I had cooked a special romantic dinner
for this date hoping to impress Anne,
my soon to be fiancee [I hoped],
by showing her I had other assets
besides the usual manly bits of knowledge.
Being a widower with too much time on my
hands, I  had rejoiced to find someone like Anne.

I  had set the table very carefully, following the
directions from a magazine to the letter until I got
to the part about candles. . .I  wanted a candlelight
dinner but wanted red candles.  The magazine had
suggested some other awful color like green, 
I suppose it was to match the decor of the 
house the article's pictures came from.
 But I used red because it seemed the best color 
in my humble opinion.

She sat down to the meal and complimented me on how
nice everything looked then, seeing the red candles, 
she paused and looked at them, lost  
in thought for a moment. Finally she smiled and 
the knot in my stomach went away as
she spoke.  "Red candles, how nice. . .. .
just now they reminded me of when my niece came to visit.  
It was Halloween and she put a red candle in the pumpkin 
we carved out to put on the front porch."

I was curious and so asked her to tell me more.
She said there wasn't much to tell really but as she saw 
that I really wanted to know, began to tell me the 
most enchanting and yet troubling of tales.

"My niece and I had went to one of those roadside 
places that sell pumpkins.  She had very definite 
ideas as to how to pick the best pumpkin.  
I let her have her way since I was delighted to see 
she was having a good time and she was such a polite 
and well mannered child.  Having picked out what she 
considered to be the prize pumpkin, 
we drove home where we proceeded to hollow it out
and carve the scary looking mouth.   She drew the shape 
of the mouth and I cut it out.  When I saw it I was 
tempted to re do the design myself but that would have 
hurt her feelings and I wanted to avoid that.  
She had been so good and this was her first 
overnight visit in a years time due to the distance 
between my sisters place and mine.

I decided to live with it even it did look awful 
with that hideous grin.  When it came time to place 
a candle in it I suddenly remembered that we had a 
small group of local teens that liked to play malicious 
pranks and who might smash our pumpkin as they had done 
so many others.  I explained this to her and suggested 
that we place the pumpkin in the window so it would be 
safely indoors and out of harms way.  
The candle would still light it up so that 
it could be seen.

My niece again had very specific ideas about what to do.
She said that when she had visited her Great Aunt Sarah
she had learned that if you place a red candle 
in your pumpkin then it will become a magic watch-pumpkin 
and will guard your house keeping it safe from all harm.  
She insisted that we do this and also 
that we set the pumpkin out side on the porch where it 
could work it's magic.

Making a mental note to have a talk with Great Aunt Sarah
I searched the house til I found a red candle which 
we placed inside the pumpkin.  When all lit up it looked 
scary as a halloween pumpkin should.  I just hoped the 
pranksters would skip us this year.

We handed out the candy that night without incident.  
I began to be a little hopeful that we would escape any 
trouble for once although neither I nor my neighbors 
had been so lucky in the last few years.
Finally it was time to go to bed and so we did.  
My niece insisted we leave the candle burning and 
I agreed for her sake.

Then sometime in the middle of the night we heard 
the pranksters.  They were trying to scare us with 
screams and fearsome noises.  The screams were very 
realistic and some of them sent chills down 
my spine but my niece was not the least bit disturbed.  
She looked at me very calmly and reminded me not to 
worry because the pumpkin would protect us and would eat 
anyone who tried to hurt us or our house.  
Finally the last of the spooky sounding screams died 
out and we heard only silence.  

The next morning I went out doors to look and see what 
else the pranksters had done because they had always 
before done something destructive at each home 
they visited.     To my surprise the only 
damage done was to the pumpkin. . . . .someone 
had jammed a shoe in it's mouth and poured red paint 
inside it which was dripping out of the mouth around 
and on the shoe.  I threw the gory looking thing in 
the trash before my niece could see it.

I heard later that four or five of the pranksters 
had run away from home that night.  
Perhaps that is why we escaped worse damage.  
What a cruel prank for them to play on their parents."


We  did get married the following year.  
Each Halloween we set out a pumpkin with a red candle 
in it. . . . so far we have never suffered 
any damage other then an occasional bit of damage 
to the pumpkin.  It seems folks love to jam a shoe in a 
pumpkin's mouth to ruin its appearance but that's not 
much of a prank to put up with.  
We are content.