Jack-O’-Lantern

Have you ever heard the story

Of the honest little lad
Who worked to earn a pumpkin
That a nearby farmer had?
An idea bright,
With keen delight
His deep-made plans he laid,
On Halloween
It would be seen
That Jack-O’-Lantern made!

Cheerily he whistled
As to and fro he went,
A happy grin upon his face,
A grin of deep content.
The farmer too
Was never blue,
As he watched with twinkling eyes
The little lad,
Who courage had
To work to earn his prize.

October slowly slipped away,
The leaves began to fall,
And following old summer’s wake,
E’er at its beck and call.
The day arrived,
The farmer sighed,
Not for the pumpkin which he’d had…
He didn’t mind
The empty vine…
But he missed the little lad.

~V.H. Collins Webb

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion
~Henry David Thoreau

(This is my FAVORITE pumpkin quote ever! I have a custom framed copy of it hanging in my pumpkin-themed bathroom!)