Whipping Out the Witches.

Otago Witness, Issue 1764, 12 September 1885, Page 27

Whipping Out the Witches.

James Juniper Shier, editor of the Port Jervis (N.Y.) Gazette, while walking through Sullivan County a few days ago, on a collecting tour, stopped at a cabin in the mountains back of Pond Eddy to rest himself. The wife of the proprietor was in the cabin churning. While watching this woman at her work Mr Shier was surprised to see her stop, look into the churn in a perplexed manner, and then seize a bundle of switches, with which she began to switch the churn smartly, walking around it as she whipped. " 'Taint the churn I'm lickin'," said she, in reply to the editor's inquiries. " I hain't got nothin' 'gin the_ churn. It's the witches in it that I'm slatherin' an' tryin' to make git out'n here. This h'yer churn's bewitched, an' has ben fur better'n a month, an' I can't make butter enough come to greasfe a 3in. corn cake. These is hazel switches I'm a usin', but they don't seem to get the charm up ez they orter. Hazel switches orter drive the peskiest kind of a witch away at the fust two or three whacks, but they's sumpin' wrong with these uns. If I only had my lucky quarterback I'd soon hustle 'em out."

" What do you mean by that ?" a&ked the Port Jervis editor.

" Wat do I mean ?" replied the old dame. "My lucky quarter, o' course ; that's wat I mean. I had a silver quarter dollar wunst, an' I usety put that in the churn ev'ry time I used it, an' them 'ere witches laid low 'nuff then, I can tell ye. But home one stole that quarter 'bout a month ago, an' these witches has had the upper hand o' me ever since. This is wearin' work on an ol' woman like me. I only wish I could git my quarter back. Or else I wish I had another one."

The editor from Port Jervis produced a quarter, which the old woman dropped in the' churn, Walked backward around it three times, and then seized the dasher and went vigorously to work. After a few brisk strokes she said :

" Thar, sir. They've gone ! They couldn't stand the silver. I'll have this butter ready to work now in less'n a jiffy. I'm much obleeged." James Juniper Shier did not wait for the butter to come, but resumed his journey. •' So she caught you, did she ?" said a friend at Pond Eddy to whom he told the story. "If you had gone back and peeked through a window you would have seen the innocent old lady fishing that quarter out of the churn and depositing in it an old coffee-pot in the cupboard, They say she's got it more than half full of lucky coins that confiding victims have given her to replace the one she lost. During the hunting and fishing season she reaps a harvest as her cabin is a handy place for the tired and hungry sportsnian to ask for a little snack. Yes, this belief in witchcraft in Sullivan County is a sad thing to think about, but it pays." When Mr Shier got back to Port Jervis he said he didn't care so much about having been taken in, but the quarter was just half of his day's collections, and he could have had more fun with it at home. — Rochester Democrat Chronicle.