214 EYE SPY 
chestnut, as we all know, are proverbially potent 
as personal or household charms against ill luck. 
I once knew a shrewd countryman who gave all 
the credit of his success in " tradin' ' to the 
" hoss-chestnut " which he carried in his pocket, 
and would as soon think of throwing his money 
away as to " drive a trade " without it. More 
than one old " down - East " dame " sets gre't 
store " by the horseshoe hung above her door- 
way, always secured ends up, " so's the luck can't 
run out." Then there was old Aunt Huldy, who, 
while she claimed to locate springs and wells 
the country round by her witch-hazel divining- 
rod, never ventured upon these expeditions with- 
out the concealed necklace of dried star puff-balls 
hung about her neck. 
But perhaps the most universal of all these nat- 
ural symbols of good-fortune is to be found in the 
four-leaved clover, almost a world -wide supersti- 
tion, and traced back to the ancient astrologers. 
" If a man, walking the fields," writes one of them, 
" finds any four-leaved grasse, he shall in a short 
while after finde some good thing." 
The clover was considered as being especially 
"noisome to witches," and the "holy trefoil charm" 
was a powerful spell against their harm ; the " tre- 
foil" being the most widely used title of the clover 
Trifolium, as it is in the botany three leaved. 
And such it should be, to be true to its christen- 
