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_The Scarecrow_ was written by Walter de la Mare
(1873-1956), and was included in his _Collected Stories for
Children_ (1947).

Title: Collected Stories for Children -- The Scarecrow
Date of first publication: 1947
Author: Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)
Date first posted: 1 July 2007
Date last updated: 1 July 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #5

This ebook was produced by: Dr Mark Bear Akrigg




The Scarecrow

by Walter de la Mare (from his _Collected Stories for Children_
[1947])




The house in which old Mr. Bolsover lived was of a faded yellow
primrose colour; it was a long house, but of only two storeys.
Yet even its lower windows looked out far away over the meadows
lying at this moment spread out beneath them, bright green in the
morning sunshine. A narrow veranda shaded the windows, its
sloping canopy of copper now a pale grey-green; and around its
slim wooden pillars clematis and jessamine clambered. At either
end of it was a low weather-worn stone pedestal. On these stood
two leaden fauns--the one ever soundlessly piping to the other
across the wallflowers and the pinks. And it was the pinks that
were now in flower, white as snow, and filling the air with their
musky fragrance.

A little clock had just chimed ten, and old Mr. Bolsover, in his
cool white jacket, was coming out of the french windows of the
breakfast-room with his small niece, Letitia. Letitia had a quick
nimble way of walking and talking and turning her head that was
like a bird's. And old Mr. Bolsover, with his eyes and his nose,
was rather like a bird himself, but of the long-legged, tall,
solemn kind--the flamingos and the storks. They came to a
standstill together looking out over the meadows.

'Oh, Uncle Tim, what a perfectly lovely morning!' said Letitia.

'A _perfectly_ lovely morning,' said Uncle Tim. 'Just as if it
had been ordered all complete and to match for a certain small
friend of mine!

   _Lettie's like a lovely day:_
   _She comes; and then--she goes away._'


'Ah, Uncle Tim,' said Letitia, 'that's called _flattery_.'

'Bless me, my dear,' replied her uncle, squinnying at her from
under the glasses of his spectacles, 'it doesn't matter a pin
what it's called!'

'Ah, I know all about that!' said Letitia. 'And to think it is
exactly a whole year since I was here before! Yet you wouldn't
believe a single pink was different. Isn't that funny, Uncle Tim?
We are. And why, yes,' she went on hastily, twisting her head on
her slender neck, 'there's that curious old Guy Fawkes creature
over there by the willows. He's not changed a single bit either.'

'So it is, so it is,' said Uncle Tim, peering out over the
meadows. 'Though as a matter of fact, my dear, it's not quite
true to say he hasn't changed a _bit_. He has changed his hat.
Last year it was an old hat, and now it's a very old hat, a
shocking hat. No wonder he covers up one eye under its brim. But
it doesn't matter how long you stare at him, he'll stare longer.'

Letitia none the less continued to gaze at the scarecrow--and
with a peculiar little frown between her eyes. 'You know, he is a
little queer, Uncle Tim--if you look at him long enough. And you
can easily pretend you are not _quite_ looking at him. You don't
seem to remember either,' she went on solemnly, 'that the very
last morning I was here you promised me faithfully to tell me all
about him. But you didn't, because Mother came in just when I was
asking you, and you forgot all about it.'

'Why, so I did,' said Mr. Bolsover. 'That's what comes of having
a memory like a bag with a hole in it. That's what comes of the
piecrust promises are made of--they just melt in your mouth....
Still, that's Old Joe right enough. _So_ old, my dear, you could
hardly tell us apart!

'You're please not to say that, Uncle Tim--it isn't true. You are
the youngest oldest kindest Uncle Tim that ever was. So there.
But what _were_ you going to tell me about Old Joe? Where did he
come from? What is he for--except the rooks, I mean? Isn't there
a tune about Old Joe? Is that him? Tell me _now_?' cried
Letitia. 'Let's sit down here comfily on the stones. Feel! they
are as warm as toast with the sun! And now go straight on.
_Please._'

Down sat old Mr. Bolsover; down sat Letitia--side by side like
Mr. Punch and his dog Toby. And this is the story he told of Old
Joe....

'I must begin, Letitia,' he began, 'at the beginning. It is much
the best place from which to get to the end. Now when I was about
your age--not quite 129 years ago--I used sometimes to go and
stay with an old friend of my mother's--your grandmother's, that
is--whose name was Sara Lumb. She was a very stout woman, with
black sleek hair, round red cheeks, and dimples for knuckles. And
she used, I remember, to wear an amethyst-coloured velvet cap,
flat over her ears, and a lace thingummy over her shoulders. I
can see her now--her wide face all creased up in smiles, and her
fat fingers with their emeralds and their amethysts, and even the
large emerald brooch she wore at her neck. She wasn't an aunt of
mine, she wasn't even so much as my godmother, but she was
extremely kind to me. _Almost_ as kind as I am to you! She was
very fond of eatables and drinkables too and had a cook that
could make every sort of cake that is worth talking about--seven
sultanas and nine currants to the square inch. Jams, jellies,
raspberry fool, fritters, pancakes, tipsy-cake--they were the
best I have ever tasted. So were her stuffed eggs and oyster
patties at the Christmas parties. My eye!'

