I saw an old woman at the upper end of Main Street trying
to hang her gate last year the day after Hallowe'en."

"Too heavy for her?"

"I should say so. She couldn't do anything with it. I offered to help
her, and she said, 'You might as well, for I suppose you had the fun of
unhanging it last night'."

"A false accusation, I suppose."

"It happened to be that time, but I had done it before," confessed
Roger, flushing.

"You never happened to see the result of it before."

"That's it. I just thought of the people's surprise when they waked up
in the morning and found their gates gone. I never thought at all of the
real pain and discomfort that it may have given a lot of them."

"Your Club may be doing a good service to all Rosemont if it proves that
young people can have a good time without making the 'innocent
bystander' pay for it."

"We're going to prove it; to ourselves, anyway," insisted Roger stoutly,
as he leaped out of the car and took his grandfather's parcels into the
house.

"The pumpkins are in the barn," Mr. Emerson called after him. "Go down
there and pick them out when you've given those bundles to your
grandmother."

The big yellow globes were loaded into the car--half a dozen of
them--and Mr. Emerson drove back to the house. As he stopped at the side
porch for a last word with his wife he gave a cry of recognition.

"Look who comes here!" he exclaimed.

"Helen and Ethel Brown," guessed Roger. "Don't they look like those
soldiers we read about in 'Macbeth'--the fellows who marched along
holding boughs in their hands so that it looked as if Birnamwood had
come to Dunsinane."

"Roger is quoting Shakespeare about your personal appearance," laughed
Mr. Emerson as he and his grandson relieved the girls of their burdens.

They sank down on the steps of the porch and panted.

"You're tired out," exclaimed their grandmother. "Roger, bring out that
pitcher of lemonade you'll find in the dining-room. How far have you
walked?"

"About a thousand miles, I should say," declared Helen. "We were bound
we'd get out-of-door decorations if they were to be had, and they
weren't to be had except by hunting."

"You're like me--I like to use out-of-door things as late as I can;
there are so many months when you have to go to the greenhouse or to
draw on your house plants."

"Ethel Blue and Dorothy have been educating the Club artistically.
They've been pointing out how much color there is in the field