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Author of "The Phantom Farmhouse," "Out of the Long Ago," etc.
The bleak March wind rushed pell-mell through the narrow, unpaved roadways of Salem Village. It tore at tradesmen's sign-boards with a bellow, it rapped with frozen fingers at the dwellings' tight-barred shutters, then fled with a whoop of maniacal laughter past Salem Village Church to scream and howl round the Putnam homestead like a chained wolf straining at his leash.
In an upper room of the strong, weather-stained house a girl woke with an uneasy whimper, and looked into the darkness of her low-ceiled bedroom with round, fearful eyes, listening to the screeching of the midnight wind. A moment she lay thus, then sat bolt upright, her mouth squared in a cry of mortal terror.
"Ann, child, what ails thee?" Goodman Putnam swung back the door of his daughter's chamber and flashed the subdued light of his lanthorn about the room.
"Oh, father," the girl (she was only twelve years old) cried, "the witch-woman, the wicked witch-woman was here!"
"Nonsense, child," her father answered testily. "Thou knowest the witches are in Ipswich jail. How can they plague thee now?"
"Natheless, father," Ann Putnam replied stubbornly, "the witch was here but a moment agone. I saw her come down the chimney astride her broom handle, looking at me with great, red eyes—"
Goodman Putnam drew his flannel bedgown more tightly about his shoulders and looked fearfully at the fireplace his daughter's shaking forefinger indicated. "Didst recognize her, child?" he asked.
"I—I think," the girl stammered, trying to summon her memory, "I think 'twas Goodwife Corey, father."
"Martha Corey, didst say?" Putnam answered thoughtfully.
He laid a poker across the yawning mouth of the fireplace, for witcheswere notoriously afraid of iron, since that was the metal which bound our Lord to the Tree; and patted his daughter reassuringly on the shoulder.
"Peace, child," he counseled. "Thou'lt be safe till daylight. I'll see the parson about this in the morning."
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