neighbors' windows; a perfect necromancer at sucking eggs through
pin-holes; took great delight in calling home the neighboring farmers'
workingmen to dinner an hour before it was ready; and was in fact a
perfect master in many other ingenious manifestations of character, ere
he reached his twelfth year.

Now, it was about this period that the small-pox made its appearance in
the village. Indescribable was the dismay of Phelim's parents, lest
he among others might become a victim to it. Vaccination, had not then
surmounted the prejudices with which every discovery beneficial to
mankind is at first met; and the people were left principally to the
imposture of quacks, or the cunning of certain persons called "fairy
men" or "sonsie women." Nothing remained now but that this formidable
disease should be met by all the power and resources of superstition.
The first thing the mother did was to get a gospel consecrated by the
priest, for the purpose of guarding Phelim against evil. What is termed
a Gospel, and worn as a kind of charm about the person, is simply a slip
of paper, on which are written by the priest the few first verses of the
Gospel of St. John. This, however, being worn for no specific purpose,
was incapable of satisfying the honest woman. Superstition had its own
peculiar remedy for the small-pox, and Sheelah was resolved to apply it.
Accordingly she borrowed a neighbor's ass, drove it home with Phelim,
however, on its back, took the interesting youth by the nape of the
neck, and, in the name of the Trinity, shoved him three times under it,
and three times over it. She then put a bit of bread into its mouth,
until the ass had mumbled it a little, after which she gave the savory
morsel to Phelim, as a _bonne bouche_. This was one preventive against
the small-pox; but another was to be tried.

She next clipped off the extremities of Phelim's elf locks, tied them in