Page:Hallowe'en festivities (1903).djvu/51

Rh counted, hostess announces that each number thirteen will be an old maid or old bachelor.

Hostess requests each guest to take five bay leaves from table and when they get home to pin one leaf at each corner of pillow and one at center. Each leaf is to be named for one of the opposite sex; the one they dream of is destined wife or husband.

Hostess has three supper candles placed in window which is opened and shades are raised. She requests each guest to name each candle for a sweetheart, and watch and see which candle puffs out first, which flickers in the breeze, which burns brightly, telling them the one that puffs out first doesn't love; the flickering candle means lover is wavering, uncertain; brightly burning candle means a devoted lover.

Hostess asks guests to go to retiring-room with ghostly attire and return in ordinary attire to room (where fireplace is) for sports.

10. AFTER-SUPPER SPORTS, GAMES, MYSTERIES. After supper it is customary to go to parlor or hall with open fireplace, and with low light, pop chestnuts in coals and repeat magic spells and witcheries of the night, or tell creepy tales of midnight experiences, usually broken in upon by laughing, hooting friends, fairies, spooks, who go tearing madly about in hilarious jollification to cause fright.

1. YOUR LUCKY STICKS. Hostess stands with two bundles of sticks, one under each arm, with ends only exposed and requests each guest as he enters to take one. The kind of stick—long or short, straight or crooked, plain or smooth, or knotty—indicates kind of future partner. To each stick is attached some article predicting business or style of person.