* * * * *
The Halloween Tree
> There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on
> every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-
> thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes.
>
> And as the boys watched, a new thing happened.
>
> The pumpkins began to come alive.
>
> One by one, starting at the bottom of the Tree and the nearest pumpkins,
> candles took fire within the raw interiors. This one and then that and this
> and then still another, and on up and around, three pumpkins here, seven
> pumpkins still higher, a dozen clustered beyond, a hundred, five hundred, a
> thousand pumpkins lit their candles, which is to say brightened up their
> faces, showed fire in their square or round or curiously slanted eyes.
> Flame guttered in their toothed mouths. Sparks leaped out their ripe-cut
> ears.
>
> Halloween.
>
> Sly does it. Tiptoe catspaws. Slide and creep.
>
> But why? What for? How? Who? When! Where did it all begin?
>
> “You don't know, do you?” asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud climbing out
> of the pile of leaves under the Halloween Tree. “You don't really know!”
>
> “Well,” answers Tom the Skeleton, “er—no.”
>
> Was it—
>
> In Egypt four thousand years ago, on the anniversary of the big death of
> the sun?
>
> Or a million years before that, by the night fires of the cavemen?
>
> Or in Druid Britain at the Ssssswooommmm of Samhain's scythe?
>
> Or among the witches, all across Europe—multitudes of hags, crones,
> magicians, demons, devils?
>
> Or high above Paris, where strange creatures froze to stone and lit the
> gargoyles of Notre Dame?
>
> Or in Mexico, in cemeteries full of candlelight and tiny candy people on El
> Dia de los Muertos—the Day of the Dead?
>
> Or where?
>
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
Email author at
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