'Oh, Uncle Tim,' said Letitia, 'you were a greedy thing.'

'And what's worse,' said her uncle, 'I have never grown out of
it. You shall see for yourself at lunch. And if I'm not an
unprophetic Double-Dutchman I can already smell apple charlotte.
But never mind about that. It's no good--until it's ready. But in
any case I am sure you will agree, Letitia, that my old friend
Mrs. Lumb was just the kind of old friend for a small boy with a
large appetite to stay _with_. This of course was always during
the holidays; and, in those days, while there was plenty of hard
tack at school, "impots", canings, cabbage stalks, cod,
suet-duff, castor oil, bread-and-scrape and what not, there was
no such horror as a holiday task. Holiday tasks always remind me,
my dear, of the young lady who wanted to go out to swim:

   _Mother may I go out to swim?_
     _Yes, my darling daughter._
   _Fold your clothes up neat and trim,_
     _And don't go near the water.'_

'The rhyme _I_ know,' said Letitia, 'is "Hang your clothes on a
hickory limb".'

'That's all very well,' said her uncle, 'but just you show me
one! Let's have it both ways then:

   _Mother, may I go out to swim?_
     _Yes, my darling daughter._
   _Fold your clothes up neat and trim,_
     _(So at least says Uncle Tim),_
   _Or hang them up on a hickory limb,_
     _(That's what Letitia said to him),_
   _And don't go near the water._

What--before this violent quarrel--I _meant_ was, my dear, that
in those days _no_ good little boy had to stew indoors in his
holidays and simply _detest_ reading a book which he would have
given half his pocket money to read for its own sake _if_ he had
never been made to. Q.E.D. But that's quite between ourselves. We
must never, never criticize our elders. And anyhow, at my old
friend's Mrs. Lumb's there was no need to. It was bliss.

'First, hers was a queer old rambling house, much older than this
one, and at least three and a half times as big again. Next,
there was beautiful country round it too; fields stretching down
their sunny slopes, and little woods and copses on the crests and
in the folds and valleys; and a stream--with reeds and rushes and
all sorts of water birds--that came brawling over the stones at
the foot of her long sloping garden. But I hate descriptions,
don't you, Letitia? And _there_, an orchard so full of cherry
trees that in springtime it looked as if it were thick with snow.
Well, well, if ever I go to heaven, my child, I hope to see that
house and garden again.'

'But isn't it still _there_?' said Letitia. 'I mean, you know,
where it used to be?'

'Alas, my dear, no,' said old Mr. Bolsover. 'It is gone for ever.
There came a cook--_not_ Mrs. Lumb's. She was frying
dabs--Brighton dabs--for breakfast one morning; the cat squealed
and scratched her leg; she upset the pan; there was one huge
blaze; she ran screeching into the garden instead of--well, doing
what she ought to have done; and the old house was burned down
clean to the ground. Clean. Think of that, Letitia. Always keep
your eye on cats and fat. But this, I am thankful to say, was
after my dear old friend Mrs. Lumb had left the house and had
gone out to live with her younger brother in Ceylon, where the
bad cook's strong tea had come from.

'Now in those far-away days _birds_ were all my fancy. The
wonder is I never sprouted feathers. I loved them too much to
carry a catapult, but not enough to refrain from setting traps
for them, to catch them for pets. Brick traps and sieve traps.
But how would you like to be a linnet or a lark or a thrush or a
bullfinch caged up in one tiny room with bars for windows just to
amuse a wretch of a boy like me when I was nine or ten or eleven
or thereabouts?'

'I shouldn't,' said Letitia. 'But I'd _much_ much rather be in
your cage than in any other horrid little boy's.'

'Thank you, my dear,' said Mr. Bolsover. 'That's a bargain.
Still, the wilder the bird the worse the cage. But then as I was
a boy, I did as boys do--bless their little hearts! And I used to
weep tears like a crocodile when the sparrows or finches I caught
moped off and died. After the funeral I'd stick a bit of wood in
the ground to mark the grave--and go off to set another trap.

'My traps were everywhere, and sometimes in places where they had
no business to be. But first you must understand what I was
after, really _after_.' Mr. Bolsover all but whispered it. 'It
was _rare_ birds--hoopoes, golden orioles, honey buzzards--the
lovely and seldom. Deep down in me I pined for a bird unspeakably
marvellous in plumage and song; a bird that nobody else had ever
even seen; a bird that had flown clean out of the window of some
magician's mind. Which means of course that I had become a little
cracked on birds. I used even to dream of that bird
sometimes--but then it was usually me myself that was in the
cage!

'Well, there was one particular covert that I kept in memory to
set a trap in for days before I ventured to make the attempt.
This was at the edge of a field where a great many birds of all
kinds and sizes were accustomed to haunt, though I never found
out why. I watched them again and again, hosts of them--their
wings shimmering in the light. It seemed it was their happy
secret meeting place--and in spite of Old Joe!'

