ch you all I know--and, then,
it's such fun. You could have a big shop for I know just how you
like big things--just as I like little ones."
"Buffalo" Westabrook laughed. "I may have to come to it yet but it
doesn't look like it this moment. My gracious, Posie, how you have
improved! I never would know you for the same child. Where did you
get those dimples? I never saw them in your face before. Your mother
had them, though."
The shadow, that the mention of her mother's name always brought,
darkened his face. "How you are growing to look like her!" he said.
Maida knew that she must not let him stay sad. "Dimples!" she
squealed. "Really, papa?" She ran over to the mirror, climbed up on
a chair and peeked in. Her face fell. "I don't see any," she said
mournfully.
"And you're losing your limp," Mr. Westabrook said. Then catching
sight of her woe-begone face, he laughed. "That's because you've
stopped smiling, you little goose," he said. "Grin and you'll see
them."
Obedient, Maida grinned so hard that it hurt. But the grin softened
to a smile of perfect happiness. For, sure enough, pricking through
the round of her soft, pink cheeks, were a pair of tiny hollows.
CHAPTER XI: HALLOWEEN
Halloween fell on Saturday that year. That made Friday a very busy
time for Maida and the other members of the W.M.N.T. In the
afternoon, they all worked like beavers making jack-o'-lanterns of
the dozen pumpkins that Granny had ordered. Maida and Rosie and
Dicky hollowed and scraped them. Arthur did all the hard work--the
cutting out of the features, the putting-in of candle-holders. These
pumpkin lanterns were for decoration. But Maida had ordered many
paper jack-o'-lanterns for sale. The W.M.N.T.'s spent the evening
rearranging the shop. Maida went to bed so tired that she could
hardly drag one foot after the other. Granny had to undress her.
But when the school-children came flocking in the next morning, she
felt more than repaid for her work. The shop resounded with the "Oh
mys," and "Oh looks," of their surprise and delight.
Indeed, the room seemed full of twinkling yellow faces. Lines of
them grinned in the doorway. Rows of them smirked from the shelves.
A frieze, close-set as peas in a pod, grimaced from the molding. The
jolly-looking pumpkin jacks, that Arthur had made, were piled in a
pyramid in the window. The biggest of them all--"he looks just like
the man in the moon," Rosie s
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