The Witches of New York

“You are a badd who has saw a great beddy chadges add it seebs here as if you was goidg to be bore settled in the future – it seebs here like as if you had sobetibes in your life beed very buch cast dowd, but it seebs here like as if you had always got up agaid. – It seebs here like as if you had saw id your past life sobe lady what you liked very buch add had beed disappointed – it seebs here like as if there was two barriages for you, wud id a very short tibe – wud lady seebs here to stadd very dear to you, add you two bay be barried or you bay dot – if you are dot already barried you will be very sood – it seebs here as if you woulddt have a very large fabily – five childred will be all that you will have – you will have a good deal of buddy (money) id your life – sobe of your relatives what you dever have saw will sood die add leave you sobe property – but you will dot be expectidg it add it seebs here as if you would have trouble id getting it, for there will sobe wud else try to get it away frob you – it seebs as if the lady you will barry will dot be too dark cobplexiod, dor yet too light – dot too tall, dor yet very short, dot too large, dor too thid – she thidks a great deal of you, bore thad you do of her, – you have already saw her id the course of your life, and she loves you very buch. There are people about you id your busidess who are dot so buch your friends as they preted to be – you are goidg to bake sub chadge id your busidess, it will be a good thidg for you add will cub out buch better thad you expect.”

Here she stopped and intimated that she would answer any questions that her customer desired to ask, and in reply to his interrogatories the following important information was elicited:

“You will be lodg lived, add you will have two wives, add will live beddy years with your first wife.”

The “Individual” proclaimed himself satisfied, and paid his money, whereupon Madame Bruce instantly yelled “Pete,” when the Eye-Boy reappeared to show the door, and the Cash Customer departed, leaving the Mysterious Veiled Lady shivering on her stool, and exceedingly desirous of an opportunity to use her pocket-handkerchief.

And this is all there was of the Persian Princess. As the seeker after wisdom went away he made one single audible remark by way of consoling himself for his crushed hopes and blighted anonymous love. It was to this effect. “I believe she squints, and I know she’s got bad teeth.”

CHAPTER IV.

MADAME WIDGER, No. 3 FIRST AVENUE

Relates the marvellous performances of Madame Widger, of No. 3, First Avenue, and how she looks into the future through a Paving-Stone

Madame Widger came from Albany to this city about four years ago, and at once set up as an “Astrologer.” She has been a “witch” for a great many years, and has, directly and indirectly, done about as much mischief as it is possible for one person to accomplish in the same length of time. She was a woman of great repute in and about Albany, as a fortune-teller, and was supposed to be conversant with practices more criminal. She at last became so well known as a bad woman, that she found it advisable to leave Albany, after she had settled certain lawsuits in which she had become entangled.

Among other speculations of hers, in that place, she once sued the city to recover indemnifying moneys for certain imaginary damages, alleged to have been done to her property by the unbidden entrance of the river into her private apartments, during one of the periodical inundations with which Albany is favored. By the shrewd management of certain of her lawyer friends with whom she had business dealings, she at last got a judgment against the city, but, owing to some other awkward law complications, it became expedient to change her place of residence before she had collected her money, and the amount remains unpaid to this day.

She then came to this city, and set up in the Sorceress way, and, by dint of advertising, she soon got a good many customers. She now has as much to do as she can easily manage to get along with, is making a good deal of money by “Astrology,” and by other more unscrupulous means; and she is probably worth some considerable property. She is a bold, brazen, ignorant, unscrupulous, dangerous woman. She has some peculiar ways of her own in telling the fortunes of her visitors, and is the only person in the city who professes to read the future through a magic stone, or “second-sight pebble.” Her manner of using this wonderful geological specimen is fully described hereafter.

The “Individual” Visits a Grim Witch, who reads his Future through a Moderate-Sized Paving-Stone.

