But, though they buried her out of their sight and pulled down
the rotten cottage she had inhabited for so many weary years, the
fearful memory of her evil name and dreadful end remained, and nearly
all the village came to regard her as, in very truth, a witch.
Only Mrs. Marjoram took from the cottage with pious love an ancient and
much-thumbed book, on whose fly-leaf was written 'Jason Fletcher, His
Bible.' Then, having no longer any reason to conceal the early history
of the deceased, she related to the village gossips--as a warning
against trusting too fully to evil appearances--the following
STORY OF POOR HANNAH LEE.
A long time ago--before the middle of the last century, in fact--there
dwelt in one of the most flourishing towns in Western Massachusetts a
family of Puritan extraction named Fletcher. Straitest among the strict,
John Cotton Fletcher and his wife Mehitabel held all lightness of
conduct or gamesomeness of speech as sin most devoutly to be prayed and
striven against, and not only 'kept' the ten commandments with pious
zeal, but, for the better serving of the Lord, invented an eleventh,
which read 'Laugh not at all.' _Holy days_ they knew, in number during
the year fifty-four, namely, the fifty-two 'Sabbaths' and the governor's
Fast and Thanksgiving days; _holidays_ they held in utter abhorrence,
deeming Christmas, especially, an invention of the devil.
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