THE BEWITCHED HUNTSMAN. "There used to be a great many more witches than there are now," remarked Mr. Thimblefinger. "I reckon it's because folks have more business of their own to attend to; or, it may be a change in the climate. I hear old people say that the winters are colder now than they used to be, and the summers hotter. Maybe that has something to do with it. Anyhow, something has happened to thin the witches out." "Yes," said Mr. Rabbit; "I've noticed that they are scarcer than they used to be, but I never inquired into the whys and wherefores. They never bothered me, and I never bothered them." "Well, when I first came here," said Mr. Thimblefinger, "I noticed Jimmy Jay-Bird bringing sand and mortar every Friday, and it occurred to me that he was preparing to lay the foundations of a witch's house in this country. So I says to myself, says I, 'I'll keep an eye on Jimmy, and see where he gets in and out; for, surely, he doesn't come by way of the spring.' But Jimmy Jay-Bird was pretty slick, and it was some time before I found out where he came down and went out. By some means or other, he had discovered the big hollow poplar on the spring branch, and he was coming and going that way." "I know where it is," said Buster John. "Yes," replied Mr. Thimblefinger. "It is the oldest and the biggest tree in the whole country next door. But as soon as I found that Jimmy Jay-Bird was using it as a passageway, I drove a peg in the hole and put an end to his schemes, whatever they may have been. I don't know where he carries his sand and mortar now, and I don't care. "But I didn't start out to tell anything about Jimmy Jay-Bird," continued Mr. Thimblefinger, after pausing a moment. "I was thinking about the way a witch was caught by a boy no bigger and not much older than our young friend here." "Tell us about it, please!" cried Buster John enthusiastically. "Well," said Mr. Thimblefinger, "it's not much of a story. You can't take a handful of facts and make a story of them unless you know how to fling them together. The best I can do is to tell it just as it happened as near as I can remember. "When I was a little bit of a fellow--now don't laugh!" cried Mr. Thimblefinger, seeing Mr. Rabbit wink at Mrs. Meadows,--"I mean when I was in my teens. Well, when I was younger than I am now, an old witch lived not far from our house. Her eyes were red around the rims, and her eyeballs looked as if they had been boiled. Everybody called her Peggy Pig-Eye, and she answered to that name about as well as she did to any other. Near her house there lived a man who had a wife and a son. He was a tolerably well-to-do man, and all the neighbors thought very well of him. But he used to go to town every sale-day, and at night he would come home feeling very gay. I don't know what there was in town to make him feel so gay, but I know that he used to come by our house singing at the top of his voice and cutting up all sorts of shines.