What They Say in New England/Love and Sentiment

by Clifton Johnson

Warts
. .

Have you warts? Rub them all with a bean, put the bean in an envelope, and bury it. When the bean sprouts, the warts will be gone.

To cure a wart, pick it, and let a drop of blood from it fall on a penny; throw the penny away, and the person who picks it up will have the wart.

If you have conscientious scruples about making other people carry your warts, you can relieve yourself as follows: Break off a milkweed, rub the milk on the wart, and bury the milkweed, When it decays, the wart will disappear. Others say that the juice of the milkweed will make you have warts. To cure a wart, rub it with a kernel of corn. Then throw the corn out in the dooryard, and if a chicken picks it up and eats it the wart will disappear.

Another way is to steal a piece of pork to rub the wart with. To do this so that its use will be effective, you must visit a neighbor’s cellar, and abstract the meat from his pork-barrel without his being aware of it.

To make your warts go off, rub them with sassafras.

To cure a wart, rub it with a corn, bore a hole in a tree, put the corn in the hole, and then plug it in. Your wart will make haste to leave you when you have done this.

Put vinegar on a cent, and let it corrode. Then put the vinegar on your wart, and the wart will leave.

Does that wart still trouble you? Find a snail, rub the wart with it, and throw the snail away. When the snail dries up and withers into nothing, the wart will have gone too.

There are many ways recommended for getting rid of warts, but very few ways are suggested by which one can acquire them, One sure method to get warts is to wash your hands in water that eggs have been boiled in.

If you have a wart you wish to rid yourself of, wait until you see some one riding on a white horse. Then put your finger on the wart, look at the rider and say, “I wish you had my wart—I wish you had my wart.” Then he will have it, and you won't.

You can cure your wart if you will steal a dishcloth, rub the wart with it, and then bury the dishcloth.

To get rid of a wart, steal a bean, split it, rub the halves on the wart, and throw them over your shoulder. At the same time say, “Go, wart,” and the wart will leave you.

Another way is to do the halves of the bean up, after you have rubbed the wart with them, in a pretty package, and put it in a likely place for some one to pick up. The person who unties the package will have the wart, which at the same time will leave you.

Still another way that is equally good is to sell your warts. A conversation like the following can be held with a friend:

Friend: Do you want to sell your warts?

Self: Yes.

Friend: Well, I’ll buy them.

Self: How much will you give?

Friend: Five cents.

Self: All right; you can have ’em.

No more need be said, and no money need be paid. The warts know they are fixed when they hear such a conversation, and they make haste to leave.

Handle a toad, and you will have warts.

To cure a wart, rub a piece of raw meat on it, and throw the meat into the well, drain, or other place where it will decay quickly. Tell no one; and when the meat has decayed, the wart will have disappeared.

A wart can be charmed away in like manner by the use of a bean instead of the meat. “I know that’s so, because I’ve tried it myself. The wart went off. I don’t care whether any one believes it or not—it’s so!”

Some claim it is best, after rubbing your warts with the bean, to write a polite note to the warts, requesting them to go ta somebody else, whose name you give. Wrap the bean in the note, and throw the whole into the well. The warts will presently leave you, and appear on that other person.

A certain young man was afflicted with warts. Indeed, none of his acquaintance was encumbered to any like degree. One day he told the tale of his warts to a friend who had been a Shaker. This friend had, when in the Shaker community, formed an attachment for a young Shakeress, who had a like fondness for him. Anything beyond a brotherly and sisterly affection was not countenanced among the Shakers, and the two ran away. Now, this young man whose life had been thus romantic told David, his warty friend, that he would cure his warts.

Said he, “How many warts have you? Count them up, and be sure you don‘t miss any.”

David made a careful enumeration, and found fourteen.

“Very well,” said the ex-Shaker; “now you go out and find fourteen pebbles, and bring them in.”

David brought the pebbles.

“Put them in a row,” commanded his adviser. “Now take the first, and rub it on one of your warts. Remember which one you rub it on. Now you can throw the pebble out of the door, and try the next one.”

In this manner he had David rub each wart with one of the pebbles till the last one had been attended to.

“Now,” the ex-Shaker concluded, “all you’ve got to do is not to think of your warts for two weeks, and at the end of that time they will all be gone;” and he went his way.

