Jimmy Scarecrow led a sad life in
the winter. Jimmy's greatest grief was his lack of
occupation. He liked to be useful, and in winter he
was absolutely of no use at all.
He wondered how many such miserable winters he would
have to endure. He was a young Scarecrow, and this
was his first one. He was strongly made, and
although his wooden joints creaked a little when the
wind blew he did not grow in the least rickety.
Every morning, when the wintry sun peered like a
hard yellow eye across the dry corn-stubble, Jimmy
felt sad, but at Christmas time his heart nearly
broke.
On Christmas Eve Santa Claus came in his sledge
heaped high with presents, urging his team of
reindeer across the field. He was on his way to the
farmhouse where Betsey lived with her Aunt Hannah.
Betsey was a very good little girl with very smooth
yellow curls, and
she had a great many presents. Santa Claus had a
large wax doll-baby for her on his arm, tucked up
against the fur collar of his coat. He was afraid to
trust it in the pack, lest it get broken.
When poor Jimmy Scarecrow saw Santa Claus his heart
gave a great leap. "Santa Claus! Here I am!" he
cried out, but Santa Claus did not hear him.
"Santa Claus, please give me a little present. I was
good all summer and kept the crows out of the corn,"
pleaded the poor Scarecrow in his choking voice, but
Santa Claus passed by with a merry halloo and a
great clamor of bells.
Then Jimmy Scarecrow stood in the corn-stubble and
shook with sobs until his joints creaked. "I am of
no use in the world, and everybody has forgotten
me," he moaned. But he was mistaken.
The next morning Betsey sat at the window holding
her Christmas
doll-baby, and she looked out at Jimmy Scarecrow
standing alone in the field amidst the corn-stubble.
"Aunt Hannah?" said she. Aunt Hannah was making a
crazy patchwork quilt, and she frowned hard at a
triangular piece of red silk and circular piece of
pink, wondering how to fit them together. "Well?"
said she.
"Did Santa Claus bring the Scarecrow any Christmas
present?"
"No, of course he didn't."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a Scarecrow. Don't ask silly
questions."
"I wouldn't like to be treated so, if I was a
Scarecrow," said Betsey,
but her Aunt Hannah did not hear her. She was busy
cutting a triangular snip out of the round piece of
pink silk so the piece of red silk could be
feather-stitched into it.
It was snowing hard out of doors, and the north wind
blew. The
Scarecrow's poor old coat got whiter and whiter with
snow. Sometimes he almost vanished in the thick
white storm. Aunt Hannah worked until the middle of
the afternoon on her crazy quilt. Then she got up
and spread it out over the sofa with an air of
pride.
"There," said she, "that's done, and that makes the
eighth. I've got
one for every bed in the house, and I've given four
away. I'd give this away if I knew of anybody that
wanted it."
Aunt Hannah put on her hood and shawl, and drew some
blue yarn
stockings on over her shoes, and set out through the
snow to carry a slice of plum-pudding to her sister
Susan, who lived down the road. Half an hour after
Aunt Hannah had gone Betsey put her little red plaid
shawl over her head, and ran across the field to
Jimmy Scarecrow. She carried her new doll-baby
smuggled up under her shawl.
"Wish you Merry Christmas!" she said to Jimmy
Scarecrow.
"Wish you the same," said Jimmy, but his voice was
choked with sobs, and was also muffled, for his old
hat had slipped down to his chin. Betsey looked
pitifully at the old hat fringed with icicles, like
frozen tears, and the old snow-laden coat. "I've
brought you a
Christmas present," said she, and with that she
tucked her doll-baby inside Jimmy Scarecrow's coat,
sticking its tiny feet into a pocket.
"Thank you," said Jimmy Scarecrow faintly.
"You're welcome," said she. "Keep her under your
overcoat, so the snow won't wet her, and she won't
catch cold, she's delicate."
"Yes, I will," said Jimmy Scarecrow, and he tried
hard to bring one of his stiff, outstretched arms
around to clasp the doll-baby.
"Don't you feel cold in that old summer coat?" asked
Betsey.
"If I bad a little exercise, I should be warm," he
replied. But he
shivered, and the wind whistled through his rags.
"You wait a minute," said Betsey, and was off across
the field.
Jimmy Scarecrow stood in the corn-stubble, with the
doll-baby under his coat and waited, and soon Betsey
was back again with Aunt Hannah's crazy quilt
trailing in the snow behind her.
"Here," said she, "here is something to keep you
warm," and she folded the crazy quilt around the
Scarecrow and pinned it.
"Aunt Hannah wants to give it away if anybody wants
it," she explained. "She's got so many crazy quilts
in the house now she doesn't know what to do with
them. Good-bye--be sure you keep the doll-baby
covered up." And with that she ran cross the field,
and left Jimmy Scarecrow alone with the crazy quilt
and the doll-baby.
The bright flash of colours under Jimmy's hat-brim
dazzled his eyes, and he felt a little alarmed. "I
hope this quilt is harmless if it IS crazy," he
said. But the quilt was warm, and he dismissed his
fears. Soon the doll-baby whimpered, but he creaked
his joints a little, and that amused it, and he
heard it cooing inside his coat.
Jimmy Scarecrow had never felt so happy in his life
as he did for an hour or so. But after that the snow
began to turn to rain, and the
crazy quilt was soaked through and through: and not
only that, but his coat and the poor doll-baby. It
cried pitifully for a while, and then it was still,
and he was afraid it was dead.
