It has been a busy week for us, Pearl.  I had our old neighbor Doreen visiting and spent every night sitting up late with her remembering summers we spent boarding with her eccentric Aunt Fiona.  Fiona eschewed ordinary house pets but doted on a slow witted alligator she called Shoeskin.  If Fiona and Shoeskin were both in a good mood at the same time, we sometimes got to ride the dreadful thing.  Do write and let me know how you will spend the holiday.  I know there will be a mincemeat pie involved somehow!

I Remain As Always Your Devoted Miss Blue

the buddies sing happy birthday to pearl

The French Doll Halloween

I was the most amazing Pig, Miss Blue, dressed in the most dainty French Doll Costume. Yes, it all happened the day of Halloween, when our mother took us - my sister and me - downtown to Crowleys Department Store so that she could buy shoes and so that we could find the perfect Halloween costumes. But, because it was the day of Halloween, the Witch and Ghost and Fairy Queen suits, that were favorites, Were All Gone! And there on the flat wooden counters lay one Clown suit and one French Doll suit. My sister chose the Clown Suit right away and that meant I was to be the French Doll. I didn't know anything about being a French Doll but our mother explained that my great aunt, who lived in France, would be overjoyed at the news that I wore a French Doll Suit because of her. And so we bought the Halloween suits. All the way home on the streetcar I thought of how beautiful I would be in my French Doll Suit.Our father had been called on the telephone just as soon as we were home and just before supper, to tell him to bring home the Halloween masks for our

Help the Poor Adventure (we called it Help the Poor in Detroit, not Trick or Treat). We could hardly wait to wear the masks that he promised to buy and bring home. We were already in our Clown and French Doll suits when our father came home with the surprise masks - a wolf false face and a pig false face. Our mother was angry with our father about the false faces. A pig and a wolf did seem to be unlikely disguises for a Clown and a French Doll, but there was nothing left to do but to be a Clown Wolf and a French Doll Pig.

Our father took a picture of us standing on the back fender of our Buick car, with just the trunk between us.And suddenly the air was filled the sounds of Halloween. Little tin horns tooting, sirens wailing, ratchet noise makers, broomsticks flying with witches on their backs. "Help the Poor" was screamed over and over with pennies thrown in the direction of the loudest sound, spilling out onto the streets, lit by the street lights - copper pennies and sometimes nickels. Everyone thought we were very funny with our Wolf and Pig false faces. Even our mother laughed when we told her about the laughing.We gave all of our pennies to our father since he was the Breadwinner. But I was allowed to keep three Indian Head Pennies. They had a picture of an Indian Chief on one side. I thought they were prettier than the Lincoln Head pennies and I saved them in a pressed green glass jar. I washed them once in a while with the P&G white soap that my mother used to wash our clothes. It kept them shiny because the copper sometimes turned dark brown and not so pretty.

And that is how it was on Halloween, in Detroit, when I was six and a French Doll.