DICKON O Johannes Baptista! What wouldst thou have given for such a head! I helped Salome to cut his off, dame, and it looked not half so appetizing on her charger. Tut! Copernicus wore once such a pumpkin, but it is rotten. Look at his golden smile! Hail, Phœbus Apollo!
GOODY RICKBY ’Tis the finest scarecrow in town.
DICKON Nay, poor soul, ’tis but a skeleton yet. He must have a man’s heart in him. [Picking a big red beet from among the cornstalks, he places it under the left side of the ribs.] Hush! Dost thou hear it beat?
GOODY RICKBY Thou merry rogue!
DICKON Now for the lungs of him. [Snatching a small pair of bellows from a peg on the wall.] That’s for eloquence! He’ll preach the black knaves a sermon on theft. And now—
[Here, with Goody Rickby’s help, he stuffs the framework with the gourds, corn, etc., from the loft, weaving the husks about the legs and arms.]
here goes for digestion and inherited instincts! More corn, Goody. Now he’ll fight for his own flesh and blood!
GOODY RICKBY [Laughing.] Dickon, I am proud of thee.
DICKON Wait till you see his peruke. [Seizing a feather duster made of crow’s feathers.] Voici! Scalps of the enemy!
[Pulling them apart, he arranges the feathers on the pumpkin, like a gentleman’s wig.]