on by their superstitions. They
are governed entirely by them; they enter into their conceptions of
every occurrence. The old Indian woman, before mentioned, afforded a
striking example of the strength of their faith in these "thick coming
fancies." There was nothing, I believe I may say in the world, which was
not with her a "spirit." The waves were "spirits"--the meteors were
"spirits"--the winds singing their lullabies were "spirits"--the
thunders were "spirits." In the long winter evenings, when seated before
the wood fire, which at that season of the year is perpetually burning
on a New England hearth, the sound was heard of a cricket chirping in
the hollow wood; starting with alarm she would exclaim "a spirit!" and
minutes would elapse before she would regain her composure. Seated in a
little chair at her side, how I used to enjoy her long but never tedious
stories of the wonderful things she had seen and heard--of the phantoms
which had visited her bedside, or whispered strange things in her
ear--of the several conversations she had had, face to face, with the
Father of Evil! Once in particular she had seen the latter grim
personage when she was returning from a "husking frolic," _i.e._ an
assemblage of persons met for the purpose of stripping the husks from
Indian corn. She described him as a rather tall and exceedingly gaunt
old gentleman, wearing his hair much as Andrew Skurliewhitter is
described as wearing his in "The Fortunes of Nigel;" his face the colour
of flame, his eyes green as grass, an enormous yellow cocked hat upon
his head, and his robe of woven sea-weed. She averred that he had
neither a club foot as some have pretended, nor a "sooty black skin"
according to the opinion of others. She described the spot where she saw
him with such exceeding accuracy, that I never thereafter, for more than
ten years, passed the particular "bush in the little valley, three steps
from the gate," by daylight, without a shudder, and never at all by
night. She had seen the spirit of her mother, too, employed in knitting
woollen hose for her father's spirit. There was not one of my ancestors
to whom she had been personally known--and she was very aged at the time
of my birth--who had not appeared to her after death, each "with a
circumstance" whose simplicity and truth to nature almost impressed you
with a belief that such a thing had really been.--I implicitly believed
all old Mima's stories, for could I be made to ente