Nestled in the Woods

Tonight is Halloween…
the day before
All Hallows Day,
when we give honor
to saints,
both here and gone.
We’re wary of
the ghosts and ghouls,
and dress up in disguise
to frighten them away.
We bribe the false-faced gnomes
with sweets
in hopes that with the treats
they will not open up
their bags of tricks
and vandalize our homes.
What if we change the scene
and share,
along with junk,
a heart of love…
a time of joy…
a hope for peace?
And with these gifts
debunk
the notion
that life is what we get.
The better and the wise
is that life is far above
some silly toy
or candied sweets,
and with the change
we’ll hallow our own soul.

“Who is this child? I can’t guess who it is. I give up!” Teacher exclaimed.
She had guessed the other fifteen children in the room, and there was only one left. She could not guess who would act so foolishly. Who was behind the smiling mask?
If a child lived in the back farming country of our nation in 1946, chances are that she would receive her education in a one-room school. The teacher would have eight grades with less than thirty students in the school. These children probably did not know much about “trick or treat” as their city counterparts experienced. Neighbors were few and far between. To celebrate the age old holiday, Halloween, the teacher would have a costume party for the children.
Each child would dress up in a disguise, and the teacher would guess who each one was. The last child standing would get a little prize. After everyone had been unmasked, she would hand out packets of candy corn or licorice.
Such was Oak Grove School in Chester County, Pennsylvania where I went for six years.
A few days before Halloween…a brisk, sunny autumn day…Teacher took the entire school out into the woods behind the schoolhouse on a nature walk. We collected pretty leaves while she took advantage of the opportunity to give us a botany lesson. When we got back to the school house we sorted through our collection and the most colorful, biggest, and most perfect leaves were pasted on construction paper and posted on the back cupboard. Our art project for the week was to draw orange jack-o-lanterns, black witches and bats, and white ghosts on construction paper and cut them out to tape to the windows. The little room was festive in anticipation of the Halloween party.
The day arrived at last…Thursday, October 31, 1946. We had our costumes folded neatly in paper grocery sacks. We put them with our coats and lunch boxes in the “cloak room”, little rooms at the back of the school room…boys on the left…girls on the right.
It was difficult to concentrate on arithmetic, spelling, and geography that day. Recess and lunch time buzzed with excitement, as we whispered to our best friend what costume we were going to wear and how we planned to trick Teacher.
Finally. The last period of the day was suspended. We crowded into the cloak rooms, donned our costumes.  Masqueraded as witches, clowns, fancy ladies, cowboys, bandits, ghosts, and hoboes, we marched out in two single files to line up on the stage in front of Teacher.
One shy third grade hobo suddenly became brazen behind her mask. She swaggered about, she danced, and she made donkey ears with her little hands and stuck her tongue through the mask at Teacher.
“Who is this child?”
One by one Teacher guessed and unmasked the children. “This is Peggy… You are Donnie… Ah! David…Hazel.” She guessed fifteen children, but one remained unnamed, cavorting about the platform.
“Who is this child?”
The children were laughing, because they knew who it was. Teacher didn’t want them to tell her, but she simply could not name the child.
As a last resort she went to her desk and retrieved her attendance record. She went down the list in alphabetical order, naming each child she had unmasked. She came to the last name on the list, June Windle, and looked at the hobo.
“No! It couldn’t be June! Not shy little June.”
It was.
I learned that day that I did not have to hide behind a mask to do what I wanted to do. Although I knew it was rude to stick my tongue out and make donkey ears at Teacher, I knew that I didn’t have to be shy anymore.
I got a Hershey’s chocolate bar as my prize.