Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

The Scarecrow - G Ranger Wormser

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Duration:: 23m
Broadcast on:: 19 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's Extra Help Program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or a married couple who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. This summer, saddle up with the only sports book where you can bet on horse racing. FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get a no sweat, first bet up to $500. That's right, you'll get up to $500 bucks back in racing credit if your first horse racing bet doesn't win. With FanDuel's sports book, you can even watch and bet select races live right in the app. So, bet horse racing on the same map where you bet all your other favorite sports. FanDuel. America's #1 sports book. Just download the app or go to fanduel.com/horses to score your no sweat bet up to $500. 21+ and present in Colorado. Offer valid on first real money wager of $5 or more. Bareified FD Racing account required. Bonus issued in non-withdrawable racing site credit then expire seven days after issuance. Max refund $500 restrictions apply. See terms at racing.fanduel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler. The Scarecrow. FanDuel. The woman stood in the doorway of the ramshackle tumbled down shanty. Her hands were cupped at her mouth. The wind blew loose, whitish-lawn wisps of hair around her face and slashed the faded blue dress into the uncorseted bulk of her body. Benny? Oh, Benny? Her call echoed through the still evening. Her eyes staring straight before her down the slope in front of the house caught sight of something blue and antiquatedly military standing waist deep and rigid in the cornfield. That old scarecrow she muttered to herself, that their old scarecrow with that their old uniform on to and to. The sun was going slowly just beyond the farthest hill. The unreal light of the skies reflected colors held over the yellow waving tips of the cornfield. Benny? She called again. Oh, Benny? And then she saw him coming toward her trudging up the hill. She waited until he stood in front of her. "Supa Benny?" she said. "Was you down in the south matter where you couldn't hear me call?" "No." He was young and slight. He had thick hair and a thin face. His features were small. There was nothing unusual about him as eyes were deep set and long with lids that were heavily fringed. "You heard me calling you?" "Yes, ma'am." He stood there straight and still. His eyelids were lowered. "Why didn't you come along then? What ails you, Benny? Let me shout and shout that way." "Nothing, ma'am." "Where was you?" He hesitated a second before answering her. "I was to the bottom of the hill." "And what was you doing down there to the bottom of the hill?" "What was you doing down there, Benny?" Her voice had a hushed tenseness to it. "I was watching, ma'am." "Watching, Benny?" "That's what I was doing." "His tone held a guarded sullenness." "Taint knows such a pretty sunset, Benny." "Wont watching, no sunset." "Benny?" "Well?" He spoke quickly. "What do you want me to put it there for?" "What do you want to do that for in the first place?" "There was birds, Benny." "You know there was birds." "That ain't what I mean." "What before do you put on that though, uniform?" "I had nothing else that want nothing but your granddad's old uniform." "It's fair and rags, Benny. It's all I had to put on to it." "Well, you done it yourself." "Nah, Benny, nah." "Okay, nothing but an old uniform with a stick into it." "Just to frighten off them birds." "Taint nothing else." "Honest." "Taint, Benny." "You looked up at her out of the corners of his eyes." "It was waving its arms." "That's the wind." "Nah, ma'am." "Waving its arms before the wind had come up." "Shush, Benny." "Taint, likely." "Taint, I was watching, ma'am. Seeing it. Wave and wave." "Suppose it should beckon." "Suppose it should beckon to me." "I'd be going then, ma'am." "Shush, Benny." "I'd fair have to go, ma." "Leave your ma'am in, oh, Ben. Oh." "You couldn't never go off and leave your ma'am in." "Even if you ain't able to bear this here farm, you couldn't go off from your ma'am in." "You couldn't. Not your ma, Benny." "She could see his mouth twitch." "She saw him catch his lower lip in under his teeth." "Ahh." "Say you couldn't leave, Benny. Say it." "I- I hate this here farm," he mumbled. "Morning and night and morning and night. Nothing but Charles and Earth. And then some more of them chores. And always that their way. So it is, always, and the stillness. Nothing alive, nothing. Sometimes I ain't able to stand and know how. Sometimes you'll get to like it later, ma'am. "No." "No, ma." "You will, Benny. Show you will." "I won't never. I ain't able to help fretting. It's all closed up, tied inside of me, eating and eating. It makes me feel sick." She put out her hand and laid it heavily on his shoulder. Likely to touch a fever in the blood, Benny. "Ahh, I ain't got no fever. You'll be feeling better in the morning, Benny. I'll be feeling the same way, ma. That's just it. Always the same. Nothing but the stillness. Nothing alive. And now they're in the corn field. That ain't alive, Benny. Ain't