John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and WritingsKennedy, William Sloane
General
John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings
Kennedy, William Sloane
Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography; Poets, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892
In chapter second of the "Supernaturalism" we have a whimsical story
about a certain "Aunt Morse," who lived in a town adjoining Amesbury:--
"After the death of Aunt Morse no will was found, though it was
understood before her decease that such a document was in the hands
of Squire S., one of her neighbors. One cold winter evening, some
weeks after her departure, Squire S. sat in his parlor, looking
over his papers, when, hearing some one cough in a familiar way, he
looked up, and saw before him a little crooked old woman, in an
oil-nut colored woollen frock, blue and white tow and linen apron,
and striped blanket, leaning her sharp, pinched face on one hand,
while the other supported a short black tobacco pipe, at which she
was puffing in the most vehement and spiteful manner conceivable.
"The squire was a man of some nerve; but his first thought was to
attempt an escape, from which he was deterred only by the
consideration that any effort to that effect would necessarily
bring him nearer to his unwelcome visitor.
"'Aunt Morse,' he said at length, 'for the Lord's sake, get right
back to the burying-ground! What on earth are you here for?'
"The apparition took her pipe deliberately from her mouth, and
informed him that she came to see justice done with her will; and
that nobody need think of cheating her, dead or alive. Concluding
her remark with a shrill emphasis, she replaced her pipe, and
puffed away with renewed vigor. Upon the squire's promising to obey
her request, she refilled her pipe, which she asked him to light,
and then took her departure."
"Elderly people in this region," says our author, "yet tell
marvellous stories of General M., of Hampton, N. H., especially of
his league with the devil, who used to visit him occasionally in
the shape of a small man in a leathern dress. The general's house
was once burned, in revenge, as it is said, by the fiend, whom the
former had outwitted. He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the
general with a boot full of gold and silver poured annually down
the chimney. The shrewd Yankee cut off, on one occasion, the foot
of the boot, and the devil kept pouring down the coin from the
chimney's top, in a vain attempt to fill it, until the room was
literally packed with the precious metal. When the general died, he
was laid out, and put in a coffin, as usual; but, on the day of the
funeral, it was whispered about that his body was missing; and the
neighbors came to the charitable conclusion that the enemy had got
his own at last."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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