It grew very dark, and the rain fell in sheets, the
snow melted, and
Jimmy Scarecrow stood halfway up his old boots in
water. He was saying to himself that the saddest
hour of his life had come, when suddenly he again
heard Santa Claus' sleigh-bells and his merry voice
talking to his reindeer. It was after midnight,
Christmas was over, and Santa was hastening home to
the North Pole.
"Santa Claus! dear Santa Claus!" cried Jimmy
Scarecrow with a great sob, and that time Santa
Claus heard him and drew rein.
"Who's there?" he shouted out of the darkness.
"It's only me," replied the Scarecrow.
"Who's me?" shouted Santa Claus.
"Jimmy Scarecrow!"
Santa got out of his sledge and waded up. "Have you
been standing here ever since corn was ripe?" he
asked pityingly, and Jimmy replied that he had.
"What's that over your shoulders?" Santa Claus
continued, holding up his lantern.
"It's a crazy quilt."
"And what are you holding under your coat?"
"The doll-baby that Betsey gave me, and I'm afraid
it's dead," poor
Jimmy Scarecrow sobbed.
"Nonsense!" cried Santa Claus. "Let me see it!" And
with that he pulled the doll-baby out from under the
Scarecrow's coat, and patted its back, and shook it
a little, and it began to cry, and then to crow.
"It's all right," said Santa Claus. "This is the
doll-baby I gave Betsey, and it is not at all
delicate. It went through the measles, and the
chicken-pox, and the mumps, and the whooping-cough,
before it left the North Pole. Now get into the
sledge, Jimmy Scarecrow, and bring the doll-baby and
the crazy quilt. I have never had any quilts that
weren't in their right minds at the North Pole, but
maybe I can cure this one. Get in!" Santa chirruped
to his reindeer, and they drew the sledge up close
in a beautiful curve.
"Get in, Jimmy Scarecrow, and come with me to the
North Pole!" he cried.
"Please, how long shall I stay?" asked Jimmy
Scarecrow.
"Why, you are going to live with me," replied Santa
Claus. "I've been looking for a person like you for
a long time."
"Are there any crows to scare away at the North
Pole? I want to be
useful," Jimmy Scarecrow said, anxiously.
"No," answered Santa Claus, "but I don't want you to
scare away crows. I want you to scare away Arctic
Explorers. I can keep you in work for a thousand
years, and scaring away Arctic Explorers from the
North Pole is much more important than scaring away
crows from corn. Why, if they found the Pole, there
wouldn't be a piece an inch long left in a week's
time, and the earth would cave in like an apple
without a core! They would whittle it all to pieces,
and carry it away in their pockets for souvenirs.
Come along; I am in a hurry."
"I will go on two conditions," said Jimmy. "First, I
want to make a
present to Aunt Hannah and Betsey, next Christmas."
"You shall make them any present you choose. What
else?"
"I want some way provided to scare the crows out of
the corn next
summer, while I am away," said Jimmy.
"That is easily managed," said Santa Claus. "Just
wait a minute."
Santa took his stylographic pen out of his pocket,
went with his
lantern close to one of the fence-posts, and wrote
these words upon it:
NOTICE TO CROWS
Whichever crow shall hereafter hop, fly, or flop
into this field during
the absence of Jimmy Scarecrow, and there from
purloin, steal, or
abstract corn, shall be instantly, in a twinkling
and a trice, turned
snow-white, and be ever after a disgrace, a byword
and a reproach to his whole race. Per order of Santa
Claus.
"The corn will be safe now," said Santa Claus, "get
in." Jimmy got into the sledge and they flew away
over the fields, out of sight, with merry halloos
and a great clamor of bells.
The next morning there was much surprise at the
farmhouse, when Aunt Hannah and Betsey looked out of
the window and the Scarecrow was not in the field
holding out his stiff arms over the corn stubble.
Betsey had told Aunt Hannah she had given away the
crazy quilt and the doll-baby, but had been scolded
very little.
"You must not give away anything of yours again
without asking
permission," said Aunt Hannah. "And you have no
right to give anything of mine, even if you know I
don't want it. Now both my pretty quilt and your
beautiful doll-baby are spoiled."
That was all Aunt Hannah had said. She thought she
would send John after the quilt and the doll-baby
next morning as soon as it was light.
But Jimmy Scarecrow was gone, and the crazy quilt
and the doll-baby with him. John, the servant-man,
searched everywhere, but not a trace of them could
he find. "They must have all blown away, mum," he
said to Aunt Hannah.
"We shall have to have another scarecrow next
summer," said she.
But the next summer there was no need of a
scarecrow, for not a crow came past the fence-post
on which Santa Claus had written his notice to
crows. The cornfield was never so beautiful, and not
a single grain was stolen by a crow, and everybody
wondered at it, for they could not read the
crow-language in which Santa had written.
"It is a great mystery to me why the crows don't
come into our
cornfield, when there is no scarecrow," said Aunt
Hannah.
But she had a still greater mystery to solve when
Christmas came round again. Then she and Betsey had
each a strange present. They found them in the
sitting-room on Christmas morning. Aunt Hannah's
present was her old crazy quilt, remodeled, with
every piece cut square and true, and matched exactly
to its neighbor.
"Why, it's my old crazy quilt, but it isn't crazy
now!" cried Aunt
Hannah, and her very spectacles seemed to glisten
with amazement.
Betsey's present was her doll-baby of the Christmas
before; but the doll was a year older. She had grown
an inch, and could walk and say, "mamma," and "how
do?" She was changed a good deal, but Betsey knew
her at once. "It's my doll-baby!" she cried, and
snatched her up and kissed her.
But neither Aunt Hannah nor Betsey ever knew that
the quilt and the doll were Jimmy Scarecrow's
Christmas presents to them.
