Maggie was working on another scarecrow. This one was extra special. It was for her garden. She made them for a living, a meager one, but it helped pay the bills. Farmers around these parts didn’t make a whole lot of money. It helped to cushion their winters. She pushed her golden hair back from her eyes and thought about what clothes to put on this scarecrow. Maybe a dress, yes, a dress would be nice. She went to her old clothes drawer and pulled out a flowered dress with a big sash to tie around the dolls tiny waist. Yes, this one was gonna be real special. She didn’t realize how special it was going to be.

It was all Hallow’s Eve, and George came home drunk again. Maggie learned in the past to stay out of the way but tonight she was so emmersed in her project that she wasn’t prepared for his homecoming. George was not a very patient man especially when it came to waiting for his dinner. He also was not happy that she had not prepared for the Halloween party that they were supposed to attend the next night. It was a big hog roast and bonfire at the Wilkins’ farm, and they were supposed to help with the decorations.

George was very unhappy with Maggie. He was really pissed off that she had not prepared his meal and had the nerve to be working on another one of her scarecrows when she should have been fixing his dinner. He had his ways and his ways were the right ways. He knew how to take care of this problem. She was going to be sorry. She was going to be real real sorry.

The next night as the guests all whooped and hollered around the bonfire and ate plates full of the tender roasted hog and other dishes, they all thought the roasted hog tasted especially good, and the scarecrow, with the flowered dress, looked especially realistic. Too bad that Maggie had to go spend the winter with her mother. Too bad they didn’t know she was never coming back. She wasn’t coming back here anyway.

What George wasn’t prepared for was the scarecrow waiting for him at home. This scarecrow looked exactly like the one that he had taken to the hog roast. Only this scarecrow was raising an axe. Funny how things work out. George never had to explain where Maggie was and why she never came back. Because George never lived to tell about it.