irl, 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!"

III.

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 depended on one
thing. The sick person must be the only one to handle or care for it, from
the seed up to the mature plant.

He took them up to his garret, where row after row of dried plants hung,
heavy with seed-pods, and with the most careful precautions to avoid
touching them himself, or having Hannah do so, he directed Ann Mary to fill
a two-quart basin with the seed.

"That will plant a piece of ground about six paces square," he said. "That
will raise enough seed for you."

"But who is to dig the ground, and plant, and weed, and water, and all?"
asked Hannah. "If I am to be earning all day, when--"

"The sick person must do all," said the herb-doctor.

Hannah could not believe her senses. Her Ann Mary, who could not even
brush her own hair without fatigue, she to take a spade in her--

"Oh, Master Doctor," she cried, "can I not do it for her?"

The old Indian turned his opaque black eyes upon her.

"Nay," he said dryly, "you cannot."

And with that he showed them where the witch garden was to be, close
before their little sleeping-hut. That was why, he explained, the patient
must spend all her time there, so that by night, as well as by day, she
could absorb the magical virtues of the growing plant Hannah thought those
were the first sensible words she had heard him say.

She had promised the minister's wif