Disappointed in his fond hope of discovering, in the person of Madame Bruce, an eligible partner, who should bridal him and lead him coyly to the altar, that bourne from which no bachelor returns, the Cash Customer was for many days downcast in his demeanor and neglectful of his person. When he eventually recovered from his strong attack of Madame Bruce, he was not by any means cured of his romantic desire to procure a witch wife. He had carefully figured up the conveniences of such an article, and the sum total was an irresistible argument.

If he could win a witch of the right sort, perhaps she could teach him the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Elixir of Life, and show him the locality of the Fountain of Youth, so that he could take the wrinkles out of himself and his friends, at the cost of only a short journey by rail-road. A barrel or so of that wonderful water, peddled out by the bottle, would meet a readier sale and pay a larger profit than any Paphian Lotion that was ever advertised on the rocks of Jersey. All this, to say nothing of a family of young wizards and sorcerers, who could, by virtue of the maternal magic, swallow swords from the day of their birth, do mighty feats of legerdemain, such as cutting off the heads of innumerable pigs and chickens, and producing the decapitated animals alive again from the coat-tails of the bystanders, to the astonishment of the crowd and the great emolument of their proud dad. Even if these profitable babies should not be natural necromancers, with the power of second sight, and any quantity of “natural gifts,” they must surely be spirit-rappers of the most lucrative “sphere,” capable of organizing “circles,” and instructing “mediums,” and otherwise bringing into the family fund large piles of that circulating medium so much to be desired. Or, even failing this popular gift, they must all be born with some strong instincts of money-making vagabondism. If the girls failed in fortune-telling they would certainly have a genius for the tight-rope, or a decided talent for the female circus and negro-minstrel business; and the boys would be brought into the world with the power of throwing a miraculous number of consecutive flip-flaps – of putting cocked hats on their juvenile heads while turning somersets over long rows of Arab steeds of the desert – of poising their infant bodies on pyramids of bottles, and drinking glasses of molasses and water, under the contemptible subterfuge of wine, to the health of the terror-stricken beholders – or of climbing to the tops of very tall poles without soiling their spangled dresses, and there displaying their anatomy for the admiration of the gazing multitude, in divers attitudes, for the most part extraordinarily wrong side up with very particular care – or, at least, they would be born with the astounding gift of tying their young legs in double bow-knots across the backs of their adolescent necks, and while in that graceful position kissing their little fingers to the bewildered audience.

Under the constant influence of such comfortable and ennobling thoughts, it is not in the elastic nature of the human mind to remain long dejected. In the contemplation of the future glories of his might-be wife and possible family, the “Individual” recovered somewhat of his former gaiety. Remembering that “Care killed a cat,” he resolved that he would not be chronicled as a second victim, so he kicked Care out of doors, so to speak, and warned Despair and Discouragement off the premises.

He attired him in his best, and appeared once more before the world in the joyful garb of a man with Hope in his heart and money in his pantaloons. In fact, so radiant did he appear, that he might have been set down for a person who had just had a new main of joy laid on in his heart, and had turned the cocks of all the pipes, and let on the full head just to see how the new apparatus worked. Or, as if he’d been in a shower-bath of good-nature, and come out dripping.

He also took kindly to that innocuous beverage, lager bier, which was a good sign in itself, inasmuch as he had, for a few days, been drinking as many varieties of strong drinks, as if he’d been brought up on Professor Anderson’s Inexhaustible Bottle, and had never overcome the influences of his infant education.

Seeking out a friend to whom he confided his hopes of a lucrative wife and a profitable progeny, the Cash Customer suggested that they proceed immediately in search of the fair enchantress who was to be his comfort and consolation, for the rest of his respectable life.

Being somewhat disgusted with the result of his visit to the witch with the romantic designation of the “Mysterious Veiled Lady,” he had determined to seek out one on this occasion with the most common-place and every-day cognomen, in the whole list. There being a Madame Widger in that delightful catalogue, of course Widger was the one selected. It is true, she sometimes advertised herself as the “Mysterious Spanish Lady,” but in the judgment of the Individual, the Widger was too much for the Spanish and the mystery.

So Madame Widger was resolved on. Her modest advertisement is given, that the impartial reader may be brought to acknowledge that the inducements to wed the Widger were not of the common order.

