XI

OLE MAN PUMPKIN


It was October, and the cornfield was deserted and bare. Jehosophat
and Marmaduke could remember it as a more beautiful picture. For
there, in the Summer, an army had camped, the great army of the corn,
with tassels and tall yellow spears, and bright green banners waving
and tossing in the wind. But when Fall had come, Father and the Toyman
had come, too, with their sickles like swords, to attack and cut down
that brave army. And now the corn soldiers were all laid away, stiff
and cold, in the barn, or else in the silo--to be pickled in juice!

Marmaduke and Jehosophat looked over the field. It was covered with
little hills, and there the feet of the corn soldiers still stood, all
that was left of them, for they had been "swished by those swords,"
just at the ankles.

Between the hills shone the last of the pumpkins, big, round and
yellow--red-yellow like an orange. Most of them had gone in the wagon,
long ago, but the largest of all had been left. My, but he was a big
fellow! "The biggest in the world!" they declared.

He had been saved for the great day--or night, we should
say--Hallowe'en.

But let's hurry the clock--over three days--to the morning before the