The Living Dead?

     A rich widow had a fine harden, but the birds in the springtime kept eating the fruit and the vegetables. Her gardener told her to have a carpenter make a frame that could be dressed like a person.
     "Dress it in bright-coloured clothes," he said, "and the garments will flap around in the winds and scare the birds away."
     So the widow had a carpenter make her a scarecrow and she dressed it in a bright, loose blouse and a skirt that could sway in the wind.
     The scarecrow seemed to help, but one night there was a bad storm. The scarecrow was knocked over in the gale and washed away in the flood. It came to rest near the edge of a lake some distance away.
     The villagers saw it and hurried to tell the priest.
     "A saint!" everyone exclaimed. "Probably a miraculous saint that can cure our ills."
     The scarecrow was duly installed in a chapel of the church, and miracles began to take place - at least so the people thought.
     Then the rich widow became sick. She went to the medicine men, but they didn't help her. Hearing of a miraculous saint in a nearby town, she decided to visit it. She had her horse hitched to her carriage and went with her daughter to the village. First she visited the priest and asked about the new saint. Yes, he assured her, some cures had been effected. After giving him a generous donation, she and her daughter went with him to the church. He drew aside the curtain in the little chapel, and she knelt before the saint and began to repeat prayers. Presently her daughter nudged her.
     "Mama, doesn't this saint's clothing look like our scarecrow's dress?"
     The mother raised her head and opened her eyes wide.
     "My scarecrow!" she cried and, rising, left the church never to return.
     After the story, Pedro taught the people from the Bible, showing them that the dead do not turn to ghosts after they die, but rather return to the earth.
---Taken from the novel A Man Called Pedro by Barbara Westphal.