Chapter XVI: The Five-Dollar Gold Piece

"Hush!"

"A deep, deep silence, please!"

"Don't crowd so close--don't, Mary Breeze! If there are ghosts I can't protect you from them," came in Eva Larry's shrill whisper. "I'm sure I've not been vaccinated against seeing spirits."

This was after all the visitors had arrived, had removed their wraps, had been ushered into the big double parlors and seated. Across the far end of the room was drawn a sheet, and the lights were very dim.

A figure in long cloak and conical cap, leaning on a long wand, appeared suddenly beside the curtain. A blue light seemed to glimmer faintly around the Hallowe'en figure and outline it.

"Oh!" gasped Lucy Poole, "there's the very Old Witch of them all, I do declare!"

"The Old Wizard, you mean," laughed Agnes, who knew that Neale O'Neil was hidden behind the long cloak and the false face. He looked quite as feminine in this rig as any witch ever does look.

"Silence!" commanded again the husky voice from behind the screen.

With some little bustle the party fell still. The Hallowe'en Witch raised the wand and rapped the butt three times upon the little stand near by.

"Oh! oh! real spirits," gasped Eva. "They always begin with table-rappings, don't they?"

"Hush!" commanded the husky voice once more.

"This is a perverse and unbelieving generation," croaked the witch. "Ye all doubt black magic and white astrology, and ghostly visitations. I am sent by Those Who Fly By Night--at the head of whom flies the Witch of Endor--who commune with goblins and fays--I am sent to convert you all to the truth.

"Ha! Thunder! Lightning!"

The ears of the company were almost deafened and their eyes blinded by a startling crash like thunder behind the screen and a vivid flash of zig-zag light across it.

"See!" croaked the supposed hag. "Even Thunder and Lightning do my bidding. Now! Rain! Sleet! Advance!"

The wondering spectators began to murmur. An almost perfect imitation of dashing sleet against the window panes and rain pouring from the water-spouts followed. Joe Eldred, behind the scenes, certainly managed the paraphernalia borrowed from the Milton Opera House with good effect.

As the murmurs subsided the voice of the Hallowe'en Witch rose again:

"To prove to you our secret knowledge of all that goes on--even the innermost thoughts of your hearts--I will answer any question put to me--marvelously--in the twinkling of an eye. Watch the screen!"

Primed beforehand, one of the boys in the back of the room shouted a question. The witch whirled about and pointed to the screen. Letters of fire seemed to flash from the point of the wand and to cross the sheet, forming the words of a pertinent reply to the query that had been asked.

The girls laughed and applauded. The boys stamped and cheered.

Question followed question. Some were spontaneous and the answers showed a surprisingly exact knowledge of the questioners' private affairs, or else a happy gift at repartee. Of course, the illuminated writing was some trick of electricity; nevertheless it was both amusing and puzzling.

References to school fun, jokes in class-room, happenings known to most of those present who attended the Milton schools, suggested the most popular queries.

Suddenly Eva Larry's sharp voice rang through the room. Her question was distinctly personal, and it shocked some few of the listeners into silence.

"Who told on the basket ball team and got us all barred from taking part in the play?"

"Oh, Eva!" groaned Agnes, who sat beside her loyal, if unwise friend.

The witch's wand poised, seemed to hesitate longer than usual, and then the noncommittal answer flashed out:

The Traitor is Here!

There was a general shuffling of feet and murmur of surprise. The lights went up. The Hallowe'en Witch had disappeared and that part of the entertainment was over.

"I'd like to have seen Trix Severn's face when that last question was sprung," whispered Myra Stetson to Agnes.

"Oh! it was awful!" murmured the Corner House girl. "Why did you do it, Eva?" she demanded of the harum-scarum girl on her other side.

"Huh! do you s'pose I thought that all up by myself?" demanded Eva.

"Why! didn't you?"

"No, ma'am! Neale O'Neil gave it to me written on a piece of paper and told me when to shout it out. So now! I guess there's more than just us who have suspected that pussy-cat, Trix Severn."

"Oh, don't, girls, don't!" begged Agnes. "We haven't any proof--nor has Neale, I'm sure. I'll just tell him what I think about it."

But she had no opportunity of scolding her boy chum on this evening. He was so busy preparing the other tricks and frolics which followed that Agnes could scarcely say a word to him.

In the big front hall was a booth of black cloth, decorated with crescents, stars, and astronomical signs in gilt.

Some of the girls were paring apples in long "curls" and throwing the curls over their shoulders to see if the parings would form anything like an initial letter on the floor. It was something of a trick to get all the skin off the apple in one long, curling piece. But Agnes succeeded and threw the peeling behind her.

"I don't see as that's much of any thing," Eva said, reflectively. "Oh, Aggie, it's a U!"

