Read (1972) The Halloween Tree for Free Online Page B

style. But tricks from the dead if you don’t feed them. So treats are laid out in fine banquets on the sill!”
    Far away, in the sweet dusk, smells of cooked meats steamed, dishes
were dealt out for spirits that smoked across the land of the living.
The women and children of the Grecian homes came and went with
multitudinous quantities of spiced and delectable victuals.
    Then, all through the Grecian Isles, doors slammed. The vast slamming echoed along the dark wind.
    “The temples shutting tight,” said Moundshroud. “Every holy place in Greece will be double-locked this night.”
    “And look!” Ralph-who-was-a-Mummy swung the crystal lens. The light
flared over the boys’ masks. “Those people, why are they painting black
molasses on their front door posts?”
    “Pitch,” corrected Moundshroud. “Black tar to glue the ghosts, stick them fast, so they can’t get inside.”
    “Why,” said Tom, “didn’t we think of that!?”
    Darkness moved down the Mediterranean shores. From the tombs, like
mist, the dead spirits wavered in soot and black plumes along the
streets to be caught in the dark tar that smeared the porch sills. The
wind mourned, as if telling the anguish of the trapped dead.
    “Now, Italy. Rome.” Moundshroud turned the lens to see Roman cemeteries where people placed food on graves and hurried off.
    The wind whipped Moundshroud’s cape. It hollowed his mouth:
     
    “O autumn winds that bake and burn
    And all the world to darkness turn,
    Now storm and seize and make of me…
    A swarm of leaves from Autumn’s Tree!”
     
    He kick-jumped straight up in the
air. The boys yelled delight, even as his clothes, cape, hair, skin,
body, corn-candy bones tore apart before their eyes.
     
    “… leaves … burn …
    … change … turn … !”
     
    The wind ribboned him to confetti; a million autumn leaves, gold,
brown, red as blood, rust, all wild, rustling, simmering, a clutch of
oak and maple leaf, a hickory leaf downfall, a toss of flaking whisper,
murmur, rustle to the dark river-creek sky. Not one kite, but ten
thousand thousand tiny mummy-flake, kites, Moundshroud exploded apart:
     
    “World turn! Leaves burn!
    Grass die! Trees …fly!”
     
    And from a billion other trees in autumn lands, leaves rushed to join
with the upflung battalions of dry bits that were Moundshroud dispersed
in whirlwinds from which his voice stormed:
    “Boys, see the fires along the Mediterranean coast? Fires burning north through Europe? Fires of fear. Flames of celebration. Would you spy, boys? Up, now, fly!”
    And the leaves in avalanche fell upon each boy like terrible flapping
moths and carried them away. Over Egyptian sands they sang and laughed
and giggled. Over the strange sea, rapturous and hysterical, they
soared.
    “Happy New Year!” a voice cried, far below.
    “Happy what?” asked Tom.
    “Happy New Year!” Moundshroud, a flock of rusty leaves, rustled his
voice. “In old times, the first of November was New Year’s Day. The
true end of summer, the cold start of winter. Not exactly happy, but,
well, Happy New Year!”
    They crossed Europe and saw new water below.
    “The British Isles,” whispered Moundshroud. “Would you cock an eye at England’s own druid God of the Dead?”
    “We would!”
    “Quiet as milkweed, then, soft as snow, fall, blow away down, each and all.”
    The boys fell.
    Like a bushel of chestnuts, their feet rained to earth.

Now the boys who landed like a downpour of bright autumn trash were in this order:
     
    Tom Skelton, dressed up in his delicious Bones.
    Henry-Hank, more or less a Witch.
    Ralph Bengstrum, an unraveled Mummy, becoming more unbandaged by the minute.
    A Ghost named George Smith.
    J.J. (no other name needed) a very fine Apeman.
    Wally Babb who said he was a Gargoyle, but everyone said he looked more like Quasimodo.
    Fred Fryer, what else but a beggar fresh out of a ditch.
    And last and not least, “Hackles” Nibley who had run up a costume at
the last