eat
staring eyes, and a frightful grinning mouth. With a bit of wire she
fastened a candle inside and shut down the lid.

"Looks too much like a box yet," she said, after a critical examination.
"It needs some hair and a beard. Wonder what I can make it of." She
glanced all around the room for a suggestion, and then closed her eyes
to think. Finally she went over to her bed, and, turning the covers
back from one corner, began ripping a seam in the mattress. When the
opening was wide enough she put in her thumb and finger and pulled out a
handful of the curled hair. "I can easily put it back when I have used
it, and sew up the hole in the mattress," she said to her conscience.
"My! This is exactly what I needed." The hair was mixed, white and
black, coarse and curly as a negro's wool.

She covered the top of the pasteboard head with it, and was so pleased
that she added long beard and fierce mustache to the already hideous
mouth. When that was all done she took it into a dark closet and lighted
the candle. The monster's head glared at her from the depth of the
closet, and she skipped back and forth in front of it, wringing her
hands in delight.

"Oh, if Jack could only see it! If he could only see it!" she kept
exclaiming. "It is better than any pumpkin head we ever made, and scary
enough to throw old Brossard into a fit. I can hardly wait until it is
dark enough to go over."

Meanwhile the short winter day drew on towards the close. Jules, out in
the field with the goats, walked back and forth, back and forth, trying
to keep warm. Brossard, who had gone five miles down the Paris road to
bargain about some grain, sat comfortably in a little tobacco shop, with
a pipe in his mouth and a glass and bottle on the table at his elbow.
Henri was at home, still scrubbing and cleaning. The front of the great
house was in order, with even the fires laid on all the hearths ready
for lighting. Now he was scrubbing the back stairs. His brush bumped
noisily against the steps, and the sound of its scouring was nearly
drowned by the jerky tune which the old fellow sung through his nose as
he worked.

A carriage drove slowly down the road and stopped at the gate with the
scissors; then, in obedience to some command from within, the vehicle
drove on to the smaller gate beyond. An old man with white hair and
bristling mustache slowly alighted. The master had come home. He put
out his hand as if to ring the bell, then on second thought