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If I let memory take me back to the Halloweens of my childhood, I can still feel the chill of a late October night and the thrill of, for just one night, being someone other than me and going out trick or treating.

Back home, I’d sit on the floor in front of the fireplace and open my paper sack of treats in hopes of candy corn and marshmallow peanuts.

These late October nights, I let my thoughts go back to those times when the fire was low and Mama would sit by the fire and say:

Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay

To wash the cups and saucers and brush the crumbs away.

To shoo the chickens off the porch and dust the hearth and sweep.

And make the fire and bake the bread and earn her board and keep.

And all us other children, when the supper things is done

We sit around the fire and have the mostest fun

A-listenin’ to the witch tales that Annie tells about

Cause the goblins’ll get you if you don’t watch out!

Once there was a little boy who wouldn’t say his prayers

And when he went to bed that night, a-way up the stairs,

His mama heard him holler. His daddy heard him bawl.

But, when they turned the covers back, he was nowhere at all.

They looked for him in the attic and on the roof no less

And up the chimney flue and everywhere I guess.

But all they ever found was his pants around about

Cause the goblins’ll get you if you don’t watch out!

Once there was a little girl who always laughed and grinned

And made fun of everyone and all her blood and kin,

And once when there was company and old folks was there,

She mocked them and shocked them and said she didn’t care

And just as she kicked up her heels to turn and run and hide

There was two great big spooky things a-standin’ by her side

And they snatched her through the ceilin’ fore she knew what she was about

Cause the goblins’ll get you if you don’t watch out!

And little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue

And the lamp wick sputters and the wind goes woo-oo,

And you hear the crickets quit and the moon is gray,

And the lightnin’ bugs and dew is all squenched away—

You better mind your parents and your teachers fond and dear,

And cherish them that loves you and dry the orphant’s tear,

And look out for the poor and needy cause they’re all about

Cause the goblins’ll get you if you don’t watch out!

“Little Orphant Annie”

by James Whitcomb Riley