But more and more adults celebrate Halloween. They dress up like historical or political figures and go to fancy-dress balls or parties. Teenagers enjoy costume dances at their schools and the more outrageous the costume the better! This is an American tradition. In Slovak it is not celebrating like in America. In Slovak it is used to go to fancy-dress balls, but people do not use to wear masks. It is more usual for little children in nurseries or in elementary schools. They have competitions about whose mask is the best one. But not only wearing the masks is the only same thing between American traditions and Slovak traditions. I think that everybody knows it. The tradition is pumpkins. People cut horrible faces in pumpkins and also into other vegetables and put a candle inside, which shines through the eyes and the mouths and maybe also through the nose. The traditional colours of Halloween are black like ghost and night and orange like the pumpkins are. A legend grew up about a man named Jack who was so stingy that he was not allowed into heaven when he died, because he was a miser. He could not enter hell either because he had played jokes on the devil. As a result, Jack had to walk the earth with his lantern until Judgement Day. The Irish people carved scary faces out of turnips, beets or potatoes representing "Jack of the Lantern," or Jack-o'lantern. When the Irish brought their customs to the United States, they carved faces on pumpkins because in the autumn they were more plentiful than turnips. Today jack-o'-lanterns in the windows of a house on Halloween night let costumed children know that there are goodies waiting if they knock and say "Trick or Treat!"
Halloween party is complete without at least one scary story. Usually one person talks in a low voice while everyone else crowds together on the floor or around a fire. The following is a retelling of a tale told in Britain and in North Carolina and Virginia. The title is:
"What Do You Come For?"
There was an old woman who lived all by herself, and she was very lonely. Sitting in the kitchen one night, she said, "Oh, I wish I had some company."
No sooner had she spoken than down the chimney tumbled two feet from which the flesh had rotted. The old woman's eyes bulged with terror. Then two legs dropped to the hearth and attached themselves to the feet. Then a body tumbled down, then two arms, and a man's head. As the old woman watched, the parts came together into a great, tall man. The man danced around and around the room.