“O, how pleasant it seems in here!” said Prudy; “when I come in I always feel just like singing.”

“Thee likes my clean fire,” said grandma.

“But, grandma,” said Dotty, “I should think you’d be lonesome ’thout anybody but you.”

“No, my dear; the room is always full.”

“Full, grandma?”

“Yes; full of memories.”

The children looked about; but they only two sunny windows; a table with books on it, and a pair of gold fishes; a bed with snowy coverlet and very high pillows; a green and white carpet; a mahogany bureau and washing-stand; and then the bright fireplace, with a marble mantel, and a pair of gilt bellows hanging on a brass nail.

It was a very neat and cheerful room; but they could not understand why there should be any more memories in it than there were in any other part of the house.

“We old people live very much in the past,” said grandma Read.  “Prudence, if thee’ll pick up this stitch for me, I will tell thee what I was thinking of when thee and Alice came in.”

So saying, she held out the little red mitten she was knitting, and at the same time took the spectacles off her nose and offered them to Prudy.  Prudy laughed.

“Why, grandma! my eyes are as good as can be.  I don’t wear glasses.”

“So thee doesn’t, child, surely.  I am a little absent-minded, thinking of old mother Knowles.”

“Grandma, please wait a minute,” said Prudy, after she had picked up the stitch.  “If you are going to tell a story, I want to get my work and bring it in here.  I’m in a hurry about that scarf for mamma.”

“It is nothing very remarkable,” said Mrs. Read, as the children seated themselves, one on each side of her, Prudy with her crocheting of violet and white worsted, and Dotty with nothing at all to do but play with the tongs.

“Mrs. Knowles was a very large, fleshy woman, who lived near my father’s house when I was a little girl.  Some people were very much afraid of her, and thought her a witch.  Her sister’s husband, Mr. Palmer, got very angry with her, and declared she bewitched his cattle.”

“Did she, grandma?” asked Dotty.

“No, indeed, my dear; and couldn’t have done it if she had tried.”

“Then ’twas very unpertinent for him to say so!”

“He was a lazy man, and did not take proper care of his animals.  Sometimes he came over and talked with my mother about his trials with his wicked sister-in-law.  He said he often went to the barn in the morning, and found his poor cattle had walked up to the top of the scaffold; and how could they do that unless they were bewitched?”

“Did they truly do it?  I know what the scaffold is; it is a high place where you look for hen’s eggs.”

“Yes; I believe the cows did really walk up there; but this was the way it happened, Alice:  They were not properly fastened into their stalls, and being very hungry, they went into the barn for something to eat.  The barn floor was covered with hay, and there was a hill of hay which led right up to the scaffold; so they could get there well enough without being bewitched.”