From the Bess Lo max Hawes Collection

(via U.S. Library of Congress)

Women hand out candy to trick or treatoprs as smoke hangs in teh aiur in the Elmwood neighborhood in Columbia, SC on Halloween night.

Photos by Sean Rayford on October 31, 2025

Elmwood Neighborhood - Columbia, SC

For Part 1 you need:

1 Home,- with large yard, if possible

1 Mother,- must be resourceful, energetic and smiley

1 Little Girl about Eight,- boy will do if caught young and carefully reared.

9 Little Friends,- must have pleasant dispositions.

(A big sister of an Obliging Nature or a Kind Lady Friend is a desirable adjunct to the Smiley Mother, but not absolutely necessary.)

Trick or Treting the Elmwood neighborhood in Columbia, SC on Halloween night.

Combine as Follows:

Invite the nine little friends with pleasant dispositions to come straight from school, wearing the sort of clothes little children with pleasant dispositions usually wear at such time on Monday mornings, for instance, or Fridays.

No unpleasant consequences will then ensue when the guests are mixed with the grass and shrubbery of the large yard, even supposing there is a barn or fence.

We are promising, of course, that the weather is such as weather ought to be in October. Games like hide and seek, stick down or wood tag will serve to stir the children and yard together, which should be finished in an hour, or thereabout.

Best trick or treating the Elmwood neighborhood in Columbia, SC on Halloween night.

For part two you need:

One treasure hunt, – prepared in advance by the mother. (here is a place for her resourcefulness, mentioned above, come in!)

10 paper costume costumes, – also prepared in advance by the mother (and this explains partly why she has to be a person of energy..)

Proceed as follows: place the children in a suitable container, such as a porch, and allow to settle to the bottom.

When thoroughly quiet add exactly enough information about treasure hunts, being careful to include: (1) that each stop in the hunt is marked by a black or orange Halloween cut out and (2) that whichever child first finds the paper cut out, must wait until all others arrive when he may read aloud the instructions for finding the next stop. When these points have been worked into the children, let the big brother with the obliging nature recite this rhyme:

People walk in costumes the Elmwood neighborhood in Columbia, SC on Halloween night.

“Witches ride through the air on broomsticks.

But this one is different, most different, you know.

One is curious, because you will find.

That she swings and swings, back-and-forth, to and fro.”

The witch cut out is in the swing, and with it is this saga:

“Cats are climbers. They climb, fences,

They climb anything they please.

Find the cat you're seeking.

Search the trees.”

The black paper cut out is in the one of the trees and the finder reads:

“Pumpkins are yellow.

Where do they grow?

Yourself that, are certain to know.

The garden, of course, and:

Now look for a goblin,

And look for it where

A pet runs on four legs, –

You'll find it just there.

Fastened to the dogs collar, or the cats, or the ponies bridal, – then:

“Where people put letters, –

Where you'd never expected, –

The half of a moon.

Is time to collect it.

In the letterbox, and read:

A solemn old owl

is sitting about

where people go in

and also come about.”

Part 3

Above a side or back door, this door leads directly into a hall or a bedroom or wherever it happens to lead just so it is the place where the 10 paper costumes are waiting eagerly….

If you’d like to continue reading the recipe at the library of congress:

https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2014008ms2705/