When we were kids, we had a limited time to trick or treat. You usually had to be back home in time for dinner, or maybe when the street lights came on. So, after you got home from school, you had about 4 good hours of candy collecting.
There was no time to waste on houses that you knew had bad candy. You knew that the lady who yelled at you to keep off the grass had bad candy. Probably made with poison in her own basement. Old people had leftover candy from last year. Cat ladies gave furry bank candy and dieters gave pennies. But candy or no candy, no one ever went to the scary house.
Every neighborhood had a scary house. It was the one with trees and prickly bushes that extended onto the sidewalk, making you move to the far side to avoid getting your socks caught on thorns as you walked by. If you looked past the rusty gate, you could see a tiny house set way back in the overgrown yard. The house was always in need of repair and a paint job. At times there was an old dog or cat, not really scary as in dangerous scary, but scary as in really old and still alive scary.
The people who lived in these houses could only be witches. Sometimes you would see a really old person in the yard, and you would hurry past the house, making sure that you didn't make eye contact and become cursed.
One year, Aunt Carrie and I decided to go trick or treating at the scary house. I guess we were feeling brave because we were willing to risk being thrown in the oven a la Hansel and Gretel in our search of candy.
I remember the yard being dark as we approached the house. Shadows hid all kinds of dangers and everything was quiet as we knocked on the door. Just like in all the scary movies, the door opened slowly, revealing a tiny old lady.
The old lady was very excited to see us. She invited us inside a house that reminded me of somebody's grandma. Marveling at our costumes, she told us that It had been many years since she had any visitors at Halloween and she didn't have any candy for us. So the tiny lady proceeded to gather some things like stuffed animals, crocheted dolls, buttons... She happily filled our bags with her little treasures.
Aunt Carrie and I left the nice little lady's house with a lot of things, some of them not even in our bags. Looking back, I think we gave her a few treasures as well.
