"Spit, spit, spider!
If you show me where my pencil is
I'll give you a keg of cider!"
Then note the direction which the escaping particles of saliva take, and there you are! or, rather, there it is—the lost article.
Or there it ought to be, unless you have been guilty of some inexcusable act, such as omitting to wish at the very instant a star is falling, or the first time you taste each new fruit in season, or if you have forgotten to say:
"Star light, star bright,
First star I've seen to-night,
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish to-night!"
It was Bep who taught Frank to count white horses; to pick up a pin when its head was turned toward her, to let it lie when it pointed the other way; to bite the tea-grounds left in a cup, and declare gravely, if soft, that a female visitor might be expected, and, if hard, a male; never to cut friendship by giving or accepting a knife, a pin—indeed, anything sharp; and never, by any chance, to tempt the devil of bad luck by going out of a house by a different door than that by which she had entered.
The versatile Frank was most teachable. When Bep was "collecting bows," Frances would obligingly bow and bob for her minutes at a time, like a Chinese mandarin, or like some small priestess observing a solemn rite. What the Bad Luck was, the terrible alternative of all these precautions, poor Frank could form no idea. But she had come to associate it with the babbling tank, which seemed at night, when all was still, to be gurgling, "Bad Luck—Bad Luck!" threateningly at her.
Then she would go over her conduct during the day, carefully scrutinizing her every action that might have given this chuckling Bad Luck a hold over her.
Not a crack had been stepped on that she could remember; not a pin picked up that should have been let lie; not—
The scream that burst from Frances one Sunday night during this self-catechism brought Madigan and all the family to her bedside.
"What is it—what is it, child?" demanded her father.