Lily
A young boy knocked on my door on Halloween night and said, “Trick or treat?”
I looked at him and asked, “What have you come as?”
He said, “A werewolf.”
I said, “But you’re not wearing a costume. You’ve just got your normal clothes on.”
He said, “Yeah well, it’s not a full moon yet, is it?”
On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence.
One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts. “One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me,” said one boy.
Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence. Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me ….”
He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off. Just around the bend, he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along. “Come here quick,” said the boy, “you won’t believe what I heard! The Devil and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls!”
The man said, “Beat it, kid, can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.” When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.”
The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been tellin’ me the truth. Let’s see if we can see the Lord…?” Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.
At last, they heard, “One for you, one for me. That’s all. Now let’s go get those nuts by the fence and we’ll be done.”
The old man beat the boy to the gate.
Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served.
When little Logan received his plate, he started eating right away.
“Logan, wait until we say our prayer,” his mother reminded him.
“I don’t have to,” the little boy replied.
“Of course you do,” his mother insisted, “we say a prayer before eating at our house.”
“That’s at our house,” Logan explained, “but this is Grandma’s house and she knows how to cook.”