A sick woman with a wasting disease noticed that every night something would peek in her window. Her husband could find no evidence of this until one night after a snow storm he found the tracks of a large dog outside the window. Following the tracks to the road he saw that they became human footprints and were lost in the other tracks at the side of the road.
The next morning among the friends that called upon the sick woman was an old lady who lived near the creek in a small house. She was a widow and lived alone. This old lady asked about the sick woman in such a peculiar manner that the husband grew suspicious. After the old woman left the sick woman began to feel much worse.
That night she screamed, “She is looking at me!” And the husband going outside saw as before dog tracks running down to the road. He watched and soon some men came by and he asked them if they had seen a large dog. The men said they had; one had just ran down the road toward the creek. Morning came and the husband determined to investigate further. He crossed the road and walked down the other side until he came to the Esther —— place. He noticed that a large dog had run along the fence and had leaped over it. On the other side there were human footprints going to the house.
Morning came and the old woman called again inquiring about the health of the sick woman. This time the husband said, “If you don’t stop witching my wife I will fix you.” The old lady asked him what he meant and said that she was not a witch.
The husband then resolved to watch in the woodshed all night, if need be, and to catch the dog looking into the window. He got some blankets to keep himself warm and waited with his rifle. After a while he heard a sniffing sound and presently heard something walking around the house. Cautiously he looked out and saw the dog with its paws on the window-sill of his wife’s room. Fire was coming out of the dog’s eyes. The husband now ran out and chased the dog which ran down the road. There were many people on the road, for it was moonlight and it was sleighing time. They saw him chasing the dog. It ran to the fence and jumped over. As it poised in mid air over the fence the man fired his gun. There was a yelp and the people saw something shoot through the air and jump into the window of the cabin. The people watched this and looked over the fence but there was no mark or track on the snow, except some dog hair. Three days later the people went to the house and found the old woman dead on her bed with a bullet in her heart. There was dog hair on the window where she had dived through. It was sure then that she had been a witch. The sick woman recovered.
66. WITCH STEALS CHILDREN’S HEARTS.[[58]]
There was an old woman who always helped with children’s funerals, and would sit up all night while the tired parents slept. She would lock the door and stay with the dead children. Everybody thought she was a nice old woman until one time a woman walking by her house saw a witch light fly out of her chimney and go into the graveyard. “Hoh,” she said to herself, “I guess old lady E—— must be a witch.”
Soon thereafter another child died and the old lady came as usual to help with the funeral. That night she sat up with the corpse but this time the woman who had suspected the old lady told her husband Gus to watch her through a window.
Gus found a place outside where he could see into the room. At midnight the old lady took a knife and cut the heart out of the child and then ran out of the house while everybody else slept. She went to her own house and shortly turned into a ball of fire and flew out of the chimney. The light went to an old cemetery where there were many sunken graves. Gus followed, though he was frightened. He saw the old woman put something into a hole in a grave hollow and say, “There, I have got you another. Now you are my friend and will have to show me where I can get money.”
Soon the light soared overhead again and went back into the old lady’s chimney.