242 Old Stories
got his barn free; but being of the Devil’s building I don’t suppose it was a very good one, or lasted very long.
the wilbur witches
These witches made themselves famous about seventy-five years ago in the hill country of western Massachusetts.
Their pranks were played in a secluded hamlet known as Simpson Hollow, and they particularly afflicted the Wilbur family there. The Wilburs were a good, respectable, church-going family; but, by some mysterious dispensation of Providence, they were the ones who had to suffer. They would find their Sunday clothes snipped and gashed, for one thing. While this witch business was going on, the Wilburs made it a point to look over the clothes they had hung up in the closets and about the rooms each day. One morning, after Mrs. Wilbur had made the rounds, she is reported to have said, “Well, I believe there’s nothin’ this time.” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than a skirt dropped down on the floor with a half yard slash in it.
Granny Bates, who was one of the family, one day missed her gold beads,
