never going to cheat again,” she said. “I don’t like Miss Scott and I never shall like her, but it is because of Father and Mother. They care so much about our doing what is right, that we shall just have to do it.”

“Yes,” said Dora, snuggling into Lucy’s arms, “we mustn’t be naughty when they care so much.”

CHAPTER X
THE VICTORY PARK

In most States October twelfth is a legal holiday, because long ago on that day, Columbus landed in America. He didn’t know it was America; he thought it was Asia, but that was the day when he arrived.

To celebrate in honor of Columbus seemed hardly fair to children who learned in school that other explorers than Columbus came here before him. In fact, America was not named for him, anyway, but for another voyager.

But the children approved of the holiday even though the cause had become mixed during the centuries. This especial Columbus Day was to be celebrated in Westmore as none had ever been before.

Away back in June the plan was made, and all summer long, men and women had been arranging for it.

On the morning of October twelfth, when the sun rose, and everybody hoped that he would rise smiling, he would look upon a big square meadow tucked into an edge of Westmore, a pretty meadow with some large trees. Around three sides were streets. On the fourth side lay the school grounds.

When the sun set on October twelfth, if all went as expected, the last thing his astonished face would see, would be a park where the meadow had been,—the Victory Park of Westmore. The people were going to make it themselves in memory of the five Westmore boys who sailed to France at the call of duty and didn’t come home again.

Judge Winslow owned the meadow and his son was one of the five who were lying in Flanders with red poppies blowing in the sunshine above their graves. The Judge said that he would give the meadow to the town on one condition. The town must agree to take care of it always.

To arrange for this, the people of Westmore met in June. They voted to accept the meadow, and promised that forever and forever, they would keep it as a park.

They asked the Judge if he would like them to call it Winslow Park, but the Judge said not. Both he and Mrs. Winslow knew that Lieutenant Ned would not want the park to bear his name, when the four other Westmore boys gave their lives for their country just as truly as he did. The memorial was to be for them all. Why not call it the Victory Park?

So the town voted for this name. Mr. Lawrence, who knew how parks ought to look, measured the meadow and drew a proper plan, showing where flower-beds should be made and shrubbery set out. The beautiful trees already in the meadow would stay just where they were. The centre of the field was to be grass, kept smooth and short. Around the edges, curving flower-beds were planned, with gravel walks where people could stroll in the cool of the evening.

At one side of the meadow stood an oak-tree and under it a large boulder. When the park was completely finished there would be on the boulder a bronze tablet, saying that the people of Westmore had made the park in memory of their five boys.

Early in the summer a copy of the plan Mr. Lawrence made was hung in the Town Hall. Beside it was tacked a large sheet of paper, divided into columns. At the head of each column stood the name of a plant or a shrub, and the number of each Mr. Lawrence thought would be needed. Anybody who could spare that plant from his garden or who wanted to buy it for the Victory Park, wrote his name in the proper column. Long before summer was over the columns were full of names and every plant and shrub had been promised.

There were to be tulips and daffodils also in the park and these the children gave. Every child in school brought five cents to buy one bulb.

The farmers promised to lend their horses and carts and tools, and all those belonging to the town were to be ready for people to use. Mr. Harper had charge of the day’s work. Everybody was to do what he directed.

To make the Victory Park would take all day, so the ladies said that at noon they would serve a lunch in the Town Hall for the workers. This would be their part.

Every person in Westmore was to have a chance to help in some way. Even the kindergarten children were planned for.

Mrs. Merrill was one of the ladies to provide the lunch. Mr. Merrill and Uncle Dan were to help dig the park. You will see what Lucy and Dora did.

On the evening of the eleventh, everybody went to bed prepared to get up early. Tools were laid ready, and also old clothes suitable for gardening.

Lucy and Dora expected to wake of themselves, but they did not have a chance. Just after six o’clock Uncle Dan opened the door of their room and shouted to them:

“Oh, Uncle Dan!” groaned Lucy, but Dora sat up and looked at Dan. Then she laughed into her pillow for almost a minute.

Before eight a big crowd collected on the meadow which was to be a park before the sun set. First they sang “America.” Then Mr. Harper made a little speech and reminded them why they were making the park, out of gratitude to the heroic boys who helped save the country from great peril. One of the ministers prayed that their work might be blessed for themselves, and for all the children who in years to come would play in the Victory Park.

