reasons wiser than they knew, and made them into a salutary potion; and
here, again, was a drink contrived by the utmost skill of a great
civilized philosopher, searching the whole field of science for his
purpose; and these two drinks proved, in all essential particulars, to be
identically the same.

"O Aunt Keziah," said he, with a longing earnestness, "are you sure that
you cannot remember that one ingredient?"

"No, Septimius, I cannot possibly do it," said she. "I have tried many
things, skunk-cabbage, wormwood, and a thousand things; for it is truly a
pity that the chief benefit of the thing should be lost for so little. But
the only effect was, to spoil the good taste of the stuff, and, two or
three times, to poison myself, so that I broke out all over blotches, and
once lost the use of my left arm, and got a dizziness in the head, and a
rheumatic twist in my knee, a hardness of hearing, and a dimness of sight,
and the trembles; all of which I certainly believe to have been caused by
my putting something else into this blessed drink besides the good New
England rum. Stick to that, Seppy, my dear."

So saying, Aunt Keziah took yet another sip of the beloved liquid, after
vainly pressing Septimius to do the like; and then lighting her old clay
pipe, she sat down in the chimney-corner, meditating, dreaming, muttering
pious prayers and ejaculations, and sometimes looking up the wide flue of
the chimney, with thoughts, perhaps, how delightful it must have been to
fly up there, in old times, on excursions by midnight into the forest,
where was the Black Man, and the Puritan deacons and ladies, and those
wild Indian ancestors of hers; and where the wildness of the forest was so
grim and delightful, and so unlike the common-placeness in which she spent
her life. For thus did the savage strain of the woman, mixed up as it was