We churned it fast, and churned it slow, And stirred it round and round; Yet all the livelong, weary day, Was heard the dasher's sound. The sun sank in the gloomy west, The moon rose ghastly pale; And still we churned, with courage low, And hopes about to fail,-- When in walked Granny Dean, who heard, With wonder and amaze, Our troubles, as she crossed herself, And in the fire did gaze. "Lord, help us all!" she quickly said, And covered up her face; "Lord, help us all! for, as you live, There's witches in the place! "There's witches here within this churn, That have possessed the cream. Go, bring the horse-shoe that I saw Hang on the cellar-beam." The shoe was brought, when, round and round, She twirled it o'er her head; "Go, drive the witches from that cream!" In solemn voice she said;-- Then tossed it in the fire, till red With heat it soon did turn, And dropped among the witches dread, That hid within the churn. Once more the dasher's sound was heard,-- Have patience with my rhyme,-- For, sure enough, the butter came In twenty minutes' time. Some say the temperature was changed With horse-shoe glowing red; But when we ask old Granny Dean, She only shakes her head.--_Hearth and Home._ HORSE-SHOES. One would suppose the folly of putting horse-shoes into cream, "fish-skins into coffee, to settle it," and forcing filthy molasses and water down the throats of new-born babes, were amongst the follies of the past; but they are not yet, with many other superstitious, and even cruel and dangerous notions, done away with. For some prominent instances of this course of proceedings the reader may consult next chapter. Riding through the rural districts of almost any portion of the Union, one will sometimes find the horse-shoe nailed over the stable, porch, or even house front door, to keep away the witches. As in Gay's fable of "The Old Woman and her Cats:"-- "Straws laid across my path retard, The horse-shoes nailed each threshold guard," In Aubrey's time, he tells us that "most houses of the west end of London have the horse-shoe at the threshold." The nice little old gentleman who keeps the depot at Boylston Station is a dry joker, in his way. Over each door of the station he has an old horse-shoe nailed. "What have you got these nailed up over the door for?" a stranger asks. [Illustration: BOYLSTON STATION.] "To keep away witches. I sleep here nights," solemnly replies the station-master; and one must be familiar with that ever agreeable face to detect the sly, enjoyable humor with which he is so often led to repeat this assertion.