Then everybody watched while the mothers and fathers of the five heroes each took a spade and turned one sod.

The minute that was done the work started. The people who were to plough the field brought the horses, harnessed ready to begin. Behind the plows came harrows, and behind them men and boys with garden forks, to remove stones and shake out sods of turf.

The flower-beds had been carefully marked with stakes, and the people who were to make them ready began to dig, one set of people to each bed. Many of the young men were in their old khaki uniforms, and the young women came in overalls and bloomers in which they had been farmerettes during the war.

There was only one mix-up. The committee who were to make the gravel paths wanted to make them at once, and this interfered with the people who were trying to dig the flower-beds. Mr. Harper explained to the gravel-path people that they would really have to wait.

Grace Benson had brought her donkey. Its name was Souris, which is the French for a mouse, and it was all mouse-color except the black tips of its ears and tail.

Grace expected Souris to help about making the park, but what could one wee donkey do? Souris was very small, and the moment Grace led him among the people he began to shiver and shake until his harness rattled.

Nobody knew why Souris was afraid. Perhaps he did not like the big cart-horses several times larger than he; perhaps they spoke unkindly to him in horse language; at any rate, Souris stood still and shook from nose to tail. Only when Grace put her arms about his neck and spoke comfortingly to him did he stop trembling. The minute she took her arms away he began shivering again.

Clearly Souris was of no use, and Grace took him home. He looked so miserable that nobody wanted him to stay and keep on feeling unhappy, but Grace felt ashamed of him.

At first only the older people could work, because horses and machines were needed, and there was nothing the children could do. But soon they could help.

The Boy Scouts cleaned a little brook which ran through the meadow. All proper parks have a brook or a lake, and so it was fortunate that the meadow possessed one. To plant flowers and bushes was easy, but to coax a brook to come from another place and run through the Victory Park might have been hard.

The boys took out of the brook all the tin cans which thoughtless people had thrown into it. Never again would there be tin cans in the Victory brook. They pulled out sticks and branches and took away some stones, but only those which Mr. Lawrence said were to go. Some must be left so the brook could make pretty ripples and have something over which to sing.

There were also stones in the meadow for the children to pick up and carry to baskets on the edge of the field. As fast as filled, men emptied these baskets into tip-carts, which took the stones away. The older boys raked where directed, so as to make the earth the proper level.

The committees which had charge of the flowers dug the beds and did it very thoroughly. They dug down nearly two feet and put in fertilizer so the roots of the new plants would have plenty of food. They prepared the beds and then said that they must have water. The summer had been so dry that the plants could not grow unless the earth was made wet all around the roots.

Nobody had thought that there must be water. Mr. Harper went into the nearest house and telephoned to the fire station. The hose-cart came immediately and fastened a hose to the hydrant. Any amount of water could be turned anywhere it was wanted.

The committee in charge of each bed had a copy of Mr. Lawrence’s plan. This told them exactly how many plants and shrubs were to go in the bed and where they were to be set. When the ground was ready the head of each committee put a marker where each was to be planted.

The High School students planted the shrubs, and then came the turn of the smaller children. Each of them carried a bulb and marched in line to the flower-bed appointed.

Each one dug a little hole for his bulb and put it in with care to get it right side up. Bulbs never grow so well when they are planted with their heads down. Then a Boy Scout with a water-pot gave it a drink, and the child covered it with loam and patted it down hard.

The kindergarten children planted tulips. Dora’s class planted daffodils and Lucy’s class did the jonquils. Every child in the public schools had a share in making the Victory Park.

Meanwhile the ladies had been getting lunch in the Town Hall. Some of the older men who had stiff knees and couldn’t work out of doors, set up the long tables and brought settees and dishes. Promptly at twelve the fire whistle blew long and loud. It wasn’t for a fire at all, but the signal that everybody was to stop working and go to lunch in the Town Hall.

The park looked like nothing at all, but it did look as though there might be hope for it by sunset.

Some of the men, especially those who wore stiff collars and went into Boston every day, thought they were much too dirty to go to lunch. They said they would go home and wash.

