FullReads

Under the big oak by the brook sat the three happy children with Rover, Brownie, and little yellow Wienerwurst. They were watching the Toyman cut the ripe corn.

“Isn’t that funny?” said Jehosophat.

“What’s funny?” asked Marmaduke.

“Wot’s funny?” repeated Hepzebiah.

“Oh! I was just thinking,” said Jehosophat, “how he seems just Frank when he’s ploughing or harrowing or cutting the corn. But when he’s through work and tells us stories or makes us things, why then he is the Toyman.”

“Yes,” his brother agreed. “He looks as if some fairy godmother changed him nights and Sundays.”

But they were rudely interrupted.

“Caw, caw!” said a voice.

It was a rascal’s voice.

“Caw, caw!” said another.

The Toyman jumped. He shook his fist.

“You old thief!” he called.

“Rogue, rogue, rogue!” growled Rover in his deep voice.

“Run, run, run!” barked Brownie.

“Rough, rough–rough, rough!” said little Wienerwurst in his funny voice.

“There he is,” said the Toyman, “Mr. Jim Crow and all his wicked chums. See there!”

All the children looked in the direction in which his finger pointed. Over in the far corner of the field a flock of crows flew up from the waving corn. A white horse, drawing a buggy, was trotting along the road by the side of the cornfield. The driver had scared Mr. Jim Crow and all his chums. They flapped their big black wings as they flew. And they flew very straight, not like the pretty barn-swallows with their dark-blue wings. The swallow is a happy bird and skims and dances in the air like a fancy skater on the ice. But Mr. Jim Crow flies like an arrow. That is because he is always up to some mischief and forever running away when someone finds him out.

“Caw, caw!” he called.

“Caw, caw!” called all his black mates.

The Toyman ran to the fence and picked up a shotgun. It had two barrels that shone in the sun.

“Bang, bang!” went the gun.

One black spot dropped to the earth like a stone.

The Toyman ran out in the cornfield. He bent over until his straw hat was hidden by the waving corn.

Soon he came back. From his hand Mr. Jim Crow hung head downward. He was very still.

“Oo, oo! You’ve hurted him!”

Little Hepzebiah began to cry.

“Don’t cry,” said the Toyman, patting her head. “Mr. Jim Crow was a bad fellow. You couldn’t teach him any lessons.”

“What did he do?” Marmaduke asked.

“He stole all the corn and you wouldn’t have any nice muffins if he had had his way. I never shoot the orioles or the robins or the swallows or any of the birds with consciences.”

“What is a conscience?”

“Oh a little clock inside you, like the Clock-with-the-Wise-Face-on-the-Mantel. It tells you when it is time to stop,” explained their friend.

And Jehosophat and Marmaduke looked as if they knew just what he meant. But Hepzebiah was too little yet to understand.

“See, Mr. Jim Crow is long and black. He has a bad eye.”

So he buried Mr. Jim Crow under the oak tree while the children watched.

After that the Toyman said:

“I reckon Mr. Scarecrow has fainted.”

“Who’s Mr. Scarecrow?” asked the three happy children. “Is he Mr. Jim Crow’s cousin?”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the Toyman. “That is a good one. No, Mr. Scarecrow is the policeman of the cornfield. Let’s go over and set him on his pins again.”

So again he walked through the rows between the cornstalks and they came to a little clear place in the middle of the field.

There, flat on his back, lay Mr. Scarecrow.

He too looked as if he were dead. But he was not.

For his body was only two sticks of wood nailed together like a cross. He was dressed in Father Green’s old blue trousers and the Toyman’s old black coat. His arms were outstretched. But he had lost his hat. His wooden head stuck out.

The Toyman picked him up and stood him straight on his one wooden leg. Then he put the old felt hat on his hard head.