“_Wat donder is dat!_” exclaimed he, sorely perplexed; “de old duyvel has cot indo dat old sinner's stivers, I dink.” He had a great mind to throw them away, but he thought it a pity to waste so much money; so he kept them locked up all night, enjoining them to good behaviour, with a design to spend them the next day in another jollification. But the next day they were gone, and so was the broomstick with which it was the custom to sweep out the shop every morning. Some of the neighbours coming home late the night before, on being informed of the “abduction” of the broomstick, deposed and said, they had seen an old woman riding through the air upon just such another, right over the top of the little bakehouse; whereat Boss Boomptie, putting these odds and ends together, did tremble in his heart, and he wished to himself that he had given the ugly old woman thirteen to the dozen.
Nothing particular came to pass the next day, except that now and then the little Boompties complained of having pins stuck in their backs, and that their cookies were snatched away by some one unknown. On examination it was found that no marks of the pins were to be seen; and as to the cookies, the old black woman of the kitchen declared she saw an invisible hand just as one of the children lost his commodity.
“Den I am pewitched, zure enough!” cried Boomptie, in despair, for he had had too much of “demonology and witchcraft” in the family not to know when he saw them, just as well as he did his own face in the Collect.
On the second day of the year, the 'prentice boys all returned to their business, and Boomptie once more solaced himself with the baking of the staff of life. The reader must know that it is the custom of bakers to knead a great batch at a time, in a mighty bread tray, into which they throw two or three little apprentice boys to paddle about, like ducks in a mill pond, whereby it is speedily amalgamated, and set to rising in due time. When the little caitiffs began their gambols in this matter they one and all stuck fast in the dough, as though it had been so much pitch, and, to the utter dismay of honest Boomptie, behold the whole batch rose up in a mighty mass, with the boys sticking fast on the top of it!
“_Wat blikslager!_” exclaimed little Boomptie, as he witnessed this catastrophe; “de duyvel ish cot into de yeast dis dime, I dink.”
The bread continued to rise till it lifted the roof off the bakehouse, with the little 'prentice boys on the top, and the bread tray following after. Boss Boomptie and his wife watched this wonderful rising of the bread in dismay, and in proof of the poor woman's being bewitched, it was afterwards recollected that she uttered not a single word on this extraordinary occasion. The bread rose and rose, until it finally disappeared, boys and all, behind the Jersey hills. If such things had been known of at that time, it would have been taken for a balloon; as it was, the people of Bergen and Communipaw thought that it was a water spout.
Little Boss Boomptie was disconsolate at the loss of his bread and his 'prentice boys, whom he never expected to see again. However, he was a stirring body, and set himself to work to prepare another batch, seeing his customers must be supplied in spite of “witchcraft or demonology.” To guard against such another rebellious rising, he determined to go through the process down in the cellar, and turn his bread tray upside down. The bread, instead of rising, began to sink into the earth so fast, that Boss Boomptie had just time to jump off before it entirely disappeared in the ground, which opened and shut just like a snuffbox.
“Wat blikslager is dat!” exclaimed he, out of breath; “my pread rises downward dis dime, I dink. My customers must go widout to-day.”
By-and-by his customers came for hot rolls and muffins, but some of them had gone up and some down, as little Boss Boomptie related after the manner just described. What is very remarkable, nobody believed him; and doubtless, if there had been any rival baker in New-Amsterdam, the boss would have lost all his customers. Among those that called on this occasion, was the ugly old woman with the sharp eyes, nose, chin, voice, and leather spectacles.
“I want a dozen Newyear cookies!” screamed she, as before.