Ethel Mortons Holidays | Page 7

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