University of Virginia Library

HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL.

LOOK here, boys,” said Sam, “don't
you want to go with me up to the
Devil's Den this arternoon?”

“Where is the Devil's Den,” said I,
with a little awe.

“Wal, it's a longer tramp than I've
ever took ye. It's clear up past the
pickerel pond, and beyond old Skunk John's pasturelot.
It's a 'mazin' good place for raspberries;
shouldn't wonder if we should get two three quarts
there. Great rocks there higher 'n yer head; kinder
solemn, 'tis.”

This was a delightful and seductive account, and
we arranged for a walk that very afternoon.

In almost every New-England village the personality

of Satan has been acknowledged by calling by
his name some particular rock or cave, or other natural
object whose singularity would seem to suggest a
more than mortal occupancy. “The Devil's Punchbowl,”
“The Devil's Wash-bowl,” “The Devil's Kettle,”
“The Devil's Pulpit,” and “The Devil's Den,”
have been designations that marked places or objects
of some striking natural peculiarity. Often these are
found in the midst of the most beautiful and romantic
scenery, and the sinister name seems to have no effect in
lessening its attractions. To me, the very idea of
going to the Devil's Den was full of a pleasing horror.
When a boy, I always lived in the shadowy edge of that
line which divides spirit land from mortal life, and it
was my delight to walk among its half lights and
shadows. The old graveyard where, side by side,
mouldered the remains of Indian sachems and the
ancients of English blood, was my favorite haunt. I
loved to sit on the graves while the evening mists
arose from them, and to fancy cloudy forms waving
and beckoning. To me, this spirit land was my only
refuge from the dry details of a hard, prosaic life.
The schoolroom — with its hard seats rudely fashioned
from slabs of rough wood, with its clumsy desks,
hacked and ink-stained, with its unintelligible textbooks
and its unsympathetic teacher — was to me a
prison out of whose weary windows I watched the
pomp and glory of nature, — the free birds singing,
the clouds sailing, the trees waving and whispering,
— and longed, as earnestly as ever did the Psalmist,
to flee far away, and wander in the wilderness.

Hence, no joy of after life — nothing that the
world has now to give — can equal that joyous sense
of freedom and full possession which came over me
on Saturday afternoons, when I started off on a tramp
with the world all before me, — the mighty, unexplored
world of mysteries and possibilities, bounded
only by the horizon. Ignorant alike of all science,
neither botanist nor naturalist, I was studying at firsthand
all that lore out of which science is made.
Every plant and flower had a familiar face to me,
and said something to my imagination. I knew
where each was to be found, its time of coming and
going, and met them year after year as returning
friends.

So it was with joyous freedom that we boys rambled

off with Sam this afternoon, intent to find the
Devil's Den. It was a ledge of granite rocks rising in
the midst of a grove of pines and white birches. The
ground was yellow and slippery with the fallen
needles of the pines of other days, and the glistening
white stems of the birches shone through the shadows
like ivory pillars. Underneath the great granite
ledges, all sorts of roots and plants grappled and kept
foothold; and whole armies of wild raspberries matured
their fruit, rounder and juicier for growing in
the shade.

In one place yawned a great rift, or cavern, as if
the rocks had been violently twisted and wrenched
apart, and a mighty bowlder lodging in the rift had
roofed it over, making a cavern of most seductive
darkness and depth. This was the Devil's Den; and
after we had picked our pail full of berries, we sat
down there to rest.

“Sam, do you suppose the Devil ever was here?”
said I. “What do they call this his den for?”

“Massy, child! that 'are was in old witch times.
There used to be witch meetins' held here, and awful
doins'; they used to have witch sabba' days and

witch sacraments, and sell their souls to the old
boy.”

“What should they want to do that for?”

“Wal, sure enough; what was it for? I can't
make out that the Devil ever gin 'em any thing, any
on 'em. They warn't no richer, nor didn't get no
more 'n this world than the rest; and they was took
and hung; and then ef they went to torment after
that, they hed a pretty bad bargain on't, I say.”

“Well, people don't do such things any more, do
they?” said I.

“No,” said Sam. “Since the gret fuss and row-dedow
about it, it's kind o' died out; but there's those,
I s'pose, that hez dealins' with the old boy. Folks
du say that old Ketury was a witch, and that, ef 't
ben in old times, she'd a hed her neck stretched; but
she lived and died in peace.”

“But do you think,” said I, now proposing the
question that lay nearest my heart, “that the Devil
can hurt us?”

“That depends consid'able on how you take him,”
said Sam. “Ye see, come to a straight out-an'-out
fight with him, he'll git the better on yer.”

“But,” said I, “Christian did fight Apollyon, and
got him down too.”

I had no more doubt in those days that this was an
historic fact than I had of the existence of Romulus
and Remus and the wolf.