Mr. Harper took a megaphone and spoke through it. He asked the men not to go home. He told them to brush off the dust and loam and to wash their hands at the hydrant. Most of them laughed and did just as Mr. Harper said.

Very soon all the tables in the long hall were filled, and everybody was hungry. There is nothing like digging in the dirt to make people ready for dinner.

The good things the ladies had been cooking vanished like snow before the sun. There was cold meat of various kinds, a great many baked potatoes, string-beans, and beets, and squash. For dessert were doughnuts and pies and coffee and ice-cream.

Girls of Olive’s age waited on the tables. Lucy and Dora wanted dreadfully to help, but that was one of the things they could not do until they were older. Five hundred people sat down together at lunch in the Westmore Town Hall.

When they had finished eating, Mr. Harper made another suggestion. He asked every person at the table to pick up the dishes he had used and to carry them into the kitchen on his way out of the hall.

At this everybody laughed and the waitresses clapped their hands. For them to clear those long tables would be a great deal of work, but to clear them in Mr. Harper’s way would take hardly any time at all.

Everybody picked up all the dishes he could carry and left them in the kitchen. There were still salt-shakers and bread-and-butter plates and pickle dishes to remove, but that did not take very long. And then the old men took away the tables and put the settees in place. The hall was now ready for some other use, for a meeting or a lecture.

The children ate sandwiches made of the meat and bread which was left and they also finished the doughnuts and the ice-cream. Then people began to wash the dishes.

There were ten washers, and each had two girls to wipe for her, and it was amazing how fast those piles of dishes vanished. As soon as they were wiped, they were packed in baskets. Every church in town had loaned its crockery and silver for the Victory lunch.

By four o’clock the dishes were all washed and sorted. Each church had its own. There was one spoon which nobody claimed. And by that hour the chaos in the park was changing into order.

The patient people who were to make the gravel walks got a chance to do so. The centre of the meadow was now as smooth as a table. The land had been ploughed, harrowed, raked, fertilized, and planted with lawn seed. Then it had been rolled with a big iron roller drawn by two horses. Where rough, uneven sod had lain was now a smooth brown level.

The flower-beds were planted and raked within an inch of their lives. All the shrubs and clumps of perennials were in place. You could imagine how beautiful the curved beds were going to look. The bulbs didn’t show, being tucked underground to sleep till Spring called them. Each flower-bed was outlined with turf, put in place and pounded down.

Everybody watched the gravel paths being made. They waited until the last man raked himself out of the park. The sun’s rim was nearing the horizon. There were backs that ached and hands that showed blisters, for if you are used to sitting in an office, or writing for hours at a desk, it is not easy to spend a whole day digging dirt. Everybody was tired, but everybody was pleased and happy. The Victory Park was done!

CHAPTER XI
HALLOWE’EN

Before many days the winds finished what work Jack Frost didn’t attend to himself. The leaves were neatly whisked from all the trees except the oaks and the evergreens. Oaks are cold trees. They keep most of their leaves on all winter and let them drop only when Spring sends word that she is on the way with a new gown for each. Such pretty secrets some of the trees revealed! Who suspected birds’ nests until the boughs were bare?

In the gutters of the Westmore streets lay drifts of leaves through which the children loved to rustle on their way to school. The autumn air was full of the pleasant smell of their burning.

About the farms on the outskirts of town, cabbages were piled in green or purple heaps. Ears of corn dangled from barn rafters, drying for seed next year. In rows on the piazzas sat pumpkins.

Lucy and Dora greatly wanted pumpkins because in a few days it would be Hallowe’en. On that evening the Westmore children dressed up and pretended to be goblins and ghosts. Every respectable ghost lighted its way with a pumpkin lantern.

The children consulted Father. He asked Mother if the pumpkins could be made into pies after they had been lanterns. Mother thought a moment and said she could use them.

Father bought two small pumpkins. Lucy wanted to make her own lantern and so did Dora, but they found the shell much harder than they expected. Mother was so afraid they would cut themselves that she would not let them take the sharpest kitchen knife. When Father came home from work both little girls were glad to let him help them.

Father did not find it hard to cut off the top of each pumpkin, but Mother let him have a sharp knife. Lucy and Dora scooped out the soft part with the seeds, and Father cut eyes and a nose and a mouth in each lantern. Lucy’s had teeth with sharp points, which made it look cross, but Dora’s had a smooth, curved, smiling mouth.

