only as I held it with my hands.

The nearest

house I knew, in the direction of home, was two miles. I left the game and my gun in the woods, and undertook to make the distance.

"Before dark I reached the cabin of John Hennesy. John did not know me at first, and he said:

""Great God, man! what is the matter? You are covered with blood.'

"I got my panther, John, and maybe he has got me.'

"Why, Rube Blannerhasset! you are so bloody I did not know you. Come in. Here, wife, help this man. I knew you had been hunting that varmint ever since he interfered with your sparkin' business. You were bound to have things out of the way of your crossing the hurricane. Did you miss your shot? Rather an unlikely thing for you.'

"I could only see his head, and he moved it just as I fired, and it turned out that I had to shoot him with my knife. That is how I got scratched. Go for the doctor, John, and let him fix these wounds, and then I will tell you where he is, with the gun.'

"John was off in a minute, and in two hours the doctor was there. The neighborhood was there, and they held a jubilee over the dead

panther. During the time my wounds were healing I tanned that pelt with alum and woodashes. And you have made a floor rug of it. They say in New York that would be considered a luxury. A wild panther-skin rug on our floor. is quite an amount of style for backwoodsers; and we can only afford it because I went to see that girl-long before I ever knew you, who are now Louise Blannerhassett."

"It was an ill wind that blew a little good," said my mother; and the candle was blown out for the night.

"When the fire out-doors burns merrily,
There the witches are, making tea."

-WHITTIER.

T is not very strange that in an early day

IT.

many people should believe in witches. Their rude minds never had more than the touch of a half-civilized life. They were in no sense responsible for being ignorant of the reflective values which education brings. It was only natural, therefore, and to be expected of them, that they should have some explanation of the occult and mysterious mental and physical forces which had their full play among these strong-minded and strong-bodied, but uncultured people. It was then as it is always-some one mind, coming to a conclusion and proclaiming it, makes converts, and gets itself on the

forefront of attention; and it holds the day, though born of superstition-itself a superstition. It is frequently so that a whole community comes to believe the vagaries of a single mind. Shall we ever be free from these perplexing moral and psychic forces that have such marvelous interplay between the life terrestrial and the life celestial? Is it desirable to get rid of them, except in the sense of driving the dominion of mystery before us as we advance in the knowledges? This is the only world, so far as we know, where the instincts of the animal are linked with the aspirations of a God. And it may be that this is the world in which God has linked his two codes-the physical and spiritual. We do not know but this is the procreating ground of the universe. But we do know that we are here in the edges of what we believe to be the spiritual world, and that we frequently lose our bearings and follow the ignus fatuus into the swamps. These mysterious laws, concerning the operation of which we yet know but little, were hung about with superstitious notions then, in a greater way than now; and they produced a class of phenomena peculiar to the time.

The spirit of investigation into the ground of things was not as keen then. The earlier years

of a nation's life are of the poetical cast rather than the scientific. The poetical spirit personates all forces. The scientific spirit has no use for a personal pronoun.

The explanations given certain facts, as these people knew them, were the best the mind could do for itself, lacking knowledge. The mysteries of life do not get rid of the facts of life; and the physical laws with which we are acquainted do not explain all facts, or account for all facts, by any means.

Of course I believed in witches with the other folks. My idea of a witch was a toothless old hag, visible and invisible at will, and possessed with power to torment people with whom displeased. I never saw a witch; but like others, I have suffered a hundred deaths in expectation of seeing one. Until I was quite a boy I supposed I had saved my life several times by running from them. The witch stories I heard when I was a boy were grim-visaged affairs. There was a particularly peculiar character in the country, who was not so much a vagabond as possessed with a penchant for going from house to house, staying over night, and regaling the people with his talk. He thought himself a great conversationalist. He was not a bore, or a sponge, but a stayer over night. He did