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now."
    Trixie tossed her head. "Is that so? I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to wear the pirate’s costume Mart wore at the school masquerade last year. It should fit me perfectly. All I’ll need is a black wig, a red bandanna, and a big black moustache—and I’ll make a cardboard knife."
    "It sounds horrid," Honey said, laughing. "But a lot of fun. I think I’ll go as Captain John Silver, except that I don’t think I could cope with both a wooden leg and a parrot. But if Brian, our future doctor, is going as both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I guess I can manage. Di can’t decide whether to go as Queen Elizabeth or a character out of one of Jane Austen’s novels. Which do you think would look better, Trix?"
    Trixie groaned. "How literary can we get? I think it would be a lot simpler if we all went in our B.W.G. jackets over our jeans, with masks and wigs. Since Di is going to become a member this weekend, there would be six of us dressed exactly alike. If we all wear the same false faces and maybe black, curly wigs, we could confuse everybody and have a lot of fun."
    "It’s a wonderful idea," Di said thoughtfully. "Even if we don’t confuse anybody but Uncle Monty. We’ve just got to confuse him. Otherwise, I know he’ll try to run things and—" She stopped and looked at Honey appealingly. "Please, you explain to Trixie and Jim."
    Honey frowned. "It’s hard to explain, Di, but I’ll try. You see," she said to the others, "Di’s afraid that, even though her mother has promised to let her run the party, her uncle will interfere at the last minute and blow whistles and run around like he was a master of ceremonies on a radio or TV show."
    "But why should he?" Trixie demanded. "It’s not a grown-up party."
    Di sighed. "You don’t know Uncle Monty. He’s used to running things. He was one of the first settlers in the Southwest and practically made Arizona the great state it is today. Tucson would be just a ghost city if it weren’t for Uncle Monty." It was Trixie’s turn to frown. "But that’s not possible, Di," she said. "Last year in school when each one of us was given a state to study up on, I chose Arizona, because there are so many wonderful ranches out there. You remember that, don’t you?"
    Di nodded. "You wrote a very interesting theme about it, Trixie, but what’s your theme on Arizona got to do with my Uncle Monty?"
    "Just this," Trixie said thoughtfully. "The University of Arizona, which is in Tucson, was founded in 1885. Your uncle must be an awfully old man if he had anything to do with that. And Tucson has been a boomtown, for, well, just ages."
    Jim nodded in agreement. "I’ve studied up a lot on Arizona, too, because I thought it might be the best place for my boys’ school. Tucson was the territorial capital of Arizona during the ten years between 1867 and 1877. But, you see, Trixie, Arizona didn’t become the forty-eighth state until 1912. Maybe Di’s uncle had something to do with its being admitted into the Union. Maybe that’s what he meant when he told her he practically made Arizona the great state that it is today." "Maybe," Trixie admitted dubiously. "But he couldn’t have been one of the first settlers. They were mostly all killed off by the Indians before the Revolution."
    "He said he was one of the first settlers," Diana repeated stubbornly. "Maybe he was the only one who wasn’t killed by the Indians."
    Trixie laughed. "Then Uncle Monty must be almost as old as Methuselah."
    "Well, he isn’t," Di stormed. "He’s a lot younger than my grandfather Lynch, who just had his sixtieth birthday." She glared at Trixie. "Are you trying to say that my uncle is a liar?"
    "Oh, Di," Trixie pleaded. "I’m simply trying to say that he must be so old he won’t want to come to your party." She chanted, " ‘On the eighteenth of April, in ’75; Hardly a man is now alive—’ "
    Di covered her face with her hands. "I never can remember dates, especially history dates. You’re right,