Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/164

 stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that time, their only means of reaching elevations.

During their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin of the minister's, sat in a corner, playing with his dog's ears, and looking at Ann Mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked very good-natured. After this, Hannah sent Remember Williams home with the horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to take. Then she marched Ann Mary to the herb-doctor's.

"Here, Master Necronsett," she said, "here is Ann Mary to be cured!"

When the doctor told them about his system, Hannah did not like the sound of it at all. Not a drop of "sut tea" or herb-drink was mentioned, but the invalid was to eat all the hearty food Hannah could earn for her. Then, so far from sleeping in a decently tight room, their bed was to stand in a little old shed, set up against Master Necronsett's house. One side of the shed was gone entirely, so that the wind and the sun would come right in on poor, delicate Ann Mary, and there was only an awning of woven bark-withes to let down when it rained.

But even that was not the worst. Hannah listened with growing suspicion while Master Necronsett explained the rest of it. All his magic consisted in the use of a "witch plant," the whole virtue of which