Tuggie Bannocks sank upon the table by the fire, murmuring: “Tanks be to Praise! Tanks be to Praise!” and closed her eyes in speechless exhaustion. Debby took a half-crushed basket of eggs from the old woman’s arm, drew off her red woollen mittens, and rubbed briskly her long cold claws of hands. Benny had a vague remembrance of the old-time “emergency” saying, “feathers for fainters,” and seized a turkey’s wing that was in daily use as a hearth-brush, thrust it into the flames, and then held the scorching feathers under the old negress’s nose until all in the room were coughing and choking with the stifling smoke.
Spluttering and choking at the dense feather-smoke, Tuggie gasped out: “I ain’t dead yit—I specks I shall be soon, dough—kase I seen de ole witch a-ridin’—I’se most skeered to death” (then in a fainter voice)—“gib me a mug of dat flip.” Startled, Benny quickly drew a great mug of home-brewed beer and gave it a liberal dash of Jamaica rum and sugar, then seized from the fire the red-hot “loggerhead” and thrust it seething into the liquid until the flip boiled and bubbled and acquired that burnt, bitter flavor that he knew Tuggie dearly loved. The old woman moaned and groaned as she lay on the table-top, but watched the brewing of the flip with eager eye, and sat up with alacrity to drink it.
With many a shuddering sigh and many a glance behind her at the kitchen door, and crossing her fingers to ward off evil spirits she began: “Ye know, Miss Nickkels, I telled ye I was witch-rid by ole Mum Amey, an’ dis how I know I was. Ye see I was a-goin’ to wuk a charm on her first off—not to hurt her none, jess to bodder her a leetle—an’ I jess put my project on de fire one night, an’ it jess a-goin’ to boil, an’ in come her ugly, ole grinnin’ black face at de door, an’ say she a-goin’ to set wid me a spell.” Mum Amey was a wrinkled half-breed Indian of fabulous age and crabbed temper, a “squaw-nurse,” who was, of course, not half as black as negro Tuggie. “She walk ober to de chimbly to light her pipe an’ ask me what I a-cookin’, an’ I say Ise a-makin’ glue, cause Ise afeard she see de rabbit’s foot in de pot, an’ I say it all done, an’ yank de pot offen de crane so she can’t see into it. An’ ob course when I take de project offen de fire afore it’s wukked, it break de charm; an’ wuss still, I can’t nebber try no project on her no more. Ole Mum Amey larf, an’ say, a-leerin’ at me, dat pot ob glue won’t nebber stick nothin’ no more. An’ ebber sence dat night I ben witch-rid. Mornin’s when I wakes up I sees marks ob de bit in de corners ob my mouf, where Mum Amey ben a-ridin’ me all ober Boston Neck an’ up de Ridge Hill till I so tired and stiff I can’t hardly move. Ise ben pinched in de night an’ hab my ha’r pulled. An’ my butter won’t come till I drops a red-hot horseshoe in de cream to dribe her out. One day I jess try her to see ef she a witch (dough I know she one, ’cause I see her talkin’ to a black cat); I drop a silber sixpence in her path, an’ jess afore she get to it she turn an’ go back, jess I know she would. No witch can’t step ober silber. An’ now, Benny Nickkels, I know for shore she’s a witch, I see her jess now in de moonlight a-chasin’ an’ ridin’ your sheep; an’, shore’s yer bawn, yer’ll find some on ’em stone dead in de mornin’—all on ’em, mebbe!”
Benny looked wretched enough at this statement. Dearly as he loved his sheep and ready as he was to face physical discomfort and danger in their behalf, he was too superstitious to dare to go out in the night to rescue them and brave the witch.
“How did she look, Tuggie? And what did she do?” whispered awe-struck Debby.
“Oh, she was mons’ous fearsome to see! Witches don’t nebber go in deir own form when dey goes to deir Sabbaths. She was long an’ low like a snake. She run along de groun’ jess like a derminted yeller painter, a-boundin’, an’ leapin’, an’ springin’, a-chasin’ dem pore sheeps—oh, how dey run! Wid her old red an’ blue blanket tied tight aroun’ her—dat’s how I knowed her. An’ she had big sparklin’ gold dollars on her back—wages ob de debbil, I ’specks. Sometimes she jump in de air an’ spread her wings an’ fly awhile. Smoke an’ sparks come outen her mouf an’ nostrums! Big black horns stick outen her head! Lash her long black tail jess like de debbil hisself!”
At this dramatic and breathless point in Tuggie’s flip-nourished and quickly growing tale, credulous Debby, whose slow-working brain had failed to grasp all the vivid details in the black woman’s fervid and imaginative description, interjected this gasping comment: “It must ha’ been the devil or the creeper.”
Benny jumped from his chair and stamped his foot, and at once burst into a loud laugh of intense relief, and with cheerful bravado began to explain animatedly to his open-mouthed cronies that of course anyone could see that Tuggie’s sheep-chasing witch was only the creeper sheep in her new fleece, and he offered swaggeringly to go out alone to the field to bring the ewe in to prove it.
The old negress sprang to her feet, insulted and enraged at the jeering laughter and rallying jokes, and advanced threateningly toward him. Then, as if with a second thought, she stopped with a most malicious look, and in spite of Debby’s conciliatory explanations and her soothing expressions “that it might have been Mum Amey after all,” she thrust aside Benny’s proffered mollification of a fresh mug of flip, seized her crushed basket, stalked to the door, and left the house muttering, vindictively: “High time to stop such unrageous goin’s-on—dressin’ up sheeps like debbils—scarin’ an ole woman to death an’ breakin’ all her aigs! Ole Tuggie Bannocks ain’t forgot how to burn a project! Guess dey won’t larf at witches den!”
And surely enough—as days passed it could plainly be seen that the old negress had carried out her threat—for the chimney was “conjured”—was “salted.” On windy nights the shepherd and his wife were sure they could hear Tuggie dancing and stamping on the roof, and she blew down smoke and threw down soot, and she called down the chimney in a fine, high, shrieking voice: “I’ll project ye, Benny; I’ll project ye.” And she burnt the cakes before the fire, and the roast upon the spit, and thrice she snapped out a blazing coal and singed a hole in Debby’s best petticoat, though it was worn wrong side out as a saving-charm. And Benny could see, too, that the old ram was bewitched. The remainder of the flock soon became accustomed to the sight of Nanny’s funny false fleece, but he always fled in terror at her approach. He grew thin and pale (or at any rate faded), and he would scarcely eat when Nanny was near. Debby despairingly tried a few feeble counter-charms, or “warders,” but without avail. When sheep-shearing time came, however, and Nanny, shorn of her uncanny fleece and clothed in her own half-inch snowy wool, took her place with the other short-clipped members of the flock, he ceased to be “witch-rid”—the “project,” the “conjure” was worked out. He grew fat and fiercely brave, and became once more the knight of the field, the lord of the domain, the patriarch, the potestate of his flock.