coal from it--further than that the invisible messenger seemed to
respond to the name of Dickon--I cannot tell.

"That puppet, yonder," thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed on
the scarecrow, "is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a
corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He's capable of
better things. Why, I've danced with a worse one, when partners happened
to be scarce, at our witch-meetings in the forest! What if I should let
him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows, who go
bustling about the world?"

The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe, and smiled.

"He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street-corner!" continued she.
"Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the
lighting of my pipe; but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and
there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were
it only for the joke's sake!"

While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own
mouth, and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature
in the pumpkin-visage of the scarecrow.

"Puff, darling, puff!" said she. "Puff away, my fine fellow! your life
depends on it!"

This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere
thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a
shrivelled pumpkin for a head; as we know to have been the scarecrow's
case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby
was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly
before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in the
remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty will be at
once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe, that, as soon as
the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the
scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure; but it
was followed by another and another, each more decided than the preceding
one.

"Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!" Mother Rigby kept
repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "It is the breath of life to ye;
and that you may take my word for!"

Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a spell
either in the tobacco or in the fiercely glowing coal that so mysteriously
burned on top of it, or in the pungent aromatic smoke which exhaled from
the kindled weed. The figur