Meetin' Seed and Sabbath Day Posies 343 
Parson Mather gives Tansy and Caraway as reme- 
dies for the hiccough, but far better still — spiders, 
prepared in various odious ways ; I prefer Dill. 
Peter Parley said that “a sprig of Fennel was the 
theological smelling-bottle of the tender sex, and not 
unfrequently of the men, who from long sitting in 
the sanctuary, after a week of labor in the field, found 
themselves tempted to sleep, would sometimes bor- 
row a sprig of Fennel, to exorcise the fiend that 
threatened their spiritual welfare/' 
Old-fashioned folk kept up a constant nibbling 
in church, not only of these three seeds, but of bits 
of Cinnamon or Lovage root, or, more commonly 
still, the roots of Sweet Flag. Many children went 
to brooksides and the banks of ponds to gather 
these roots. This pleasure was denied to us, but 
we had a Flag root purveyor, our milkman's 
daughter. This milkman, who lived on a lonely 
farm, used often to take with him on his daily 
rounds his little daughter. She sat with him on 
the front seat of his queer cart in summer and 
his queerer pung in winter, an odd little figure, 
with a face of gypsylike beauty which could scarcely 
be seen in the depths of the Shaker sunbonnet 
or pumpkin hood. If my mother chanced to see 
her, she gave the child an orange, or a few figs, or 
some little cakes, or almonds and raisins; in return 
the child would throw out to us violently roots of 
Sweet Flag, Wild Ginger, Snakeroot, Sassafras, and 
Apples or Pears, which she carried in a deep detached 
pocket at her side. She never spoke, and the milk- 
man confided to my mother that he “took her around 