Mother found a bit of candle for each, and they lighted them and turned down the gas to see how they were going to look. They looked decidedly spooky.

The last day of October was windy and cold, but when the sun went down the wind went with it. This was lucky, because if it had not stopped, the policemen would not let the children build bonfires.

Directly after supper Lucy and Dora began to dress as ghosts. Each wore an old pillow-case in which Mother said they might cut holes for eyes and noses and arms. Mother tied the points so they looked like ears. She also tied tapes around their necks to make the cases fit better. Then their eye-holes would not slide about.

“I declare!” she said when they were dressed. “I wouldn’t like to meet you in the dark myself!”

Lucy and Dora jumped up and down with delight. If Mother felt that way, mere strangers would be terribly scared.

Father lighted the lanterns. He told them to be very careful not to set themselves on fire, and not to go near any burning leaves.

Mother told them not to go down into the square because big and rough boys might be out. She told them to keep in their own part of town and to ring door-bells only where they knew the people who lived in the houses.

The children said they would remember and skipped happily away. Underneath the pillow-cases they wore warm sweaters. First they rang the Bakers’ bell and Marion rushed to the door. She stopped short when she saw the two white figures with their lanterns.

“It is Lucy and Dora!” she exclaimed. “I am almost ready to come out. Which way are you going?”

They told her and ran off to make another call. The grown people in Westmore were very patient with the children that evening. They opened their doors when the bells rang and spoke pleasantly to the little ghosts. Some of them pretended to be afraid and most of them admired the sweet smile of Dora’s lantern. One gentleman gave them each a chocolate cream.

“Being a spook must be hungry work,” he said. Lucy and Dora told him that it was.

Only a few houses kept their porch lights burning and wouldn’t give the children the fun of having the door opened for them.

Lucy and Dora went to call at Miss Page’s home on the hill. Miss Page seemed to be expecting visitors, for she came to the door herself, screamed loudly and then guessed that the ghosts were Alice and Grace. The ghosts giggled and shook their heads.

“Iris and Mary,” suggested Miss Page, and she did not guess Lucy and Dora until she had named all the girls in her Sunday-school class. When the ghosts took little leaps she knew she had guessed correctly.

She gave them each a wee cake with pink icing and told them not to fall down the front steps and to be careful of their lanterns.

Next to Miss Page’s home stood Mr. Harper’s big house.

“Let us go in here,” said Lucy when they had untied the tapes on each other’s masks, eaten the little cakes, and then tied the tapes again.

“Alice will be out with the others,” said Dora.

“I know it, but there are some people at home. I can see her father sitting by the fire in the room where the curtain is up.”

Very softly the children crept on the porch and found the electric bell. In a minute they heard steps in the hall and the porch light came on.

They did not run but stood in silence, holding their grinning lanterns. Mr. Harper opened the door and when he saw them he looked for a second and then threw his arms up into the air.

“Help, Mamma!” he shouted. “Ghosts, Mamma! Come and save me!”

Lucy and Dora couldn’t help giggling. They had not expected him to act like that. They didn’t think Mrs. Harper would come, but she did.

“Goodness!” she said. “What shall we do, James? Ghosts! and not an inch of mosquito netting in the house!”

This was too much for Dora. She was so interested that she forgot she was a spook.

“Don’t ghosts like mosquito netting?” she asked.

“No, indeed!” said Mr. Harper. “It gives them hay fever. Harriet,” he said to his wife, “how could you let the mosquito netting run out?”

Lucy began to think Mr. Harper was crazy, but Dora knew he wasn’t. Uncle Dan talked in just that way. She laughed and so did Mrs. Harper.

“Come in, won’t you?” asked Mr. Harper, opening the door wider.

“No, thank you,” said Lucy. “We have a great many other calls to make. But is Alice at home?”

“She is out being a goblin,” said Mrs. Harper. “I think you will find her on School Street. Could you each eat a caramel?”

The ghosts needed no second invitation. They thanked Mrs. Harper. “Do you know us?” Dora asked as they were going.

Mrs. Harper smiled. “Yes, I know you, Dora,” she said. “Mrs. Merrill’s little girls are ladies even when they wear pillow-cases.”

