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But an idol next went down that not only left a wretched vacancy in the boy's pantheon, but fell against his heart and made an ugly wound. It was as if he had become suddenly clear-seeing on that day when the Gratcher shrivelled in the blast of his laugh. A little later came the father on his annual visit, and the dire thing was done.
For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his lair, only the very wise learn this that the best way to be rid of him is to laugh him away that no Gratcher ever fashioned by the ingenuity of terror-loving humans can keep his evil power over one to whom he has become funny. The passing of the Gratcher had left no pedestal crying for another idol.
Then, all in a half-hour, one afternoon, both he and Nancy seemed to cross a chasm of growth so wide that one thrilled to look back to the farther side where all objects showed little and all interests were juvenile. And this phenomenon, signalised by the passing of the Gratcher, came in this wise.
Vividly there came back that late afternoon when the monster of Bernal's devising had frightened them for the last time when in a sudden flash of insight they had laughed the thing away forever and faced each other with a certain half-joyous, half-foolish maturity of understanding. One day long after this she had humorously bewailed to Bernal the loss of their child's faith in the Gratcher.
This tickled you so that you went crazy in a minute. Nancy feared the Gratcher, and she became supremely lovely to the little boy when she permitted him to guard her from it, instead of running home across the lawn when it was surely coming; a loveliness he felt more poignantly at certain reflective times when he was not also afraid.
He retreated a little, again grasping the back of the chair with one hand, but there was no restraint in his voice. "Laugh, Nance, laugh! You know what laughing does to them!" "Not to this one, Bernal oh, not to this one!" "But it's only a Gratcher, Nance! I've been asleep all these years. Now I'm awake. I'm in the world again here, do you understand, before you. And it's a glad, good world.
As they rested from play this being a time when the Gratcher was most likely to be seen approaching by him of the Gratcher-eye, the usual alarm was given, followed by the usual unbreathing silence.
He had replied that, as an institution, the Gratcher was imperishable that it was brute humanity's instinctive negation to the incredible perfections of life; that while the child's Gratcher was not the man's, the latter was yet of the same breed, however it might be refined by the subtleties of maturity: that the man, like the child, must fashion some monster of horror to deter him when he hears God's call to live.
Also, which was perhaps her chief charm, she could be made to believe that only he could protect her from the Gratcher, a monstrous thing, half beast, half human, which was often seen back of the house; sometimes flitting through the grape-arbour, sometimes coming out of the dark cellar, sometimes peering around corners.
Foolishly they averted their glances, after that first little laugh of sudden realisation; but again their eyes met, and this time they laughed loud and long with a joy that took away not only all fears of the Gratcher forever, but their first embarrassment of themselves.
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