A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (18 page)

I looked up at him. "Father, I'm afraid," I said. "I'm afraid for you and for Mama."

"Not you, Susanna," he said. "You've never been afraid in your life."

"I have fears now, honored Father."

"We all do, child." He smiled at Joseph and Elizabeth. "When a knock comes on the door in the middle of the night, everyone in Salem trembles. Our forebears left their homes across the sea so we would not know such fear. And I've been in hiding for the past month to avoid arrest."

He held us close and kissed us. "This is not what I wanted in this land, for myself or my children. But I have come back now to face charges. This is not England. Persecution does not flourish here. This is Massachusetts. People here are fair. So I have come back. Now, haven't you tea to offer me?"

In a short while, we were all sipping tea and talking at the board in the kitchen. Father ate ravenously of the meat and cheese and bread the Putnams had put before him. He told us of Boston, where he stayed with merchant friends. I listened to him tell Joseph and Elizabeth how Boston had joyously received Reverend Mather and Sir William Phips, though I did not care a king's shilling for either of them.

I just wanted to hear my father's voice again—the familiar tones, the learned words he used. I sat, as if under a spell, listening to him.

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. "I have heard there is already a schism amongst the judges who will sit on the Court of Oyer and Terminer. They worry the matter. Saltonstall does not believe in spectral evidence, and he urges caution. They say he thinks convictions should be on evidence more considerable."

"He is a man of good sense," Joseph said.

"You will accompany me when I turn myself in tomorrow, Joseph?"

"I will," Joseph said firmly. "But now my wife and I would leave you and the girls to your privacy. I know you have much to discuss."

When they had gone back upstairs, Father looked at us. Except for some lines in his face that I had never noticed before, he seemed the same. There was but one change in him.

When he spoke, there were silences now between his sentences, as if he weighed every thought. It was as though a shadow fell over him, as if he had experienced some depth of moral isolation that would always be a part of him now.

"The Putnams are good people," he said. "Were it not for people like them, all of those accused would despair."

"They have made a home for us here, Father," Mary said.

"Your mother—Joseph says you see her once a week—how does she keep?"

"She stays busy helping others," I told him.

"Tomorrow I will turn myself in. They will examine me in court and accuse me of witchcraft. You must not come."

"Honored Father, please!" We both begged.

"No, you must stay here."

"How will I go with you to Boston?" Mary asked.

"Joseph has plans," he said. "Just wait to hear what he says and obey him. Susanna, are you sure you won't come with us to Boston? Your mother and I will be given our liberty during the day. The way matters have been moving, it will be a while before we come back here to go to trial. It has been three months since the naming of the first witches, and they have just set up a court to hear the first cases."

"I can't come, honored Father," I said.

"We will miss you, child. And I know how you love Boston. You can stay with Mary."

The very thought tempted me. But I could not let myself go, as much as I knew I would miss my family. I had to stay and speak out when the time came. "I will stay and wait for William," I said.

He patted my hand on the table. "The jails here and in Boston are overflowing with this witch business," he said sadly, "with new witches being named every day. And I hear now that there are rumors of witches in Andover."

"Andover? How can that be, Father?" I asked.

"Evil spreads," he told us, "ofttimes quicker than goodness. Now I trust Joseph and Elizabeth or I would not allow you to stay, Susanna. But you made promises to your mother. I trust you to keep them."

I promised him I would, and we stayed talking until the first light streaks of day shone outside the window, until the birds stirred with their waking-up sounds. Ellen came into the kitchen, startled to see us there.

We had breakfast, and Father left for court with Joseph. That night when Joseph came home, it was late. Mary and I waited anxiously. Elizabeth had held supper for her husband. When we sat at the table to eat, he told us how matters had gone.

Father had appeared in court with dignity and grace to hear Susannah Sheldon testify that his specter had appeared to her and claimed to be God.

Oh, how that must have hurt my father! The judges reminded him of how his behavior on the Sabbath had been reprehensible, Joseph told us.

"Sometimes I think," Elizabeth said, "that those named as witches are always just a bit different from others."

Joseph nodded. "It would seem as such. It's as if the afflicted girls are being given instructions on whom to name to cleanse this society of dissenters."

"But who is giving such instructions?" Mary asked.

I looked at my plate. Who, indeed? Ann Putnam, the elder.

"Your father was brave, girls," Joseph said. "He asked the judges where was the religious toleration that people had come to this land to secure. And after it was over, we had a moment together before they took him away. He told me that someday, when this madness is spent, he intends to donate land for a church where he can worship as he wishes."

Mary and I looked at each other. Something was wrong.

"They took Father away?" Mary asked.

He saw the stricken look on our faces. Then he and Elizabeth exchanged glances.

"What about your plans?" Mary asked. "I thought I would be going to Boston with him?"

"Is something wrong, Joseph?" I asked.

"Let's finish our meal," he said. "Nothing is wrong. Let's finish our meal in peace."

It was the worst test of patience and good manners that Mary and I ever had. We would honor Joseph and keep silent, because we trusted him and knew by now that he liked order in his home. But Mary was white-faced, and I could scarcely swallow my food. We finished our meal in silence. Then the baby cried in her cradle, which was nearby, and I got up to fetch her. But Elizabeth put a restraining hand on my arm.

"You have other matters to attend to," she said.

Joseph stood up. "Are you packed, Mary?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then go get your cloaks, both of you."

