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| Orange Pumpkin courtesy photobucket.com |
My father had passed away suddenly and left my mom to support us. I can only go back in my memory to four years old, maybe a couple of things at three, but its hard to remember.
There is one happening that
I'll never forget. It happened when I was six and Cissy was four and a half.
It would soon be Halloween
and all the kids were excited. It was all about trick or treat. The younger
ones were planning to fill their bags with all kinds of goodies while some of
the older rascals were planning to get into mischief.
There was one house none of
the kids were planning to go to for the bogeyman lived there. While all the
kids were saying how they were afraid to go there I boldly said, “I’m not
afraid to do it. “
No one ever noticed me and I
wasn't popular at all so I wanted to be in the forefront for once in my young
life and I blurted out that I was going to knock on his door on Halloween
night.
As I went home I wished I
could disappear and never be seen again; me and my big mouth.
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| courtesy google search |
He was dressed in black with a tall hat on and his eyes were steely with his face frowning and mouth turned down, then his eyes met mine and I almost lost bladder control, in fact I leaked a little.
He walked with big strides
and was soon past me and I was sure he knew about my boasting about knocking on
his door.
It was the night before Halloween
and mom had bought a big orange pumpkin for us to carve. Since we were the
poorest people in town we didn't have any money to waste so mom told us to save
the parts we carved out and she would cook it for us to eat. It was such fun to
create a face for the pumpkin and we wanted to place a candle in to show at
night but mom said we will only be able to display it during the day for we
would need it later for food and the candle would spoil it.
All the kids were putting on
costumes while some were homemade, others were store bought but Cissy and I
didn't have either.
After crying and carrying on, mom said go get one of your father's old coats and we will put some soot and some beet juice on your faces so no one will recognize you. After being made up she put some of daddy's old hats on us, we took our bags and away we went.
Cissy was slow and I had to
hold her hand and pull her along but since she was small she got more candy
than I did, but that didn't matter for mom was going to put it up and make it
last a long time. We finally had worked our way back and forth going to the
houses with lights on and we found ourselves at the end of the street where the
big dark house was.
Not a glimmer of light was to
be seen. I told Cissy to just stand inside the gate and I would knock on the
door like I said and we would run as fast as our feet would take us not even
waiting for him to answer.
I don't think Cissy
understood why we should be afraid so she said all right. As I swung the gate
open the hinges let out a horrible screech and at that moment I saw this huge
figure standing over us. We screamed, dropped our bags and ran home all the
time screaming. It was some time before I calmed down enough to explain what
happened or at least my version of it.
We had left our bags with our
candy at the old house and wondered if he would eat it or throw it away and to
make matters worse it took two hours to scrub the soot and beet juice off of
us. It looked like some of it would just have to wear off.
The next day we went down to where mom worked and on the way home we looked up and again this tall stoic faced man looked down on us. In his hands were our two bags of candy. He handed them to us without saying anything and then he continued down the street.
The next day we went down to where mom worked and on the way home we looked up and again this tall stoic faced man looked down on us. In his hands were our two bags of candy. He handed them to us without saying anything and then he continued down the street.
After that I wasn't afraid of
him and when I would pass him on the street I would always say hello. He never
said anything back though his face would relax a little.
When the kids would ask me if
I knocked on his door I would say, “Maybe.”
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