"I was envious of my kids," he says. "I sneaked their candy--for their own good of course."

Good thing for the young revelers at the HAND parties that Mansfield was not on their guest list.

Nine-year-old Hamilton Morris would almost certainly have been annoyed by Mansfield's candy thievery.

Hamilton took part in the Cabot HAND party where children competed in an egg race across the Quad for sweets.

While most children seemed perfectly content to race across the Quad, Hamilton stood pat, asking what the winner's booty would be.

"Well, you get one piece of candy if you lose, and two pieces if you win," Christopher K. SueLing '97, the Cabot HAND coordinator, told the skinny, brown-haired fourth grader from the Peabody School.

But Hamilton was still skeptical

"One per person or one per team? he asked, squinting his bulb-shaped eyes suspiciously at Sue-Ling.

Hamilton's team won the race, so he was the lucky winner of two pieces of candy--which he ate all by himself.

HAND and Halloween

Kids like Zachary and Hamilton formed their own memories of Halloween this week.

At Leverett House, children ran into the library screaming, "Party! Party!"

They were herded by Harvard HAND volunteers to the mask-making department, which featured colored construction paper, nifty Halloween stickers and safety scissors.

But the kids' demands were more specific.

"When are we gonna get our faces painted?" they yelled. "Can we make anything?"