Page:Book Of Halloween(1919).djvu/176

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150
THE BOOK OF HALLOWE'EN
 
open with a shrieking draft and a force that caused the floor to tremble."

Butterworth : Hallowe'en Reformation.

Elves, goblins, and fairies are native on American soil. The Indians believed in evil manitous some of whom were water-gods who exacted tribute from all who passed over their lakes. Henry Hudson and his fellow-explorers haunted as mountain-trolls the Catskill range. Like Ossian and so many other visitors to the Otherworld, Rip Van Winkle is lured into the strange gathering, thinks that he passes the night there, wakes, and goes home to find that twenty years have whitened his hair, rusted his gun, and snatched from life many of his boon-companions. " My gun must have cotched the rheumatix too. Now that's too bad. Them fellows have gone and stolen my good gun, and leave me this rusty old barrel.

"Why, is that the village of Falling Waters that I see? Why, the place is more than twice the size it was last night—I