THE WONDERFUL PIE

Mother Brown now appeared in the doorway.

“Won’t you come into the dining room?” she requested, and the boys lost no time in accepting the invitation.

“That means something to eat,” whispered Herbie.  “Wonder what it’ll be.”

As the boys entered the dining room they started with surprise, for there, hanging over the table, was the huge grinning face of a jack-o-lantern.

“Well,” exclaimed Fat, “what a sweet face!” which brought a round of laughter from the others.

In the center of the table was a large paper pie and seven ribbons came from under the crust, each of them having a card on the end.  A plate of paper snap-crackers of bright colors and the fancy yellow paper napkin at each place gave the table a gay look.

“What a funny pie,” laughed Hopie.  “What’s inside?”

“Each one find the card with his name on it.  Then we’ll all pull together,” directed Chuck, “and find out.”

“Here’s yours, Fat,” called out Linn.

“You’re over here, by me, Reddy,” announced Toad.

“The fun’s going to begin in a minute,” cried Herbie.  “Come on, Hopie, here’s yours.”

“Everyone ready now,” cried Toad as each one held on to his own ribbon.  “Now, one, two, three, pull,” and, with a tearing of paper out came the contents of the pie.

Huge wiggly spiders, toads that hopped about the table, mice that looked real enough to frighten any girl, long striped paper snakes and giant grasshoppers were on the ends of those ribbons.

The boys screamed with laughter as the queer-looking things hopped, rolled and bumped about on the table.

“Look at what I’ve got,” shrieked Hopie, holding an ugly looking spider up to view.

“If that was real I’ll bet you wouldn’t be within ten feet of it,” said Fat.

“I’m going to scare our girl into fits with this mouse,” laughed Herbie.  “She’ll just take one look at it then hop up on a chair; and won’t she be mad when she finds out it isn’t real?”

“Say, fellows, watch this frog jump,” cried Fat, winding up a green and yellow one made of tin.

“Bet mine can beat it,” boasted Reddy.  “Let’s race them.”

“Thought yours could hop further than my little Heinie, didn’t you?” teased Fat a minute later after his frog had won.

“Well, you wait until I get mine oiled up,” warned Reddy, “and we’ll try it again.”

When the boys pulled the snappers, the gay paper hats caused great merriment, Fat having a baby cap with long strings which he tied under his chin.

“Ah, here comes the ice cream!” exclaimed Herbie.  “Look at the funny figures it’s in,” he added, as a large platter, holding many odd little shapes, was placed before Toad.

“Youngest first,” announced Toad.  “What do you choose, Hopie?”

“I’ll take, let’s see; guess I’ll have a pumpkin,” finally decided Hopie and a yellow ice-cream pumpkin was placed before him.