“What did she mean?” Dora asked Lucy as they went down the steps. Lucy didn’t know, but when they asked Mother, she seemed to understand, though she didn’t tell them.

After they had called on all the people they knew in that part of town they went to Olive’s house, but she was out, having a Hallowe’en frolic herself.

Next, the children joined one of the groups in the street. It was holding hands and dancing around a bonfire. The fire was right in the centre where one street crossed another and the automobiles could not pass. The automobiles did not like it at all, but there stood Mr. Waterman, the tall policeman, and he made them all go around another block. This night belonged to the children.

Lucy and Dora danced for a time and then began to feel rather tired. The fire was dying down and Mr. Waterman yawned behind a veil of smoke.

Before they reached home they met Father, who seemed to be out for a walk. He did not say he was looking for them, but it was not usual for him to walk about the streets at night unless he were going to church or to a lecture or to his lodge-meeting.

Father offered to carry their lanterns and both were willing to let him. Even small pumpkins grow heavy when carried around for an hour and a half.

The front porch was peppered with beans which boys had blown through air-guns. Mother thought it wrong for them to waste food in that way.

“Did you have any callers while we were gone?” Lucy asked.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Ten different ghosts have called on me. I gave each an animal cracker and they went away at once. One ghost said that elephants didn’t agree with him, so might he have a lion.”

“Did you change it for him?” asked Dora.

“I did,” said Mrs. Merrill.

CHAPTER XII
A BUSY SATURDAY

When November came, an interesting thing happened to the Merrill children. There had been a number of letters from Miss Chandler. Mother and Father talked about them after the little girls were in bed. Father had taken the letters to show Mr. Thorne.

One afternoon Mother told Lucy and Dora that both were to have music lessons. Lucy was to learn to play the piano properly, not with two or three fingers the way she picked out tunes now, but with all ten fingers and according to rule. Miss Chandler and Miss Page and Mr. Thorne thought it would be nice for Dora to have a little violin.

Miss Chandler was sure that Dora could learn to play. She had a friend who had already chosen a fiddle for Dora. It wasn’t full-sized, but was otherwise just what grown people used. Dora thought it was beautiful.

Alice Harper had a fiddle also, and when Mrs. Merrill spoke to Mrs. Harper about a teacher for Dora, Mrs. Harper asked Dora to come to her house every Saturday morning when Alice had her lesson, and take one from the same teacher.

Alice’s teacher was a young man who came from Boston. He would be glad to have two pupils instead of one.

Lucy was to take piano lessons from Miss Ball, and also on Saturday. But Miss Ball had many pupils who wanted their lessons that day. Lucy would have to go at eight o’clock. This was a chilly hour for a music lesson, but Lucy said she did not mind. They both felt very important with music to carry about the streets.

“I shall expect you to practise every day,” said Mother. “You must remember that the lessons cost money, and the money will be wasted if you don’t try hard to learn.”

Lucy and Dora felt sure they should never want to do something else instead of practising. Mrs. Merrill said she hoped they wouldn’t.

After her first lesson Dora felt quite discouraged. She had expected that Mr. Irons would show her at once how to play. Instead, he spent all the time telling her how to hold her fingers and how to keep the bow in the proper position. He would not let her draw the bow across the strings unless her fingers were just as he wanted them.

Dora tried hard, but when Mr. Irons said she had worked long enough and might listen while Alice had her lesson, Dora decided that it would be some time before she could play that fiddle.

Alice could really play quite well, and Dora felt more cheerful when she remembered that there had been a time when Alice had to think about her fingers and the way she held the bow. If Alice could learn to do both without thinking much about it, she could learn, too. It is a long step toward learning how to do anything when one realizes that it must be done a little at a time.

When Dora reached home that Saturday, Mrs. Merrill was mixing bread and Lucy was perfectly determined to help mix it. She had washed her hands nicely and every time Mrs. Merrill looked the other way Lucy would make dabs at the bread dough.

“Lucy,” said Mrs. Merrill, “next summer I will show you how to make bread, but you must leave this alone. You may make some gingerbread if you like.”

Lucy flew for the cook-book. She knew which rule Mother used, only Mother never had to look at the book. She got out the bowl and a spoon and the flour and the molasses.

