Tuggie dwelt alone in the ell part of an old gambrel-roofed house, which had seen better days, but was now deserted and sadly dilapidated, and was indeed in its main portion almost roofless. The ell, which contained the great raftered kitchen and two other rooms, was, however, tight and comfortable, and made a cheerful, picturesque home. Tuggie, who was strong and capable, worked for the farmers’ wives around; dipped candles, made soap, spun yarn and wove carpets, brewed and salted; she also cultivated a little patch of land of her own, and knit stockings to sell, and was altogether a very thrifty, industrious person. She was in reality far more afraid of being bewitched than she was confident of bewitching, and that evening, as she prepared to “burn a project” to conjure old Bosum Sidet, she started at every sound, and turned her petticoats inside out, to keep off evil spirits, and at last hung a bag of egg-shells around her neck as a potent saving-charm.
She first mixed a little flour and water into dough and stirred in the hairs from the cow’s tail—these were the straw for her brick; then she moulded the dough into the shape of a heart and stuck two pins in for legs and two for arms; this would surely give Bosum “misery in de legs and arms”—in short, rheumatism. This dough-heart she set aside, for it was not properly part of the project, and would only fulfil its diabolical mission when it was carried to Bosum’s door and set upon his fence or doorstep, when the “misery” would begin.
She then, with rather a quaking heart, prepared to burn the project. The sprigs of southernwood from Bosum’s door-yard, a few rusty nails, the tail of a smoked herring, a scrap of red flannel, a little mass of “grave-dirt” that she had taken from one of the many graveyards that are dotted all over Narragansett, and, last of all, that chief ingredient, the prime factor in all negro charms—a rabbit’s foot—were thrown into a pot of water that was hung upon the crane over a roaring fire. Of course everyone in Narragansett knew that when a project began to boil the conjured one would begin to suffer some mental or bodily ill; hence Tuggie listened with much satisfaction to the premonitory bubbling within the pot.
She stepped into the centre of the room on account of the heat of the fire, and because it is not good luck to watch a boiling project; and as she stood in the red glow of the firelight she was the personification of negro superstition. Tall and gaunt, with long bony arms, and skinny claws of hands, with a wrinkled, malicious, yet half-frightened countenance, surrounded by little pig-tails of gray wool that stuck out from under her scarlet turban, with her old petticoat turned inside out, and a gay little shawl pinned on her shoulders, she stood like a Voodoo priestess eagerly watching and listening. When the boiling fairly began, she commenced swaying, rocking herself backward and forward, patting the floor with heavy foot, almost dancing while she muttered and sung, in a low voice, a few gibberish charms that had been taught by her mother, Queen Abigail. She rolled her eyes up in a superstitious ecstasy, and swung her long arms to the rhythm of her heathenish song, when suddenly a shock like an earth-quake struck her door; it flew violently open, and some long, heavy object rushed in, struck Tuggie violently on her tender shins, and threw her, face downward, on the floor. She was for a moment stunned with the fall and with the suddenness of the assault, but when she regained her senses she still lay on the floor with eyes tightly closed and her face covered with her hands, for this violent assailant was surely that terrifying creature, a “moonack,” that she had raised and brought by her wicked conjuring, and if she glanced at it, it would cause her instant death.
Perfect stillness had succeeded the assault. The old negress groaned and tried to pray. She repeated some old Voodoo charms, the Creed, all kinds of words to ward off evil spirits, and at last pleaded aloud, “Oh, Mass’ Debbil, you only lets me go dis time, I won’t nebber burn no projects no more; I warn’t a-goin’ to hurt Bosum anyway, I only wants to git a new tea-kettle outen him. I’ll frow de project out, and burn up de dough-baby, an’ lug back dat wool I stole from Debby Nickkels, an’ I won’t nebber purtend I’se a witch agin. Oh! Mass’ Moonack! Don’t take me dis time.” At this juncture she again became speechless with terror, for she heard soft, irregular footsteps entering the door. She groaned and moaned, but did not open her eyes.
Four pale and staring boys, Tom and Jeffrey Hazard, Zeke Gardiner, and Pel Noyes, stole softly in on tiptoe, caught hold of the clumsy caricature of a bob-sled that had so fiercely assaulted Tuggie’s shins and knocked her down, dragged it out of the house and disappeared with it down the road. Jeffrey Hazard, who had in him throughout his entire life a far more active and real devil than any evil spirit that Tuggie conjured or dreamed of, could not resist, ere he left the house, catching the old woman by the foot as he passed her and pulling her as if to take her off with him, until her groans of fright made him desist.
Old Tuggie listened to the light footsteps and the dragging noise in agony. With close-shut eyes she listened to the steps of the devils and moonacks as they gradually went away from the house. The cold, icy night-air blew in upon her as she lay on the floor, the water burned down in the pot, and a nauseous odor of burning fish and flesh filled the house. At last she tremblingly arose, closed the door, swung the pot off the fire, seized a horseshoe and prayer-book, and went to bed.
The week previous Pel Noyes had been to Boston, and had returned with his brain and tongue full of a fine sled for coasting that he had seen in that great metropolis. With four old sleigh-runners and a few boards he had rigged an imitation of the beautiful “double-runner,” and the four boys sallied out that winter night to use and enjoy it. They intended to skim past Witch Tuggie’s door with a shrill and annoying shriek of defiance, but alas! their clumsy steering-apparatus broke when they were half-way down the hill, and the contrary sled, rudderless and uncontrolled, instead of gliding past the witch’s door banged into it, with the full success that we know. The boys were thrown into the snow outside the door, and their first impulse was to abandon their newly manufactured sled and run for their lives; but they were quick to discover, from manner and word, that Tuggie was more frightened than they were, and they stole in softly and rescued the sled out of the very witch’s den.
A BLACK POLITICIAN
On a bright June morning in the year 1811, old Cuddymonk sat in the cheerful sunlight at the open door of his house, on the banks of Lake Petaquamscut, in old Narragansett. Cuddymonk was a negro; but a Narragansett negro was, at that date, of almost another race than a Southern negro. He was free; he was usually respected and self-respecting; he might, and often did, own a house and farm of his own; and he had a certain independent social position which was far from being a despised one, for he enjoyed, with his rich white neighbors, who had been slave-owners, a friendly intimacy that was denied to a poor white man. He was, however, somewhat lazy, occasionally untruthful, and even dishonest—like his Southern colored brother. Cuddymonk was a typical Narragansett negro—sharp, shrewd, and in the main thrifty. He was deeply and consistently superstitious, and knew a thousand tales of ghosts and spirits and witches and Manitous, old traditions of African Voodooism and Indian pow-wows. He was profoundly learned in the meaning of dreams and omens and predictions, and he did not hesitate to practise—or attempt to practise—all kinds of witch-charms and “conjures” and “projects,” though he was a member in good standing, as he proudly stated, of “de Pistikle Church.”