New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1917-03-16
MISTAKE OF 0bED
MADE SCARECROWS OF CLOTHES
WIFE AND DAUGHTER
WANTED.
II Frightened the Birds Away From
the Corn, but He Had to Give
SIome Money for New
Things.

N.Y. Lag DdosCd HUN liz lcI tIll
warmth Of the June sunshine into the
welcome GOODNESS of Caleb Peaslee's
wagon shed and famed himself vigor-
ously with his straw hat. "My gra-
cious" he repeated. Mr.. Peaslee
looked up from the rake that he was
mending.
"Whats the matter of We now,
ObedY" he desired to know.
my wife and daughter" replied Mr..
Quincy, have jest gin me a kind of
goin' over, l guess you might Call it
and me as innocent as a baby. 1t
sort of took my breath away, and I've
skun out a spell, to give 'em Il chance
to get over it."
"What you been up to now?" de-
manded Mr.. Peaslee.
II amt been up to a single thing"
asserted the culprit stoutly. "At any
rate, l amt done nothin' further'n to
make a mistake that any man might
have made. l dessay you would have
done jest the same as l did"
"Mebbe," admitted Caleb. "What
you been doin'?"
"Well," hesitated Obed, "Ill tell you
how twas. My wife an Slome have
been away visitin' for bout three
weeks, and they left me to do as l
was a mind to in most ways but when
any little thing'd come up that I was
onsartain bout, I'd write to 'em, or
nnn af SnYc Tbnr, ,,,t,Nft much
bout whether I'd set another hen, or
how much Mis- Griggs owed us for but
ter, or some such thing as that.
"Bimeby, though, l wanted some adj
vice bout what to use to make Il scare
crow. I'd got my corn in, and them
pesky row was clawin' it out of the
ground EASTERN l could put it in. l
didn't know where to find the things
to make a scarecrow of so l wrote to
'em and wanted they should tell me
where l could find somethin'.
"Mebbe you remember" said Obed
with a questioning glance, that won
an and her daughter that boarded at
our house last summer" Mr.. Peas
lee signified that he remembered them
well.
"Well," Obed went on "when they
went away they left a raft of stuff
that they didn't want in the way of
clothes, l mean. Some of the things
were clothes that they'd worn fishin'
and trampin' round in the woods, and
they was c'nsid'able tore to pieces.
There they was, hangin' up in a
clothes-press, and S'lOme wrote to me
to go and get somethin' to dress the
scarecrOw. She didn't tell me what
to take" he added defensively, 80 how
in tunket they blame me is more'n l
car figger out.
swell, / went up there, and l paved
over the mess of stuff and picked out
some things and took 'em out to the
field and dressed. the critter up in 'em.
There was a fancy rig for a hat, and
a long, jacketlike thing that they
called a blazer, and a skirt with red
and white stripes in it, and the stripes
was an inch and a half wide. l don't
believe" Mr.. Quincy declared, in the
pride Of creation, that when l got
through you could have found a tastier-
dressed scarecrOw anywheres.
II took a lot of pride in it," Obed
admitted, "and 1 guess it's just as well
l took it before them womenfolks got
home. Well, l amt had u quiet min
ute since, and no knowing when l will
have.
"Come to get at the rights of it," he
explained, there was some things
there that both my wife and S'lOme
was cal'latin' to wear themselves. My
wife was goin' to fix over the hat for
herself, and Stoned been p%icturin'
herself rugged out in that striped skirt
and that fancy jacket.
"Course they couldn't use 'em now
never do to have it said
that they'd been Robin a scarecrow
to get things to wear. So the upshot
is that I've had to give 'em more
money than'I could RELY afford, to lay
out in new clothes. There's jest one
thing bout the whole bust
"What is it," asked Mr.. Peaslee.
"Them crows" grinned Obed con-
t%entedly. "There amt been a crow
that's felt 1t safe to come within a
quarter of a mile of the field since l
that scarecrow up. So mebbe
I'll get my moneys with out of it
after all."-YOuth's Companion.