An Old Log that Was Bewitched 73 



statue of Memnon, that was said from time to 

 time to give out a sound like the breaking of a 

 harp-string, it is nevertheless a fact, much bet- 

 ter authenticated than the story of the statue, 

 that the log was full of uncanny, mysterious 

 sounds that saluted the dawn and at certain sea- 

 sons of the year, might be heard almost any time 

 throughout the day. They did not sound like 

 harp-strings, but were clearly alive with a thrill- 

 ing affinity for a boy's heart-strings. Poe opened 

 the door of his chamber and in there stepped a 

 stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; but a 

 thousand times I opened the door of the grove 

 and peered in to find silence there, and nothing 

 more. Silence, tense and inscrutable, fairly lay- 

 ing the somnolent old log upon which a woodland 

 minstrel had stood, not two minutes before, mak- 

 ing the welkin ring, and speedily eloped with the 

 echoes. In those days, of a May morning, you 

 might start to run it down and it broke out behind 

 you; retrace your steps and you heard it to the 

 right or left clearly making a fool of you in a 

 quest as impossible of success as an attempt to 

 catch your own shadow. 



It really seemed as though no one in the com- 

 munity could explain the mystery of the bewitched 

 log, but no one took it seriously and laughed at 

 me as a rule, some resorting to Munchausen in- 



