, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should
represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at hand
would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of the
articles that went to the composition of this figure.

The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little show,
was a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had taken many an airy
gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a spinal
column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its arms was a
disabled flail which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby, before his
spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other, if I mistake
not, was composed of the pudding-stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied
loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the right was a
hoe-handle, and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous stick from
the wood pile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of that kind, were
nothing better than a meal bag, stuffed with straw. Thus, we have made out
the skeleton and entire corporcity of the scarecrow, with the exception of
its head; and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat withered and
shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a
slit for the mouth, leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle, to pass
for a nose. It was really quite a respectable face.

"I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said Mother Rigby.
"And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my scarecrow!"

But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the
good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat, of
London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs,
pocket-flabs, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched at
the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the left
breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been rent
away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through
and through. The neighbors said, that this rich garment belonged to the
Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby's cottage for
the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to make a grand
appearance at the governor's table. To match the coat, there was a velvet
waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage, that
had been as brightly golden as the maple-leaves in October, but which ha