Chapter Nine

 

HALLOWEEN

 

All Tricks No Treats, The High School Auditorium

 

          Halloween activity in our neighborhood today starts early when little children in costume, even toddlers, ring the doorbell and announce "trick or treat" in coached wee voices and hold out their special bags for candy while an observant parent trails them on the sidewalk.

 

          Later their costumed older siblings will offer the same challenges in more confident voices, but even they rarely choose the trick option.  From time to time local homes and property have been damaged but never on Halloween night nor, to our knowledge, by local children.  In our entire locale I know of no Halloween pranks that resulted in anything worse than minor annoyances.

 

          Some seventy years ago in our small rural community attitudes were more permissive than now and pranks that at other times would merit punishment and threats of incarceration were usually overlooked.  Real property could be and was trespassed, farm equipment moved and towed away while teenage ingenuity was exercised to the limit in mischievous invention.

 

          While aware farmers and residents took various practical measures to enclose and secure outside machinery and equipment in anticipation of the evening, the prevailing attitude of both neighbors and parents was not so much of permissiveness as acceptance that this day of mischief-making was traditional, it was fixed in their own childhood memories, and as long as property could be found, uprighted, returned or reassembled without too much labor or expense, then a limited entitlement to mischief could be accepted.

 

          Few of the property safeguards we enjoy nowadays (rather, I should say, we need nowadays) were in place then.  There were very few street lights and a single part-time constable.  During weeknights there were few commercial or entertainment activities that kept people on the streets and evening home entertainment was predominantly on weekends or limited to the early hours, especially for farm folk who rose at or before dawn.  We risked little intervention in the late hours except occasionally from an older and irate citizen who did not share the community permissiveness and would shout threats from the darkness and occasionally fire a shotgun into the air.

 

          In my younger years I accompanied my two older brothers in high anticipation and mixed fear and glee as we traipsed along the familiar dark road of our neighborhood doing minor mischief and upsetting, overturning and hiding things at each place.  Luckily we were in little danger, being well-known to our neighbors and good friends with their dogs.

 

          As we reached high school age we gained stature and bravado and our forays along Beech Hill Road grew in numbers and became a little more sophisticated despite the defensive measures of homeowners.

 

          Not far from Brown's Hill we found an unguarded one-horse sleigh in a remote shed and with the aid of a ladder, ropes and muscle, placed it astraddle the ridgeline of the cow barn.  Along the way we released a few cows from a pasture gate that was conveniently close to the road.  In one yard we picked up a locked Chevrolet sedan and turned it sideways in the driveway.  An outhouse, not securely fastened to its base, was removed and placed behind the henhouse.  A clothesline was removed from its posts and used to suspend various objects from the limbs of trees.  Further along, sleeping hens were muffled before they could squawk and thrust into a burlap bag for later placement in or near the schoolhouse.

 

          As we neared the town center we met or overtook other small groups carrying, pushing or pulling their own acquisitions, and appearing surprisingly grim for anyone having such a good time.

 

          Approaching the school we began to realize that to make any kind of an impression on the other students we would have to do significantly more than chalk some windows and litter the school steps.  Since we had insufficient time and no good plan we decided that the following year Beeman Academy would be our principal and final target.

 

          A year older, our interests were turning more to baseball and girls than Halloween pranks but our nucleus of pitcher, catcher and third baseman met eventually in the early weeks of October to decide on how best to target the school on Halloween for the surprise and amazement of students and teachers as they entered for Monday morning assembly.

 

          The first almost unanimous idea was a manure spreader and we went out individually and in pairs to quietly investigate the availability and feasibility of acquiring, disassembling and transporting one in its several sections into the Assembly Hall.  It became apparent that this was not going to be a simple task.  Individuals were designated to surreptitiously measure the inside dimensions of exterior and interior doors, hallways, staircases and cornerings of the school.  It was debated whether access should be through the wider front doors (disadvantage -- visibility from the street) or the rear basement service doors (disadvantage -- more stairs and corners).

 

          Our examination of the locks revealed that they could all be opened from the inside, signifying that a team member must conceal himself somewhere inside the building that night until the staff had departed for the day.  The coal bin, while not clean or comfortable, seemed the safest choice.

 

          It remained to find a farm vehicle that with minimum disassembly could be carried up two flights of stairs and put back together with relatively unskilled labor.

 

          We went our individual ways and started exploring.

 

          One day a small sophomore approached our third baseman, Joe Trudeau, and whispered, "I know what you guys are looking for.  Maybe I can help."

 

          After professing ignorance, Joe listened.  The boy's father had collected some old buggies in his barn on Town Hill Road.  Included was a fringe-topped surrey which, if suitable for disassembly, would be a masterwork displayed in the front of the Assembly Hall.

 

          We enlisted another member, a senior with transport and a license to drive, and went to examine the surrey and determine if, when disassembled, its parts would fit through the school entrances.  It looked like they would.  Over an October weekend we took it apart and with our accomplice's father's truck transported the sections to the barn of a group member who lived nearest the village school.  We assembled our tools and waited for the late dark hours of Halloween night.

 

          When the time came we went in multiple trips to the rear of the school carrying wheels, whiffle trees, the tongue, the disassembled top and seats, cushions, fenders, footboard and finally the wagon bed which we had determined would fit through the smallest doors if held sideways and aslant.

 

          Our conspirator had the school doors open and ready.  The ascent was laborious and painful with frequent banging of walls and stairs, curses and laughter, interrupted with frequent admonitions to "Be quiet."

 

          It was nearing dawn when the surrey was finally loosely assembled by flashlight.  We gazed upon it proudly and prepared to depart.

 

          "Wait a minute," someone said.  "It needs a horse.  It really needs a horse."

 

          It was a fine idea and not impossible and we considered it.  Thinking further, however, of what a horse might actually do if left overnight, and the reactions of our principal, Ridley Norton, who might be lenient concerning a Halloween prank but would take a very dim view of horse manure on the well-polished wood floor, we decided against it.

 

          Leaving our tools in the basement, we cleaned up our tracks, relocked the doors and arrived back home just in time for breakfast.

 

          That morning we took our regular seats in the Assembly and voiced surprise and wonder at the appearance of this antique vehicle in our midst.  The students were awed, appreciative and delighted.  The teachers looked at the principal with apprehension.

 

          He was calm.  He brought the room to order.  Ridley Norton, as always, was in complete control of himself, the situation and the group.  He slowly fixed his eyes on each of us individually as if he could read guilt on our countenances and said in his normal speaking voice:

 

          "All right, Poulin.  Get your gang together and take this buggy out of here and out of the building.  You can return it where you found it and in that condition on your own time."

 

          We did that and also the additional homework he assigned for our misdemeanors.