“Oh, Hannah!  Would it not be like heaven to live always in such a place?” she said.

Hannah could not stop to be shy, or to think about how she would like mahogany beds all the time.  She had too much on her mind.  They must go at once to the herb-doctor’s—­they should have been there before—­and they must hurry through their breakfast.  It is, perhaps, worthy of note that both girls came down the stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that time, their only means of reaching elevations.

During their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin of the minister’s, sat in a corner, playing with his dog’s ears, and looking at Ann Mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked very good-natured.  After this, Hannah sent Remember Williams home with the horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to take.  Then she marched Ann Mary to the herb-doctor’s.

“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.