6 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
Colonial type, and has a charming, wild garden with all 
those flowers your grandmother had in her “back yard.” 
Don’t you remember the row of hollyhocks, straight and 
vivid and tall, against the fence, the cosmos growing more 
graceful year by year, the petunias, which lasted until 
November, and the fragrant lilacs? ‘This quaint, old 
house at Ipswich has them all, and a magnificent elm tree 
to boot. 
Why the house is haunted, I do not know; the tale 
has been lost, but the story that has come down to us 1s as 
interesting and, probably, more cheerful. As far back as 
the latter part of the 18th century, the house had a firmly 
established reputation as an abode of ghostly: creatures, 
and many the passer-by, who trembled as he rode through 
the shadow of the elm tree by the gate. 
One evening Ipswich lay sleeping under the stars of 
a pleasant evening, when a lone rider came along the road 
to the haunted house. He was thinking of the tales he 
had heard of murder and wrong there, ‘and could searce 
keep from urging his horse into a gallop as he passed the 
old elm. A boy ‘lay in wait in the darkness, and when he 
heard the sound of the hoofbeats, gathered himself up 
in readiness, Nearer came the horseman, and as he came 
abreast, the boy sent out a fearful yell from his young 
lungs and shouting, ““Now, where’s the ghost?,” clasped 
the rider about the waist and sprang up behind him. In 
greater terror than ever Ichabod Crane felt, the rider 
pounded through the streets of sleeping Ipswich, weiking 
the veople with a wilder commotion than ever Paul Re- 
vere made. 
Through the village, past the homes where startled 
men, women, children and dogs came out to join the 
chase, the rider took his course. The village pastor join- 
ed the throng, and then, wnen the horse with his double 
burden reached silent Ipswich River, the boy slipped away 
into the darkness, laughing at the furor he had aroused. 
We can imagine how the rider’s tale of his mysterious 
companion grew until the vanished rider appeared to 
his over wrought imagination, a hideous monster witi 
head of fire and arms of steel. Certain it is that the 
crowd was stricken with terror until the pastor whose 
“only fear, the fear of God,” was, called them together 
under the starlight, saying, 
“Friends, let us pray. It 1s God’s will 
That, somehow, good shall conquer ill.” 
Thus, the leader soothed his people in the quiet night 
and they returned to their homes, sadder and wiser for a 
boy’s wild prank. One by one ‘the lights in the village 
went out, the night became peaceful once more, and 
HE North Shore workroom for the American Fund 
for French Wounded opened June Ist in the com- 
modious coach-house of Mrs. EK. S. Grew, at “All Oaks,” 
West Manchester. The delightfully large airy room 1s 
fitted out with long work tables covered in white oil-cloth, 
where the 25 or more women gather each Monday and 
Thursday from 10 to 1. As the season advances it is 
hoped a larger number will be in regular attendance. 
They are coming from all along the Shore and some from 
Ipswich are lending support. The need and suffering “4 
French hospitals is greater than ever and the demand for 
such work is being ably met by the women. ‘The greatest 
of precaution is taken in preparing the sponges, bandages. 
rolls of cotton and wool dressings, individual dressings. 
special gauze dressings and in all of the 15 different 
varieties of surgical dressings and surgical clothes which 
are produced at this busy workroom. Some of the mem- 
bers are making surgical shirts, knitted wool sweaters and 
sgypt River flowed on serenely beneath the silent stars. 
My last story is one less fantastic in its details, and 
one which bears the stamp of Truth in all its details. : It 
is the story of Moll Pitcher, the prophet of Lynn, who 
was born in about the thirty-eighth year of the eighteenth 
century, at the “Old Brig’ at Marblehead. ‘The house is 
standing yet at the corner of what are now Pond and 
Orne streets. Her father was Aholiab Diamond, a cord- 
wainer, who was evidently able to give his daughter some 
education, although the details of Moll’s education are 
strangely lacking. On October 2, 1670, she married her 
father’s apprentice, Robert Pitcher. 
It was after her marriage, after she had gone with 
her husband to make a new home on the road to Marble- 
head, that Moll Pitcher’s professional career began. Let 
us have a glance at her home. The spot was wild with 
the picturesque wildness of ungainly rocks and hardy 
wild cedars and rough pasture land. The house (this, 
too, is still standing on the northwesterly side of Essex 
street, opposite Pearl) fronted the sea, and there was a 
tiny garden there. ‘There were four children, John, R ~ 
beeca, Ruth and Lydia. Mrs. Pitcher’s clientage gTew 
almost overnight, so that it had attained considerable size 
before any thing definite was known about it. Her reveia- 
tions astounded everyone, the vulgar and the educate] 
alike; and people came from all New England to consult 
her upon questions of love, legacies, crimes, and lottery 
tickets. Men of the sea came to Moll Pitcher to ask her 
when their ships should sail, and neither crew nor master 
would venture upon the waters if she prophesied disaster. 
Treasure seekers met with short shrift at her hands, for 
she always answered, “Fools, do you think if I knew 
where money was buried I would part with the secret?” 
She was not “the muttering witch-wife of the gossip’s 
tale,” but a woman like other women. Her face was noi 
beautiful, but it was fine and interesting; her eyes were 
calm and pensive; her low, broad forehead, framed by 
masses of dark hair, indicated her excellent judgement 
and discernment. She was well formed and of mediuim 
height. I like to think of this wholesome, kindly woman 
sitting at her little table, which may still be seen at the 
Essex Institute in Salem, peering into a cup of tea to 
divine the future for her “guest.” For be it known thit 
hers was the old-fashioned way of revealing that which 
was on the knees of the gods. Steeped tea, turned un- 
strained into the cups provided her with her wherewithal 
to change the course of many a life. Moll Pitcher died 
when she had lived 75 years of vigorous life, on the oth 
day of ~pril, and she lies buried in ‘the old burying ground 
near the western end of the common in Lynn. 
other comforts at their homes and bring them to the 
room for shipment in the special bags provided to send 
the supplies to the Boston headquarters. Everything is 
neatly rolled and stamped with “A. F. F. W:;*Boston 
Committee.” Miss Harriet Rantoul, treasurer, at Beverly 
farms, will receive checks for the money to carry on the 
work this summer. 
Mrs. Russell Codman, chairman; Mrs. M. G. Haughton, 
secretary ; Miss Harriet Rantoul, treasurer; Mrs. Robert 
S. Bradley, Mrs. Lester Leland, Mrs. Henry S: Grew, 24, 
Mrs. George Lyman and Miss Alice Thorndike, Last 
season the North Shore women made a great success of 
their work in the coach-house at the home of Mrs. W. D. 
Denégre in West Manchester. In the autumn the work 
was continued a short time in Mrs. Grew’s coach-house. 
In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, 
but in passing it off, he is superior. . 
June 23, 1916. 
The reorganized committee includes’ 
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