{"product_id":"2940013746459","title":"The Haunted House","description":"The beautiful river, which retains its Indian name of Merrimack, winds\u003cbr\u003ethrough a country of almost romantic beauty. The last twenty miles of\u003cbr\u003eits course in particular, are unsurpassed in quiet and rich scenery,\u003cbr\u003eby any river in the United States. There are indeed, no bold and\u003cbr\u003eragged cliffs, like the Highlands of the Hudson, to cast their grim\u003cbr\u003eshadows on the water--no blue and lofty mountains, piercing into the\u003cbr\u003ethin atmosphere, and wrapping about their rocky proportions the mists\u003cbr\u003eof valley and river--but there are luxuriant fields and pleasant\u003cbr\u003evillages, and white church-spires, gleaming through the green foliage\u003cbr\u003eof oak and elm--and wide forests of Nature's richest coloring, and\u003cbr\u003egreen hills sloping smoothly and gracefully to the margin of the\u003cbr\u003eclear, bright stream, which moves onward to the Ocean, as lightly and\u003cbr\u003egracefully as the moving of a cloud at sunset, when the light wind\u003cbr\u003ewhich propels the trial voyager is unfelt on earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was on the margin of this stream, during the early times of\u003cbr\u003eMassachusetts, that a stranger--a foreigner of considerable fortune--\u003cbr\u003etook up his residence. He had a house, constructed from a model of his\u003cbr\u003eown which, for elegance and convenience, far surpassed the rude and\u003cbr\u003esimple tenements of his neighbors; and he had a small farm, or rather\u003cbr\u003egarden. which he seemed to cultivate for amusement, rather than from\u003cbr\u003eany absolute necessity of labor. He had no family, save a daughter--an\u003cbr\u003einteresting girl of sixteen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNear the dwelling of Adam McOrne--for such was the stranger's name--\u003cbr\u003elived old Alice Knight--a woman, known throughout the whole valley of\u003cbr\u003ethe river, from Plum Island to the residence of the Sachem\u003cbr\u003ePassaconaway, on the Nashua,--as one under an evil influence--an ill-\u003cbr\u003etempered and malignant old woman--who was seriously suspected of\u003cbr\u003edealing with the Prince of Darkness. Many of her neighbors were ready\u003cbr\u003eto make oath that they had been haunted by old Alice, in the shape of\u003cbr\u003ea black cat--that she had taken off the wheels of their hay-carts and\u003cbr\u003efrozen down their sled-runners, when the team was in full motion--that\u003cbr\u003eshe had bewitched their swine, and rendered their cattle unruly--nay,\u003cbr\u003emore than one good wife averred, that she had bewitched their churns\u003cbr\u003eand prevented the butter from forming; and that they could expel her\u003cbr\u003ein no other way, than by heating a horse-nail and casting it into the\u003cbr\u003ecream. Moreover, they asserted that when this method of exorcism was\u003cbr\u003eresorted to, they invariably learned, soon after, that goodwife Alice\u003cbr\u003ewas suffering under some unknown indisposition. In short, it would be\u003cbr\u003eidle to attempt a description of the almost innumerable feats of\u003cbr\u003ewitchcraft ascribed to the withered and decrepid Alice.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070260953328,"sku":"2940013746459","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013746459_p0.jpg?v=1763589689","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013746459","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}