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It was all right for the little children who lived on Willow Street to get all dressed up in strange clothes and put on frightening masks (or paint their faces) on one night

Author:  Louis Slobodkin Copyright Date:  1959 Publisher:  Macmillan Pagination:  36 p.

each year. And on that night they were allowed to go around scaring people and shouting “Trick or Treat.” For that special night was Hallowe’en.      Willow Street was a short street. It was only one block long and the little children were allowed to do their scaring and their shouting only on their own block. They would march up to their neighbor’s door, ring the bell, and when the door was opened they shouted, “Trick or Treat!”      And since everyone who answered the door always said, “Treat,” the children never did any “Tricks.” They were always invited in and given some homemade cookies or some candy or apples. Then they would go on to the next house.      But there was one house in the middle of the block where the children never rang the doorbell ... And they never shouted, “Trick or Treat.” That was a very old house with a big rambling hedge in front of it. No one lived there. It was always dark and its big unlit windows looked especially spooky on Hallowe’en. The children called that house the haunted house.      But one Hallowe’en as the Green children (Lilly and Billy) who were always the first children dressed up and out on the street after supper, were on their way to ring the Browns’ doorbell first ... they saw something that made them stop short! . . . . . . . . . .

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