Once upon a time, on a dark and spooky Hallowe’en night, two adventurous boys named Tom and Jack set out for a thrilling adventure. They had decided to go to the orchard of the old Farmer Brown to gather some juicy red apples.
Tom and Jack had a clever idea to avoid getting caught by Farmer Brown. They wrapped themselves in bright white sheets, becoming disguised as mischievous ghosts. “If the farmer sees us,” Tom chuckled, “he will scream and run, thinking we are ghosts!”
But the farmer was not there, and they filled their bag with the delicious apples. Then, Tom suggested, “Since we are pretending to be ghosts, let’s go to the graveyard and divide our loot equally.”
Tom, however, had a trick up his sleeve. As they entered the graveyard, he sneakily dropped the two biggest apples outside the gate, hoping to get them for himself later.
Jack came up with a fair method to divide the apples. “We’ll take two at a time and divide them—one for me and one for you.”
As they started their work, Farmer Brown was returning from the town. He met the scared town’s dog, Pete, who was running frantically. Pete, with a trembling voice, said, “I saw the Lord and the Devil in the graveyard, dividing the dead!”
Farmer Brown didn’t believe him, but agreed to go to the graveyard to hear for himself. As they approached the graveyard, they heard Jack’s voice, “There’s one for me, and there’s one for you.”
Meanwhile, Jack had seen Tom’s sneaky move and had a plan of his own. He continued his count, adding a twist to it, “There’s one more for me and one more for you, and now we will go for the pair outside the gate.”
Hearing this, Farmer Brown and Pete thought the boys were talking about the souls of the dead and not the apples. Terrified, they ran away as fast as they could, leaving the graveyard far behind.
When the boys reached the gate, they found the two biggest apples. Smiling at Tom, Jack said, “Tom, I think these last two big ones should be shared between us as well.”
Tom realized that Jack had seen through his trick and laughed, “Fair and square, Jack!”
And that’s the tale that every Hallowe’en, the villagers still tell. They share the story of that spooky night when two little boys, mistaken for the Lord and the Devil, played their games in the graveyard, dividing not the dead, but the apples!
