pended 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, who"
"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.
She had promised the minister's wife to be back at a certain hour to see about employment, so she dared not stay longer, though it was with a sinking heart that she left her sister to that grim old savage, with his brusque
