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Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied aspect, and seemed to say, “Come look at me!”

“And you are well worth looking at, that’s a fact!” quoth Mother Rigby, in admiration at her own handiwork.”I’ve made many a puppet since I’ve been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all.’Tis almost too good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I’ll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco and then take him out to the corn-patch.”

While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin–a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked the better she was pleased.

“Dickon,” cried she sharply, “another coal for my pipe!”

Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff and puffed it forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through the one dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney corner whence this had been brought. But where that chimney corner might be, or who brought the coal from it,–further than that the invisible messenger seemed to respond to the name of Dickon,–I cannot tell.

“That puppet yonder,” thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed on the scarecrow, “is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He’s capable of better things. Why, I’ve danced with a worse one, when partners happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings in the forest! What if I should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling about the world?”

The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled.

“He’ll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!” continued she.”Well; I didn’t mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I’m likely to be, and there’s no use trying to shirk it. I’ll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the joke’s sake!”

While muttering these words, Mother Rigby t
ook the pipe from her own mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow.

“Puff, darling, puff!” said she.”Puff away, my fine fellow! your life depends on it!”

This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a shrivelled pumpkin for a head,–as we know to have been the scarecrow’s case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the scarecrow’s mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more decided than the preceding one.