The House On Dale Street

Chapter 6

Sometime early October there was a knock at the door. It was a Saturday morning and we had been lounging in bed, drinking coffee and talking about what we were going to do that day.

"I'll get it," Hazel said, getting up and pulling her hair into a bun and wrapping a rubber band around it as she walked to the front door. She was wearing a pair of linen pajamas, some she'd picked up at a store in Lebanon during one of our trips with the Ethenhurst's. After a few minutes I heard a woman's voice and I got dressed and went into the living room. Two middle -aged people stood at the door holding garbage bags.

"Hi there, fella," said the man. Skinny- handle-bar moustache, goatee. He reached out to shake my hand and said he was the minister of the Southern Baptist church in town.

"My name's Pastor Scott," he said, "this is my wife Eileen..."

I nodded. Hazel turned around to me and said, "They want to donate some furniture, and they brought this..."

She sat the two big black garbage bags down on the hardwood floor.

"Clothes that they think might fit us," she said turning to me and smiling. We were charity cases? I didn't remember asking the church for anything. Pastor Scott must have read my mind because he said, "Eileen is friends with Charlotte- Charlotte who owns the Gift Shop? She mentioned you kids were new in town and we thought you might need a little help getting started..."

Feeling more comfortable with this explanation I smiled and said, "Oh right. Charlotte. Yes, She and Hazel have become friends."

"Charlotte is a good woman," Eileen said, stepping inside, "A real asset to the town..."

Hazel stepped back as they both entered the living room and shut the door behind them.

"Before I forget," the pastor said, turning from Hazel and focusing his attention on me, "I thought maybe you might like to come to our home on Tuesday night for dinner, Eileen's making pork roast."

Before I had a chance to respond, Hazel said, "We would love to!"

I could have killed her for blurting that out but Hazel loved to be invited to people's homes for dinner. We'd already been to Charlotte's twice.

"Great. That's just great," the pastor said, folding his arms and nodding his head "and also, since Halloween is soon approaching, I wanted to let you kids know that the church will be having a Trunk n' Treat for the children and for the older folks, they'll be coffee and cinnamon crumb cake. The youth group will be doing a little skit for the smaller ones- they've been practicing it's called, My God is bigger than any problem, they've been working on it for the last few months."

Hazel began to tell them that we would be there but I interrupted her and said, "No, no, It's our first Halloween.. don't we want to be here so we can give out candy, see the kids dressed up?"

"Oh that's right," she said, "yeah, this will be our first Halloween in our new house..."

The pastor looked at his dorky wife and they both grimaced. Hazel glanced at me and I said, "What's the matter?" There seemed to be some grave issue I wasn't aware of.

Eileen put a hand to her bouffant hairdo and sort of pushed it up. She then grasped the necklace hanging from her neck, a cross. She held onto it for dear life with the tips of her fingers.

Pastor Scott took a step towards me, lowered his voice and said, "No son, you don't want to do that."

He put his hand on my shoulder and said in all seriousness, "We don't want to encourage that holiday, better to let the kids come to the church for the Trunk n' Treat."

"Can't encourage the holiday?" I said, "What do you mean? Halloween?"

"What's wrong with Halloween?" said Hazel innocently.

The pastor and his wife looked incredulously at one another and then at Hazel.

"My Goodness!," Eileen exclaimed, "Halloween is the Devil's holiday!"