it, ma? "Don't you say that, Benny? Don't." He took her hand off of him. "I was watching," he said doggedly. "I've seen it wave and wave." She turned into the house. "That old scarecrow." She muttered to herself, "That old scarecrow." She led the way into the kitchen. The boy followed at her heels. A lamp was lighted on the center table. The one window was uncutined, with a naked spot of it the evening glow poured shimmeringly into the room. Inside the doorway they both paused. "You're set down, Benny." He pulled a chair up to the table. She took a steaming pot from the stove and emptying it into a plate placed the dish before him. He fell to eating silently. She came and sat opposite him. She watched him cautiously. She did not want him to know that she was watching him. Whenever he glanced up she hurried her eyes away from his face. In the stillness the only live things were those two pair of eyes darting away from each other. "Benny, she could not stand it any longer." "Benny, just you, just you!" He gulped down a mouthful of food. "Oh, ma, don't you start nothing. Not no more tonight, ma." She half rose from her chair. For a second she leaned stiffly against the table. Then she slipped back into her seat, her whole body limped and relaxed. "I ain't going to start nothing, Benny. I ain't even going to talk about this here farm, honest. I ain't." "Oh, this here farm." "I gave the best years of my life to it," she spoke the words defiantly. "You said that all for a ma." "It's true," she murmured. "Terrible true, and I've done it for you, Benny. I wanted to be giving you something. It's all I'd got to give you, Benny. There's been a man, Ben, that's glad of his farm, and grateful, too. There's many that makes it pay. And what I'll do if it does pay, ma. What I'll do then." "I don't know, Benny. It's only just beginning now." "But if it does pay, ma, what do I do?" "Go away from here." "No, Benny, not away. What would you go away for when it pays?" "After all them years I gave to it," his spoon clattered noisily to his plate. He pushed his chair back from the table, the legs of it rasped loudly along the uncarpeted floor. He got to his feet. "Let's go on outside," he said. "There ain't no sense to this here talking and talking." She glanced up at him. Her eyes were narrow and hard. "All right, Benny. I'll clear up. I'll be along in a moment. All right, Benny." He slouched heavily out of the room. She sat where she was, the set looked pressed on her face. Automatically her hands reached out among the dishes, pulling them to water. Outside the boy sank down on the step. It was getting dark. There were shadows along the ground, blue shadows. In the grain skies, one star shone brilliantly. Beyond the mist-slurred summit of a hill, the full moon grew yellow. In front of him was the slope of wind-moved cornfield, and in the center of it, the dim military figure, standing waist deep in corn. His eyes fixed themselves to it. All uniform, with a stick into it, he whispered the words very low. Still standing there, still. The same wooden attitude of it, his same cunning watching of it. There was a wind, he knew it was going over his face. He could feel the cool of the wind across his moistened lips. He took a deep breath. Down there in the shivering cornfield, standing in the dark blue shadows, the dim figure had quivered. An arm moved, swaying to and fro. The other arm began, swaying, swaying. A tremor ran through it. Once it pivoted, the head shook slowly from side to side. The arms rose and fell and rose again. The head came up and down, and rocked a bit to either side. "I'm here," he muttered involuntarily. "Here." The arms were tossing and stretching. He thought the head faced in his direction. The wind had died out. The arms went down and came up and reached. "Benny," the woman seated herself on the step at his side. "Look," he mumbled, "look." He pointed his hand at the dim figure, shifting restlessly in the quiet, shadow-saturated cornfield. Her eyes followed after his. "Oh, Benny." "Well," his voice was hoarse, "it's moving, ain't it? You could see it moving for yourself, can't you? You ain't able to say you don't see it, are you?" "The wind," she stammered. "Where's the wind down there?" "Do you feel a wind?" "Say, do you feel a wind?" "Maybe down there." "They know wind. Not now, they. That's moving, ain't it? Say it's moving, ain't it?" "It looks like it was dancing, so it does, like as if it was making itself dance." His eyes were still riveted on those arms that came up and down, up and down and reached. "You'll stop soon now." He stuttered it more to himself than to her. "Then it'll be alive. I've watched it mighty often. Maybe it knows I watch it. Maybe that's why it moves." "Oh, Benny." "Well, you see it, don't you? You thought there was something that mattered with me when I come and told you how it waves and waves. But you've seen a wave, ain't you? It's nothing, Ben. Look, Benny, it stopped. The two of them stared down the slope at the dim, military figure, standing rigid and waist deep in the cornfield. The woman gave a quick sigh of relief. For several moments they were silent, and somewhere in the distance came the harsh, discordant sound of bullfrogs croaking. Out in the night, a dog bade at