Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/158

 1 46 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore.

to stay with her, as they were both to go away that night. The mother came, bringing a companion with her. As the evening wore on, the old ladies sent the colored girls and the mother to bed, saying that they them- selves would lock up the house. Then the ladies went to their chamber, ostensibly to dress. The negroes, suspecting something, watched them through a keyhole, and saw them go to the hearth in their chamber, and there slip out of their human skins, appearing as two black cats, which then scrambled up the chimney.

One of the delighted witnesses of the transformation thereupon sug- gested putting salt and pepper on the empty skins that lay on the hearth- rug, and this was quickly done. Afraid to stay to watch the consequences, they ran from the house, telling the neighbors to watch in the morning, and see what would happen. The neighbors were on hand at an early hour, and, on peeping through the shutters, saw first one, then the other of the black cats crawl back into the human skin that belonged to it, then leap out in an agony of smarting, and so in and out, in and out, for a long time.

The peals of laughter with which the stewardess told this story, and her genuine enthusiasm over the stratagem just narrated, as well as incidental remarks which she made in regard to the existence of witches at the present day, showed undoubting faith in their reality.

Louisiana Ghost Story. — Told in August, 1889, by a negro man of forty-five or thereabouts, employed as dairy-hand at Chestertown, Md. He had come from Louisiana, where he had been a slave.

" About two years ago, I reckon, an ole man died in the place whar I useter live. Pie lef a heap o' proputty ter his heirs ; the' was a right smart head o' chillun, an' he give 'em ev'y one a farm, an' the' was one mo' farm yit lef over. 'Twas a good farm an' the house all furnished up, but no one didn' keer ter live thar, fer they all said the house was haanted.

" But one o' the heirs he said he wan't no way feared but he could lay that ghost ef they 'd give him the farm, V they tole him the farm was his ef he could lay the ghost so 's ter live thar. So he went ter a man o' the name o' Peacock that lived neighbor ter him, an' 't was a church-member, an' offered him a heap o' money ter go an' lay that ghost.

" Mr. Peacock, he went that same night ter the house, takin' his Bible along, 'n' he set thar a-readin' it backward and forward ; he did n' mind it none whether the ghost came a-nigh or not. 1 Sho' nuff, the ghost came along while he was a-readin', an' it went all about thro' the house, so 's Mr. Peacock could hear it goin' inter the diffunt rooms an' a-movin' things this- a-way an' that-a-way. But he did n' let on to hear the ghost, — no indeed, — but he kep' a-readin' away ter his Bible.

" Arter a while the ghost blowed out his lamp, but he jes' lighted it an' read on, V then he went inter the bedroom an' lay down. That sort o' made the ghost mad, so 's it come inter the bedroom an' he see it, like as

1 Reading the Bible backward is supposed to keep ghosts from entering; read- ing it forward, to prevent them (if already in the house) from harming one.

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