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The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson
page 59 of 334 (17%)
freckled--wore shoes and stockings on the hottest days, when one's feet
are so hungry for the cool, springy turf, and performed other acts
repugnant to a soul that has brought itself erect. But she was fresh and
dainty to look at, like an opened morning glory, with pretty frocks that
the French lady whose name was Madmasel made her wear every day, and her
eyes were much like certain flowers in the bed under the bay-window, with
very long, black lashes that got all stuck together when she cried; and
she made superb capital letters, far better than the little boy's, though
she was a year younger.

Also, which was perhaps her chief charm, she could be made to believe that
only he could protect her from the Gratcher, a monstrous thing, half
beast, half human, which was often seen back of the house; sometimes
flitting through the grape-arbour, sometimes coming out of the dark
cellar, sometimes peering around corners. It was a thing that went on
enormous crutches, yet could always catch you if it saw you by daylight
out of its right eye, its left being serviceable only at night, when, if
you were wise, you kept in the house. Once the Gratcher saw you with its
right eye the crutches swung toward you and you were caught: it picked you
up and began to look you all over, with the eyes in the ends of its
fingers. This tickled you so that you went crazy in a minute.

Nancy feared the Gratcher, and she became supremely lovely to the little
boy when she permitted him to guard her from it, instead of running home
across the lawn when it was surely coming;--a loveliness he felt more
poignantly at certain reflective times when he was not also afraid. For,
the Gratcher being his own invention, these moments of superiority to its
terrors would inevitably seize him.

[Illustration: "She could be made to believe that only he could protect
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