“Madame Widger, the Natural-Gifted Astrologist, Second-Sight Seer and Doctress, tells past, present, and future events; love, courtship, marriage, absent friends, sickness; prescribes medicines for all diseases, property lost or stolen, at No. 3 First-av., near Houston-st.”

The slight lack of perspicuity in this announcement seems to be a mysterious peculiarity, common to all the Fortune Tellers, as if they were all imbued with the same commendable contempt for all the rules of English grammar.

The voyager being attired in a captivating costume, and being also provided with pencils and paper to make a life-sketch, with a view to an expansive portrait of his enslaver, whose beauty was with him a foregone conclusion, set out with his faithful friend for the delightful locality mentioned in the advertisement, where the charming Circe, Widger, held her magic court.

He was not aware, at that time, that his intended bride was not a blushing blooming maiden, but an ancient dame, whose very wrinkles date back into the eighteenth century. But of that hereafter.

He was determined to have her tell his “love, courtship, or marriage, absent friends, or sickness,” and to insist that she should “prescribe medicines for property lost or stolen,” according to the exact wording of the advertisement.

The doughty “Individual” trembled somewhat, with an undefined sensation of awe, as though some fearful ordeal was before him – to use his own elegant and forcible language, he felt as though he was going to encounter an earthquake with volcano trimmings.

“It is the fluttering of new-born love in your manly bosom,” remarked his companion.

“Well,” was the reply, “if a baby love kicks so very like a horse of vicious propensities, a full-grown Cupid would be so unmanageable as to defy the very Rarey and all his works.”

Without any noteworthy adventure they kept on their way to the First Avenue, and in due time stood, awe-struck, before the mansion of the enchantress.

After the first impression had worn off, the scene was somewhat stripped of its mysteriousness, and assumed an aspect commonplace, not to say seedy. As soon as the sense of bewilderment with which they at first gazed upon the domicile of the mysterious damsel so favored of the fates, had passed away, they found themselves in a condition to make the observations of the place and its surroundings that are detailed below.

The house, a three-story brick, seemed to have that architectural disease which is a perpetual epidemic among the tenant-houses of the city, and which makes them look as if they had all been dipped in a strong solution of something that had taken the skin off. The paint was blistered and peeling off in flakes; the blinds were hanging cornerwise by solitary hinges; the shingles were starting from their places with a strange air of disquietude, as if some mighty hand had stroked them the wrong way; the door-steps were shaky and crazy in the knees; the door itself had a curious air of debility and emaciation, and the bell-knob was too weak to return to its place after it had feebly done its brazen duty. There was no door-plate, but on a battered tin sign was blazoned, in fat letters, the mystic word “Widger.” The Cash Customer rang the bell, not once merely, or twice, but continuously, in pursuance of a dogma which he laid down as follows:

“It is a mistake to ever stop ringing till somebody comes. The feebler you ring, the more the servants think you’re a dun, and therefore the more they don’t come to let you in – but if you keep it up regularly they’ll think you’re a rich relation and will rush to the rescue.”

So he kept on, and the voice of the bell sharply clattered through the dismal old house, making as much noise as if it suddenly wakened a thousand echoes that had been locked up there for many years without the power to speak till now. If a timid ring denotes a dun, and a boisterous one a rich relation, then must the inhabitants of that cleanly suburb have been convinced that the present performer on the bell not only had no claims as a creditor on the people of the house, but was a rich California uncle, come to give each adult member of that happy family a gold mine or so, and to distribute a cart-load of diamonds among the children.

The door at last was opened by an uncertain old man with very weak eyes, who appeared to have, in a milder form, the same malady which afflicted the house; perhaps he was a twin, and suffered from brotherly sympathy – at any rate the dilapidating disease had touched him sorely; its ravages were particularly noticeable in the toes of his boots and the elbows of his coat. Violent remedies had evidently been applied in the latter case, but the patches were of different colors, and suggestive of the rag-bag; the boots were past hope of convalescence; his shirt-collar was sunk under a greasy billow of a neckcloth, and only one slender string was visible to show where it had gone down; the nether garment was a ragged wreck, that set a hundred tattered sails to every breeze, but was anchored fast at the shoulder with a single disreputable suspender.

