ek away from the camp
ground. As they neared the bend they saw a small log shanty, with some
poultry and a pig at the door.

"That's where the witch lives," said Sam.

"Who--old Granny de Neuville?"

"Yep, and she just loves me. Oh, yes; about the same way an old hen
loves a Chicken-hawk. 'Pears to me she sets up nights to love me."

"Why?"

"Oh, I guess it started with the pigs. No, let's see: first about the
trees. Da chopped off a lot of Elm trees that looked terrible nice
from her windy. She's awful queer about a tree. She hates to see 'em
cut down, an' that soured her same as if she owned 'em. Then there
wuz the pigs. You see, one winter she was awful hard up, an' she had
two pigs worth, maybe, $5.00 each--anyway, she said they was, an' she
ought to know, for they lived right in the shanty with her--an' she
come to Da (I guess she had tried every one else first) an' Da he
squeezed her down an' got the two pigs for $7.00. He al'ays does that.
Then he comes home an' says to Ma, 'Seems to me the old lady is
pretty hard put. 'Bout next Saturday you take two sacks of flour and
some pork an' potatoes around an' see that she is fixed up right.'
Da's al'ays doin' them things, too, on the quiet. So Ma goes with
about $15.00 worth o' truck. The old witch was kinder 'stand off.'
She didn't say much. Ma was goin' slow, not knowin' just whether to
give the stuff out an' out, or say it could be worked for next year,
or some other year, when there was two moons, or some time when the
work was all done. Well, the old witch said mighty little until the
stuff was all put in the cellar, then she grabs up a big stick an'
breaks out at Ma:

"'Now you git out o' my house, you dhirty, sthuck-up thing. I ain't
takin' no charity from the likes o' you. That thing you call your
husband robbed me o' my pigs, an' we ain't any more'n square now, so
git out an' don't you dar set fut in my house agin'.

"Well, she was sore on us when Da bought her pigs, but she was five
times wuss after she clinched the groceries. 'Pears like they soured
on her stummick."

"What a shame, the old wretch," said Yan, with ready sympathy for the
Raftens.

"No," replied Sam; "she's only queer. There's lots o' folk takes her
side. But she's awful queer. She won't have a tree cut if she can help
it, an' when the flowers come in the spring she goes out in the woods
and sets down beside 'em for hours an' calls 'em 'Me beauty--me little
beauty,' an' she just l