'_That_ Old Joe _there?_' cried Letitia, pointing at the mute
lank ungainly figure over against the grey-green willows, with
its ragged arms, and battered old hat on one side, that stood
blankly gazing at them from out of the field beyond the garden.
'Yes,' said her uncle, 'that Old Joe _there_. You see, between
you and me, Letitia, and don't let us look his way for a moment
in case we should hurt his feelings, that Old Joe there (as
perhaps you've guessed) is a scarecrow. He is nothing but a dumb,
tumbledown hugger-mugger antiquated old hodmadod. He has never
really been anything else; though after all the years he and I
have been together, and not a single unkind word said on either
side, he is now a sort of twin brother. Like Joseph and Benjamin,
you know. Why, if we changed places, I don't suppose you would be
able to tell us apart.'

'How can you dare to say such things, Uncle Tim?' cried Letitia,
pushing her hand in under his elbow. 'You know perfectly well
that that's a sort of a kind of flattery--of yourself, you bad
thing.'

'All I can say to that, Miss Tomtit,' replied Uncle Tim, 'is, ask
Old Joe. Still, we are old friends now, he and I, whereas the
first time I saw him he gave me a pretty bad fright. I had come
creeping along on the other side of the hedge, keeping a very
wary eye open for anybody that might be in the fields--because I
was trespassing. When they were not being ploughed or harrowed or
rolled or sown or hoed or cropped, there never was anybody;
except perhaps on Sunday, when the farmer, Mr. Jones, a large
stout man with a red face and a thick stick, came round to have a
look at his crops.

'It was a wide, sloping, odd-shaped field of about forty acres
running down to a point, rather like the map of England turned
upside down, and with a little wood of larch on one side of it.
This particular morning was in April. It was sunny but cold, and
the field was bare except for its flints glinting in the
sunbeams. It had been sown, but nothing green was showing.

'Well, I was skirting along the hedge, as I say, but on this side
of it, carrying the bird snare I had with me under my jacket, and
hardly able to breathe for excitement. I knew exactly--as I
peered through the hedge, on which the thorn buds were just
breaking green as emeralds--which was the place for me. There was
a ditch beyond the hedge, and I could see only a narrow strip of
the field at the moment, because of the hedge and bushes in
between. But it was truly a little paradise of birds, my dear,
and particularly when spring was on its way.

'Well, on I went until I came to the corner by the rickety old
gate, which was tied up with a piece of chain. Between you and me
it was a shameful old gate. But that is not _our_ business. And
all of a sudden I caught sight of what I supposed was Farmer
Jones himself, glaring straight at me across the field, and not
thirty yards away. I fairly jumped in my skin at sight of him,
turned hot, then cold, and waited, staring back. For that one
instant it seemed as if I could see the very colour of his
eyeballs moving in his head.

'But all this was only in the flicker of a moment. No Farmer
Jones that, and not even one of his men! It was just Old Joe;
_our_ Old Joe. That Old Joe there! Come alive. And after all,
what is life, Letitia?'

'That's perfectly true, Uncle Tim,' Letitia whispered, edging a
little closer to him. 'He might be alive at this very instant.'

'And not only that, you must remember,' went on Mr. Bolsover,
'this was in Old Joe's better days. He was young then. He has
been peacocked up in many a fine new suit of old clothes since
then, and more hats than I could count on twice my fingers. But
_then_ he was in his hey-day, in the very bloom of his youth,
the glass of fashion and the knave of trumps. And now I wouldn't
part with him for a bag of golden guineas. No, not for twenty
bags. And though I am very fond of guineas, the reason for that
is, first, that I love him for his own sweet sake alone, and
next, my dear Letitia, because one doesn't very often
see--_see_, I mean--real live fairies in this world.'

Letitia burst out laughing. 'Real live fairies, Uncle Tim!' she
cried, stooping forward in her amusement and dragging her skirts
tight down over her knees. 'Why, you can't mean to say, you poor
dear, that Old Joe's a _fairy_?'

'No,' said Mr. Bolsover, 'I didn't mean to say quite that. Then,
as now, Old Joe was the scaringest of scaring scarecrows I have
ever set eyes on. But, like the primrose in the poem, he was
nothing more. No, it wasn't Old Joe himself who was the fairy, no
more than the house behind us _is_ you and me. Old Joe was
merely one of this particular fairy's rendyvouses, as the old
word goes. He was where she _was_.

'That morning, I remember, he was wearing a pair of slack
black-and-white check trousers and a greenish black coat, very
wide at the shoulders. Apart from the stick for his arm, another
had been pushed into one of his coat-sleeves for a cudgel.
Another with a lump at the top made his head and on that was a
hat, a hard, battered, square black hat--like the hats farmers
and churchwardens used to wear in those days. He was stooping
forward a little, staring across at me as I crouched by the gate.
As I say, I hugged the wire snare under my jacket closer, and
stared back.

'Whether it was because of the hot air that was eddying up from
the stony soil under the sun, or because of some cheating effect
of the light on the chalky field, I can't say, Letitia. But even
while I stood watching him, his head seemed to be ever so gently
turning on his shoulders as if he were secretly trying to get a
better view of me without my noticing it. Yet all the time I
fancied this, I knew it wasn't true.

'Still, I was a good deal startled. Quite apart from crows and
such riff-raff, he had certainly scared _me_--for in those days
young trespassers (not to mention the old double-toothed
mantraps, which were a little before my time) might find
themselves in for a smart walloping if they were caught. But even
when I had recovered my wits I continued to watch him, and at the
same time kept glancing from side to side at the birds that were
flighting about me, or feeding, or preening and sunning
themselves in the dust. And though by this time I knew him for
what he was, I wasn't by any means at ease.

