The Halloween Tree

by Ray Bradbury

Pipkin. An assemblage of speeds, smells, textures; a cross section of all the boys who ever ran, fell, got up, and ran again.

The pumpkins on the Tree were not mere pumpkins. Each had a face sliced in it. Each face was different. Every eye was a stranger eye. Every nose was a weirder nose. Every mouth smiled hideously in some new way.

I think, every night, the sun dies. Going to sleep, I wonder, will it come back? Tomorrow morning, will it still be dead?

“Quiet as milkweed, then, soft as snow, fall, blow away down, each and all.” The boys fell. Like a bushel of chestnuts, their feet rained to earth.