“Oh, the people about here, and the other fellows at school,” answered Willie in a low tone and somewhat hesitating manner, for he was not fond of having to reply to his sister’s pointed questions.
“Oh, the people about here,” said Anna, repeating his words. “Is it possible they can believe such nonsense?”
Willie did not reply. “Anna wouldn’t think it nonsense if she was to see Old Polly Forty Rags,” he muttered. After being silent for some time he added, “If ever there was an old witch she is one.”
“You said she came from America, Willie. Why, that’s where Frank’s ship has been to, isn’t it?” said Arthur.
“Of course it is,” cried Willie, as if a bright thought had occurred to him. “I wonder whether he heard anything of her there? He’ll soon be at home, and then he’ll tell us.”
“If she didn’t send his ship on the rocks,” remarked Arthur.
“She’d better not have tried to do it, or we’d pay her off for it,” said Willie, as if speaking of some heroic purpose.
“But I thought you said that she couldn’t be killed; and if she couldn’t be killed, she couldn’t be hurt, I should think,” observed Arthur, who was called the philosopher of the family.
“Well, I don’t know: they say witches can’t be killed, and that Old Polly Forty Rags has lived hundreds and hundreds of years,” said Willie, justly considered the most thoughtless of the family. “Nothing does hurt her either. You can’t think what fun it is to hear the stones bounce against her, just as if she was made of straw. If anything could hurt her, I know a big stone I sent in at her window this evening would have given her a cracker she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. It’s my belief that she didn’t care for it more than she would if it had been a pea out of a pea-shooter.”
Anna’s attention was again drawn to her brother’s whispered conversation. “What are you saying about throwing stones?” she asked. “At whom have you been throwing stones?”