This one's for the little ones, and for my own kids, who know it's true.

My dad loved Halloween more than any grown man I've ever known. Every year on the thirty-first, he'd carry his old wooden rocking chair out onto the front porch at six o'clock sharp, with a mixing bowl full of candy in his lap and a flannel blanket over his knees, and he'd sit there and rock and hand out candy until nine.

He had rules. Every kid got two pieces, not one, because one was stingy. Every kid had to tell him what they were dressed as, even if it was obvious, because he liked to hear them say it. If you were a ghost, he'd pretend to be scared. If you were a cowboy, he'd ask to see your draw. If you were a princess, he'd stand up out of that chair and bow. The whole neighborhood knew my dad's porch. Kids came from three streets over.

At nine o'clock exactly, whatever was left in the bowl, he'd dump into the last kid's bag, and he'd say, "That's the end of Halloween, folks," and carry the chair back in.

Dad passed away in the spring of 1995. That fall my mother didn't want to do Halloween at all. She said she'd just turn off the porch light and sit in the back. But my kids wouldn't have it, and neither would I. So we carried Dad's rocking chair out onto the porch at six o'clock sharp, same as always, and I sat on the steps next to it with the bowl, and we gave everybody two pieces.

It was a still night. No wind at all. I remember because the jack-o'-lantern candles never flickered once.

At nine o'clock, right as the church bell down the street finished ringing, that empty rocking chair rocked.

Just once. Back, and forward. Slow and easy, the way it did when a man leaned forward to stand up.

My daughter was sitting right next to it. She was eight. She didn't scream. She didn't even jump. She just looked at the chair, and then she looked at me, and she said, very matter-of-fact, "Grandpa says that's the end of Halloween, folks."

And I picked up the bowl and dumped what was left into the last kid's bag, a little tiny ladybug with her dad, and I carried the chair back in.

*

We've put the chair out every year since. Mom comes over now and sits in the kitchen, where she can see it through the window. We still give two pieces, and we still make everybody tell us what they're dressed as, and when a princess comes up the walk, somebody always stands up and bows.

And every year, at nine o'clock, no matter the weather, that chair rocks. Once. Back and forward.

I know what some of you are thinking. Old porch, loose boards, a truck going by on the road. Maybe so. You can think that if you like.

But I'll tell you this. It has never once rocked at eight-fifty-nine, and it has never once rocked at nine-oh-one.

~ THE END ~