Dear Diary: Tonight Dick and I went to the cleverest Hallowe'en party at Mary's house, or rather in her barn. This is my first barn dance, but I hope not the last. It was so much fun.

Several days ago we all received an invitation in the shape of a haystack. Sticking in the haystack were several pitchforks. When we pulled them out we saw that each one had something about the party on it. One told where it would be held; another, when; and another, what to wear. I saved my invitation and pasted it in my scrapbook.

At the door of the barn, as we entered, was a solemn receiving line. Since the barn was dimly lighted, we went carefully, shaking hands with the members who had been stationed there, only to find that the fourth and fifth were dummies - and so were we!

The decorations turned out to be especially clever, in my opinion. The barn was lighted by farm lanterns. Cornstalks were stacked about the wall and occasionally there was a nest of pumpkins. There were farm tools, wheels, chicken coops, and a haystack in the far corner.

We were masked, as were the others, but moved about and danced a bit, trying to figure out our friends without being detected ourselves. This was not an easy matter in some cases. I was dressed in a plain gingham dress and my partner had overalls on. However, there were others dressed as the village constable, the schoolmaster, and other town characters. Some of them were very good in make-up and in actions.

All the games we played fitted into the barnyard atmosphere. There was a barnyard scramble when we all made noises like roosters, cows, and horses to find our groups. There was a potato-peeling contest, an apple-eating race (the apples were tied on strings and the contestants could not touch them with their hands), a husband-calling match, a spelling bee, and many old-fashioned dances like the Virginia Reel and Turkey-in-the-Straw. We swung around to the tunes of "Golden Slippers," "Little Brown Jug," "Pop Goes the Weasel," and others played by a real hillbilly orchestra, made up of the guests.

The food was of rural flavor too. Doughnuts and cider were served all during the evening as well as apples and popcorn. We all voted it the best party of the season.