'For even if there were no real eyes in his own head, I was
perfectly certain that somebody or something was actually looking
at me from under that old black hat, or from out of his
sleeve--from _some_where about him. The birds were already used
to my being there, simply because I remained so still. After
perhaps five whole minutes of this, I squatted down at the edge
of the field and began to set my trap.

'But the whole time I was stooping over it, and softly hammering
the wooden peg in with a large flint, I was thinking of the old
scarecrow--though without looking at him--and knew I was being
watched. I say without looking at him, but whenever I got a
chance I would snatch a little secret glance at him from between
my legs or over my shoulder or from under my arm, pretending that
I was doing nothing of the kind. And then at last, the trap
finished, I sat down on the grass under the hedge and steadily
fixed my eyes on him again.

'The sun climbed slowly up the blue sky, his rays twinkling from
sharp-cut stone to stone and scrap of glass. The hot air rilled
on at his feet. The birds went about their business, and nothing
else happened. I watched so hard that my eyes began to water, but
whatever was hiding there, if anything _was_ hiding there, could
be as patient as I was. And at last I turned home again.

'At the far corner of the field under an old thorn tree I stooped
down once more as if I were tying up my shoe lace, and had
another long look, and then I was perfectly certain I had caught
a glimpse of something moving there. It was as if a face had very
stealthily peered out of the shadow of the old scarecrow, and, on
sighting me under the thorn tree, had as swiftly withdrawn into
hiding again.

'All the rest of that day I could think of nothing else but Old
Joe, assuring myself that my eyes had deceived me, or that a bird
perched on his shoulder had fluttered down, or that a very faint
breeze from over the open upland had moved in his sleeve. Or that
I had made it all up. Yet I knew deep down inside me that this
wasn't true. It was easy to invent explanations, but none of them
fitted.'

'It might, of course, Uncle Tim, you know,' said Letitia, 'it
might have been not a bird but some little animal, mightn't it? I
once saw a hare skipping about in the middle of a field, and then
suddenly, though there wasn't even the tip of his ear showing
before, there was another hare. And then another: would you
believe it? And they went racing over the field one after the
other until they went right out of sight. Or might it have been a
bird, do you think, which was building its nest in Old Joe?
Robins, you know, build their nests anywhere, even in an old
boot. And I have seen a tit's nest with I don't know how many
eggs in it in an old pump. And look, Uncle Tim, there is a bird
actually perched on Old Joe's shoulder now! That's what it might
have been, I think--some little animal, or bird nesting.'

'Well, you shall hear,' said Uncle Tim. 'But I am quite certain
that if you had been with me that morning, hundreds of years ago,
you would have agreed that there was something different about
Old Joe; different, I mean, from what he looks like now. He
looked _queer_. I can't quite explain; but it was the difference
between an empty furnished house and the same house with its
family in it. It was the difference between fishing in a millpond
which has fish in it and in one which has none. It was the
difference between you yourself when you are really asleep and
when you are only foxing and pretending to be. And what's more,
sure enough, I was right.

'Now I had my proper bedtime at Mrs. Lumb's; and before it,
always, an apple and a glass of milk. My old friend was not only
a great believer in apples, but she had seven beautiful Jersey
cows, which are a great help, my dear, not only at bedtime, but
with gooseberry tart or apple pie. But she wasn't one of those
Uncle Tims who want everything done exactly at the right moment.
She didn't wait till the clock struck eight (which just shows how
easy it is to rhyme if you don't try to) and then come peeping in
to see if I was safe in bed.'

'Why, you know very well', said Letitia, 'you don't do that
yourself.'

'Aha!' said Mr. Bolsover, 'I wonder. People who sleep with one
eye open grow as wise as old King Solomon. I creep and I creep
and I creep, and every door has a keyhole. But never mind that.
That very evening after my first sight of Old Joe, and when if I
had been a nice honest boy I should have been in bed, I made my
way down to his field again--slipping on from bush to bush, tree
to tree, as cautiously as I could, so cautiously that I trod on
the scut of a bunny, Esmeralda by name, that happened to be
enjoying a dandelion for her supper on the other side of a
bramble bush.

'When I reached my hawthorn tree--and hundreds of years old
_that_ looked--I stooped down beside its roots very low to the
the ground, having made up my mind to watch until the evening
grew too dark to see across the field. It was getting into May,
and the air was so sweet and still and fresh that your eyes
almost shut with bliss of themselves every time you breathed. And
in those days, Letitia, we kept clocks by the sun. We didn't
cheat him in the morning and pay him back in the evenings, as we
do now. So there was faded gold and rose in the sky, though he
himself was gone down.

'But apart from the birds and the bunnies, nothing happened
except this great Transformation Scene of day turning into night,
until it began to be dark. And then it seemed that almost every
moment Old Joe, inch by inch, was steadily moving nearer. Seemed,
mind you. And then, at the very instant when I noticed the first
star--which by its mellow brightness and by where it was, must
have been the planet Venus--I saw--well, now, what do you think I
saw?'

