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,
ricketty, 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 over-peopled 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 along 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 to
the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco-smoke, that the
small cottage-kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled
mistily through, and could but imperfectly define the image of the cracked
and dusty window-pane on the opposite wall. Mother Rigby, meanwhile, with
one brown arm akimbo, and the other stretched towards the figure, loomed
grimly amid the obscurity, with such port and expression as when she was
wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her victims, and stand at the
bed