Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-11-01
TRICKS BY WITCHES
Gates Go and Door Bells Are
Pulled From Sockets.
Hall OWEEN SPIRIT STRONG
Youngsters Enjoy All the Franks
Usual at Such a Time.
PARTIES ALL OVER THE CITY
Streets Filled With Mask Rovers,
While Hotels and Cafes
Entertain Crowds.
PARTIES ALL OVER THE CITY

An elderly man who generally wears
SILK hat of ancient and honorable lineage
peered from his bedroom window from
his Mount Pleasant home early this morn
ing and was heard to remark:
We'll. this is the first time in seven
teen years that my front gate hasn't
taken wings on Halloween night Some
thing must be the matter with the boys.
However. he found his confidence in
the ravages of Halloween restored when
\ he learned from the back window that
the clothesline had been confiscated and
had been used in gentle game of pulling
the door bells in the next block from their
sockets.
| Oh yes. 1t was a regular Halloween.
Even the policemen, in their new caps
| couldn't douse all the spirit Bean shoot
ers were blowing everywhere and the
tick-tack was ticking pretrly against
window panes The tick-tacks We're OPP
Grated by the gang outside: and in the
case of a general operation against
house where a Juvenile witch party was
In progress inside the gang outside
| showed their disapprobation in boots and
jeers and by yelling the names of the
boys who would so TO a party with girls
on a night of nights like Halloween
Parties in Abundance.
Hundreds of parties and dances were
scheduled for last night and the streets
were dotted with masked rovers going
to some weird attic party, where lights
were low and where apes bobbed in a
tub Of water. Downtown had a touch OF
gayety also, as all the hotels and cafes
had laid in a stock of Halloween favors
for the crowds.
There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Nineteen times as high the moon;
here she was going couldn't but ask it,
For i'll her hand she carried broom.
: old woman, old woman old woman said 1,
oh whittier, oh whittier. Oh whittier so high?
Shall l go with you: Aye e-and bye
That was the little Mother Goose
rhyme hundreds of kiddies in the first anu
second grades were reciting yesterday
apropos of Halloween. OF course, 1t is
not really Halloween rhyme, but it has
an old Uoman-presumabiy a witch, with
broom-ln It, and so, as halloween is
full of witches and brooms and black
cats. 1t did very well, they say, as d
Halloween poem for the youngsters
Truly, the spirit of the day pervaded the
classes at the Franklin School yesterday
on all the blackboards pictures We're
drawn depicting witches astriue brooms
sailing over the moon, little eifins crepl
out from behind large pumpkins ana
stalked over the fields, bare but for
the shocks of corn here and there, while
snomes and hoblobltns peeped out from
every nook and Granny in the building.
Little Fairies About.
But, strangest of all, there were lots of
fairies and elfins running about the
building. not make-beiieve ones drawn
in chalk on the blackboards, but real
flesh and blood creatures that laughed
and talked and sang songs in wee, sweet
voices They Were golden-haired and
dark haired and blue-eyed and brown
eyed and gray-eyed; some had their hair
done up in dainty bows of ribbons, while
others had theirs banged" wore it
down their back in plaits. All We're
chubby. dimpled and rosy Of cheek. Real
ly these little fairies and eltins We're
well worth going TO see.
These little people cut brownies and
miniature elfinS from paper, they model
ed ''jack-o' lanterns from clay: and
| mounted paper witches on pasteboard
broomsticks That formed part of the
days work. sThen they danced about and
seemed to make happiness radiate from
| them in every direction.
The older folk in the buildng-that is,
| the teachers and officials-recalled Incl
dents of their childhood Halloweens. A.
T. Stuart. instructor of intermediate in
struction, declared that the children of
| today behave much better on Halloween
:, than they did when he was a boy.
why, on Halloween We didn't think
anything of pulling a doorbell clear out
| OF its socket or ringing a bell, and when
some one came to answer it. of throwing
| a head of cabbage into their face he
| said. If the boys of today We're to do
anything Gear as bad as the boys Of days
| in the past did. they would land in the
| station house. But il is not the fear of
| this That prevents them from doing de-
structive things. 1t is feeling of good
| citizenship and pride