"Only by using his seven wits, Mat," said Mr. Hamlin. "Before you believe any of these unnatural things, see them happen with your own eyes. And when a boy or girl cries out that a witch is sticking pins into them, make sure that they're not pretending; you know children love to pretend things, and they like it all the better if they can get grown people to believe what they pretend. I don't think any witch will try sticking pins or knives in you or Joe, or make you fly over the ground like geese. The witch won't, that is, unless you help her."
Mat chuckled. "Trust Joe and me for keeping away from creatures like that," he declared.
Mat started whittling a whistle from a willow stick, and Mr. Hamlin began adding a column of figures in a cash-book, but after a few minutes he looked up at his wife, who had come into the room and was knitting. "I can't blame the children for talking of witches and magic things," he said, "when all the province of Massachusetts Bay seems to be thinking about the same matters. Everybody's whispering about them, and every man, woman, and child seems suddenly to know exactly what witches do. Three men told me to-day about those poor women they've jailed over at Salem Village. And the men seemed almost to believe that the women really had dealt in witchcraft, although they were all three sober men, and one was a minister of the Gospel."
"And I've been hearing the same things," said his wife. "Men don't do all the gossiping, my dear."
Mr. Hamlin turned again to his cash-book, but his counting was interrupted in a few minutes by a loud rapping at the street-door. Mat opened the door, and Mr. Samuel Glover and his son Joe came hurrying in. "There's strange news afoot," said Mr. Glover, "and I thought it only neighborly to share it with you." He threw his hat and cloak on a chair. "Some one has charged Mistress Ann Swan with dealing in witchcraft, with being a familiar of the Evil One."
"Mistress Swan!" exclaimed husband and wife, while Mat stood listening with his mouth wide open.
"It's said she's bewitched the children, makes them act like cats and dogs, sends them into trances, and misuses them in many different ways."
"She's a most kind-hearted woman, and loves children dearly," said Mistress Hamlin. "She always gives them sweets when they come to see her."
"Aye," agreed Mr. Glover, "so the children say, but they add that she gives them the sweets so she may have a chance to work her evil on them."
"What children say this?" demanded Mr. Hamlin.