THE WITCH IN THE CREAM. 



A TRUE STORY. 



The old stone farm-house in which my said, "and if they jumped in they would 



grandmother lived had beneath it what drown." Janey shook her head know- 



I thought a very interesting cellar. The ingly and said, "It's witches, Missy, dat's 



floor was plastered and whitewashed like jes what it is." A light board was placed 



the walls, to ensure the place from rats over the milk that evening, but we found 



and other intruders, as well as to keep it that the marauder pushed it off in the 



cool. From the walls, flat stones project- night. We felt that we must come to 



eel, serving as shelves on which the butter Janey's conclusion about the witches, if 



and milk were kept. For years the milk the mystery were not solved soon, 



had had a shelf to itself near the window. In the afternoon of the third day of 



One summer morning, while Grandma these experiences we were sitting on the 



and I were sitting on the porch waiting back porch with our sewing, both of us 



for breakfast, the little colored servant half asleep, when chancing to look up I 



came to us with wide-open eyes, saying : saw a rat go scudding across the yard. 



"La, Missy, jes look at dis milk-pan !" Straight to the cellar window he went, 



We looked, and saw, to our disgust, that and, approaching one corner, thrust his 



the inside of the pan was covered with nose under the sash. He gave a mighty 



sand and grime, while the milk, which tug, pushed one paw under, and soon, by 



usually was coated with rich, thick cream, pushing and pulling with nose and with 



was thin and poor. "Why, Janey," said paws, he crept through the window. 



Grandma, "you didn't put milk away in a From my position on the porch I could 



pan like that, did you?" "La, no, Missy," see all that was happening in the cellar, 



said Janey, "nobody wouldn't nebber put He jumped to the milk shelf, turned 



milk away in a dirty pan." "This is very around, raised himself on his forepaws, 



strange," said Grandma. "You will have and clasped the edge of the milk pan with 



to throw the milk away, Janey, and be his hind ones. 



especially careful to have the pan clean He then threw his tail into the pan, 

 this evening." "Yes'm," said Janey, "I whisked it rapidly over the milk, coating 

 will." it with cream, and licked it. This he re- 

 Trie following morning, however, the peated until he had a full meal, or at least 

 milk had to be thrown away again, as the until he had skimmed all the cream, 

 pan was in a worse condition than on the He started homeward then, and I was 

 preceding morning. "I don't understand so much amazed that I didn't attempt to 

 it," said Grandma. "It can't be rats, nor stop him. On the following morning he 

 mice, for there is no way for them to was caught in the steel trap set just inside 

 come in." "They couldn't climb into a the window for him. 

 tin pan eight inches high, at any rate," I Elizabeth Roberts Burton. 



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