Fall was in the air.

The sound of the children playing their mysterious games in the cold outside was a comfort to their snugly warm parents next to the fireplace.

Sandy was happy because she would be going to the pumpkin patch after church and would be allowed to pick out the one she liked the best of all.

Right now she was not thinking of the pumpkins because her annoying friend Robert was making fun of her pig-tails with the red ribbons her mother had attached to the ends.

That Robert was such a pest.

He was always underfoot and making a nuisance of himself.

She really didn't like playing with boys because they thought they knew everything and never seemed to want to listen to a girl who had good ideas and better games to play.

In Sandy's opinion boys were not a lot of fun to play with. But today the girls were all inside getting ready for church. Sandy had to make do with the boys because they were the only ones outside in the cold weather.

She would rather be outside playing even if it was with boys and not inside with the grown-ups who always found something for her to do that took away from her playtime.

Her mother called to her from the front door.

"Sandy! Oh, Sandy ... Time to come in, dear. We are leaving for church."

She ran inside quickly dodging Robert who wanted to pull her pigtail like a little imp always getting into trouble. She was a lot faster than him and slipped inside the door before he could get her.

The church was filled with people and the sound of the organ filled the air with strange music that was from another age.

Still, like her mother told her,

"Those Hymns are timeless, dear, they will always be there. Just think, your children will be singing them someday."

Sandy thought that was extremely gross because she was never getting married. Not if she had to marry a boy because they were no fun at all.

A baby was crying in the pew behind her and she turned to see its red face and fingers flying everywhere upset at having to sit with nothing to do.

It was the only baby not inside the room where the other mothers took their little ones when they were too noisy for the rest of the people in the church. The window was sound-proofed and their noise stayed inside.

Sandy was happy she was too old to go inside one of those rooms because they were always far too noisy for her to think.

The entire family filed out of the church and climbed into the car for the short ride to the pumpkin patch.

She had seen the large empty grassy lot filled with the pumpkins last week when they first put the pumpkins in it overnight. The parking lot was guarded by a pair of tall straw filled scarecrows with big orange pumpkins as their heads. The eyes and nose and mouth were cut out and a light was blinking inside to welcome them to the pumpkin patch.