After she had been introduced to each one they were put into the hall to wait for school to be over.

Hallowe’en night every lantern had a candle in it, and the children had great fun trying to frighten their mothers and fathers and each other.

Of course Grandpa Hall jumped and ran when he saw a big bright face coming at him from the barn.

Then Grandma Hall saw it in the woodshed, and she ran and hid behind the kitchen door.

Tommy played with Humpty Dumpty for several days.

Saturday morning he was in the meadow playing with Humpty Dumpty when
Jack and Jill came to ask him to go with them to the woods.

Tommy put Humpty Dumpty up on the stone wall and ran off with the twins.

Grandpa Hall’s old white cow was in the meadow eating grass.

As she came near the wall she saw something that looked very much like a pumpkin.

Mrs. Cow was fond of pumpkins, so she thought she would go and see what it really was on the wall.

“Why, it surely is a pumpkin,” said Mrs. Cow, “but I wonder what all those holes are for.”

Humpty Dumpty felt very much hurt to think that Mrs. Cow should speak of his eyes and mouth as holes.

“But then, of course,” thought Humpty, “she does not know that I am not a pumpkin now.”

Mrs. Cow kept putting her nose nearer and nearer to Humpty.

At last she got so near that she made him jump.

At least, I think he must have jumped, for he fell from the wall to the ground.

When Mrs. Cow saw the pumpkin all broken in pieces she thought she might as well eat it, and she did.

[Illustration]

At first she liked the pumpkin very much, but then she thought it didn’t taste just right.

“I don’t believe pumpkins with big round holes in them are good to eat,” said Mrs. Cow.

But when Tommy found what had happened to Humpty Dumpty, he said to Grandpa Hall, “I wonder which Mrs. Cow liked best, the Jack-o’-lantern or the candle!”

The children in Miss Smith’s room had been just as busy as bees all day.

Now they were tired, and they could not work any more.

Mary put her head down on her desk and nearly went to sleep.

Most of the boys were looking out of the window, because they liked to watch it snow.

It had been snowing hard all day and they were thinking of the snowballs they would make, and of the snow forts that they would build on the hill.

How could they study when they were thinking of all those things?

“Miss Smith,” said Bo-peep, looking up from her work, “won’t you please tell us a story?  It is getting so dark that I cannot see to write.”

Miss Smith thought a minute and then said, “How would you like to play at being a book?”

Every little face brightened.  The boys looked at Miss Smith and forgot about the snow forts.