'The fairy!' said Letitia, and sighed.

'Full marks, my dear,' said Mr. Bolsover, squeezing her hand
under his elbow. 'The fairy. And the odd thing is that I
can't--can't possibly--describe her. This is perhaps partly
because the light wasn't very good, and partly because my eyes
were strained with watching. But mostly for other reasons. I
seemed, you see, to be seeing her as _if_ I were imagining her,
even though I knew quite well she was there.

'You must just take my word for it--I knew she was there. She was
stooping forward a little, and the top of her head reached, I
should say, about up to what one might call Old Joe's waist.
There he is--say the third button down of that old black coat he
has on. Her face seemed to be a little long and narrow, but
perhaps this was because her fair hair was hanging down on either
cheek, straight and fine as combed silk, and in colour between
gold and grey--rather like the colour of a phosphorescent fish in
the dark, but much more gold than silver. It looks to me, now I
come to think of it, that since it was now gloaming I must have
been seeing her in part as if by her own light.

'She stood lovely and motionless as a flower. And merely to gaze
at her filled me with a happiness I shall not forget but cannot
describe. It was as though I had come without knowing it into the
middle of a dream in another world; and cold prickles went down
my back, as if at the sound of enchanted music.

'There was not a breath of wind stirring. Everything around me
seemed to have grown much more sharp and clear, even though the
light was dim. The flowers were different, the trees, the birds.
I seemed to know within me what the flowers were feeling--what it
is like to be a plant with green pointed leaves and tiny
caterpillar feet, like ivy, climbing from its white creeping
roots in the dark earth by fractions of an inch, up the stem of a
tree; or to have feathers all over me, and to float lighter than
the air, and to be looking out from two small bright round eyes
at my bird-world. I can't explain it, Letitia, but I am sure you
will understand.'

Letitia gave two solemn nods. 'I _think_ so, Uncle Tim--a
little. Though I never should have guessed, you know, that any
_boy_ was like that.'

'Boys, my dear, are mainly animals,' Uncle Tim agreed heartily,
'and so was I--nine and three-quarter tenths. But it was the
other bit, I suppose, that was looking at Old Joe.

'And I firmly believe that the fairy knew I was there, but that
in spite of knowing it, she could not delay doing what she wished
to do any longer. For presently, after a minute or two, she drew
very gently backwards and out of sight, and then began to hasten
away over the field towards the corner of it furthest away from
me, keeping all the time as far as she was able so that Old Joe
stood in between us, and so prevented me from seeing her clearly,
however much I dodged my head from side to side in the attempt to
do so. Now that, Letitia, considering that she had her back
turned to me, and was flitting along as swiftly as a
shadow--_that_ was a very difficult thing to do; and I don't
quite see how she managed it. I am perfectly certain _I_
couldn't--without once looking back, I mean.'

'And what,' said Letitia, 'was she like from behind?'

Old Mr. Bolsover narrowed his eyes, and shut his lips. 'She was
like,' he said slowly, 'a wraith of wood smoke from a bonfire.
She was like what, if you could see it, you might suppose a puff
of wind would be in the light over snow. She was like the ghost
of a little waterfall. She moved, I mean, my dear, as if she were
hovering on her way; and yet she never left the ground. Far, far
more lightly than any gazelle she stepped; and it was so
entrancing to watch her in the quiet and dusk of that great
field, it fairly took my breath away. And mind you, I was only a
clod-hopping boy of about ten.'

Mr. Bolsover took a large coloured silk handkerchief out of his
pocket and, as if in triumph, blew his nose. 'I ought to add at
once,' he continued, pushing the handkerchief back into his
pocket again except for one bright coloured corner, 'that this is
not a story at all. Not a story, Letitia.'

'But _I_ think, Uncle Tim, it _is_ a story,' said Letitia. 'It
doesn't make stories any worse if they are _true_. I mean, don't
you think, that all real stories seem better than true? Don't you
think so yourself, Uncle Tim? Just think of the Seven Swans, and
Snow White! Oh, all those. At least I do. Please, please go on.'

'What _I_ mean, my dear, is that a story ought really to be like
a piece of music. It should have a beginning and a middle and an
end, though you could hardly say which is which when it all comes
out together. It ought to be like a whiting with its tail in its
mouth--but a live whiting, of course. This one, you see, this one
I am telling you, begins--and then goes off into nothing.'

'I don't think,' said Letitia, 'that matters one atom. Just
please go on with the fairy, Uncle Tim.'

'Well, as soon as she was gone out of sight, my one and only
desire was to steal into the field and take a look at Old Joe at
close quarters. But upon my word, Letitia, I hadn't the courage.
He was _her_ dwelling-place, her hiding-place, her habitation:
at least whenever she needed one. That was certain. Now that she
was absent, had forsaken it, had gone away, the very look of him
had changed. He was empty, merely a husk; he was just nothing but
a hodmadod--Old Joe. Though we won't think a bit the worse of him
for that. Bless me, no! When _you_ have gone daydreaming, your
face, Letitia, I assure you, looks still and quiet and happy. But
I am afraid you must be thinking I was an exceedingly stupid boy.
You see, I _was_. And I confess that I simply could not make up
my mind to go a step nearer.