“You don’t need to bring out the whole jug,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Pour into a cup what the rule says.”

Lucy hadn’t thought of this. It was easier than carrying out the heavy jug. She did everything just as the rule said and didn’t notice that Mother kept an eye on her mixing-bowl. When the gingerbread was put into a nicely buttered pan and safe in the oven, Lucy gave a sigh.

“Don’t you wish you could make gingerbread?” she asked Dora, who was paring apples for Mother’s pies. The Hallowe’en pumpkins were already changed into pies and eaten.

“I think I could make it,” said Dora.

Lucy was surprised, for Dora didn’t often say things like that. “Mother, could she?” she asked Mrs. Merrill.

“Anybody who can read can use a cook-book, and anybody with common sense can cook,” said Mother.

Lucy was quite annoyed. Neither Dora nor Mother understood how choice that gingerbread was going to be. She at once told Dora that she was paring the apples too deep.

“It isn’t good next to the skin,” said Dora, and she went on paring the apples in just the same way.

“Don’t be cross, children,” said Mrs. Merrill. “You might help Dora with the apples, Lucy, if you think you can do them better. I want to get everything possible done before dinner because this afternoon I mean to take you over to the city to see about your winter coats.”

“Both of us?” asked the children.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Saturday afternoon isn’t a good time to go shopping, but now you are having music lessons in the morning, I can’t manage it then. And I don’t like to take you out of school to go.”

“Are we both to have new coats?” asked Dora. She knew that Lucy was to have one, because she had outgrown her old one. It could not be buttoned without squeezing hard. Dora had expected to wear that coat herself, and she did not like its color. The color was brown.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Lucy’s old coat will do for you to wear on stormy days, but it does not look very well. She has worn it three winters. We have decided to buy you a new one.”

Dora was delighted. People in the little brown cottage thought twice before spending a dollar. Father had told the children that he was saving money so he could send them to school a long time, and was buying insurance. That meant if anything happened so Father could not work in the printing-press, there would still be money to take care of Mother and the little girls. Dora had not expected to have a new coat.

“Will it be blue, Mother?” she asked after a time. Lucy was paring apples now, and Dora didn’t think it was quite fair for her to choose those with nice smooth skins and leave the specked ones for Dora to do. But she did not say anything.

“Will what be blue, child?” asked Mother. “Look at your gingerbread, Lucy.”

“My coat,” said Dora. Lucy dropped her knife and flew to the oven.

How good that gingerbread did smell! It had turned into a desirable brown cake.

“Is it done, Mother?” Lucy asked.

“Try it and see,” said Mrs. Merrill. “We will look at the blue coats, Dora.”

Lucy brought from the pantry one of the clean straws Mother kept to test cake. She stuck it into her gingerbread. When she drew it out the straw felt dry and smooth.

“It is done,” she said.

Mother took the pan out of the oven. She tipped out the gingerbread and put it on a rack and covered it with a cloth. “It looks very well,” she said.

The fragrance of that gingerbread filled the whole house. It even penetrated to the parlor where Timothy was sleeping on the couch. He had no business there and he got up and came into the kitchen. It was not because his conscience pricked him, however, but because of the gingerbread.

Lucy came back to the table where Dora was working. She was so proud of her cooking that she no longer felt cross. She took an apple which had a big speck on the side.

After dinner everybody hurried to get the dishes washed and then Mrs. Merrill and the children went to the city. There was no need to lock the house, for Mr. Merrill would be at home. The printing-press did not run on Saturday afternoons.

It was late before the shoppers came back. Dora did not wait to open the packages before telling Father that she had a pretty blue coat. Lucy had another brown one, not like her old coat, but a different shade of brown. To go with the coat was a round brown sailor hat with a ribbon hanging down the back. Dora’s hat was just like it, only dark blue, with a blue ribbon. Then Dora asked Father if he had been lonesome.

Father said he had been too busy to be lonesome. Dora wondered what he had been doing. On the floor before the Franklin stove was spread a newspaper, with chips on it, as though Father had been whittling.

Mr. Merrill looked at the new coats and hats and thought them very pretty. After supper, when they were all in the parlor, he began to whittle again.

Lucy and Dora were learning their Sunday-school lesson. Mrs. Merrill had just found out that they had not even looked at it, and she said it must be learned at once. She should be much ashamed of them if they went to Sunday school without knowing the lesson.

