"Papa won't know a thing about it. Come on."

It was hot in the cornfield. The morning sun beat down fiercely and the air smelled of damp earth. The ground between the rows of stubble was marked with tiny channels the running water had cut the night before. But the shocks were dry again and in the slight breeze they whispered and rustled gently. The two children made a bee-line for the center of the field until they came to the two cross boards that served as a framework for the scarecrow.

The scarecrow was fashioned of some old clothing which had once belonged to a fat man—overalls, a coat of what might have been a Sunday suit at one time, and an ancient felt hat—castaways which the children had found in the barn. The cardboard face, marked in black crayon, a little blurred now from the rain, had been copied by Jimmy from an old photograph the boy had come upon among some old papers when he had cleaned out the attic. Jimmy had decided that even a crow wouldn't be fooled by a faceless scarecrow.

Jimmy was about to climb the upright shaft when Stella stopped him.

"Wait," she said. "Let's not give Mr. Maudsley the knife."

"Why not? It's his."

"Let's give it to Mr. Trask."

The boy's jaw dropped as the enormity of the idea grew upon him. Then he uttered a squeal of delight.

Laughing and giggling, the two children turned and ran down and vaulted the fence that enclosed the aisle of shocks to the road and adjacent field.

Five minutes later the second scarecrow brandished a knife at the end of one of its handless sleeves.

But as Jimmy came out on the road again, he looked across at Mr. Maudsley. In full view in the sunlight, it wasn't a cardboard face now; it was a round full face, with great folds of fat, and it was twisted in an expression of stark fear.

For three nights the skies over the Tapping farm were black, and a cold wind huffing down from the north kept the children indoors where they played endless games of parchesi. On the fourth night the moon broke through the clouds.

Jimmy, squatting by the window, the spyglass to his eye, stared out at the two scarecrows. At intervals he thought he saw Mr. Trask descend from the mounting pole, leap up over the shocks and begin his strange dance. But at the instant those capers began, the 

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