the golden full moon climbing up over the hills. A bird circled between sky and earth, hovering above the cornfield. They saw its slow descent, and then for a second they caught the startled whir of its wings, as it flew blindly into the night. That old scarecrow she muttered. "Suppose," he whispered, "Suppose when it starts it's moving like that, suppose someday it walks out of that their cornfield just naturally walks out. Here to me, what then if it walks out?" "Benny, that's what I'm thinking of all the time. If it takes it into its head to just naturally walk out here, what's going to stop it if it wants to walk out after me?" Once it starts moving that way, "What?" "Benny, it couldn't do that, it couldn't." Maybe it won't, maybe it'll just beckon first. Maybe it won't come after me. Not if I go when it beckons, kind of figure it'll beckon when it wants me. I couldn't stand the other. Couldn't wait for it to come out here after me. Kind of feel like it'll beckon when it beckons I'll be going. "Benny, there's sickness coming on you. Take no sickness." The woman's hands were clenched together in a lap. "I wish to God," she said. "I wish I had never seen the day when I put that thing up that there cornfield, but I ain't thought nothing like this could never happen. I wish to God I had never seen the day. Tink got nothing to do with you." His voice was very low. "It's got everything to do with me, so it has. You said that for yourself, and you was right, and I put it up, and I looked high and low. The house through, ain't that old uniform of your granddad's been the only rag I could lay my hands on? Was there anything else I could use? Was there?" "Oh, Ma. Ain't we needed a scarecrow down there, with them birds so awful bad, pecking away at the corn and pecking? Thank your fault, Ma." There wasn't nothing else but that old uniform. I wouldn't have took it otherwise. Paul Paul so desperate proud of it as he was, him fighting for his country in it, always saying that he was. He couldn't be doing enough for his country, and that old uniform meant so much to him, like a part of him, I used to think it. And you wanting to say something Ben? No, no. He wouldn't even let us be burying him in it. "Put my country's flag next to my skin," he told us. "When I die, keep the old uniform, just like a part of him," he thought it. "When I've kept it, fallen to peace it as it is, if there'd have been anything else to put up there in that there cornfield," she felt the boy stiffen suddenly. "With him a soldier," he broke off abruptly. She sensed what he was about to say. "Oh Benny, that was different. Honest it was. He wasn't the only one in his family. There was two brothers," the boy got to his feet. "Why won't you let me go?" he asked it passionately. "Why do you keep me here? You know I ain't happy. You know all the men have gone from these here parts? You know I ain't happy. Ain't you going to see how much I want to go? Ain't you able to know that I want to fight for my country? The way he did his fighting." The boy jerked his head in the direction of the figure. Standing waist deep in the cornfield. Standing rigidly and faintly outlined beneath the haunting flood of moonlight. "Nah Benny, you can't go nah. Why ma? Why do you keep saying that and saying it?" "I'm all alone Benny. I've gave all my best years to make the farm pay for you. You got to stay Benny. You got to stay on here with me. You just plain got to. You'll be glad someday Benny. Later on you'll be right glad." She saw and thrust his hands hastily into his trouser pockets. "Glad," his boy sounded tired. "I'll be shamed. That's what I'll be. Nothing. Do you hear nothing but shamed?" She started to her feet. "Benny, I know the fear shook through the words. You wouldn't go." He waited a moment before he answered. "If you ain't wanting me to go, I'll stay. God, I guess I plain got to stay." "That's a good boy Benny. You won't never be sorry now, how I promise you. I'll be making that up to you. Honest I will, there's lots of ways. I'll interrupt at her only ma. I won't let it come after me. If it beckons, I got to go." She gave a sudden laugh that trailed off, uncertainly. "Tent going to bed, can Benny?" "If it beckons, ma." "Tent going to Benny. Taint nothing but the wind that moves it. It's just the wind, sure. Maybe you got a touch of fever. Maybe you better go on to bed. You'll be all right in the morning. Just you wait and see. You're a good boy, Benny. You'll never go off and leave your ma on the farm. You're a fine lad, Benny." "If it beckons," he repeated and wear him on a tone. "Tent, Benny." "I'll be going to bed," he said. "That's it, Benny. Good night. Good night, ma." She stood there listening to his feet thudding up the stairs. She heard him knocking about in the room overhead. A doorbanged. She stood quite still. There were footsteps moving slowly. A window was thrown open. She looked up to see him leaning far out over the sill. Her eyes went down the slope of the moonlight bathed cornfield. Her right hand curled itself into a fist. "Oh, scarecrow," she half laughed. She waited there until she saw the boy draw away from the window. She went into the house and bolted the door behind her. Then she went up the now steps. That night she lay