"And besides that," said Mary, "Joan of Arc was a beautiful young girl, and not a witch. I know some of the people called her so; but mother says they were very foolish and wicked."
"Well, I ain't a going to dispute your mother in her opinion of witches; she knows twice to my once about books; but that ain't saying she knows everything, Polly Lyman," returned Siller, laying down her knitting in her excitement; "and 'twill take more'n your mother to beat me out of my seven senses, when I've seen witches with my own naked eyes, and heard 'em a talking to their gray cats."
"Where? O, where?" cried little Patty.
All the "witch" Siller had ever seen was an Englishwoman by the name of Knowles, and the most she ever heard her say to her cat was "Poor pussy." But Siller did not like to be laughed at by a little girl like Polly Lyman; so she tried to make it appear that she really knew some remarkable things.
"Well," said Mary, "I don't see why a gray cat is any worse to talk to than a white one: why is it? Mrs. Knowles asked my mother if it was having a gray cat that made folks call her a witch.—Siller, Mrs. Knowles wasn't the woman you meant, when you said you'd seen a witch?"
"Perhaps so—perhaps not. But what did your mother say when Mrs. Knowles asked her that question?"
"Why, mother laughed, and told Mrs. Knowles not to part with her gray cat, if it was good to catch mice."
"Yes, yes. I know your mother don't believe any of these things that's going; but either Goody Knowles is a witch, or else I am," said Siller, her tongue fairly running away with her.
"Why, Siller Noonin, what makes you think so?"
"Well, for one thing, she can't shed but three tears, and them out of her left eye," said Siller; "that I know to be a fact, for I've watched her, and it's a sure sign. Then Daddy Wiggins, he weighed her once against the church Bible, and she was the lightest, and that's another sure sign. Moreover, he tried her on the Lord's Prayer, and she couldn't go through it straight to save her life. Did you ever mind Goody Knowles's face, how it's covered with moles?"