So she fed him to a threshing machine of her
acquaintance, which managed to masticate some of the more modern
portions, but was hopelessly wrecked upon the neck. From that time the
poor beldame had lived under the ban of a great curse. Hens took
after her as naturally as after the soaring beetle; geese pursued her
as if she were a fleeting tadpole; ducks, turkeys, and guinea fowl
camped upon her trail with tireless pertinacity.

Now there was a leaven of improbability in this tale, and it leavened
the whole lump. Ganders do not roost; there is not one in a hundred of
them that could sit on a fender long enough to say Jack Robinson. So,
as the Frau lived a thousand years before the birth of common
sense--say about a half century ago--when everything uncommon had a
smell of the supernatural, there was nothing for it but to consider
her a witch. Had she been very feeble and withered, the people would
have burned her, out of hand; but they did not like to proceed to
extremes without perfectly legal evidence. They were cautious, for
they had made several mistakes recently. They had sentenced two or
three females to the stake, and upon being stripped the limbs and
bodies of these had not redeemed the hideous promise of their
shrivelled faces and hands. Justice was ashamed of having toasted
comparatively plump and presumably innocent women; and the punishment
of this one was wisely postponed until the proof should be all in.

But in the meantime a graceless youth, named Hans Blisselwartle, made
the startling discovery that none of the fowls that pursued the Frau
ever came back to boast of it. A brief martial career seemed to have
weaned them from the arts of peace and the love of their kindred. Full
of unutterable suspicion, Hans one day followed in the rear of an
exciting race between the timorous dame and an avenging pullet. They
were too rapid for him; but bursting suddenly in at the lady's door
some fifteen minutes afterward, he found her in the act of placing
the plucked and eviscerated Nemesis upon her cooking range. The Frau
betrayed considerable confusion; and although the accusing
Blisselwartle could not but recognize in her act a certain poetic
justice, he could not conceal from himself that there was something
grossly selfish and sordid in it. He thought it was a good deal like
bottling an annoying ghost and selling him for clarified moonlight; or
like haltering a nightmare and putting her to the cart.

When it t