y hadn't brought out apples and doughnuts every little while. As
it was, they were pretty hungry, and they began on the pumpkin pie at
once, so as to keep eating till the mother and the other mothers that
were helping could get some of the things out of the oven that they had
been keeping hot for the boys. The pie was so nice that they kept eating
at it all along, and the mother told them about the good little pumpkin
that it was made of, and how the good little pumpkin had never had any
wish from the time it was nothing but a seed, except to grow up and be
made into pies and eaten at Thanksgiving; and they must all try to be
good, too, and grow up and do likewise. The boys didn't say anything,
because their mouths were so full, but they looked at each other and
winked their left eyes. There were about forty or fifty of them, and
when they all winked their left eyes it made it so dark you could hardly
see; and the mother got the lamp; but the other mothers saw what the
boys were doing, and they just shook them till they opened their eyes
and stopped their mischief."
"Show how they looked!" said the boy.
"I can't show how fifty boys looked," said the papa. "But they looked a
good deal like the pumpkin-glory that was waiting quietly in the barn
for them to get through, and come out and have some fun with it. When
they had all eaten so much that they could hardly stand up, they got
down from the table, and grabbed their hats, and started for the door.
But they had to go out the back way, because the table took up the
front entry, and that gave the farmer's boy a chance to find a piece of
candle out in the kitchen and some matches; and then they rushed to the
barn. It was so dark there already that they thought they had better
light up the pumpkin-glory and try it. They lit it up, and it worked
splendidly; but they forgot to put out the match, and it caught some
straw on the barn floor, and a little more and it would have burnt the
barn down. The boys stamped the fire out in about half a second; and
after that they waited till it was dark outside before they lit up the
pumpkin-glory again. Then they all bent down over it to keep the wind
from blowing the match anywhere, and pretty soon it was lit up, and the
farmer's boy took the pumpkin-glory by its long neck, and stuck the
point in the hole in the top of the pump; and just then the funniest
papa came round the corner of the wood-house, and said:
"'What have you got t
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