Jacob

It's only about 3 months late, but I finally have pictures of the Halloween display I created this past year. The idea for the scarecrow design and lanterns comes from the always inspiring PumpkinRot.



The crows were particularly bad that year, continually raiding the corn crop. Jacob’s father told him to build a scarecrow to stave off the birds. That afternoon, Jacob went out to the birches on the far side of the fields. He collected three large limbs from the speckled white trees, picking up twigs along the way. Back at the house, Jacob bound the three larger limbs together with twine, creating the letter ‘Y’ out of the wood. Next, he took what had once been his father’s old, tattered flannel shirt. Jacob had found it in the barn where it had been waiting to be shredded into rags. He carefully slid two of the branches into the worn brown and orange check sleeves.

The pumpkin patch was to the west of the corn fields, just on the outskirts of the woods. It was still early in the season, but Jacob searched the twisting green vines until he found a pumpkin large enough. It was dark orange and flat and wide. He heaved the gourd out of the dirt it had rested on all summer and carried it back home.



Sitting on the back porch, Jacob hollowed out the pumpkin and with a carving knife he created a face of two askew triangles eyes and a grinning mouth full of jagged teeth. He took the wooden body and pumpkin head out to the clearing in the center of the corn fields. He placed the post of the scarecrow into the ground and carefully added the fleshy skull on top. To finish off his creation, Jacob tied bundles of twigs to the end of each arm. The primitive being now reached to the sky with thin and gnarled wooden fingers. Satisified, Jacob headed home.



In the days that followed, Jacob returned to the fields many times to check on his scarecrow. Each time he visited Jacob found feathers entangled in the scarecrow’s twisting trap of fingers. Several crows lay dead on the ground nearby. Jacob was proud of his work. Not only were the birds staying away from the crops, but they were literally scared to death to go near that field. But, Jacob also had misgivings about the dead birds. Something seemed off about the whole thing. And in the middle of the night when Jacob would awake in his bed, he would swear he heard the scrapping of twigs against his bedroom window even though there were no trees on that side of the house.



The months passed and the chill of November swept through the valley and winter followed. The harvest was long over and the crops were gone. But while the extra pumpkins rotted in the field, the scarecrow’s head became dry and hard. His mouth began to sag and his teeth curled in slightly but his grin was still there. And so he stood under the grey clouds of the winter sky waiting for the next growing season.