David determined to follow the advice given him; but the harder he tried not to think of his warts, the more they were on his mind. At the end of two weeks, he had still his full quota, and he felt sure the cure was all a hoax. He thought no more of the matter for a fortnight or over. Then he looked for his warts, and lo! they were all gone!

“Did you ever hear of getting rid of warts by swapping ‘em off onto some one? That’s about as good a way as there is. I had a boy workin’ for me that had over thirty of ’em, and he sold ‘em all for a little piece of a pencil not half an inch long. Of course nobody don’t want your warts; but you keep stumpin’ ’em for a trade, till finally they make you an offer. It don’t matter what it is, even if it ain’t more’n a little bit of a chip—you take the offer, and the warts ‘ll leave you and come on that other fellow. I’ve known ever so many doin’ that.”

You can get rid of your warts in this way. Count them, and tie as many knots in a string as there are warts, and bury the string. Dig the string up once a week until the time comes when it has so decayed you cannot find it any more. Then you may be sure your warts will have disappeared.

If you prefer, you can use a stick instead of a string. Cut a notch in it for each wart, bury it, and as the stick decays, and the notches disappear, your warts will do likewise.

It is said there used to live a woman in Savoy, Mass., who could “talk a person’s warts away.”

Love and Sentiment
. .

When you go to a wedding, carry away with you a piece of the wedding-cake. Sleep with it under your pillow that night, and the person you dream of will be the one you are to marry.

A ring is sometimes put in the wedding-cake. The person who gets the ring will marry within a year.

The person who wishes to know whom he is to marry may settle the question in the following manner: Roll up your stockings when you go to bed at night, name them, put them under your pillow, and get into bed over the footboard, backwards. If you have a bedfellow, don’t speak a word to him after this, and the one of the two girls the stockings were named after that you dream about will be the one you are to marry.

Keep track of the white horses you see, and count them up to ninety-nine, and the next person of the opposite sex you shake hands with will be the one you are to marry.

“Why a girl is sure to marry the first man she shakes hands with after counting ninety-nine white horses, even if he is eighty years old.”

The modern girl, particularly if she lives in the city, has it that after counting the requisite number of white horses, she is to note the first person who tips his hat to her. He is her fate.

If three of the same first name sit at table together, one of them will marry within a year.

As long as you keep a piece of wedding-cake in the house, you will have good luck.

Crock mark,
Sign of a spark.
Nearer the thumb,
Sooner he’ll come.

On Halloween hang up a cabbage-stump over the door. The first person of the opposite sex that comes in is the one you will marry.

Children sometimes try this process to determine whom they like best. Suppose it is a boy who is to make the trial. He gets a companion to name two apple-seeds. Then he takes the apple-seeds, wets them, puts one on the upper lid of each eye, and proceeds to wink as fast as he can. When one falls off, the companion tells him what girls he named the seeds for, and which was which. The seed which stayed on longest indicates the girl he loves best.

lucky days for marriage

Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday the best day of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no day at all.

If the day on which you marry is stormy, it is a size you are to have a stormy married life. If it is pleasant, the married life will be pleasant.

On the first night that you sleep in a strange bed, name each of its four posts. If you dream about one of the four persons you named the posts after that person will be the one you will marry.

Unhappily, the person who tries this frequently fails to dream of any one of the four, and, indeed, may not dream at all.

If you sit on a table, it is a sign you will not be married for one year.

Others say that this a sign that you want to get married.

If you braid your hair and accidentally leave out a little strand, it is a sign you will be married within a year.

A lowery day,
A lowery bride .

This is said with reference to the wedding-day.

Never get married until you are able to cut the nails neatly on both hands.

A right-handed person has to acquire skill by practice to enable him to hold the knife in his left hand, and cut the nails on his right nicely. Apparently the logic of the saying is that a person will, before acquiring this accomplishment, lack the maturity or capability which would fit him for such a responsibility. Hence the saying is esteemed very sensible.

If from three lamps set in a row some person unthinkingly takes one, that is a sign that person will marry within a year.

When, of an evening, three persons, one after another, come into a room and set a lamp down, it can be accepted as settled that the third person will marry within the year.

When a person’s nose bleeds, it is a sign that the person is lovesick.

