"I have had as good a chance to see a ghost," he once said, "as
anybody ever had, but not the slightest sign ever came to me. I do not
doubt what others tell me, but I sometimes wonder over my own
incapacity. I should like to see some dear ghost walk in and sit down
by me when I am here alone. The doings of the old witch days have
never been explained; and as we are so soon to be transferred to
another state, how natural it appears that some of us should have
glimpses of it here! We all feel the help we receive from the Divine
Spirit. Why deny, then, that some men have it more directly and more
visibly than others?"
In his memories of New England country life when he was a child, this
subject was closely interwoven with every association. He had an
uncle, who made one of the family, a man by no means devoid of the
old-fashioned faith in witches, and who was always ready to give his
testimony. He remembered an old woman in the neighborhood who was
accused of being a witch, and that when his uncle's opinion was asked
about her, he replied that he _knew she was a witch._
"How do you know?" they said.
"Oh," he replied, "I've seen her!"
Whittier recalled this uncle's returning one night from a long drive
through the woods; and when he came in and sat down by the fire after
supper, he told them that he had seen three old women in a clearing
around a kettle, "a-stirrin'of it." When they saw him, they moved off
behind the trees, but he distinctly saw the smoke from the kettle, and
he recognized the old woman in question as one of the three beyond the
shadow of a doubt.
Pages:
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254