erbs, and knew a great deal. They
all shouted with joy at the idea of asking her, and Solomon John and
the younger children agreed to go and find her too. The herb-woman
lived down at the very end of the street; so the boys put on their
india-rubber boots again, and they set off. It was a long walk through
the village, but they came at last to the herb-woman's house, at the
foot of a high hill. They went through her little garden. Here she had
marigolds and hollyhocks, and old maids and tall sunflowers, and all
kinds of sweet-smelling herbs, so that the air was full of tansy-tea
and elder-blow. Over the porch grew a hop-vine, and a brandy-cherry
tree shaded the door, and a luxuriant cranberry-vine flung its delicious
fruit across the window. They went into a small parlor, which smelt very
spicy. All around hung little bags full of catnip, and peppermint, and
all kinds of herbs; and dried stalks hung from the ceiling; and on the
shelves were jars of rhubarb, senna, manna, and the like.

But there was no little old woman. She had gone up into the woods to
get some more wild herbs, so they all thought they would follow
her,--Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and the little boys. They had to
climb up over high rocks, and in among huckleberry-bushes and black
berry-vines. But the little boys had their india-rubber boots. At last
they discovered the little old woman. They knew her by her hat. It was
steeple-crowned, without any vane. They saw her digging with her trowel
round a sassafras bush. They told her their story,---how their mother had
put salt in her coffee, and how the chemist had made it worse instead
of better, and how their mother couldn't drink it, and wouldn't she
come and see what she could do? And she said she would, and took up her
little old apron, with pockets all round, all filled with everlasting
and pennyroyal, and went back to her house.

There she stopped, and stuffed her huge pockets with some of all the
kinds of herbs. She took some tansy and peppermint, and caraway-seed
and dill, spearmint and cloves, pennyroyal and sweet marjoram, basil and
rosemary, wild thyme and some of the other time,---such as you have in
clocks,--sappermint and oppermint, catnip, valerian, and hop; indeed,
there isn't a kind of herb you can think of that the little old woman
didn't have done up in her little paper bags, that had all been dried in
her little Dutch-oven. She packed these all up, and then went back with
the childr