The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-07-24

cows give bloody milk to bewitching
the goodwife yeast until her bread
wouldn u rise. Occasionally there would
be a particularly vicious old witch who
would turn herself into black cat and
kill the infant child of some neighbor
who had offended her, by sucking its
BREATH
"How funny" giGgled the sten;
ographer as she rearranged tress of
her blond pompadour.
Undoubtedly there were some ludi.
crous features in the belief in witch
craft, but the death of u child never
struck me as being one of them,' he
replied in mild rebuke.
"Why, cat can suck nothing,''
remarked the Junior Partner, who had
entered the room after the conversa-
tion had begun. "She cannot close her
lips over her teeth enough to drink, and
has to lap up her milk or water. 1t
would be a physical impossibility for
cat to suck a child IS breath. -
"But don't you believe in some
signsl' asked the PRETTY Steno-
grapher, hesitatingly.
- Meaning omens, | supposes'
eyes, good luck signs and bad luck
signs"
My dear young lady, I was born
under an unlucky star, according to my
horoscope, and on the. thirteenth of the
month. My nurse is said to have
broken a looking glass trying to show
me my pink and puckereo countenance
before / was three days old. | married
on Friday, the thirteenth, and saw the
new moon over my left shoulder the
night of my marriage. yet no conspicu-
Gus stroke of bad or good luck has
ever come to me or mine. Why should
believe In omens2'
''Better touch wood, Pop' said the
Smart Cashier, laughing.
Think OF trouble an it'n come quick
II you don't touch wood before you
speak
quoted the old man, from doggerel Of
his youthful days. "That's lust
what / was getting at. Half the people
one meets have at least one or two
pet superstitlons that go back to the
days of witchcraft. Touch wood why
II comes from the dark ages when tons
and cords of fake pieces of the true
cross were bawked about 'all over
Europe and sold to the ignorant and
credulous for charms TO ward off i'll
luck and disease. Touchin' o. wood
Is but one Of thousand of the heredi-
tary superstitions that we still cling to,
from the rabbit foot Of the crap
shooter to the mascot or 'ginx' of the
baseball player
"Me fadder tried to show our kid
his mug in dc looking glass an Inc
mnddcr didn' want i'm to, cause she
said il would bring bad luck. an she
t'rowed a teacup at i'm an broke de
lookin' glass am would a knocked do
block otln I'm. only he lodged" F" broke
in the Fool Office Boy, impetuously.
"That was certainly one case where
bad luck came from the breaking of
the family mirror said tho Smart
Cashier,
"There is one little superstition con,
cerniDg babies that is really harmful, -
observed the Junior Partner. "That is
the one which says that babies finger
nails must not be cut before the child
is Il year old. if the child is to live to
grow up. Instead the mother must
bite the nails off. Physicians tell me
that this is so general that half the
chlldren they see have torn and dis
torted nails -
be taken out of doors until after ho
had been carried up stairs. so that he
would rise in life, but pa, he forgot
and Just carried him out, and now pa
says that my little brother is just as
ant to be we'll digger rs a steeple
iack. Pa is always joking about some
thing said the Pretty Stenographer,
confdingly.
"Might make second story man out
of him; that would be rising in life
some, - butted in the Smart Cashier,
with his usual appreciation of his own
wit,
"Yes. or penny counter, - said the
Pretty Stenographer, with an unlocked
for but whitening sarcasm and the
days work proceeded.