"As for himself, Aaron would have no more traffic with the pig. He renounced all responsibility. He would restore the garden, he would repair the shed. But that would be it. To emphasize his resignation, he would now sit on the step leading to the kitchen door and purposely pay no attention to the pig, do what it might. But before he could turn away and head toward the screen door, he saw that one huge hole had been dug in the garden not far from where the fallen sunflowers lay. He tramped through the stubble, the torn plants, and exposed roots, to see what had excited the beast to such extraordinary labor. The hole went at least three feet down and there, at the bottom, was part of an old scarecrow, the lower pants legs sticking out of the still mounded earth at its head. It had on purple socks and heavy shoes, fairly well dressed for a scarecrow.
"Aaron felt some impulse to cover it over and then realized where the impulse had come from. It wasn't a scarecrow. Not with shoes and socks on, not with a visible anklebone and a bulge in the pants leg suggesting a knee. He cleared away more dirt. It was a human skeleton. Buried in the garden of his aunt.” |
