I love HALLOWEEN!! it was one of the best times of the year. We would dress up and walk as far as we could, even across town, trying to fill our decorated grocery sacks with as much candy as possible. As we got older we would tell ghost stories and watch for shooting stars, even listen for owls when we took the shortcut through the woods.
Many houses looked a bit spooky, all on their own, as decorations were rare in our part of town.
There was one house set back from the rest, none of us had ever seen so much as a dim glimmer of light in the windows and there was never a car or any people spotted around the house, no one seemed to know who lived there, but most people thought some one did.
Patty, Margret and I walked cautiously up on the porch that was beautifully decorated, "It looks like they bought all of the Decorations Murphy's had." Other kids were going to the house so we thought we would too, our paper grocery bags were nearly full, but just a few more houses couldn't hurt, even though the place gave us the creeps, even in the daytime. We were ushered inside by an elderly couple, who tried to guess who we were. Then opened a black box with gilded writing on it and dumped a generous handful of candy orange slices into our sacks.
The the man ushered us to the door, the house was beautifully decorated, crepe paper streamers, pumpkins, large paper skeletons and ghosts made from sheets, We thanked them and left. After stopping at a few more houses an getting a few more candy bars and took the shortcut through the woods, each of us savoring one of the orange slices, I have never tasted one like this since. There was not only a hooting owl, but also a shooting star, for our enjoyment as we scurried thought the woods. This had been the best Halloween ever.
The next morning we al agreed to meet early and go through the shortcut and see what the house looked like in daylight. On this bright and crisp morning, we thought we would get one more look at those decorations. We turned up the walk and were stunned, no decorations, but broken windows, door hanging off the hinges and missing floor boards on the porch.
Perplexed and a little scared we turned to go to school. Kids from all over town were talking about the house.