'Old Joe was quite alone now. I wasn't afraid of _him_. But
after what I had seen I felt a curious strangeness all about me.
I was afraid because I felt I had been spying, and that every
living thing within view under the quiet sky knew of this and
wanted to be rid of my company. I didn't--which was worse--even
go to look at my bird snare. And when I went to the field again
it had vanished.

'Next morning after breakfast with my old friend Mrs. Lumb, I
talked my way round until at last we came to fairies. "I
sometimes wonder if they _can_ be true," I said to her
airily--as if I had just thought of it. Alas, Letitia, what
deceivers we may be! But yes. My old friend believed in fairies
all right. I never felt any doubt about that. But she had never
seen one. I asked her what she thought a fairy would be like if
she ever did see one. She sat in her chair--with her cup in her
hand--looking out of the window and munching her toast.

'"Well, between you and me, my dear Tim," she said (_crunch,
crunch_), "I never much cared about the flibberti-gibbety little
creatures which are supposed to find a water-lily as comfortable
a place to sleep in as you might find a four-post bed. That, I
think, is all my eye and Betty Martin. And I don't believe myself
that any fairy would pay much attention to me (_crunch,
crunch_). I expect (_crunch, crunch_) they prefer people, if
they care for human beings at all, with less _of_ and _to_
them. And probably there are not many of them left in England
now. Fairies, I mean. There are too many of _us_. Mr. Lumb, as
you know, was an entomologist. Perhaps he would have been able to
tell you more about it. Besides (_crunch, crunch_), he had once
seen a ghost."'

'Do you really mean,' said Letitia, 'that your friend Mrs. Lumb's
_husband_ had once seen a ghost, and that _he_ was--was dead
too?'

'That's what Mrs. Lumb meant, my dear, and I asked her what the
ghost her husband saw was like. "Well," she said, "it was like
(_crunch, crunch_) it was like, he told me, seeing something
with your eyes shut. It made him feel very cold; the bedroom went
black; but he wasn't frightened."'

Letitia sidled yet a little closer to her uncle. 'Between you and
me, Uncle Tim,' she said, 'I believe that ghost would have given
me the shudders. Don't you? But please let's go back to your
fairy. Did you tell Mrs. Lumb about that?'

'I never breathed so much as a single syllable, though if you
were to ask me why, I couldn't say. It's just like small boys, I
suppose; and small girls too, eh? They are dumplings, but keep
the apple to themselves.'

'I think I'd have told just you, Uncle Tim,' said Letitia. 'And
what happened then?'

'Two whole days went by before I ventured near the field again,
though I doubt if an hour passed without my thinking of it. The
birds in my memory seemed now to be stranger, wilder and lovelier
creatures than I had ever realized. I even set free the two I had
in small wooden cages--a linnet and a chaffinch--and for a while
thought no more of traps and snaring. I loafed about wondering if
all that I had seen might not have been mere fancy.

'And then on the third evening, I was so ashamed of myself that I
determined to go down to the edge of the woods again and keep
watch. This time I made my way to the upper corner of the field
by the larch plantation, all in its fresh young green. It was
there, as I supposed, I had seen the fairy vanish. The pheasants
were crowing in their coverts, and the last birds were at
evensong. I crept in between some elder bushes, and having made
myself comfortable took out a little red and brass pocket
telescope which my father had given me. Through this I hoped to
be able to see clearly everything that might happen near Old Joe.
It would bring him as close as if I could touch him with my hand.
But when I came to put the telescope to my eye I found that one
of the lenses was broken.

'It was a little later in the evening than on my first visit, and
though the skies were still burning, the sun had set. But my legs
were all pins and needles, and my eyes nearly gone black with
staring on and on, before I saw anything out of the common.

'And then, Letitia, all of a sudden I knew not only that the
fairy was there again but also that again she was aware she was
being watched. Yes, and though I had seen not the least stir or
motion in Old Joe, she had already stolen out of her hiding-place
and was steadily and _openly_ gazing across the first faint
green flush of the sprouting wheat in my direction. I held my
breath and tried in vain to keep myself from shivering.

'For a moment or two she hesitated, then turned as before, and
sped away, but now towards the very thorn tree from which I had
first spied out on her. I was bitterly disappointed, _angry_
and--well, I suppose it would be a queer boy who had nothing of
the old hunter in him. It was clear she was pitting her wits
against mine. And just as, though I was devoted to the wild
birds, I would sometimes shake my fist at them and almost howl
with rage when I saw one steal my bait without falling into the
trap I had set, so I felt now.

'But I was stiff and aching, and it was too late to attempt to
try and intercept her now. _You wait!_ thought I to myself, next
time we'll see who's craftiest. So I shut up my telescope,
brushed the dead leaves from my clothes, stayed till life came
back into my leg, and then rather sulkily went home.

'That night was still and warm though April was not over yet. And
while I was undressing a full moon began to rise. In spite of the
candlelight I could see it shining through my bedroom blind. I
blew out my candle, drew up the blind and looked out of the
window, and the world looked as if it were enchanted--like an old
serpent that has sloughed its skin. It seemed the moon shed
silence as well as light. And though I was there in my old friend
Mrs. Lumb's familiar house--wood and brick and stone--it was as
if no human being had ever looked out of her window like this
before. And--even better, Letitia. The same feeling came over me
when I had first caught sight of that Old Joe there. Just as the
fairy had been aware of me watching her in the fields, so I was
sure now that she was concealing herself not very far from the
house and--watching my window.'

