“No bribe’ll ebber soil dis hand while it fills de office ob de Gub’nor’s seat! But dey do say de best charm eber seed ter bring good luck forebber is ter look at a constable a-dancin’ ober runnin’ water. Now here’s de bridge an’ a good dancin’-floor. I’ll hole der hoss an’ sing ‘Old Charmany Fair,’ an’ you dance, ter bring good luck ter me in de ’lection next week. Den I s’pose I’ll hab ter gib up going ter jail dis time just ter please yer.”
The constable was stunned by this audacious and fairly insulting proposition; but being thoroughly convinced that Cuddy was half demented, he thought it better to yield at once to the stubborn negro’s condition, and thus save his precious and much-wasted time. He jumped from his horse and angrily yanked off Cuddy’s blanketful of jail equipage, and threw it on the ground. He glanced apprehensively up and down the road to see that there was no approaching traveller to spread the tale of his ridiculous discomfiture and abject submission, and then walked to the middle of the bridge and began to sullenly dance to Cuddy’s lively and rollicking dance-tune. The jolly song and dismal jig were nearly ended, when a most surprising and inexplicable event took place. The constable’s sedate and quiet horse gave a sudden snort, reared, broke away from Cuddy’s restraining hand, and plunged violently down the hill.
“Stop her! Stop her, Cuddy!” roared Mr. Cranston, as he suddenly ceased his forced dance and began to run.
“I ain’t agoin’ ter run none after dat ole hoss,” said Cuddy; “I’se got de rheumatiz’ too bad. You jess see ef you can’t run faster as you can dance. You can’t catch her, dough,” he called after the retreating sheriff. “I know she’s conjured by de way she run. It always do conjure a hoss to see a constable a-dancin’ ober runnin’ water.”
As the constable shouted “Whoa!” at the top of his lungs and chased wildly down the hill out of sight, Cuddy walked to the side of the bridge and threw into the water the long, sharp locust-thorn that had done such sly and good execution as a spur, as a “conjure” to the sheriff’s steed. Then he sat down by the side of his blanket bundle in the hot noonday sunlight, and he took out his fiddle and scraped and sawed to the bees and birds and butterflies like a jolly yellow Pan. And he chuckled and laughed and whistled and sang, and once he jumped up and danced through “Old Chalmouni Fair” with a brisk vigor that put to shame the unwilling and clumsy efforts of the constable, and made the tow tongs and the blue coat-tails snap and flap around his shrivelled old yellow legs. It was certainly most astonishing to see such agility and activity in a man so aged, and in one so rheumatic and so witch-ridden an hour previously. At last a passing farm-wagon picked him up and carried him and his great bundle to his own door.
As Cuddymonk replanted his early potatoes the following morning, he once more soliloquized to his wife:
“I tell you, Rosann, dat ole fool ob a Cranston won’t nebber ’rest me fer debt no more. I ain’t goin’ to raise no more pigs anyway, even ef I does get ’em somewhat cheap. ’Tatoes is better’n pigs. Times nebber’ll be good in dis country till ebberybody stops raisin’ pigs an’ plant ’tatoes; dat’s de true secret ob de pollitercul crisis ob dis land.”
THE WITCH SHEEP
In the darkness of Christmas morning, in the year 1811, old Benny Nichols could not sleep. He was not thinking of Santa Claus nor of Christmas gifts; he was watching for the first gray dawn which marked his regular rising hour, and he tossed and turned, wondering why he was so wakeful, until at last he rose in despair and lighted a candle to discover how long he had to wait ere daybreak. To his amazement he found the hands of the old clock pointing to the hour of nine, and as he stood shivering, candle in hand, staring at the apparently deceitful, bland face the clock raised its voice and struck nine, loudly and brassily, as if to prove that its hands and face told the truth. Benny then walked quickly to the window, and saw that the apparent darkness and length of the night came from a great wall of snow which covered the entire window and which had nearly all fallen since the previous sunset.
Keenly awake at once when he recognized the lateness of the hour, the old man wakened his wife Debby, and bade her “hurry up and git somethin’ to eat. It’s nine o’clock, and we’ve had the wust snowstorm ye ever see, and me a-laying’ here in bed, and them new sheep a-walkin’ into the sea and gittin’ drownded!”