The moral tale uses a metaphoric scarecrow named Feathertop and its adventure to offer the reader a conclusive lesson about human character.

Polly faints, and the now-terrified and anguished scarecrow rushes back to Mother Rigby, where, knowing himself for what he really is, he deliberately throws away his pipe and collapses in a lifeless heap.

[2] Instead, "Feathertop: A Moralized Legend" was published in two parts in The International Magazine, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, in February and March 1852.

The first television version, adapted by Maurice Valency,[6] Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, was presented in 1955 as part of the General Electric Theater, with a cast that included Natalie Wood, Carleton Carpenter, Dick Elliott, and Emory Parnell.

[7] The second television version was presented in 1961 by ABC-TV as a musical special, starring Hugh O'Brian and Jane Powell, with Cathleen Nesbitt and Hans Conried.

[9] The play was also presented on television in 1972, with a cast headed by Gene Wilder and Blythe Danner, and featuring Pete Duel, Norman Lloyd, Will Geer and Nina Foch in support.

[10] MacKaye's play has also been adapted twice as an opera, also called The Scarecrow, once in 1945 by Normand and Dorothy Lockwood, and more recently with music by Joseph Turrin and libretto by Bernard Stambler.