giving the finishing rub to a stamp just put in, heard the
last words, and, looking up, inquired with a slight tone of irony in her
voice, "What did you say about witches, Willie? Who has been telling
you those remarkably wise things about them?"

"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?"

"Why at old Mountain Moggy, of course, or Polly Forty Rags as they call
her. Who else should I throw at? She's as hard as she is wicked; and
they say she has a whole suit of elephant's skin under her rags, and
that's one of the reasons the stones don't hurt her."