NAILING THE WITCH.
He came to Reading one day and consulted the witch doctor, who wrote some words on a slip of paper, folded it up, and, giving the man a horse shoe nail, told him to go to a certain tree early in the morning, before sunrise, stick this nail through the paper and drive it into the side of the tree next to the sun, just far enough to hold the paper to the tree. This, he said, would hurt the witch and probably keep him away. If the witch would not stay away he was to hit the nail another tap the next morning, but was warned not to drive the nail clear through the paper or he would kill the man who was the witch. The witch continued to trouble the man, however, and when he went out to tap the nail the third morning he was so angry that, taking the ax in his hand, he struck the nail so hard that he sent it entirely through the paper.
“Upon the instant the nail penetrated the paper he saw the form of his tormentor fall dead before him, and he went to the depot and told several parties that he had killed such and such a man in Reading that morning. They laughed at him and said he was crazy; but sure enough the witch, who was walking in his garden in this city, ten miles away, as the doctor said he would do and as the man said he had done, fell dead in his tracks just at that time. The man who killed him got well and was never troubled again.”
The names of the parties were given in both the above cases, and the old man told his story with such an air of sincerity that after leaving him I made inquiry in the
