What is an example of motif in the story, Trick or Treat?

In Powell’s story, pumpkins are a reccurring motif, suggesting innocence. When Mrs. Hollingsworth first notices Jimmy standing in his yard watching her, she describes him as “an uncarved, unlit pumpkin” and “a portrait of innocence.” At the end of the story, after Mrs. Hollingsworth has decided to accept Jimmy’s proposition, she recalls that “speaking pumpkin head on a fence.” The distinction is made between a jack-o’-lantern (which is a pumpkin carved with a face and lit from the inside with a candle) and a regular pumpkin. Jack-o’-lanterns have a semblance of intelligence (the face) and life (the candle). Featureless, a pumpkin is unassuming and blank. Jimmy must fight past her perception of his young pumpkin-head to be noticed and taken seriously as a “suitor, or whatever he was.”