der. At the time
referred to in Snow-Bound she was boarding at the Rocks Village about
two miles from us.

In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of
information; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only
annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was a
necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a young
man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us of his
adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn in the
French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of hunting and
fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories which he at least half
believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My mother, who was born in the
Indian-haunted region of Somersworth, New Hampshire, between Dover and
Portsmouth, told us of the inroads of the savages, and the narrow escape
of her ancestors. She described strange people who lived on the
Piscataqua and Cocheco, among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my
possession the wizard's "conjuring book," which he solemnly opened when
consulted. It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic printed in 1651,
dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Michael Scott, had learned "the
art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is famous in the
annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the
first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of
conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult
Philosophy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws,
Counsellor to Caesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of the Prerogative
Court.

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits,
which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of
the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire
drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same."
--Cor. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v.

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the rivet and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm."