The Scarecrow
Old Man De lived alone at the village edge, his house beside a field of corn. When sparrows came he set a scarecrow among the stalks and spoke to it daily, and slowly it listened. One stormy summer it held its ground as the corn fell. That autumn, in river mist, his lost granddaughter clutched its pole and followed its hat's tilt home. When the old man died the scarecrow collapsed into the weeds. Yet on windy evenings the rustling still sounds like someone standing in the field, keeping watch.
Old Man De lived alone at the edge of the village, and behind his house stretched a field of corn.
When the corn grew to a man's waist, the birds came. Flocks of sparrows lit on the stalks and pecked until the leaves rattled. De's heart ached to see it, so he cut a few bamboo poles, found an old shirt and a battered straw hat, and tied a scarecrow to stand in the middle of the field.
For the first days the birds still came. But each time De went out to work, he would straighten the scarecrow's sleeves and brush the dust from its shoulders, muttering, "Keep an eye on things for me while I go in for a drink." And before long the talk ran on, the summer's rain, the neighbor's ox, the little tune his late wife used to hum, all of it spoken to the figure that never answered, hat askew, standing straight as if it truly heard.
A thing with a spirit, perhaps, only shows itself after it has stood long enough.
That summer was stifling, and one afternoon a storm broke without warning. De heard the wind howling outside and, worried, threw on his rain cape and ran to the field. There he found the corn beaten flat in places, yet the scarecrow still stood. Its pole was bent by the wind, but it held and did not fall, its hat clamped over one ear of corn as if shielding it. De's eyes warmed; he crouched at the field's edge and laughed. "Stubborn creature. More so than me."
His granddaughter Man came to stay for the summer holidays. One evening a fog crept up from the river and blurred the whole field. Chasing a wild hare, Man ran deep among the stalks and lost her way. As the light failed she cried in fright. De shouted her name with a lantern, but the fog swallowed his voice.
Then, half-blind with tears, Man stumbled against something hard, the scarecrow's pole. She clung to it and her sobs quieted. The wind came in gusts, lifting the scarecrow's torn hat so it dipped and nodded, as if beckoning. Following the tilt of its head, she stepped outward one pace at a time and at last found the ridge path. De was there; he gathered her in, then turned to look back. The scarecrow's brim still faced their way, like a traveler it had just seen off.
Later the villagers teased De for befriending a bundle of straw. He never argued. He only said, "It understands."
In time De grew old and could no longer work the land. The corn field lay fallow for two years, and the scarecrow came apart, grass sprouting from its shirt as if it had taken root itself. The winter De died, snow crushed the last bamboo pole.
Today another family's vegetables grow on that plot by the village edge. But on windy evenings, in the rustle of the leaves, it still sounds as though someone stands straight in the field, keeping watch over something.