If by chance you tread on some one’s toes, it is a sign that you love that person.

If you are married in a snowstorm, it is a sign that you will be rich.

Girls sometimes determine whom they are to marry in this way. On each of twelve slips of paper the girl writes the name of some boy. These she puts in an envelope, and sleeps with them under her pillow. Each morning she draws one of the slips at random, and throws it away. The last one left names the one she is to marry.

When a girl trims pie-crust, and the trimming falls over her hand, it is a sign she is going to marry young.

If, when a young woman tries on a dress in the process of making, it is accidentally pinned to the clothing beneath, that is a sign she will marry soon.

The person who tips a chair over backwards will not marry that year.

May is an unlucky month to marry in,

When three of the same Christian name meet under the same roof, one of them will marry within the year.

Happy the bride the sun shines on.

The girl who puts on a bridal veil and orange blossoms on any occasion but for her own wedding will never marry.

The girl who mops crossways of the boards will marry a drunken husband.

The girl who wets the front of her dress on washing-day will also marry a drunkard.

The girl who in baking scrapes the dough-dish clean will marry a poor man. In such a case the wife’s thriftiness will tend to keep her husband from remaining poor.

Let a boy light a match, and burn it till a charred end drops. See which way the big end of this points, and that will show where his “best girl” lives.

Light another match, and when one end is charred take hold of that end, and see if you can hold it without breaking till the flame eats clear through to the other end. If you can, it proves that your girl loves you. But if the match breaks in burning, your girl does not care for you.

If a girl can comb and do up her hair neatly without locking in the glass, it is a sign she won’t be an old maid.

Wear a bit of yarrow in your button-hole, if you are anxious to know whom you are to marry. The first person of the opposite sex you meet afterward is your fate.

A girl tickles another on the knee and says,—

Tickle, tickle on the knee,
Laugh or smile, an old maid you’ll be.

If a laugh or smile results, then both know the tickled one will be an old maid always.

When this is tried on a boy, you have to insert the word bachelor in the place of maid in the rhyme.

A variation of this theme is the following:—

If you're an honest boy (or girl),
As I take you to be,
You'll neither laugh nor smile
While I tickle your knee.

If a girl has thirteen after-dinner coffee cups given to her within a twelve month, she will be engaged within the year following. To bring about this result the one who gave the first one must also present the thirteenth.

Change the name and not the letter,
Change for the worse and not the better.

That is, the girl who marries a man whose last name begins with the same letter as her last name will be worse off than she was before.

When a girl out walking stubs the toe of her right foot, she knows her beau has gone along the same street not long before. If she hurries, she can usually catch up with him.

The boy who dreams of the same girl three nights in succession may know that she is the one he is to marry.

An unhappy life will result if the bride is married in black silk.

The girl who makes a good-looking bed will have a good-looking husband.

If a girl pulls a cabbage, and only a little earth clings to its roots, she is to marry a poor man. If a heavy clod of earth comes up with the cabbage-roots, she will marry a rich man.

Put some apple-seeds on the stove. Get a friend to name them. The one that pops first reveals the person you love best.

wedding signs

Married in white, you have chosen all right.
Married in gray, you will go far away.
Married in black, you will wish yourself back.
Married in red, you will wish yourself dead.
Married in green, ashamed to be seen.
Married in blue, he will always be true.
Married in pearl, you will live in a whirl.
Married in yellow, ashamed of your fellow.
Married in brown, you will live out of town.
Married in pink, your fortune will sink.

With a straw or something of the sort tickle a girl’s face or hands. The first thing she says after the tickling will be the first thing she will say after she is married,

The young woman who is fond of cats will be an old maid.

After a wedding ceremony, it is the custom for the bride when she leaves the room, or when she is driving away in the carriage, to throw back her bouquet of roses into the midst of the company. The one who gets the bouquet will marry within a year.

If a girl likes cats better than dogs, that is a sign she will never marry.

A girl who finds a crooked pin should hasten to throw it away. If she saves it, she will be an old maid.

If a young man at the supper-table or at a party takes the last biscuit on a plate, he will be an old bachelor. The young woman who does this is likewise fated to live single.

Be careful to sweeten your coffee or tea before you put in the milk. The person who puts in milk first will be crossed in love.