THE SCARECROW.
“THOSE are the robbers!" grandpa said
To neighbor's boy, Gold-locks, and Ted,
Out on the doorstep. As he spoke,
Over toward a distant oak
He pointed, where in fluttering rows
Were perched the black and noisy crows
Brown, and smelling an earthy sweet,
The field spread out beneath the heat,
With faintest lines of green to show
Where the corn had just begun to grow;
Hither had come the thieves in flocks—
"Little black hens," said wise Gold-locks.
"What shall we do?" with aspect grim,
To the three small folks who watched with him,
Said grandpa—he whose gentle hand
Spared even the spoilers of his land,
And who always planted thoughtfully
With an eye to squirrel, bird, and bee:
His frown was only a thin disguise
To hide the gentleness of his eyes;
For the veriest worm before his tread
Could lift unhurt its humble head.
But Ted, half cheated by his tone,
Thought gravely something must be done.
"We'll build a scarecrow, Jack, hurrah!"
(Hark! distant answer—"Caw, caw, caw! ")
And, glad of a novel work to do,
Up to the attic stores they flew;
Sought for the worst of everything;
Then off to the field went scampering.
There, soon, a figure gaunt up-rose,
With grandpa's long-discarded clothes
Hung from its limbs, no fit at all,
Too large in parts, in parts too small,
His hat upon its bristling hair,
Waving a threatening arm in air.
What did the sentry on the bough
Say to his pilfering comrades now?
Why, when the direful thing he saw,
He croaked serenely, "Caw, ca-aw, ca-a-w!"
And still along the corn's green track
Stalked the thieves in glistening black.
Never a stately step showed fright,
Never a wing took hurried flight;
But still the flocks came, day by day,
To find where the yellow kernels lay.
No whit did the saucy creatures care
For the broom the scarecrow waved in air.
Gold-locks puzzled her little mind,
The secret of their ways to find;
She pondered; counseled much with Ted,
And, at last—a bright discovery—said:
"I know: if we wanted to scare the crows,
We shouldn't have put on grandpa's clothes! "
—Wide Awake.