The Witch Tree Symbol by Carolyn Keene (1955, 1975) Part 2
- mysteryforever26
- Jun 10, 2020
- 7 min read
Nancy and George pull Bess out of the car. She slowly started to wake up from being thrown unconscious when they crashed the car. After looking around they find a piece of paper that reads "NANCY DREW, WITCHES ARE NOT WANTED IN AMISH COUNTRY," they all find this to be very strange. After getting back on the road, Bess tells Nancy that she has a bad headache. So they head back to Manda's homestead to get help from her parents. Mrs. Kreutz uses her medicine book the Gabrauch Buch to help Bess's head. While Bess rests for a while, Nancy and George go and help Mrs. Kreutz with dinner and pies. After dinner Nancy talks with Mr. Kreutz and he tells him what had happened that day and he calls her, "Du bist en hex maydel," Nancy tries to assure him that she is not a witch. After spending the night the girls all agree they will leave in the morning.
So they travel into New Holland for breakfast and decide not tell anyone about this witch business otherwise more people might not like them. They find a boardinghouse where they can stay owned by the Glicks. When they arrive they tell them they are sight seeing the area and are in search of antiques. After getting settled in they talk with Mr. and Mrs. Glick and see if they know Manda. They in fact know the Amish folks that she is working for, Mr. Weiss. Not much is known about them as they are from Ohio. They did have a carriage but they were surprised they would have traveled clear from Ohio. There was a carriage factory fairly close to the boardinghouse and Nancy goes to speak with the owners. They tell her they had one stolen from them last week, and the owner's uncle lives up the road and has horses and he said he had a horse go missing the same day.
The girls' decide to drive back and talk with Mr. Zinn to see if he had any new information. Mr. Zinn tells them a man came in and bought a piece of furniture from him. Most people bargain on the price but this man paid sticker price and left. They asked Mr. Zinn if they saw what he was driving, it was a black carriage and horse that fit the description of the ones stolen last week. After putting two and two together, they now knew that it was Mr. Hoelt that came and purchased the item. To add to it more, Nancy looks at the large bills the man used for purchase. To her intuition, the money was indeed counterfeit. They call the police to report the money and they said they would notify the state troopers and be on their trail. After some hours past they were enjoying looking at some homemade quilts that Mrs. Zinn had made. Mr. Zinn came and interrupted them quite angrily. He had found some lamps inside Nancy's car and posed that they were a sham and wanted to steal from them. Nancy tries to reason with him, herself and Mrs. Zinn were able to calm him down. Once he was calm he explained that a woman made a phone call and let him know that a girl named Nancy Drew will appear innocent but is actually a witch. She told him that he would find the lamps in her car that she planned on stealing from him. George says to him if they planned on stealing, she was pretty sure they'd already be long gone by now. After apologies are made, Nancy believes that it is best they leave and try not cause anymore problems there. Word had traveled fast, once they got to the boardinghouse, children there were calling all three of them witches. After resting a while Mrs. Glick requested the girls' come downstairs, a state trooper was there to speak with them. An anonymous caller called them and said three out of state girls were witches and causing trouble in town. The trooper hears Nancy out and is satisfied with her reasons for being there and leaves. Mrs. Glick invites the girls' to get up early in the morning to help her bake items for the bake sale tomorrow. They agree and head to bed early to get some rest.
The next day while at the market, they see Manda. Trying to talk with her, they learn that it's not Manda, its her cousin Melinda. She had no idea that her cousin was missing. She tells them a man ran into her the other day thinking she was Manda. After telling the description it fit very well to that of Mr. Zinn's for the gentleman that bought the furniture. He warned Melinda of a witch girl that was coming. She didn't understand what he was talking about. He also mentioned the word schnitz to her, but she did not know what he meant by that either. The girls' return to Mrs. Glick whom was just about sold out on all their baked goods. They talk with her and she didn't know the word either. Out of the corner of their eye they noticed an Amish woman getting into a black carriage, possibly Mrs. Hoelt. A young girl tells Nancy that it was an old woman that has lived there a long time. So that was a dead end. Just then they see another carriage that matches their description and the man they thought was Mr. Hoelt. They talk with a police officer but he would not leave his post. By the time they went to the main station at the market, Mr. Hoelt would be gone. So they made the decision not to report him and went back to the boardinghouse with Mrs. Glick. They speak with Mr. Glick and he too did not know that word. He drove Nancy around to a few of their neighbors to ask them. She showed them the witch tree symbol but none of them had never seen it before. They went back to the boardinghouse and the girls' enjoyed listening to stories from the Glicks' from when they were children. In the morning everyone was up. Then all of a sudden they hear Mr. Glick yelling. They rush outside to see what he was making so much noise over. To their shock, the witch tree symbol had been painted on his barn. There was also a witch riding a broom stick, and the face looked like Nancy Drew!
The Glick's were very concerned. This Mr. Hoelt was becoming to be very threatening and it was not safe for them to stay. They stayed long enough to help Mr. Glick re-paint the barn to cover up the witch and symbol. Nancy also received a call from her father letting her know he was leaving on business and they were going to have some visitors come up to see them. To their surprise it was Ned Nickerson, Burt and Dave the girls' boyfriends. The Glick's encourage them to stay and have dinner that evening and go to a dance. A young Amish man delivers a carriage for transportation. Ned notices that there is a hex symbol on the seat. He tells the other guys not to tell Nancy. Upon traveling to the dance, two other carriages raced and threw Ned and Nancy off the road and they fell out of the carriage. Their horse ran off as well. The others were already at the dance and they heard the news that a witch was thrown from a carriage up the way and disappeared. Bess and George knew that was Nancy and Ned.
There is so much to process in what happens in this part of the book. Firstly, I understand that Pennsylvania Dutch they speak has German origins. If they could have at least translated things a little better for this book it would have been great. I took German for several years and its very frustrating for me to see that they are not making proper sentences and using words that aren't even translating quite right from German. Schnitz which means to carve. I don't feel that was the most proper word that the man could have used. Vorsicht would have fit much better meaning caution. Also hex maydel does not translate to witch girl, that would be Hexen Mädchen. This makes me suspect that they did not have a German translator assist in the writing. I can't even image what the copy of the German translation would even come out to.
Secondly, I find it very hard to believe that other than a little bit of weight difference that Manda and Melinda look almost identical. The only logical possibility to this is that two twin brothers, married two twin sisters, then the chances of their children looking alike is feasible. This is called a Quaternary marriage, there were only about 250 cases of this worldwide reported in 2016. There is a great article about this that I will have a link for below if you would like to check it out. So for this possibly in the 1950's seems quite low to me.
Thirdly, who can paint that well at night?! And to get the likeness of Nancy, must mean that this person has been able to watch Nancy quite close and gain details of her face. They don't explain how large all of this was, but based off Mr. Glick's reaction, it must have been pretty decent size. Spray paint was invented it=n 1949 so it was available for the public to purchase at this time but it was probably not something in their nearest store. So for all of that to be painted by hand at that detail, we have a mystery person that has a hidden art talent. So why aren't they using that more productively than painting hex symbols and witches on barns?
Lastly, I am surprised that the state police have not kindly asked Nancy and her friends to go home. Maybe due to time era. But if someone in this day and age was spoken to as much as they have, they would either be arrested on suspicious activity or asked to leave the state. I feel at this point there are more clues and questions than answers to all of this. There has to be a balance at some point for the scales to tip and I suspect that will be soon. Maybe Nancy will find those answers along with their horse in the next portion of the book.
Please check out these articles attached that I spoke about above if you would like to know more.
You brought up some very good points...real mystery for sure.