'It _does_ seem odd, Uncle Tim,' said Letitia. 'Isn't that
_curious_! I know exactly what you mean. It's just as if there
were things in the air, _telling_ people, isn't it! And did--did
you go out?'

'To tell you the truth, Letitia, no. I didn't. I didn't dare to,
though it was not because I was afraid. No; I stood watching at
the window until presently a bird began to sing, out of the warm
hollow darkness away from the moon. It may have been a
nightingale, as there was a hurst or thicket of common land not
far from the house which was the resort of nightingales in the
summer. Still, it was very early in the year. The song I heard
was fully as sweet and musical as theirs, and yet it seemed less
the song of a bird than--well, than even the song of a
nightingale seems. A strange happiness and mournfulness came over
me, listening to it. And even when I got to bed it was a long
time before the echo of it had faded out in memory, and I fell
asleep.

'Can it have been, do you think, that the fairy was beseeching me
not to come to her haunts any more? I can't tell. But in my
stupidity I persisted in persecuting her, just as I had persisted
in persecuting the birds. I was too stupid, you see, to realize
that my company in her field might be as disquieting to her as it
would be for us if, when we had a few nice solid friends to tea,
she came too.'

'Oh, Uncle Tim, if only she would! Then we wouldn't ask a single
soul to tea for months and months and months. Would we?'

'No,' said Mr. Bolsover. 'But it's no good denying it, she
wouldn't. They don't. We ourselves may wish, even pine, to see
them; but I don't think, Letitia, they pine to see us. And I am
quite sure she didn't want a clod-hopping, bird-trapping boy
spying about in her field. Old Joe was not only roof and house,
but company enough; and her own solitude.

'None the less, my dear, I met her face to face. And this is how
it happened. It was the day before I had to go home again, and
two or three other visits to the field had been entirely in vain.
I could tell by now almost at a glance at Old Joe whether she was
here or not. Just as you could tell at a glance at me if _I_
were here or not. I don't mean merely my body and bones--eyes,
 nose, boots and so on; but the me which is really and
truly--well, just me.'

'Yes,' said Letitia.

'Well, she never was. And this particular evening I was in as
black and sullen a temper as a small boy can be. I was full of
aches and pains owing no doubt to my being so stupid as to lie on
the ground under the bushes after rain. Night after night too, I
had lain awake for hours. It seemed that the fairy had forsaken
the field. It seemed that all my cunning and curiosity and hope
and longing had been in vain. I scowled at Old Joe as if he were
to blame. Just vanity and stupidity.

'Besides, my old friend Mrs. Lumb had discovered somehow that I
was creeping late into the house while she was at dinner; and
though she never scolded me, it was quite easy to know when she
was displeased at anything. And she could smile at you with her
nice red apple-dumpling cheeks and black eyes, and be pretty tart
of tongue at the same time.'

'There's a mistress at school,' cried Letitia, 'called Miss
Jennings that's just like that; though she's not very fat. At
least, not yet. And then?... You saw her, Uncle Tim?'

'Yes, I saw her--face to face. I was making my way back through
the copse at the upper comer of the field where two hedges met at
the end of a narrow green lane. And as I came stumping along I
suddenly went cold all over, and I firmly believe my cap had
pushed itself up a little on the top of my head, owing to the
hair underneath it trying to stand on end.

'I can't even tell you what she was wearing, but as I recall her
at this moment it was as if she were veiled about with a haze
like that of a full moon--like bluebells at a little distance in
a dingle of a wood. That may or may not be, but I quite clearly
saw her face, for I was staring steadily into her eyes. They too
were blue, like the blue of flames in a wood fire, especially
when there is salt in it, or the wood has come from some old
ship, with copper in it. Her hair was hanging on either side her
head in a long strand from brow to chin, and down the narrow
shoulder. All else in the world I had completely forgotten. I was
alone, an ugly small awkward human animal looking, as if into a
dream, into those strange unearthly eyes.

'There was not the smallest movement between us; not the least
stir in her face that she knew me or recognized me or reproached
me or feared me. But as I looked--how can I possibly describe
it?--there did come a faint far-away change in her eyes. It was
as though while you might be looking out to sea some summer's
evening from a high window or from the edge of a cliff, a flight
of distant sea-birds should appear out of the blue and vanish
into it again. We poor mortals can smile with our eyes only--and
that's a much better smile than with the lips only. But not like
that. This was _her_ way of smiling at _me_. Just as the angels
on the ladder might have had their way of smiling at Jacob--with
his sleeping head on the stone. And I doubt if they smile often.
It told me in my heart of hearts that she was not unfriendly to
me; and yet that she was entreating me to come no more and
trespass near her lair. What she was doing in this world, how
much alone she was, and where and with whom she was when not in
my parts, near Mrs. Lumb's, I can't say. All she was _telling_
me was that she meant me no harm but begged me not to spy on her
or watch her any more. After all, what right had I to do
so--quite apart from manners? And then she was gone.'

