One of the farmers let Betty have straw for bedding her pig in return
for manure. When one of his men came to fetch the manure away, she
thought he had taken too much. So she warned him that he would not go
far--neither did he, for the cart tipped right over. And that was
Betty again!
We know Betty had a husband, for we hear that one evening when he came
home from his work his wife had ever so many tailors sitting on the
table all busily stitching. When John came in they vanished.
A few people still remember Betty Wells, and they shake their heads as
they say, "Well, you see, the old woman had a very queer-looking eye,"
giving you to understand that it was with that particular eye she worked
all these wonders.
The story of Betty Wells has been gleaned from scraps supplied by
various old people and collected by Miss Frances A. Hill, of
Willoughton. The unfortunate christening feast took place after the
baptism of her father, and the story was told to her by an old aunt, now
dead, who was grown up at the time (1830) and could remember it all
distinctly. The people who told Miss Hill about Betty and her weird
witch-like ways fully believed in her supernatural powers.
Another Betty, whose surname was Finch, was employed at the beginning of
the last century at Holy Trinity Church, Warrington, as a "bobber," or
sluggard-waker[81].
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