Guided by this equivocal individual the two visitors entered a small shabbily furnished room, and bestowed themselves in a couple of treacherous chairs, in pursuance of an imbecile invitation from the battered old gentleman.

The anticipations of the enthusiastic lover again began to fall, and in five minutes his heart, which so lately was “burning with high hope,” was so cold as to be uncomfortable.

On a seven-by-nine cooking-stove, which three pints of coal would have driven blazing crazy, stood a diminutive iron kettle, in which something was noisily stewing; the something may have been a decoction of magic herbs, or it may have been Madame Widger’s dinner. A tumble-down trunk in a corner of the room did precarious duty for a chair; a faded carpet hid the floor; a cheap rocking-chair in the act of moulting its upholstery spread its luxurious arms invitingly near the dim window; and a table, on which a pack of German playing cards was coyly half concealed by a newspaper, a coal-hod, and a poker, completed the necessary furnishing of the apartment.

The ornaments are soon inventoried; a certificate of membership of the New York State Agricultural Society, given at Albany to Mr. M. G. Bivins, hung in a cheap frame over the table. The other decorations were a few prints of high-colored saints, an engraving of a purple Virgin Mary with a pea-green child, and a picture of a blue Joseph being sold by yellow brethren to a crowd of scarlet merchants who were paying for him with money that looked like peppermint lozenges.

Madame Widger, the “Mysterious Spanish Lady,” was not at first visible to the naked eye, but a loud, shrill, vicious voice, which made itself heard through the partition dividing the reception-room from some apartment as yet unexplored by them, directed the attention of her visitors to her exact locality.

She was “engaged” with another gentleman, said the knight of the ragged inexpressibles.

Had not what he had already seen of the mansion decidedly cooled the passion of the love-lorn customer, this intelligence would have been likely to rouse his ire against the interloping swain, and make him pant for vengeance and fistic damages to the other party; but in his present confused state of mind he received this blow with philosophic indifference.

The old man subsided into a chair, and in a weak sort of way began to talk, evidently with some insane idea of pleasingly filling up the time until the prophetess should be disengaged. His conversation seemed to run to disasters, with a particular partiality to shipwrecks. He accordingly detailed, with wonderful exactness, the perils encountered by a certain canal-boat of his, “loaded principally with butter and cheese,” during a dangerous voyage from Albany to New York, and which was finally brought safely to a secure harbor by the power of the Widger, which circumstance had made him her slave for life.

The shrill voice then ceased, and the person to whom it had been addressed came forth. The lime on his blue jean garments, and the cloudy appearance of his boots, declared him to be something in the mason line. He deported himself with becoming reverence, and departed in apparent awe. He did not look like a dangerous rival, and he was not molested.

A discreditable and disordered head now thrust itself out of the mysterious closet, opened its mouth, and the vicious voice said: “I will see you now, sir.” The sighing swain, with a fluttering heart and unsteady steps, summoned his courage and entered the place, to him as mysterious as was Bluebeard’s golden-keyed closet to his ninth wife. The first glance at Madame Widger at once scattered again all his dreams of love and of happiness with that potent and fearful female.

He encountered a cadaverous bony-looking woman, very tall, very old, though with hair still black; with grey eyes, and false gleaming teeth. She was attired in calico; quality, ten cents a yard; appearance, dirty. Hardly was the door closed, when the vicious voice spitefully remarked, “Sit down, sir;” and a skinny finger pointed to a cane-bottomed chair. While seating himself and taking off his gloves, he took an observation.

The apartment was not large; in an unfurnished state, a moderately-hooped belle might have stood in it without serious damage to her outskirts, but there would be little extra room for any enterprising adventurer to circumnavigate her. In one corner was a small pine light-stand, on which was a sceptical looking Bible, with a very black brass key tied in it; a volume of Cowper bound in full calf; a little lamp with a single lighted wick, and a pile of the Madame’s business hand-bills.

