THE WITCH – Shirley Jackson He stopped talking and looked up as the outside door of the coach

opened and a man came in. He was an elderly man, with a pleasant
The coach was so nearly empty that the little boy had a seat all to face under white hair; his blue suit was only faintly touched by the
himself, and his mother sat across the aisle on the seat next to the little disarray that comes from a long train trip. He was carrying a cigar, and
boy’s sister, a baby with a piece of toast in one hand and a rattle in the when the little boy said, “Hi,” the man gestured at him with the cigar
other. She was strapped securely to the seat so she could sit up and and said, “Hello yourself, son.” He stopped just beside the little boy’s
look around, and whenever she began to slip slowly sideways the strap seat, and leaned against the back, looking down at the little boy, who
caught her and held her halfway until her mother turned around and craned his neck to look upward. “What you looking for out that
straightened her again. The little boy was looking out the window and window?” the man asked.
eating a cookie, and the mother was reading quietly, answering the little “Witches,” the little boy said promptly. “Bad old mean witches.”
boy’s questions without looking up. “I see,” the man said. Find many?”
“We’re on a river,” the little boy said. “This is a river and we’re on it.” “My father smokes cigars,” the little boy said.
“Fine,” his mother said. “All men smoke cigars,” the man said. “Someday you’ll smoke a cigar,
“We’re on a bridge over a river,” the little boy said to himself. too.”
The few other people in the coach were sitting at the other end of the “I’m a man already,” the little boy said.
car, if any of then had occasion to come down the aisle the little boy “How old are you?” the man asked.
would look around and say, “Hi,” and the stranger would usually say, The little boy at the eternal question, looked at the man suspiciously
“Hi,” back and sometimes ask the little boy if he were enjoying the train for a minute and then said, “Twenty-six. Eight hunnerd and forty
ride, or even tell him he was a fine big fellow. These comments eighty.”
annoyed the little boy and he would turn irritably back to the window. His mother lifted her head from the book. “Four,” she said, smiling
“There’s a cow,” he would say, or, sighing, “How far do we have to fondly at the little boy.
go?” “Is that so?” the man said politely to the little boy. “Twenty-six.” He
“Not much longer now,” his mother said, each time. nodded his head at the mother across the aisle. “Is that your mother?”
Once the baby, who was very quiet and busy with her rattle and toast, The little boy leaned forward to look and then said, “Yes, that’s her.”
which the mother would renew constantly, fell over too far sideways and “What’s your name?” the man asked.
banged her head. She began to cry, and for a minute there was noise The little boy looked suspicious again. “MR. Jesus,” he said.
and movement around the mother’s seat. The little boy slid down from “Johnny,” the little boy’s mother said. She caught the little boy’s eye
his own seat and ran across the aisle to pet his sister’s feet and beg her and frowned deeply.
not to cry, and finally the baby laughed and went back to her toast, and “That’s my sister other there,” the little boy said to the man. “She’s
the little boy received a lollipop from his mother and went back to the twelve-and-a-half.”
window. “Do you love your sister?” the man asked. The little boy stared, and
“I saw a witch,” he said to his mother after a minute. “There was a big the man came around the side of the seat and sat down next to the little
old ugly old bad old witch outside.” boy. “Listen,” the man said, “shall I tell you about my little sister?”
“Fine,” his mother said. The mother, who had looked up anxiously when the man sat down
“A big old ugly witch and I told her to go away and she went away,” next to her little boy, went peacefully back to her book.
the little boy went on, in a quiet narrative to himself, “she came and “Tell me about your sister,” the little boy said. “Was she a witch?”
said, “I’m going to eat you up,” and I said, “no, you’re not,” and I “Maybe,” the man said.
chased her away, the bad old mean witch.” The little boy laughed excitedly, and the man leaned back and puffed
at his cigar. “Once upon a time,” he began, “I had a little sister, just like
yours.” The little boy looked up at the man, nodding at every word. “My “Not much longer,” the mother said. She stood looking at the little boy,
little sister,” the man went on, “was so pretty and so nice that I loved wanting to say something, and finally she said, “You sit still and be a
her more than anything else in the world. So shall I tell you what I did?” good boy. You may have another lollipop.”
The little boy nodded more vehemently, and the mother lifted her eyes The little boy climbed down eagerly and followed his mother back to
from her book and smiled, listening. her seat. She took a lollipop from a bag in her pocketbook and gave it
“I bough her a rocking-horse and a doll and a million lollipops,” the to him. “What do you say?” she asked.
man said, “and then I took her and put my hands around her neck and I “Thank you,” the little boy said. “Did that man really cut his little sister
pinched her and I pinched her until she was dead.” up in pieces?”
The little boy gasped and the mother turned around, her smile fading. “He was just teasing, ”the mother said, and added urgently, “Just
She opened her mouth, and then closed it again as the man went on, teasing.”
“And then I took and I cut her head off and I took her head—“ “Prob’ly,” the little boy said. With his lollipop he went back to his own
“Did you cut her all in pieces?” the little boy asked breathlessly. seat, and settled himself to look out the window again. “Prob’ly he was
“I cut off her head and her hands and her feet and her hair and her a witch.”
nose,” the man said, “and I hit her with a stick and I killed her.”
“Wait a minute,” the mother said, but the baby fell over sideways just
at that minute and by the time the mother had set her up again the man
was going on.
“And I took her head and I pulled out her hair and---“
“Your little sister?” the little boy prompted eagerly.
“My little sister,” the man said firmly. “And I put her head in a cage
with a bear and the bear ate it all up.”
“Ate her head all up?” the little boy asked.
The mother put her book down, and came across the aisle. She stood
next to the man and said, “Just what do you think you’re doing?” The
man looked up courteously and she said, “Get out of here.”
“Did I frighten you?” the man said. He looked down at the little boy
and nudged him with an elbow and he and the little boy laughed.
“This man cut up hi little sister,” the little boy said to his mother.
“I can very easily call the conductor,” the mother said to the man.
“The conductor will eat my mommy,” the little boy said. “We’ll chop
her head off.”
“And little sister’s head, too,” the man said. He stood up, and the
mother stood back to let him get out of the seat. “Don’t ever come back
in this car,” she said.
“My mommy will eat you,” the little boy said to the man.
The man laughed, and the little boy laughed, and then the man said,
“Excuse me,” to the mother and went past her out of the car. When the
door had closed behind him the little boy said, “How much longer do we
have to stay on this old train?”