THE SCARECROW
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE SCARECROW
OR
THE GLASS OF TRUTH
A Tragedy of the Ludicrous
BY
PERCY MACKAYE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1908,By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1908. Reprinted February, 1911.
This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously in theUnited States and Great Britain. All acting rights, both professionaland amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, andcountries of the Copyright Union, by Percy MacKaye. Performancesforbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for theright of performing this piece must be made to The McMillan Company.Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with thepenalties provided by the United States Statutes:—
“Sec. 4966.—Any person publicly performing or representing anydramatic or musical composition, for which copyright has been obtained,without the consent of the proprietor of the said dramatic or musicalcomposition, or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable for damagestherefor, such damages in all cases to be assessed at such sum, notless than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for everysubsequent performance, as to the Court shall appear to be just. If theunlawful performance and representation be wilful and for profit, suchperson or persons shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon convictionbe imprisoned for a period not exceeding one year.” U. S. RevisedStatutes, Title 60, Chap. 3.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick &Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To
MY MOTHER
IN MEMORY OF AUSPICIOUS
“COUNTINGS OF THE CROWS”
BY OLD NEW ENGLAND CORN-FIELDS
PREFACE
But for a fantasy of Nathaniel Hawthorne, this play, of course, wouldnever have been written. In “Mosses from an Old Manse,” the MoralizedLegend “Feathertop” relates, in some twenty pages of its author’sinimitable style, how Mother Rigby, a reputed witch of old New Englanddays, converted a corn-patch scarecrow into the semblance of a finegentleman of the period; how she despatched this semblance to “playits part in the great world, where not one man in a hundred, sheaffirmed, was gifted with more real substance than itself”; how therethe scarecrow, while paying court to pretty Polly Gookin, the rosy,simpering daughter of Justice Gookin, discovered its own image in alooking-glass, returned to Mother Rigby’s cottage, and dissolved intoits or