“Wal, that 'ere warn't jest like real things: they
say that 'ere's an allegory. But I'll tell ye how old
Sarah Bunganuck fit the Devil, when he 'peared to
her. Ye see, old Sarah she was one of the converted
Injuns, and a good old critter she was too;
worked hard, and got her livin' honest. She made
baskets, and she made brooms, and she used to pick
young wintergreen and tie it up in bunches, and dig
sassafras and ginsing to make beer; and she got her
a little bit o' land, right alongside o' Old Black Hoss
John's white-birch wood-lot.

“Now, I've heerd some o' these 'ere modern ministers
that come down from Cambridge college, and
are larnt about every thing in creation, they say
there ain't no devil, and the reason on't is, 'cause
there can't be none. These 'ere fellers is so sort o'
green! — they don't mean no harm, but they don't
know nothin' about nobody that does. If they'd ha'

known old Black Hoss John, they'd ha' been putty
sure there was a devil. He was jest the crossest,
ugliest critter that ever ye see, and he was ugly
jest for the sake o' ugliness. He couldn't bear
to let the boys pick huckleberries in his paster lots,
when he didn't pick 'em himself; and he was allers
jawin' me 'cause I would go trout-fishin' in one o'
his pasters. Jest ez if the trout that swims warn't
the Lord's, and jest ez much mine as his. He grudged
every critter every thing; and if he'd ha' hed his
will and way, every bird would ha' fell down dead
that picked up a worm on his grounds. He was jest
as nippin' as a black frost. Old Black Hoss didn't
git drunk in a regerlar way, like Uncle Eph and
Toddy Whitney, and the rest o' them boys. But he
jest sot at home, a-soakin' on cider, till he was
crosser'n a bear with a sore head. Old Black Hoss
hed a special spite agin old Sarah. He said she
was an old witch and an old thief, and that she stole
things off'n his grounds, when everybody knew that
she was a regerlar church-member, and as decent an
old critter as there was goin'. As to her stealin',
she didn't do nothin' but pick huckleberries and
grapes, and git chesnuts and wannuts, and butternuts,
and them 'ere wild things that's the Lord's,
grow on whose land they will, and is free to all.
I've hearn 'em tell that, over in the old country, the
poor was kept under so, that they couldn't shoot a
bird, nor ketch a fish, nor gather no nuts, nor do
nothin' to keep from starvin', 'cause the quality
folks they thought they owned every thing, 'way
down to the middle of the earth and clear up to
the stars. We never hed no sech doin's this side of
the water, thank the Lord! We've allers been free to
have the chesnuts and the wannuts and the grapes
and the huckleberries and the strawberries, ef we
could git 'em, and ketch fish when and where we
was a mind to. Lordy massy! your grandthur's old
Cesar, he used to call the pond his pork-pot. He'd
jest go down and throw in a line and ketch his dinner.
Wal, Old Black Hoss he know'd the law was so,
and he couldn't do nothin' agin her by law; but he
sarved her out every mean trick he could think of.
He used to go and stan' and lean over her garden-gate
and jaw at her an hour at a time; but old
Sarah she had the Injun in her; she didn't run to talk
much: she used to jest keep on with her weedin'
and her work, jest's if he warn't there, and that made
Old Black Hoss madder'n ever; and he thought he'd
try and frighten her off'n the ground, by makin' on
her believe he was the Devil. So one time, when he'd
been killin' a beef critter, they took off the skin
with the horns and all on; and Old Black Hoss he says
to Toddy and Eph and Loker, `You jest come up to-night,
and see how I'll frighten old Sarah Bunganuck.'

“Wal, Toddy and Eph and Loker, they hedn't no
better to do, and they thought they'd jest go round
and see. Ye see 'twas a moonlight night, and old
Sarah — she was an industrious critter — she was
cuttin' white-birch brush for brooms in the paster-lot.
Wal, Old Black Hoss he wrapped the critter's skin
round him, with the horns on his head, and come
and stood by the fence, and begun to roar and make a
noise. Old Sarah she kept right on with her work,
cuttin' her brush and pilin' on't up, and jest let him
roar. Wal, Old Black Hoss felt putty foolish, 'specially
ez the fellers were waitin' to see how she took
it. So he calls out in a grum voice, —

“`Woman, don't yer know who I be?”

“`No,' says she quite quiet, `I don't know who
yer be.'

“`Wal, I'm the Devil,' sez he.

“`Ye be?' says old Sarah. `Poor old critter,
how I pity ye!' and she never gin him another word,
but jest bundled up her broom-stuff, and took it on
her back and walked off, and Old Black Hoss he stood
there mighty foolish with his skin and horns; and so
he had the laugh agin him, 'cause Eph and Loker
they went and told the story down to the tavern, and
he felt awful cheap to think old Sarah had got
the upper hands on him.

“Wal, ye see, boys, that 'ere's jest the way to fight
the Devil. Jest keep straight on with what ye're
doin', and don't ye mind him, and he can't do
nothin' to ye.”