'Oh, _gone_!' said Letitia, and stooped her head suddenly.

'You see, it was easy to take hiding in the evening shadow of the
woods, and the field hedges were dense. Yes, she was gone, my
dear, and I have never seen her since, nor anything resembling
her.... But there, as I have said already,' added old Mr.
Bolsover, 'you can't call _that_ a story.' He was blinking at
his small niece like an owl caught out in the morning sun.
Letitia remained silent for a few moments.

'But I _do_ call it a story, Uncle Tim,' she said at last. 'And
oh, how I wish.... Still, it's no good saying that. But then what
about Old Joe, that Old Joe _there_, Uncle Tim?'

'Ah, Old Joe! Him, the old rascal! The fact of the matter is I
never forgot that evening. Years and years afterwards--and I must
have been a young man by then--say twenty or so--I stayed a night
or two with my old friend Mrs. Lumb again. She, alas, was older
too; and so no doubt was her cook. But that was the only
difference. The first walk I took alone was to the field under
the woods, and about the time of sunset. Would you believe it,
there was Old Joe in his usual place, though the barley crop he
was watching over that particular summer was now well above his
knees. And whether it was because I myself was changed, or
whether the fairy had long since forsaken her hiding-place, or
whether really and truly he was merely her way of getting into
and out of our world, who can say?

'However that may be, Old Joe looked'--Mr. Bolsover lowered his
voice--'well precisely, Letitia, between you and me, as he looks
now: a little vacant-like, empty, accustomed to being alone. He
had brand-new clothes on then, too, standing up there in his
barley, and an immeasurably old wide-brimmed hat, just the kind
of hat that might once have belonged to old Mr. Hiawatha
Longfellow--the kind of hat, I mean, that nobody but a poet would
wear, and not unless he had a long white beard to match. And what
do you think I did?'

'You didn't go and _steal_ him, Uncle Tim?' whispered Letitia.

'No, Letitia. What I can't help thinking was much worse, I went
and bought him,' said Uncle Tim; 'though "bought" is not the word
I should say out loud. I went straight off to the old farmer--old
Farmer Jones--still as stout as he used to be, but with his
whiskers all gone grey, and asked him how much he would take for
his hodmadod in the barley field, just as a curiosity. I told him
I had known Old Joe as a boy, that there was an old friendship
between us. There sat the old farmer in his great wheel-back
chair in his kitchen--as fat as a porpoise, with his large
mulberry-red face and eyes like bits of agate. He sat there
merely staring at me for a time, as if he thought I was a
lunatic.

'"Well, that's a good 'un," he said at last. And what do you
think he charged?'

Letitia pondered, her eyes fixed on the grass at her feet, though
they were blinking so fast she couldn't have been thinking very
clearly. 'I suppose,' she said, 'five pounds would be a good
deal, wouldn't it, Uncle Tim? Even for Old Joe? Though of
course,' she added, as if old Mr. Bolsover had suddenly gone much
further off, 'even then it would be '_strordinarily_ cheap.'

'No. Guess again, my dear. Nothing like five pounds! Nothing like
tuppence, even. "Give me a pipe of that plug baccy of yours,"
said the old farmer, "and he's yours for ever."

'So mine he was. And I'm glad it wasn't money.'

'So am I,' said Letitia. 'Baccy doesn't hurt your feelings, Uncle
Tim, I suppose; does it? And ... and you never saw the--the fairy
again?'

'In a way of speaking,' old Mr. Bolsover replied, 'I have never,
Letitia, really _seen_ anything else. It's a question of what
one means exactly by "seeing", I suppose. Words are no use. It
can't be done, can it?'

Letitia shook her head violently. 'No, Uncle Tim, it can't be
done,' she said, and fell silent again.

The low wide-windowed house, with its jasmine and clematis,
crouched in the light and heat of the sun, as if it had been
listening all this while. Tiny butterflies, like pale scraps of
the blue sky, were circling and flitting over the flowers. The
bells from their belfry in the stone tower of the village church,
muffled by the leafy woods between, sounded sweet and solemn in
the summer air. It was so still the great world might have
stopped spinning.

And there, half in shadow of his grey-green willows, black in his
old clothes, shocking hat over one eyebrow and one lank arm
aloft, stood the scarecrow; and never stirred. Nor did he seem to
be wishing for company. Hiding-place he may have been once (as
might a bee long ago have taken possession of old Mr. Bolsover's
bonnet), but whatever visitor had come, had gone. Letitia turned
her head at last to look up into the old man's face.

'What I believe myself, Uncle Tim,' she began again, in a voice
so low it was almost as if she were talking to herself,'what I
believe myself, and I am sure you won't mind my saying so--I
believe it was almost as if you must have fallen in love with
that fairy. Was that it, Uncle Tim, do you think?'

'Ah!' replied old Mr. Bolsover, and sat there blinking in the
sunlight. Then, 'Goodness me!' he muttered almost as if to
himself, 'I can smell that apple charlotte now, even above the
pinks!... I'll tell you what, Letitia. It's high time we stirred
our stumps. We'll go over and ask Old Joe!...'


[End of _The Scarecrow_ by Walter de la Mare]