There was also a girl, of the pantherine type, and one damsel of about ten, who had light hair and fair complexion, but whose air was gypsy and whose youthful countenance suggested not the golden, but the brazenest, age of life. Scarcely was I seated in the only chair, when this little maiden, after keenly scrutinizing my appearance, and apparently taking in the situation, came up to me and said,—
“Yer come here to have yer fortune told. I’ll tell it to yer for five cents.”
“Can tute pen dukkerin aja?” (Can you tell fortunes already?) I inquired. And if that damsel had been lifted at that instant by the hair into the infinite
glory of the seventh sphere, her countenance could not have manifested more amazement. She stood bouche beante, stock still staring, open-mouthed wide. I believe one might have put a brandy ball into it, or a “bull’s eye,” without her jaws closing on the dainty. It was a stare of twenty-four carats, and fourth proof.
“This here rye” remarked mine uncle, affably, in middle English, “is a hartist. He puts ’is heart into all he does; that’s why. He ain’t Romanes, but he may be trusted. He’s come here, that wot he has, to draw this ’ere Mammy Sauerkraut’s Row, because it’s interestin’. He ain’t a tax-gatherer. We don’t approve o’ payin’ taxes, none of hus. We practices heconomy, and dislike the po-lice. Who was Mammy Sauerkraut?”
“I know!” cried the youthful would-be fortune-teller. “She was a witch.”
“Tool yer chib!” (Hold your tongue!) cried the parent. “Don’t bother the lady with stories about chovihanis” (witches).
“But that’s just what I want to hear!” I cried. “Go on, my little dear, about Mammy Sauerkraut, and you will get your five cents yet, if you only give me enough of it.”
“Well, then, Mammy Sauerkraut was a witch, and a little black girl who lives next door told me so. And Mammy Sauerkraut used to change herself into a pig of nights, and that’s why they called her Sauerkraut. This was because they had pig ketchers going about in those times, and once they ketched a pig that belonged to her, and to be revenged on them she used to look like a pig, and they would follow her clear out of town way up the river, and
she’d run, and they’d run after her, till by and by fire would begin to fly out of her bristles, and she jumped into the river and sizzed.”