Grandma Read was in her own room, sitting before a bright “clean” fire.  She did not like coal; she said it made too much dust; so she always used wood.  She sat with her knitting in her hands, clicking the needles merrily while she looked into the coals.

People can see a great many things in coals.  Just now she saw the face of her dear husband, who had long ago been buried out of her sight.  He had a broad-brimmed hat on his head, and there was a twinkle in his eye, for he had been a funny man, and very fond of a joke.  Grandma smiled as if she could almost hear him tell one of his droll stories.

Presently there was a little tap at the door.  Grandma roused herself, and looked up to see who was coming.

“Walk in,” said she; “walk in, my dear.”

“Yes’m, we came a-purpose to walk in,” replied a cheery voice; and Prudy and Dotty danced into the room, with their arms about each other’s waists.

“O, how pleasant it seems in here!” said Prudy; “when I come in I always feel just like singing.”

“Thee likes my clean fire,” said grandma.

“But, grandma,” said Dotty, “I should think you’d be lonesome ’thout anybody but you.”

“No, my dear; the room is always full.”

“Full, grandma?”

“Yes; full of memories.”

The children looked about; but they only two sunny windows; a table with books on it, and a pair of gold fishes; a bed with snowy coverlet and very high pillows; a green and white carpet; a mahogany bureau and washing-stand; and then the bright fireplace, with a marble mantel, and a pair of gilt bellows hanging on a brass nail.

It was a very neat and cheerful room; but they could not understand why there should be any more memories in it than there were in any other part of the house.

“We old people live very much in the past,” said grandma Read.  “Prudence, if thee’ll pick up this stitch for me, I will tell thee what I was thinking of when thee and Alice came in.”

So saying, she held out the little red mitten she was knitting, and at the same time took the spectacles off her nose and offered them to Prudy.  Prudy laughed.

“Why, grandma! my eyes are as good as can be.  I don’t wear glasses.”

“So thee doesn’t, child, surely.  I am a little absent-minded, thinking of old mother Knowles.”

“Grandma, please wait a minute,” said Prudy, after she had picked up the stitch.  “If you are going to tell a story, I want to get my work and bring it in here.  I’m in a hurry about that scarf for mamma.”

“It is nothing very remarkable,” said Mrs. Read, as the children seated themselves, one on each side of her, Prudy with her crocheting of violet and white worsted, and Dotty with nothing at all to do but play with the tongs.

“Mrs. Knowles was a very large, fleshy woman, who lived near my father’s house when I was a little girl.  Some people were very much afraid of her, and thought her a witch.  Her sister’s husband, Mr. Palmer, got very angry with her, and declared she bewitched his cattle.”

“Did she, grandma?” asked Dotty.

“No, indeed, my dear; and couldn’t have done it if she had tried.”

“Then ’twas very unpertinent for him to say so!”

“He was a lazy man, and did not take proper care of his animals.  Sometimes he came over and talked with my mother about his trials with his wicked sister-in-law.  He said he often went to the barn in the morning, and found his poor cattle had walked up to the top of the scaffold; and how could they do that unless they were bewitched?”

“Did they truly do it?  I know what the scaffold is; it is a high place where you look for hen’s eggs.”

“Yes; I believe the cows did really walk up there; but this was the way it happened, Alice:  They were not properly fastened into their stalls, and being very hungry, they went into the barn for something to eat.  The barn floor was covered with hay, and there was a hill of hay which led right up to the scaffold; so they could get there well enough without being bewitched.”

“Did your mother ­my great-grandma ­believe in witches?” asked Prudy.  “What did she say to Mr. Palmer?”

“O, no! she had no faith in witches; thy great grandmother was a sensible woman.”  She said to him, “Friend Asa, thee’d better have some good strong bows made for thy cattle, and put on their necks; and then I think thee’ll find they can’t get out of their stalls.  Thee says they are as lean as Pharaoh’s kine, and I would advise thee to feed them better.  Cattle that are well fed and well cared for will never go bewitched.”

“Did Mrs. Knowles know what people said about her?” asked Prudy.

“Yes; she heard the stories, and it made her feel very badly.”

“How did she look?”

“A little like thy grandmother Parlin, if I remember, only she was much larger.”

“Did she know anything?”

“O, yes; it was rather an ignorant neighborhood; but she was one of the most intelligent women in it.”

“Did she ever go anywhere?”

“Yes; she came to my mother for sympathy.  I remember just how she looked in her tow and linen dress, with her hair fastened at the back of the head with a goose-quill.”

“There, there!” cried Dotty, “that was what made ’em call her a witch!”

“O, no; a goose-quill was quite a common fashion in those times, and a great deal prettier, too, than the waterfalls thee sees nowadays.  Mrs. Knowles dressed like other people, and looked like other people, for aught I know; but I wished she would not come to our house so much.”

“Didn’t you like her?”

“Yes; I liked her very well, for she carried peppermints in a black bag on her arm; but I was afraid the stories were true, and she might bewitch my mother.”

“Why, grandma, I shouldn’t have thought that of you!”

“I was a very small girl then, Prudence; and the children I played with belonged, for the most part, to ignorant families.”

“Grandma was like an apple playing with potatoes,” remarked Dotty, one side to Prudy.

