Fans of Blue Thread will likely remember that Miriam practiced on her father’s printing press on the pretext of making Halloween cards for her younger cousin Albert.
Uncle Hermann, I’ll wager Albert would like his very own Halloween cards printed here in the shop. Um… Kirsten and I can make them if there’s slack time today…or Thursday. I think it’s a swell idea, don’t you?”
Uncle Hermann rubbed his chin. “Now that you mention it, yes, I think he’d like that.”
Kirsten wasn’t keen on the idea until I explained, “We have extra cardstock from Prudence and Charity. We’ll use the Halloween card as an excuse for you to show me how to compose and set type and how to run the machine.” …
“So, let’s see what you want to put on the Halloween card.”
“Here’s one we used to send.” I handed her a scrap of paper.
The goblins at dark eerie meetings
On Halloween send you their greetings!
“Then at the bottom ‘Happy Halloween’ and the black cat image you have. How’s that?”
The verse on Miriam’s fictional card came from an actual card that was popular in the United States in the early 1900s. Back then children and adults alike used the holiday as an excuse to have a party–without or without costumes. The phrase “trick or treat” didn’t come into vogue until the 1920s.
One tradition in the early 1900s was this: If a woman or girl looked in a mirror in a darkened room on Halloween she would see the face of her future husband. Is that scary or what?
My name is Ruth. I write books and articles for children and young adults. Blue Thread is my eleventh book, and the first one in which I have knowingly stretched the truth.