Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/122

 such as river mud, or the scale of a fish, or the eye of a snake, or the skin of a frog, even a hair or a toe-nail can work wonders. Daddy had always been kind to the most useless things and befriended them. In return they worked for him. They told him where lost things were, what the past was, what things were to come; they trusted him, and taught him all their own wisdom.

He could fix Mary something that would not only keep July safe from Cinder and all other women, but would bind him to her for ever. It would pay her to go and see the old man and tell him about her troubles.

If she had stayed a good Christian girl, as she started out to be, then God might have listened toher prayers. But she sinned. She was a fallen member. She would have to depend on magic now, the only power that will work as well for a sinner as it does for a Christian.

When Daddy Cudjoe did give her a charm, she must be mighty careful with it. Charms are strong things. Sometimes they miss and start, up troubles of their own that are worse than ther ones they are meant to cure.

Daddy Cudjoe made a bad mistake one time himself, when he fixed some kind of a root medicine to help his shortness of breath. Lord!