Cap’n Sproul did not appear to be convinced.

“There it is, down in black and white,” persisted Hiram.  “Now, how about there never bein’ any witches?” He tapped his finger on the open page.

“If the book says that, witches must be extinker than dodos.  Your cyclopedy don’t say anything about any of ’em gettin’ away and comin’ over to this country, does it?”

“Of course we’ve had ’em in this country,” said Hiram, opening another book.  “Caught ’em by the dozen in Salem!  Cotton Mather made a business of it.  You don’t think a man like Cotton Mather is lettin’ himself be fooled on the witch question, do you?  Here’s the book he wrote.  A man that’s as pious as Cotton Mather ain’t makin’ up lies and writin’ ’em down, and puttin’ himself on record.”

“There’s just as many witches to-day as there ever was,” cried the corroborative Mr. Gammon.  “The trouble is they ain’t hunted out and brought to book for their infernal actions.  There’s hundreds and hundreds of folks goin’ through this life pestered all the time with trouble that’s made for ’em by a witch, and they don’t know what’s the matter with ’em.  But they can’t fool me.  I know witches when I see ’em.  And when she turns herself into a cat and—­”

“Does what?” demanded the Cap’n, testily.

“Why, it wa’n’t more’n three nights ago that I heard her yowlin’ away in my barn chamber, and there she was, turned into a cat most as big as a ca’f, and I throwed an iron kittle at her and she come right through the bottom of it like it was a paper hoop.  There, now!  What have you got to say to that?”

“That you are about as handy a liar as I ever had stand up in front of me,” returned the Cap’n, with animation.  He whirled on Hiram and gesticulated at the books.  “Do you mean to tell me that you’re standin’ in with him on any such jing-bedoozled, blame’ foolishness as this?  I took you to be man-grown.”

“It’s always easy enough to r’ar up in this world and blart that things ain’t so,” snapped Hiram, with some heat.  “Fools do that thing right along.  I don’t want you to be that kind.  Live and learn.”

“Witches or no witches, cyclopedy or no cyclopedy, what I want to know is, do you want to have it passed round this community that the two of us set here—­men that have been round this world as much as we have—­and heard a man tell a cat-and-kittle story like that, and lapped it down?  They’ll be here sellin’ us counterfeit money and gold bricks next.”

Hiram blinked a little doubtfully at Mr. Gammon, and his rope and gander, and probably, under ordinary circumstances, would have flouted that gentleman.  But the authority of the encyclopedia gave his naturally disputatious nature a stimulus not to be resisted.  Beating the page with the back of his hand, he assembled his proof that there had been witches, that there are witches, and that there will be more witches in the future.  And he wound up by declaring that Mr. Gammon probably knew what he was talking about—­a statement that Mr. Gammon indorsed with a spirited tale of how his ox-chains had been turned into mighty serpents in his dooryard, and had thrashed around there all night to his unutterable distress and alarm.  Again he demanded investigation of his case, and protection by the authorities.