I caught on immediately and felt my legs go weak. Mary was leaving now! But why must I get my cloak, too? "Oh, Joseph," I said, "you're not sending me away. Please! Have I done something to displease you?"

He hushed me. He came and put his arm around my shoulder. "Tell me," he said, "don't you wish to say a proper good-bye to your parents?"

Tears of relief came into my eyes. Mary had gone to fetch our cloaks and her bags. Joseph smiled at us.

"I have made arrangements. We bring Mary this night. You may come along, but only if you give me a promise."

"What promise, Joseph?"

"That you know, in your heart, it is good-bye only for a while, because you will be seeing your family again soon."

We drove through the night in an eerie silence that was broken only by the croaking of frogs and the evening songs of insects. As we neared the marshes, I heard two owls calling to each other. I fancied I saw shadows where there were none. I shivered in the wagon on the seat next to Mary. I held her hand and it came to me that we had arrived at a sad state of affairs here in Salem, that I must ride through the night like a thief to see my parents.

Even the night breezes seemed fraught with foreboding. The landscape all around Salem had become melancholy. And as Joseph's mare pulled the wagon swiftly over familiar paths, I felt as if we were all incarnated out of that melancholy, as if we were all part of it.

We met our parents under a tree at a bend in the road just past the marshes. They were waiting in their carriage. I immediately recognized their driver as John Willard, a deputy constable who, in March, had brought in many witches. He held back in the shadows as Mary and I embraced our parents. Then, after they had shaken hands with Joseph, Willard told us we had only half an hour together. "I've put myself in danger, allowing this meeting," he growled.

I do not much ponder the farewell. But it still comes to the front of my mind at night when I hear owls calling to each other in the loneliness. Or when I catch the scent of the marshes. When that happens, I can still feel Mama's or Mary's arms around me, hear Mary's sobs as we drew apart, hear Father's voice break as it did when he tried to conceal his painful feelings.

I can, to this day, conjure up in an instant their whispered reassurances that we would soon meet again, the promises they wrung from me regarding my safety. Then it was over, and John Willard stepped out of the shadows and said it was time to go.

As they drove off into the night, I stood there feeling myself to be the most wretched person on the face of the earth.

"Come, Susanna." I felt Joseph's hand on my shoulder. I turned, reluctantly, from the receding carriage, the sight of which tugged and pulled at my heart. I will never see my parents again, I told myself. And who knows when I will again see Mary? I could not put the feeling from me all the way home.

THE FIRST SES
sion of the Court of Oyer and Terminer sat in Salem on June 2 with all the pageantry Puritans could muster and still be Puritans. There were the sounds of drums, and constables and judges in wigs, looking for all the world as if they were in Parliament in England.

All this I heard from Joseph. Neither Johnathan nor I went to court.

People in Salem were awaiting the trials. Those in prison hoped to now have their names cleared. Joseph said that John Proctor was amassing evidence on how some of the men brought in were being chained heels to neck to wring confessions from them.

The general feeling from those who opposed the witch business was that such tortures should not go on in Massachusetts, that persecution could not happen in this new land.

But there were other people who awaited the trials eagerly, and the hangings they were speculating would follow.

Hangings? In Salem? Everyone waited to see what the Court of Oyer and Terminer would do.

As it turned out, it did little but go by the record of the previous hearings. The only new testimony they would consider was that collected since the accused was last examined. Then they let the jury deliberate. There were no new trials.

Bridget Bishop was the first case. Again she wore her red bodice into court. They denied her any counsel.

"They said the Devil was her counsel," Joseph told us. "The girls said her shape visited decent married men in their chambers at night. Deliverance Hobbs was there, and she, too, accused Bridget."

"Deliverance Hobbs?" I gasped. "Mother of Abigail?"

"Yes," Joseph said. "It seems she finds it more profitable to confess and implicate others."

"Tell us the outcome," Elizabeth said softly.

"They searched Bridget for a witch mark. The women said she had one. She is to hang," Joseph told us, "on the tenth of this month."

The whole of Salem Town and Salem Village went to see Bridget Bishop hanged on Gallows Hill.

Half the people were there because they believed she should hang. They held she had always been a troublemaker, putting aside God's ordinances in her manner of dress. And was she not defiant to women and flattering to their husbands?

Others went because they wanted to be there when the town fathers came to their senses and stepped the hanging.

I went with Joseph and Johnathan. We stayed a distance from the hanging tree. As high sheriff of Essex County, George Corwin presided. Reverend Parris came but said no prayer for poor Bridget, for she was not one of God's chosen.

And so, one of the marshals threw Bridget over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, with a hood over her head. He carried her up the ladder, tied the rope around her neck, and threw her free.

I gave a small, muffled cry and turned to hide my face in Johnathan's shoulder.
They had started to hang people in Salem!

"You should not come to these affairs henceforth, Susanna," Joseph said. "I shall forbid it. Your father would not want this."

Henceforth?
Did he think there would be more such affairs in Salem, then?

"I must go to confer with friends," Joseph said. "Wait here for me."

We waited. The crowd was coming down the hill from the hanging tree, laughing and conversing as if they had just attended a husking bee. The afflicted girls sat on a stone fence a short distance from the tree, like crows lined up to observe.

"Notice how people do not go near them," Johnathan pointed out to me.

He was right. When the girls had arrived, people had stepped aside to let them pass, as if the ground, in a wide perimeter around them, was alive with fire.