Part 26 (1/2)

”And to-day is the Witch's holiday?”

”Yes, it so happens; and I always make it a point to spend the night at her cottage if I am in this part of the country.”

The Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare rose and put his cloak about his shoulders, and with the Boy set forward through the valley.

IV.

Presently they came to the Witch's cottage, snuggled away in a hollow and hidden from the road by a tangle of witch hazel shrubs. The Boy rather expected a dark, forbidding hut of sinister outlines, but here was as pretty a cabin as ever you saw, weathered a pleasing gray, with green blinds and a tiny porch overrun with Virginia-creeper.

The Knight strode boldly up the path, the Boy following less confidently. No one answering the summons at the porch, they tried the kitchen door. It was open, and they stepped inside. The Witch was not at home, but evidently she was not far away, for a fire was crackling in the stove and a kettle singing over the flames. An enormous black cat got up lazily from the hearth and rubbed himself against the visitors with a purr like a small dynamo.

With the familiarity of a relative the Knight led the way about the house. One door was locked. ”This,” said he, ”is Aunt Jo's dark room, in which she develops her deviltry. This”--opening the door of a little shed--”is the garage.”

The Boy peeped in and saw two autobroomsticks.

”The small green one is her runabout. The big red one is a touring broomstick, high power and very fast; you can hear her coming a mile off.”

They returned to the sitting room, and the Boy became greatly taken with Aunt Jo's collection of books. Some of these were: ”One Hundred and One Best Broths,” ”Witchcraft Self-Taught,” ”The Black Art--Berlitz Method,”

and ”Burbank's Complete Wizard.” The Boy took down the ”Complete Wizard,” but he was not able to do more than glance at the absorbing contents before the clicking of the gate announced that the Witch had returned.

Aunt Jo was a sprightly dame of more than seventy years, very thin, but straight and supple, and with hair still jet black. Her eyes were gray-green or green-gray, as the light happened to strike them; her cheeks were hollow, and a long sharp chin slanted up to meet a long sharp nose. Ordinarily, as the Knight had hinted, she was no doubt an unholy terror, but to-day she was in the best of humors, and her eyes twinkled with good nature.

”I just stepped out,” she explained, ”to carry some jelly and cake to one of my neighbors, a woodcutter's wife. The poor woman has been ill all the summer! Mercy! if I haven't had a day of it!” She dropped into a chair, brus.h.i.+ng a fly from the tip of her nose with the tip of her tongue. ”How is everything in Rainbow's-End?” she asked. ”I suppose +She+ is as bad as ever.”

”Worse,” replied the Knight, fetching a sigh. ”And +She+ never takes a day off, as you do.”

”Well, Henry, it's your own fault, as I've told you a thousand times. If you hadn't been so soft-hearted-- But mercy! that's no way to be talking on my holiday.”

”So!” said the Boy to himself. ”This wandering knight is the King of Rainbow's-End and the father of the Princess. I have a friend at court indeed.”

V.

”And how is the Princess Aralia?” asked the Witch. ”As pretty as ever, I suppose, and with no prospect of a husband, thanks to her grandmother and the silly tasks she sets for the suitors.”

”That brings us to the business of our young friend here,” said the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare. ”He wishes to present himself at court, and is in great need of a horse and wardrobe.”

”You've come to the wrong shop for horses and fine feathers,” said the Witch. ”Those things are quite out of my line.”

The Boy looked his disappointment.

”The best I can do,” said Aunt Jo kindly, ”is to give you a letter to a Mr. Burbank, an excellent wizard of my acquaintance. He has recently invented a skinless grape and a watermelon that is all heart, and is quite the cleverest man in the business. Such a trifle as changing a pig into a horse will give him no trouble whatever. Have you seen my garden, Henry?”

”No, but I should like to,” said the Knight rising.

”Meanwhile,” said the Witch, ”I will start the supper if our young friend will fetch the wood.”

The Boy responded with such cheerful readiness that Aunt Jo patted him on the cheek and said: ”You're the lad for the Princess Aralia, and have her you shall if Aunt Jo can bring it about. And now go out in the garden and pick me a hatful of Brussels sprouts.”