awake for a long time. The heat had grown intense. She found herself tossing from side to side of the small bed. The window shaded stuck at the top of the window. The moonlight trickled into the room. She could see the wind frame star specked patches of the skies. When she sat up she saw the round reddish yellow ball of the moon. She must have dosed because she woke with a start. She felt that she had a fearful, evil dream. The horror of it clung to her. The room was like an oven. She thought the walls were coming together in the ceiling pressing down. Her body was covered with sweat. She forced herself wide awake. She made herself get out of the bed. She stood for a second uncertain then she went to the window. Not a breath of air stirring. The moon was high in the sky. She looked out across the hill down there to the left. The acres of the potatoes, potatoes were paying. She counted on a big harvest. To the right the wheat, only the second year for those five fields. She knew that she had done well with them. She thought with a smile running over her lips back to the time. When less than half of the place had been under cultivation. She remembered a dreams of getting the whole of her farm in work. She and the boy had made good. She thought of that with savage complacency. It had been a struggle, a bitter hard fight from the beginning. She had made good with her farm. And there down the slope just in front of the house, the cornfield. And in the center of it, standing waist deep in the corn, the antiquated military figure. The smile slid from her mouth. The suffocating heat was terrific. Not a breath of air. Suddenly she began to shake from head to foot. Her eyes wide and staring were fixed on the moonlight, white and cornfield. Her eyes were held to the moonlight, streaked figures standing in the ghostly corn. Moving. An arm swayed, swayed to and fro. Backwards and forwards, backwards. The other arm swayed. A tremor ran through it. Once it pivoted, the head shook slowly from side to side. The arms rose and fell and rose again. The head came up and down and rocked a bit to either side. Dancing. She whispered stupidly. Dancing. She thought she could not breathe. She had never felt such oppressive heat. The arms were tossing and stretching. She could not take her eyes from it. And then she saw both arms reach out. And slowly, very slowly, she saw the hands of them, beckoning. In the silence of the room next to her, she thought she heard a crash. She listened intently. Her eyes stuck to those reaching arms. And the hands of them that beckoned and beckoned. "Benny," she murmured, "Benny." Silence. She could not think. It was this talk that had done this. "Benny's talk." He had said something about it. Walking out. If it should come out. Moving all over like that. If its feet should start. If they should have a sudden begin to shuffle. Shuffle out of the cornfield. But Benny wasn't awake. He couldn't see it. Thank God. If only something would hold it. If only it would stop. God. Nothing stirred out there in the haunting moonlight at night. Nothing move. Nothing but the figure standing waist deep in the cornfield. And even as she locked the rigid military figure grew still. Still now. But for those slow, beckoning hands. A tremendous dizziness came over her. She closed her eyes for a second. And then she stumbled back to the bed. She lay there panting. She pulled the sheets up across her face. Her shaking fingers working the tops of them into a hard ball. She stuffed it between her chatter and teeth. Whatever happened, Benny mustn't hear her. She mustn't wake in Benny. Thank heaven Benny was asleep. Benny must never know how. Out there in the white at night. The hands of the figure slowly. And unceasingly beckoned. And beckoned. The sight of those reaching arms stayed before her. When hours later she fell asleep. She still saw the slow, moving, motionless hands. It was morning when she wakened. The sun streamed into the room. She went to the door and opened it. Benny, she called. Oh Benny, there was no answer. Benny, she called again. Get on up. It's late Benny. The house was quiet. She half dressed herself and went into his room. The bed had been slept in. She saw that at a glance. His clothes were not there. Down in the field. Because she'd forgotten to wake him. In a sudden, stunning flash she remembered the crash she had heard. It took her a long while to get to the little closet behind the bed. Before she opened it, she knew it would be empty. The door creaked open. His one hat and coat were gone. She had known that. He had seen those two reaching arms. He had seen those two hands that had slowly, very slowly beckoned. She went to the window. Her eyes staring straight before her down the slope in front of the house. Caught sight of something blue and antiquatedly military. Standing waist deep and rigid in the corn field. "You'll scare crow," she whimpered. "Why are you standing there?" She sobbed. "What are you standing still for now?" End of the Scarecrow by G. Ranger Wormser. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero. And my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year. Or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. 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