When I was a child, there were no treats on the night of Halloween — only tricks. Little children did not dress up in costumes and go door to door asking “Trick or treat?”
People stayed home so that they could protect their house from being the target of tricks.
When I was a child, the favorite trick that was done in the small town where I lived, was putting a large piece of farm machinery on top of a building where it would be very difficult to get it town.
This was done during the dead of night. The building was on Main Street very close to the Catholic church where Catholics would see it the next morning on their way to Mass.
In my town, instead of saying “better call Saul” the townspeople would say “better call Bill”.
Bill was my father. Bill could neither read nor write, but he was very smart — he knew how to get a piece of farm equipment down from a roof without breaking the machinery or the roof. He would bring ropes and direct the men in the town in the art of bringing a tractor safely down.

old farm tractor
One year, my mother took me out in the cold, just after day break, so that I could watch as my father climbed up on the top of the building where there was a large piece of farm equipment, and then directed the safe removal of the machinery by several men in the town.