jack-lanterns

Updated: May 10, 2025

I was going to make the corners of the mouth turn up, as I had always done when making jack-lanterns at home, but just as I started to cut it came to me that it would look worse if they turned down; so thus I made it, adding most hideous teeth, and cutting half of my fingers in my haste.

Hayden Carruth - Track's End: Being the Narrative of Judson Pitcher's Strange Winter Spent There As Told by Himself and Edited by Hayden Carruth Including an Accurate Account of His Numerous Adventures, and the Facts Concerning His Several Surprising Escapes from Death Now First Printed in Full

You used to scare timid little girls with jack-lanterns, put duck eggs under the old hen, and tie tin cans to dogs' tails. Where did you learn these tricks, if not from the great Trickmaster himself? Humor is hereditary! We get it from a divine original, and the Archetypal Joker must have His fun. It is better to take His horseplay in good part.

Charles Frederic Goss - The Redemption of David Corson

They don' know tansy from sorrel, nor slip'ry ellum from pennyroyal, nor burdock from pigweed; they don' know a dand'lion from a hole in the ground; they don' know where the birds put up when it comes on night; they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog; they never hearn tell o' cat-o'-nine-tails, nor jack-lanterns, nor see-saws.

Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin - Timothy's Quest: A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It