“I used to watch Mrs. Knowles,” continued Mrs. Read, “hoping to see her cry; for they said if she was really a witch, she could shed but three tears, and those out of her left eye.”

“Did you ever catch her crying?”

“Once,” replied grandma, with a smile; “and then she kept her handkerchief at her face.  I was quite disappointed, for I couldn’t tell which eye she cried out of.”

“Please tell some more,” said Dotty.

“They said Mrs. Knowles was often seen in a high wind riding off on a broomstick.  It ought to have been a strong broomstick, for she was a very large woman.”

“Why, grandma,” said Prudy, thrusting her hook into a stitch, “I can’t help thinking what queer days you lived in!  Now, when I talk to my grandchildren, I shall tell them of such beautiful things; of swings and picnics, and Christmas trees.”

“So shall I to my grandchildren,” said Dotty; “but not always.  I shall have to look sober sometimes, and tell ’em how I had the sore throat, and couldn’t swallow anything but boiled custards and cream toast.  ‘For,’ says I, ‘children, it was very different in those days.’”

“Ah, well, you little folks look forward, and we old folks look backward; but it all seems like a dream, either way, to me,” said grandma Read, binding off the thumb of her little red mitten ­“like a dream when it is told.”

“Speaking of telling dreams, grandma, I had a funny one last night,” said Prudy, “about a queer old gentleman.  Guess who it was.”

“Thy grandfather, perhaps.  Does thee remember, Alice, how thee used to sit on his knee and comb his hair with a toothpick?”

“I don’t think ’twas me,” said Dotty; “for I wasn’t born then.”

“It was I,” replied Prudy.  “I remember grandpa now, but I didn’t use to.  It wasn’t grandpa I dreamed about ­it was Santa Claus.”

Grandma smiled, and raised her spectacles to the top of her forehead.

“We never talked about fairies in my day,” said she.  “I never heard of a Santa Claus when I was young.”

“Well, grandma, he came down the chimney in a coach that looked like a Quaker bonnet on wheels ­but he was all a-dazzle with gold buttons; and what do you think he said?”

“Something very foolish, I presume.”

“He said, ‘Miss Prudy, I’m going to be married.’  Only think! and he such a very old bachelor.”

“Did thee dream out the bride?”

“It was Mother Goose.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Read, smiling.  “I should think that was a very good match.”

“She did look so funny, grandma, with a great hump on her nose, and one on her back!  Santa Claus kissed her; and what do you think she said?”

“I am sure I can’t tell; I am not acquainted with thy fairy folks.”

“Why, she shook her sides, and, said she, ‘Sing a song o’ sixpence.’”

“That was as sensible a speech as thee could expect from that quarter.”

“O, grandma, you don’t care anything about my dream, or I could go on and describe the wedding-cake; how she put sage in it, and pepper, and mustard, and baked it on top of one of our registers.  What do you suppose made me dream such a queer thing?”

“Thee was probably thinking of thy mother’s wedding.”

“O, Christmas is going to be splendided than ever, this year,” said Dotty; “isn’t it grandma?  Did you have any Christmases when you were young?”

“O, yes; but we didn’t make much account of Christmas in those days.”

“Why, grandma!  I knew you lived on bean porridge, but I s’posed you had something to eat Christmas!”

“O, sometimes I had a little saucer-pie, sweetened with molasses, and the crust made of raised dough.”

“Poor, dear grandma!”

“I remember my father used to put a great backlog on the fire Christmas morning, as large as the fireplace would hold; and that was all the celebration we ever had.”

“Didn’t you have Christmas presents?”

“No, Alice; not so much as a brass thimble.”

“Poor grandma!  I shouldn’t think you would have wanted to live!  Didn’t anybody love you?” said Dotty, putting her fingers under Mrs. Read’s cap, and smoothing her soft gray hair; “why, I love every hair of your head.”

“I am glad thee does, child; but that doesn’t take much love, for thee knows I haven’t a great deal of hair.”

“But, grandma, how could you live without Christmas trees and things?”

“I was happy enough, Alice.”

“But you’d have been a great deal happier, grandma, if you’d had a Santa Claus!  It’s so nice to believe what isn’t true!”

“Ah! does thee think so?  There was one thing I believed when I was a very little girl, and it was not true.  I believed the cattle knelt at midnight on Christmas eve.”

“Knelt, grandma?  For what?”

“Because our blessed Lord was born in a manger.”

“But they didn’t know that.  Cows can’t read the Bible.”

“It was an idle story, of course, like the one about Mother Knowles.  A man who worked at our house, Israel Grossman, told it to me, and I thought it was true.”

Here grandma gazed into the coals again.  She could see Israel Grossman sitting on a stump, whittling a stick and puffing away at a short pipe.

“Well, children,” said she, “I have talked to you long enough about things that are past and gone.  On the whole, I don’t say they were good old times, for the times now are a great deal better.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Prudy.

“Except one thing,” added grandma, looking at Dotty, who was snapping the tongs together.  “Children had more to do in my day than they have now.”

Dotty blushed.

“Grandma,” said she, “I’m having a playtime, you know, ’cause there can’t anybody stop to fix my work.  But mother says after the holidays I’m going to have a stint every day.”

“That’s right, dear.  Now thee may run down and get me a skein of red yarn thee will find on the top shelf in the nursery closet.”