Dora hurried as much as she could. She read the lesson and looked up the Bible references and tried to answer the questions. But all the time she wondered what Father was making. As soon as she finished she asked him.

“What do they look like?” inquired Father.

“Like little dolls, only in pieces,” said Dora.

“That’s just what they are,” said Mr. Merrill, and then he smiled at her. Dora’s eyes grew wide.

“Father!” she said. “Are you trying to make marionettes like those we saw in Boston? Are you really?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Mr. Merrill, and he fitted a little arm to one of his bodies. “These are just tiny ones but I thought we’d begin small and see how we come out.”

“Is it to be Jack and the Beanstalk?” asked Dora eagerly. “Do let it be that, because we know how to play it.”

“This is Jack I’m working on,” said Mr. Merrill. “That’s his mother there, not put together, but I don’t know whether I can make a proper cow.”

“Father!” exclaimed Lucy, “Dora had a toy cow once on wheels and the wheels were broken. Couldn’t you use that cow? You could take it apart at the joints.”

“I am a printer, not a butcher,” said Mr. Merrill, “but I’ll look at that cow, if Dora is willing we should use it.”

Dora was willing. The cow belonged to her very little girlhood. She never played with it now.

Lucy ran up-stairs and found the cow. Mr. Merrill said it was the right size and would do nicely. He would try strings fastened to it in different places and perhaps they could make it walk without taking it apart or putting joints in its legs.

Dora began making plans. There could be a set of dolls for “Cinderella,” and, of course, they would need rabbits for the rabbit play. She asked Father at once if he could make some.

Mr. Merrill said he would prefer to finish the marionettes for Jack before he began any more, but he thought he could manage the rabbits. “How about clothes?” he asked. “Can you and Mother ’tend to that part?”

When they asked her, Mother looked rather doubtful. “I can make dolls’ clothes,” she said, “but these dolls are very small. We will try. The clothes must fit exactly right so as not to interfere with the strings to work their arms and legs.”

“Perhaps we could make paper clothes,” suggested Dora; “paste the paper right on.”

“That might answer,” said Mother, “but we will try the cloth ones. How was Jack dressed?”

The children told her and Mrs. Merrill said she would see what she could do.

Father explained that the idea was really Uncle Dan’s. Dan said it would be possible to make a little stage for the marionettes and that he would make one if Father would whittle the dolls. The back of the stage was to come up high enough so that Lucy and Dora could stand behind and not be seen while they were working the little puppets. All this was to be a Christmas present from Father and Uncle Dan.

Dora and Lucy thought it the nicest gift anybody could think of. They were perfectly sure no other little girls in Westmore would have a Christmas present like it. Mr. Merrill promised that if the first marionettes turned out well he would make the characters for another play.

Lucy and Dora planned at once to give an entertainment with the theatre and invite their Sunday-school class and Miss Page. Mrs. Merrill agreed that this would be pleasant, but she thought they would have to see how well the figures would work when they were finished, and that it might take both children a little time to learn how to pull the strings.

“I would not invite Miss Page just yet,” she said.

CHAPTER XIII
THANKSGIVING

Having helped make the Victory Park, all the Westmore children felt responsible for its welfare. Any dog who imprudently walked on its flower-beds, or ran in circles on the grass-sown level, was at once called off, scolded, and slapped. Before the middle of November most of the dogs understood that the park was no place for them to play, at least when the children saw them.

At that time of year nothing could be expected to grow, but the children felt it their duty to see that nothing was dug up nor disturbed. Every child remembered the place where his bulb was planted and kept an eye on it. When winter was gone and spring called to the flowers, those bulb beds would have frequent visitors.

All over New England November means Thanksgiving, and it did in Westmore. There were no cousins and no grandmother to come to the Merrill cottage, for Uncle John lived in far California.

Some time, Father said, when their ship came in, they would buy a little Ford, and a tent, and go to see Uncle John and Aunt Nell. But whenever Lucy and Dora asked whether the ship was coming, Father would smile and shake his head.

Still, there was to be company for dinner. Olive and her father were invited. Everybody wanted Olive, and it would not be polite to ask her without asking Mr. Gates. Olive would not come alone, because she kept house for her father. She would not go to the beach until she arranged for him to have his meals with the people next door.

