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“Enough!” It was the two Corn Soldiers who spoke, and Jehosophat was dragged from the Pond. He was dripping wet and he felt pretty cold in his pajamas.

“Now it’s my turn,” said Ole Man Pumpkin. “Take him to the workshop, there’s a lot of sharp tools there.”

Tools! Whatever could they be going to do with him now! But he had no time to think, for there they were, all bumping, or rolling, or stalking along, to the workshop, and taking him with them. They had no keys, but they managed to enter just the same.

“On the table–come, up with him!”

And immediately the two Corn Soldiers siezed him by the arms and hoisted him on the table, where he sat in his little pajamas, like a tailor, with his knees crossed under him. But what was the idea? What was that Ole Man Pumpkin telling the Corn Soldiers?

“Just cut a little hole in the top of his head–just enough to scoop out his insides. Quick work, or he’ll spoil.”

“Save the drumstick for me,” gobbled Mr. Stuck-up, “they didn’t bother me much on Hallowe’en, but I’m going to get even for Thanksgiving.”

And all the time the Little Red Apples rolled around the floor in high glee; and the Shiny Pie Pans danced against each other, making a noise like the cymbals of the Salvation Army parade; and Ole Man Pumpkin kept sharpening and sharpening his knife.

Then–then–but it was a new voice that was speaking to him.

“Get up!” it said.

It wasn’t Ole Man Pumpkin that was telling him to get up on that table, so he could scalp him. It was Mother telling him to sit up in bed!

“I knew they had too much pie,” she was saying, and, “come, dear, open your mouth; take this and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

She was on one side of the bed, and Father was on the other, ready to take a hand, as he always did under the circumstances.

They weren’t pleasant, either, the circumstances, for they were,–first Father’s grip on his arm, then a tablespoon–not a teaspoon, or a dessert spoon, but a tablespoon, such as a giant might use–full of a thick yellow liquid from that bottle they hated so, and pointed right at his tongue.

However, he took it pretty bravely, swallowed it, gulped, then choked back the tears. But the orange-juice, which followed the yellow stuff, almost made up for it. He always did like orange as a color better than yellow, any day.

And there was Ole Man Pumpkin again, on the dining room table, grinning, not wickedly but cheerfully. He winked at Jehosophat, just like the Ole Man in the Moon, whom he strangely resembled–as much as to say:

“We’ll have a good time yet in spite of that bottle.”

After all, he wasn’t an enemy of the children, who would cut holes in their heads and scoop out their insides–he was their friend, was Ole Man Pumpkin, and Jehosophat felt much relieved at that.