She at once showed her experience of human nature and her distrust of her present visitor by her practical and matter-of-fact conduct.

She sat uncomfortably down on the very edge of an angular chair, folded her hands, shut herself half up like a jack-knife, and the vicious voice mentioned this fearful fact: “My terms are a dollar for gentlemen;” and the grey eyes stonily stared until the dollar aforesaid was produced.

The voice then prepared for business by sundry “Ahems!” and when fairly in working order it proceeded: “Give me your hand – your left hand.”

The Widger took the extended palm in her shrivelled fingers and made four rapid dabs in the middle of it with the forefinger of her other hand, as if she were scornfully pointing out defects in its workmanship; then she opened the drawer of the little stand with a spiteful jerk, and withdrew thence something which she put to her sinister optic, and began rapidly screwing it round with both hands, as if she had got water on the brain and was trying to tap herself in the eye.

Then the vicious voice began, in a loud mechanical manner, to speak with the greatest volubility, running the sentences together, and not thinking of a comma or a period till her breath was exhausted, in a manner that would have fairly distanced Susan Nipper herself, even if that rapid young lady had twenty seconds the start.

“I see by looking in this stone that you was born under two planets one is the planet Mars you will die under the planet Jupiter but it won’t be this year or next you have seen a great deal of trouble and misfortune in your past life but better days are surely in store for you you have passed through many things which if written in a book would make a most interesting volume I see by looking more closely in the stone that you are about to receive two letters one a business letter the other a let – ”

Here her breath failed, and as soon as it came back the voice continued —

“ter from a friend it is written very closely and is crossed I see by looking more closely in the stone that one of the letters will contain news which will distress you exceedingly for a little while but you need not be troubled for it will all be for your good you are soon to have an interview with a man of light hair and blue eyes who will profess great interest in you but he will get the advantage of you if he can you must beware of him I see by looking more closely in the stone that you will live to be 68 years old but you will die before you are 70.” Here was another station where the locomotive voice stopped to take in air, and then instantly dashed ahead at a greater speed than ever. “I see by looking more closely in the stone that good luck will befall you a near friend will die and leave you a fortune I see by looking more closely in the stone that this will happen to you when you are between 32 and 34 years old that is all I see in this stone.”

Another grab brought from the little drawer another pebble, which the Madame placed at her eye, the boring operation was recommenced, and the vicious voice once more got up steam.

“I see by looking closely in this stone that you will have two wives one will be blue-eyed and the other will be black-eyed with the first one you will not live long but with the last one you will be happy many years I see by looking more closely in the stone that you will have six children which will be very comfortable the lady who is to be your first wife is at this moment thinking of you I see by looking more closely in the stone that a man with light hair and blue eyes is trying to get her away from you but she scorns him and turns away I see by looking more closely in the stone that she has a strong feeling for you you need not fear the man with light hair and blue eyes for you will get her you and you only will possess her heart I see by looking more closely in the stone that she is good gentle kind loving affectionate true-hearted and pleasant.”

(The vicious voice resented each one of these good-natured adjectives, as if it had been a gross personal insult to the Widger, and spit them spitefully at her trembling customer, as if they tasted badly in her mouth.)

“and will make you a good wife; you will be rich and happy you will be successful in business you will be hereafter always lucky you will be distinguished you will be eminent you will be good you will be respected you will be beloved honored cherished and will reach a good old age I see by looking in this stone – that is all I see by looking in this stone.”

Here she ceased, and choking down her indignation, which had risen to a fearful pitch during the complimentary peroration, she said, taking up the equivocal Bible with the key tied in it, “Take hold of the key with your finger, I will give you one wish, if the book turns round you will have your wish.” The guest took the key in the required manner, and the Widger closed her eyes and muttered something which may have been either a prayer or a recipe for pickling red cabbage, for he was unable to satisfy himself with any degree of certainty what it was; at the appointed time the book turned and the wish was therefore graciously granted.