“Mother,” asked Dora on the Monday before Thanksgiving, “are we going to have a turkey?”

“Not at seventy-two cents a pound,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Even if I could afford to pay that much, I would not. I don’t think there is any need for them to cost so much.”

“Will there be a chicken?” asked Dora.

“I think we may manage that,” said Mrs. Merrill, “if they are at all reasonable in price, but we may have just a nice piece of pork or beef to roast. It isn’t what we have to eat that makes the Thanksgiving dinner, child. It is the being thankful for it.”

“Mr. Thorne said last Sunday that we must save all the pennies we can for the Christmas manger. Because there are children in Europe and Asia who haven’t even bread to eat.”

“I know it,” said Mrs. Merrill, and she went on sewing Dora’s school dress.

“I am not going to buy any more candy,” said Dora. “Yesterday Uncle Dan gave me ten cents for caramels. Wouldn’t you put it in your mite-box if you were I, Mother?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Sometimes it chokes me to have enough to eat when I think about those children. If you and Lucy and Dan are willing, we will have pork for our Thanksgiving dinner. I will ask how much more the chicken would cost. Then we will put the difference into the fund for the hungry children.”

“Lucy will want to,” said Dora. “Uncle Dan may want things very nice because of Olive. Perhaps he would be disappointed not to have chicken. Will you ask him, Mother?”

“Ask him yourself, child. He’ll do it for you if he will for anybody.”

That evening Dora asked Uncle Dan. She did not need to coax him. Uncle Dan had heard about the hungry children.

“Sure thing,” he said. “Roast pork is good enough for me.”

When Mrs. Merrill went to market she inquired the price of a large chicken. A big one would be needed for a dinner for seven people. Then she bought the pork.

When she came home she took ninety-eight cents from her purse and gave it to the children. “You may divide it between your mite-boxes,” she said.

Thanksgiving Day was cold and blustering, which made the warm house seem all the more pleasant. A cheerful fire blazed in the Franklin stove and Father was at home.

He helped make the dining-table larger. Mother put on the best table-cloth. The pattern woven into it was bunches of drooping lilacs and Lucy and Dora thought it very pretty. Mother smoothed out every wrinkle and then the children set the table.

In the centre they put a vase of dark red chrysanthemums, cold and fragrant from the garden. Dora loved their spicy smell. They were only about as big as buttons, but something in their odor made her think of ferns and brooks and pleasant things which would come with spring.

Never was table set more carefully. Each knife and fork was laid as though the proper spot were located with a foot-rule. Dora felt that Lucy was too particular. Lucy moved almost everything Dora put in place.

When Lucy’s back was turned, Dora quietly put things as they were before. And the distance either moved them was so slight that when Lucy looked back she did not notice what Dora had done.

There was to be apple-sauce, as is the custom with roast pork, but Mother had also made cranberry sauce because Father and Uncle Dan were fond of it.

Everybody would want apple-sauce, so Lucy took a spoon and filled seven glass dishes. She placed one at each plate. The cranberry sauce was in a large dish. It was to go in front of Olive, with a spoon and more glass saucers. Dora brought the dish from the pantry, holding it carefully in both hands.

What possessed Timothy just then? He liked to weave himself in and about people’s feet when he was hungry, but Timmy had eaten his dinner. If he had not been fed, there would be no peace for anybody in the Merrill kitchen. Timothy was not hungry and he should have been washing his face before the parlor fire, not walking in front of Dora.

Dora tripped over him. She held on to the dish, but spilled the cranberry on the table, all over Mother’s clean Thanksgiving cloth!

“Now, see what you’ve done!” cried Lucy, perfectly horrified.

Poor Dora picked herself up. What cranberry wasn’t on the table-cloth was on her pretty white dress.

What a dreadful thing to happen! But the worst was that Lucy spoke as though she thought Dora meant to do it. Would Mother think the same?

Mrs. Merrill came out of the pantry and for a moment she looked as though she didn’t know what to do any more than the children. Dora stood with her lip quivering and her eyes full of tears.

“Well, that is too bad,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Stop crying, Dora; it doesn’t mend matters. Of course you didn’t mean to do it.”