The Mystery of Sinister Scarecrow - M. V. Carey [2]
Chapter 2
The Bug Man
“MISTER, PLEASE!” Jupe managed a husky croak.
The man let go of Jupe’s throat. “Why … why, you’re just a kid!” he exclaimed.
There was a sound of something crashing through the corn. Feet pounded on the soft earth, and then Jupe saw, against the sky, the huge, comforting bulk of Hans.
“You do not do that to
Jupiter!” declared Hans. He
lifted the man bodily off
Jupiter and threw him aside,
sending him rolling a short
way down the hill. “I will
break you into pieces!” he
threatened.
Jupe got slowly to his feet.
He saw the man who had
attacked him blinking up at
Hans. He had the squinting,
searching look of an extremely
nearsighted person, and he
was feeling around in the dirt.
“My glasses!” he said. There was a note of annoyance in his voice. “I dropped my glasses!”
Bob and Pete had hurried up the hill with Hans.
Now Bob stooped and picked a pair of aviator-style thick-lensed glasses from among the crushed corn-stalks. He handed the glasses to the man, who wiped them on the front of his denim shirt and put them on. Then the man stood up and dusted off his blue jeans.
“What is the matter with you?” demanded Hans. “Are you a crazy man that you want to hit Jupiter?”
“I’m very sorry,” said the man stiffly, as if he were unused to acknowledging his mistakes. “I’m sorry, but I thought you were the scarecrow and —”
The man stopped. He looked over at the scarecrow perched on the fence, grinning its lopsided grin.
“I mean … uh … we’ve had some trouble here with trespassers. They trample the corn and … and make trouble generally and … and I’m afraid I overreacted when I saw that someone was coming up the hill.”
The man paused. His bald head gleamed in the sunlight. His eyes were pale behind his thick lenses. Jupe saw that the man was not large. He was scarcely taller than Jupe himself, and quite thin. But he was muscular and suntanned, like someone who spent long hours out of doors and got plenty of exercise. Jupe guessed that he was in his late thirties.
“I wouldn’t really have hit you with that rock,” the bald man said to Jupe. “I just wanted to see who you were.”
“You thought I was a scarecrow,” said Jupe.
“Oh, no! No, of course not! Ridiculous! You must have misunderstood me. Now, would you kindly tell me what you are all doing in my cornfield?”
Jupe blinked at how quickly the man had seized the offensive again. Then he nodded and began to explain. “Our truck blew a tire and ran into the ditch down on Rock Rim Drive. I saw the telephone wires leading to the barn up there, and I wanted to ask if I could call my uncle to come and pull us out of the ditch. I was just taking a shortcut through the cornfield.”
“I see,” said the man. “Well, I’m sorry I jumped on you, and yes, you can use the telephone.”
He turned and started up the hill. The boys and Hans followed him through a gate in the fence and across a stretch of grass to the old red barn. The bald man opened the big center door, switched on overhead fluorescent lights, and waved his visitors inside.
There was no sign of any animals or farming machines in the big building. Instead, there were long tables on which strange equipment stood in a sort of orderly clutter.
Before Jupe could take a closer look, he was led to a desk on one side of the barn.
“Go ahead and make your call,” said the man. He pointed to a telephone half buried by piles of books and notebooks on the desk.
While Jupe called home, Bob, Pete, and Hans looked around curiously. On the long table nearest the entrance they saw several wooden frames about a foot square.
The frames had cheesecloth tacked to one side and panes of glass covering the other side. They looked like shadow-box picture frames, but they were empty. A camera mounted on a floor dolly was focused downward on one of the frames. Several large glass jars stood on another table. Bob peered into one jar and saw what looked like shreds of moss inside. Then, with a shock, he realized that they were not shreds of moss. They were living chains of ants — brown, long-legged