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At last they came to a surface-fragment a couple of hundred yards long. They climbed over its edge. The thin sunshine hit dried soil, and something like corn-stubble in rows. Ahead was a solid stone structure, half flattened. Beside it a fallen trunk showed its roots. Vegetation was charred black by the absolute dryness of space. There was a fragment of a road, a wall, a hillside.
Here I am!" he cried out, but Santa Claus did not hear him. "Santa Claus, please give me a little present. I was good all summer and kept the crows out of the corn," pleaded the poor Scarecrow in his choking voice, but Santa Claus passed by with a merry halloo and a great clamour of bells. Then Jimmy Scarecrow stood in the corn-stubble and shook with sobs until his joints creaked.
Jimmy Scarecrow stood in the corn-stubble, with the doll-baby under his coat and waited, and soon Betsey was back again with Aunt Hannah's crazy quilt trailing in the snow behind her. "Here," said she, "here is something to keep you warm," and she folded the crazy quilt around the Scarecrow and pinned it. "Aunt Hannah wants to give it away if anybody wants it," she explained.
Beneath them lay the green and level meadows of New Jersey, and the dusky violet blue of the ocean shading to a translucent olive where long ridges of foam crumbled upon pale beaches. They turned inland, flying leisurely to admire the beauty of the scene. The mounting sun spread a golden shimmer over woods and corn-stubble. White roads ran like ribbons across the landscape.
She came at last to the door of a field-mouse, who had a little den under the corn-stubble. There dwelt the field-mouse in warmth and comfort, with a whole roomful of corn, a kitchen, and a beautiful dining room. Poor little Tiny stood before the door just like a little beggar-girl, and begged for a small piece of barley-corn, for she had been without a morsel to eat for two days.
"I am of no use in the world, and everybody has forgotten me," he moaned. But he was mistaken. The next morning Betsey sat at the window holding her Christmas doll-baby, and she looked out at Jimmy Scarecrow standing alone in the field amidst the corn-stubble. "Aunt Hannah?" said she.
Every morning, when the wintry sun peered like a hard yellow eye across the dry corn-stubble, Jimmy felt sad, but at Christmas time his heart nearly broke. On Christmas Eve Santa Claus came in his sledge heaped high with presents, urging his team of reindeer across the field. He was on his way to the farmhouse where Betsey lived with her Aunt Hannah.
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