ke the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron.

"Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?" said she. "Step forth! Thou
hast the world before thee!"

Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my
grandmother's knee, and which had established its place among things
credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, I
question whether I should have the face to tell it now.

In obedience to Mother Rigby's word, and extending its arm as if to
reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward--a kind of
hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step--then tottered and almost
lost its balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after
all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old
beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so
forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and
ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite
of the reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There
it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!--with only the
thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was
evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered,
good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap
upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall
I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification, the
scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters,
composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and
never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt,
among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction.

But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her
diabolic nature (like a snake's head, peeping with a hiss out of her
bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken
the trouble to put together.

"Puff away, wretch!" cried she, wrathfully. "Puff, puff, puff, thou
thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou
pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to
call thee by? Puff, I say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the
smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where that
red coal came from."

Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff
away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily