A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (24 page)

"Ann Putnam, the daughter?" I asked.

"Nay, the mother. She lived in Salisbury when young; I've known her a long time. And believe me, were I to turn into a boar, it wouldn't be blue. It would be a lovely bright red. Oh, how I've always loved the color red. And I'd dash myself at Ann Putnam, troublemaker that she be, not at her kinsman."

I smiled.

"Aye, child." She nodded. "And someday the ministers and magistrates will be apprised of the fact that those named as witches are all within the circle of Goodwife Ann Putnam's acquaintances."

The words, spoken with such clarity of heart, raised my spirits. But still my mind was not at rest, though I wanted so to believe her.

Sensible of my confusion, she took my hand again. "Look into my eyes, Susanna English."

I looked.

"See ye any sign of alliance with Satan?"

"No. But I would not know such if it were there."

"Ye would know it, child. Believe me. Does my touch afflict ye?"

"No."

"There are no witches, child. They exist only in the Puritan heart. The ancestors of these people hereabouts came to this land with a vision of a godly society. They came to escape the past. What they quickly discovered is that the nature of man and woman is such that sin can flourish here as well as from whence they came. What they do not yet understand is that the spirit it took to tame this wilderness is so strong it would not bow to the authority of the Puritan covenant and its ministers. So strong that it will always question authority. They see this not as something to celebrate, but as a failure of their vision. So they seek to lay blame."

Her logic made wonderful sense. Her words sounded like something my father would say. And they lighted the gloomy night around us as much as the glow from Johnathan's lantern.

"Thank you," I said. "For your wisdom and for coming this night."

" 'Twas worth the trip, child, to see your heart lifted. Now you may show her the petition, Johnathan."

He unrolled the parchment. "Here ninety-three neighbors have put their names," he said, "to declare that in half a century in the town of Salisbury, Mary Bradbury has never been known to make trouble, that she is a devout woman, a good wife of Thomas, and mother of eleven upstanding children."

I let my eyes wander over the petition. When I again raised them to Mary, she smiled at me. Tears slid down my face. I embraced her.

"Forgive me," I said.

Her slender arms gripped me in joy and forgiveness. Then we parted. We went down the hill from the hanging tree. Johnathan helped Mary up into the carriage. "The crow's nest, child," she said before they drove away. "When your brother takes you to sea, climb the mast to the crow's nest. Do it for me."

I promised her I would. Then they drove away. And I was alone in the windy night.

But the hooting of the owl was friendly as I turned my cart toward home. The rustlings of cornstalks in Dr. Endicott's meadow were murmurings of encouragement. The swaying treetops now seemed to be loving arms guiding me on. And the warm wind dried the tears on my face as I drove away from that long dark road in my soul.

SUN FILTERED
through the windows into the Putnam kitchen and shone off the polished wood of the table. There Joseph, Johnathan, and I sat and watched Reverend Richard Pike of Salisbury as he wrote his sweeping sentences on the parchment in front of him.

Through the open door came the sounds of a cow lowing in a nearby pasture, the calling of crows from a tree, the chirping of insects singing the praises of that hot August day. From another part of the house came the becalming singing of Elizabeth as she put baby Mary down for her nap.

Reverend Pike halted in his writing to take a sip of cold cider. A bee buzzed around the pitcher on the table. Joseph waved the bee away. The reverend drank the cool liquid, wiped his mouth with a clean square of cloth, then blew his nose.

"I'm more beset by goldenrod than by the specters of witches," he said.

Joseph smiled.

"If the Devil is anywhere in Massachusetts, he's out there in those fields, where grows the cursed weed that makes a man so miserable," Pike went on. He blew his nose again and set back to his task.

We waited anxiously as the scratching of his quill pen went on and on. When finally he set the pen down, he looked across the table at me. "Susanna English," he said.

"Yes, Reverend."

"Stand, child."

I pushed back my chair and stood.

"Are ye sure, Susanna English," he intoned in his best preaching voice, "that everything you have told me here, this seventh day of August in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and ninety-two, is true?"

"Yes, Reverend, I am sure."

"Do ye attest to these words of yours as being spoken truly from the heart and the mind, with no intent to do damage to others, but only to speak truth?"

"Yes, Reverend."

"And ye will not recant later?"

"I'll not recant, Reverend."

"Nor have second thoughts?"

"I have had all my second thoughts, Reverend. And more. I am done with my doubts now."

He nodded and waved his hand. "Sit, child, sit." Then he handed the letter to Joseph, who took a few moments to read it while we waited. A furrow appeared on Joseph's brow.

" 'Tis a wonderful letter, Reverend. I especially like the part where you say that proof of witchcraft is dark and uncertain and confession often necessitated. And that under these circumstances it is safer to leave a guilty person alive until further discovery than to put an innocent person to death. But you have mentioned nothing that Susanna told you."

"The magistrates and ministers have had more than enough observations from young girls," Pike said. "They need no more. But I say this now: I would not have put pen to paper today had this young girl not told me her tale."

Joseph nodded. "You protect her name. I appreciate this. But you have signed the letter with only your initials."

"Magistrate Corwin knows from whence it comes. The time is not yet upon us for signing lone names on parchment. This is but a start. Let us pray now that this one letter, written on your gracious board, will give others the courage to speak out."

Joseph smiled. "One person of courage writing a lone letter on a kitchen table can change the world. Thank you, Reverend."

Pike nodded and regarded me with his rheumy, red-rimmed eyes. "You've done us all a great service, lass. Thank ye."

"Thank you," I said.

Joseph walked him outside to his horse.

"How fare you now, Susanna English?" Johnathan asked me.

I smiled up at him. "I fare well, Johnathan, but I didn't think it would be this way. All these months, when I fancied myself telling authorities what I knew, I saw myself standing in a courtroom before men in long robes and white wigs. I saw rain slashing on the windows, and the girls rolling on the floor."

"How you must have suffered, Susanna." His words were tender, his touch as he drew me toward him equally so. "And I never sensible of what you carried in your heart until you told me yesterday."

"I couldn't have spoken out today, Johnathan, if you hadn't brought Mary Bradbury to me."

We stood close together. "I'm glad that I could do something for you. I knew not what troubled you, Susanna. Only that I love you and wanted to help."

And there in Joseph's kitchen, we kissed. It seemed so natural, kissing in the kitchen like an old married couple. In the next moment came the sound of Joseph clearing his throat. We looked up. He stood in the doorway. We drew apart.

The golden sun framed Joseph. And as I looked at him, in his breeches and summer shirt with the sleeves rolled up, as I beheld the slender strength of him, I felt a surge of love for this plain and decent man who had fought so hard for all the accused. Who had not pushed or berated me to speak, but waited patiently for me to do so.

I ran to him and he hugged me. "Thank you," he said.

"Will the letter help, Joseph?" I asked.

"It's a beginning." He smiled at us both. "It will take time, but it's a beginning."

It took time. And it took more lives.

On August 19, they hanged George Jacobs, Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Proctor, and John Willard on Gallows Hill.

The Reverend Cotton Mather came from Boston for those hangings. Joseph told us, at supper, how Mather rode up on his great dark horse, dressed all in black from head to foot. And he sat there etched against the hard blue August sky like death itself.

The crowd became disgruntled, Joseph said, because Burroughs recited the Lord's Prayer before he was hanged. It was common knowledge that no witch could recite the Lord's Prayer without making a mistake.

Cotton Mather raised himself in his stirrups then and told the people that the Devil sat on Burroughs's shoulder, whispering in his ear. Then he rode away while the mutterings of the crowd continued.

"What of Reverend Pike's letter?" I asked. "Has he sent it to no one?"

"To Magistrate Corwin," Joseph said.

"And does Corwin do nothing?" Elizabeth asked.

"We have one good sign, wife. No one is arresting Corwin's mother-in-law in Boston, and the girls are constantly crying out on her."

"So Corwin rushes to save his mother-in-law," I said bitterly, "while others hang."

"A man speaks out cautiously these days, Susanna. The fact that his mother-in-law has not been arrested weakens the position of the girls. That may be the only contribution Corwin can make right now. But it is a good one. And Pike is showing the letter to others. I cannot name them now. Be patient."

On September 19, they took Giles Cory into an open field and pressed him to death by setting large stones on a board on his chest. Giles had refused to testify in court. For if he did not testify, if he were not found guilty, they could not seize his worldly goods.

Joseph had tears in his eyes as he dismounted his horse and told me about Giles. "All he said was, 'More weight,' as they piled the stones on." Joseph looked around the yard. "It is difficult to believe such things are happening in this peaceful land. Giles fought them to the end. Now his family gets his land and his goods."

"My speaking out was for naught," I said sadly.

"No," Joseph said. "We must go to Boston within the week to see Thomas Brattle. He wrote to me that he was much moved by Reverend Pike's letter. You see, Susanna, Pike has been showing it to others."

"I have heard this Thomas Brattle's name before," I recollected.

"He is held in great esteem," Joseph said. "He is about to become treasurer of Harvard College. And he would meet with you to hear from your own lips what you told Pike. You must tell your story again, Susanna. This is a man who will sign his full name to any document he writes. Where is Elizabeth?"

"Bathing the baby."

"I must tell her to get ready for the trip."

From the windows of Thomas Brattle's parlor, one could look out to the Charles River, where the masts of tall ships floated past red, gold, and russet trees along the banks. The sky was a cloudless blue. When I pulled my gaze from the scene, I could fill my eyes with Brattle's richly furnished room.

Carpets imported from Turkey covered polished wood floors. Heavy wood wainscoting decorated the walls. Beautifully bound books were lined neatly on shelves. Velvet draperies hung from the windows. Next to a glowing hearth, Elizabeth and I took tea served from a silver pot by a maidservant.

At his intricately carved desk, Brattle poured his best Madeira. One crystal glass for Joseph, one for himself.

All around the room was evidence of this man's full life. There were curios from around the world, astronomy equipment, leather-bound ledgers, a jade chess set, and silver candlesticks in profusion. Brattle himself wore a brocaded waistcoat and breeches of soft material. He seemed to know Joseph well. And he'd taken Elizabeth's hand and kissed it in the European manner, then mine.

"It is so good to meet the daughter of Phillip English, a friend and fellow merchant," he said. "Bring your teacup to my desk, child. Have another cake. Don't be anxious. I shall honor your confidence. I long to hear what you have to tell me now."

And so I told my tale once again, to that kind and learned man. At first I
was
anxious. After all, he was a world-traveled merchant, astronomer, and mathematician.

And when I started to talk, my words seemed so out of place in this well-appointed room. I felt my tale had no merit, that my words were the ramblings of one from some backwater place bereft of civilization.

But his interest never waned. He took notes as I spoke. And I took heart from the sight of Elizabeth and Joseph and baby Mary sitting across the room from me.

Even as I told my story on that day, September 22, back in Salem they were taking Martha Cory, Margaret Scot, Mary Esty, Alice Park, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Red, Sam Ward-well, and Mary Parker to Gallows Hill, where they hanged them until they were dead.