Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/46

Rh a wisp of hair back under the white cap whose two starched points stood out stiffly over each ear, she turned again to stirring the mixture in the pot.

"Ach, and it was well I learned how to mix herbs and roots and juices from my mother's mother in Amsterdam! Many things she knew! And often have I been dokter to these stupid Dutchmen. But they are afraid of me, these good people. They think that I have magic because "

A door opened, letting a hint of twilight into the little shack, and a young man entered and seated himself beside a table. His eyes glistened in the firelight, but their stare was fixed and vacant.

"Ah, Hendrick, mijn zoon, you are come for supper!" said the old woman, without glancing around.

"Mijn moeder, mijn moeder, why did we come to Nieuw Nederlandt?" He buried his face in his hands, sobbing. "All day I have tried to find work at the harvest, but they do not want me, even for nothing. They back away from me when I come near them. Even Squire Yaupy De Vries sent me off, and said that I brought evil spirits."

The old woman sighed, and continued to stir the pot over the fire. The parrot, scrambling clumsily upon the table, rubbed its bill against the young man’s sleeve.

"I know. They say that I am a witch," muttered the woman, too low for him to hear. "For all that Hes Brummel does for them they say that she is a witch — because she lives with her half-wit son and her parrot; because she can cure children when they are ill. But little I know about magic. Only I know that once, in Amsterdam, when my mother’s mother was angry with a neighbor, she cursed him. The next day his son was drowned in the canal where he was playing with his little boats, and they said it was because she cursed him; because she called down on him the curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza "

"The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza!" screamed the parrot, beating the table with its wings. "The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and "

The young man raised his head, startled.

"Hold, hold, mijn kleintje!" exclaimed the woman, dropping the ladle and reaching quickly for the excited parrot. "No curses here! Should the child die, Hes Brummel would be to blame. No death curses now!"

The joints of her knees cracked sharply as she straightened up. Reaching high up on a shelf, the old woman brought down a bottle and carefully brushed off the dust. Into it she poured a portion of the mixture which she had been stirring, and set the pot by the side of the fireplace to cool.

"I have made a cure for the sick child of Arie Ver Veelen," she said to her son, who had dumbly watched her every move. "I shall take it there before it gets too dark."

He continued to gaze at her vacantly while she pinned a shawl about her narrow shoulders. Picking up the bottle, she held it before the light of the fire, noting the color of its contents.

"A fine cure it will be," she crooned. "A fine cure!"

"A fine cure!" echoed the parrot.

The young man’s gaze followed her to the door, and returned to stare fixedly before him. The parrot hopped down from the table and went to a dark corner to preen its ruffled feathers and croak monotonously.

but a few minutes of complete darkness when Hes Brummel climbed the slope leading to Arie Ver Veelen’s house. The building was much more pretentious than her own shack of unpainted wood. Its