A Halloween Poem For Children

No one heard the old Gal make a word
A sound or noise any Christian ever heard
As she walked through the village once every moon
To buy some few vittles and leave none too soon.

Her purchases gripped in a dark burlap sack
Which she'd owned forever and fit 'cross her back.
Town folk would glance up from their every town's chore
In hope this time they'd see her no more.

Now a young girl called Mattie, a postal clerk's lass
Sat curly and giddy as the yon harridan passed
Unlike her town folk whose fear made them shy
She stood next to the mile marker and caught the hag's eye.

“Go home my plum lassie, you've nothing with me,”
Spoke the old woman coarsely as she turned round a tree
But Mattie had studied about a reply
And was soon to speak it when a trick caught her eye.

For the old tree was rotten and hollow inside
Mattie thought the old woman crawled in it to hide
With her eyes wide as saucers she peeked curiously within
Two wrinkled arms grabbed her and she was not seen again.