"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 wife to be back at a certain hour to see about employment, so she dared not stay longer, though it was with a sinking heart that she left her sister to that grim old savage, with his brusque lack of sympathy. However, the minister's wife reassured her with stories of all the other girls from far and near whom he had cured by that same foolish, silly method; so Hannah turned all her energies upon the spinning which a neighbor-woman had set her to do. Hired workers have been the same from the days of the Psalmist down to our own, and Hannah, putting her whole heart into her work, accomplished, so her surprised employer told her, twice as much spinning as any serving-girl she had ever hired. "And excellent good thread, too!" she said, examining it.