r the Sporting man
Was wuss nor her hate of Hell!

--Cracked Jimmie's Ballad of Sanger.

Yan took his earliest opportunity to revisit the Sanger Witch.

"Better leave me out," advised Sam, when he heard of it. "She'd never
look at you if I went. You look too blame healthy."

So Yan went alone, and he was glad of it. Fond as he was of Sam, his
voluble tongue and ready wit left Yan more or less in the shade, made
him look sober and dull, and what was worse, continually turned the
conversation just as it was approaching some subject that was of
deepest interest to him.

As he was leaving, Sam called out, "Say, Yan, if you want to stay
there to dinner it'll be all right--we'll know why you hain't turned
up." Then he stuck his tongue in his cheek, closed one eye and went to
the barn with his usual expression of inscrutable melancholy.

Yan carried his note-book--he used it more and more, also his
sketching materials. On the road he gathered a handful of flowers and
herbs. His reception by the old woman was very different this time.

"Come in, come in, God bless ye, an' hoo air ye, an' how is yer father
an' mother--come in an' set down, an' how is that spalpeen, Sam
Raften?"

"Sam's all right now," said Yan with a blush.

"All right! Av coorse he's all right. I knowed I'd fix him all right,
an' he knowed it, an' his Ma knowed it when she let him come. Did she
say onything about it?"

"No, Granny, not a word."

"The dhirty hussy! Saved the boy's life in sphite of their robbin' me
an' she ain't human enough to say 'thank ye'--the dhirty hussy!
May God forgive her as I do," said the old woman with evident and
implacable enmity.

"Fwhat hev ye got thayer? Hivin be praised, they can't kill them all
off. They kin cut down the trees, but the flowers comes ivery year, me
little beauties--me little beauties!" Yan spread them out. She picked
up an Arum and went on. "Now, that's Sorry-plant, only some calls it
Injun Turnip, an' I hear the childer call it Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Don't
ye never put the root o' that near yer tongue. It'll sure burn ye like
fire. First thing whin they gits howld av a greeny the bhise throis to
make him boite that same. Shure he niver does it twicet. The Injuns
b'ile the pizen out o' the root an' ates it; shure it's better'n
starvin'."

Golden Seal (_Hydrastis canadensis_), the plant she had used for
Sam's knee, was duly recognized and praised, its wonderful golden
root, "the best goold i