"It's a _me_!" laughed the Corner House girl. "Then I'm going to be my own best friend. Hurrah!"

"No, little dunce; I mean it's the letter U," said Eva, squeezing her.

"I think it looks more like E, dear," returned Agnes. "So it must stand for Eva. You and I are going to be chums _forever_!"

Afterward Agnes remembered that U was an N upside down!

When the girls proposed going out to the spring-house and each looking down the well to see whose reflection would appear in the water in the light of a ghostly candle, Carrie's mother vetoed it.

"I guess not!" she said vigorously. "I'm not going to have candle-grease dripped down my well. Yes! I did it when I was a foolish girl--I know I did, Carrie. Your father had no business telling you. What he didn't tell you was that your grandfather was a week cleaning out the well, and it was right at the beginning of a long, dry spell."

"Who did you see in the well, Mother?" asked Carrie, roguishly.

"Never mind whom I saw. It wasn't your father, although he had begun to shine around me, even then," laughed Mrs. Poole.

Suddenly two of the girls screamed. A mysterious light had appeared in the black-cloth booth. The gilt signs upon it showed more plainly. There was a rustling noise, and then the flap of the booth was pushed back. The Hallowe'en Witch appeared in the opening.

"Money!" cried the witch. "Bright, golden coin. It's that for which all witches are supposed to sell themselves. See!"

Between thumb and finger the witch held up a shiny five-dollar gold piece. In the other hand was held a shallow pan of water.

"To gain gold one must cross water," intoned the witch, solemnly. "This gold piece is freely the property of whoever can take it out of the pan of water," and with a tinkle the five-dollar coin was dropped into the pan.

"The pan," said the witch, being careful not to turn so as to hide the pan, but, placing it on a taboret inside the tent, "remains in sight of all. One at a time ye may try to pick the coin out of the pan--one at a time. That all may have an equal chance, I will declare that as soon as one candidate gets the coin another gold piece will be deposited in the pan for the next person attempting the feat."

"Why, how silly!" cried Trix Severn, from the background. "If you want to give us each a counterfeit five dollars, why not hand it to us?"

"If such exchange is desired, our master, Mr. Poole, stands ready to exchange each coin secured by the neophytes for a perfectly good, new, five-dollar bill," proceeded the witch.

"There's your chance, Trix!" laughed one of the boys.

"Oh! he's only fooling," replied the hotel-keeper's daughter. She loved money.

"Each and every one who wishes may try," went on the witch. "But there is a condition."

"Oh!" muttered Trix. "Thought there was some string hitched to it."

"And you're right, there, Trix," murmured Eva Larry.

"Silence!" cried somebody.

"A condition," went on the Hallowe'en Witch. "That condition will be whispered in the ear of each candidate who tries to seize the coin."

"No, thank you! I won't try," cried Lucy Poole, laughing and shaking her curls. "When he goes to make believe whisper in your ear, he'll bite you! I wouldn't trust that old witch!"

The others laughed hilariously at this; but Trix Severn was pushing forward. If there was a gold piece to be given away, she wanted first chance at it--string, or no string.

"Keep your eyes on the pan!" cried the witch, waving empty hands in the air all about the pan and taboret, to show that there was "no flim-flam," as the boys called it. "Now! first neophyte step forward!"

"I don't believe he knows what that means," giggled Myra Stetson. "I don't."

But she could not step in before Trix. Miss Severn pushed to the front and was nearest to the master of ceremonies.

"Give me a chance!" she cried. "You're going to lose your old gold piece."

"It's a perfectly new one, Trixie," whispered somebody, shrilly. "It isn't old at all!"

Without a word the witch beckoned the girl inside the booth. The flap of it dropped and they were hidden. The light was cast from a dim, green globe hung at the apex of the little tent. It made a ghostly glow over all inside.

"Advance!" whispered the witch, with lips close to Trix Severn's pretty ear. "Advance, neophyte! The gold piece is yours for the taking. But only she who has no guilt and treachery upon her heart may seize the shining coin. _If you are faithful to your friends, take the coin!_"

Trix started and her pretty face was cast in an angry look as she glanced aside at the masquerader. But she made no reply save by her out-thrust hand which dived into the water.

Instantly the crowd outside heard a piercing scream from Trix Severn. She burst out of the tent, and, amid the laughter and jeers of her comrades, sought shelter in another room.

"Did you get the gold piece, Trix?" cried some.

"Divide with a fellow, will you?"

"Say! there are more tricks than are dreamed of in your philosophy, eh, Trix?" gibed Eva Larry.

And for that atrocious pun she was pushed forward to the tent, to be the next victim on the altar of the boys' perfectly harmless, though surprising joke.

Nobody was able to pick the gold piece out of the pan of water, thanks to the electric battery that Joe Eldred had so skillfully connected with it.