GerryG wrote:
You've gotten several good suggestions here. However, before any of
them, I'd suggest you wet with water and heat steam the scratches.
Any wood expansion you get will make the repair easier.
GerryG

[snip]

Yellow pine is harder than regular pine so you may not get the wood to
expand back to something near normal as easily as you would with regular
pine. I'd wet a couple of you least favorite wash cloths and press them
with a cotton-hot iron. Do it a couple of times and then figure you have
the best results you are going to get.

Since you are going to have to mess with the top anyway, try a couple
different brands of wood filler. Some say "stainable" now and one of those
might work best.

Josie