It was sitting on a stone wall,
and it must have been a brave crow that would have ventured within a
mile of that ridiculous bundle of rags. The face was effectually
concealed by a huge hat as is the case with most scarecrows, and all
the cast-off clothing of Everdoze for centuries back seemed combined
here in incongruous array.
What was Pee-Wee's consternation when he beheld this figure actually
descend from the fence and come shambling over toward him. If the legs
were not on stilts they were certainly the longest legs he had ever
seen, and they must have been suspended by a kind of universal joint
for they moved in every direction while bringing their burden forward.
Upon this absurd being's closer approach, Pee-Wee perceived it to be
a negro as thin and tall as a clothes pole, and so black that the
blackness of sin would seem white by comparison and the arctic night
like the blazing rays of midsummer. This was Licorice Stick whose home
was nowhere in particular, whose profession was everything and chiefly
nothing.
"I done seed yer comin'," he said with a smile a mile long which
shone in the surrounding darkness like the midnight sun of Norway.
His teeth were as conspicuous as tombstones, and on close inspection
Pee-Wee saw that his tattered regalia was held together by a system
of safety pins placed at strategic points.
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