A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (8 page)

"What is it that you want, Abigail?" I asked.

"To be free. To be away from Salem. Or if I must stay here, to find someone who can show me how to give voice to my thoughts and needs, no matter how different I am. Why must we all be cut from the same cloth?"

"It's the way of things," I said.

"Well, it's the wrong way. And the magistrates and ministers may fool themselves into believing that everyone is falling in with their way of thinking. But I could tell them what I see late at night when no one knows I am looking. Most people I observe are as discontented as I."

She gathered her things. Then, as we turned to my horse and cart, she put a hand on my arm and pointed to the parsonage. "There's a place I could tell them about. The sounds that come from inside that house could be from Hell."

"What have you heard, Abigail?"

"Our good reverend beats his woman slave. His daughter screeches like a wildcat at night. And a covey of girls has been going in and out there every day. All gaggling like geese. Something is amiss in that house."

"Perhaps the girls go in to study Scripture. It is, after all, a parsonage."

She laughed. "The girls come only when the reverend and his wife are out. I've watched the beavers, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, and foxes long enough to know when creatures are in disharmony with nature."

"We're not the ones to pass judgment, Abigail."

"I know what I've seen," she insisted.

As we went toward the cart, the back door of the parsonage banged open and someone called our names. Ann Putnam was hurrying across the frozen ground. "Wait," she pleaded.

Breathless from her exertions, she stood before us. "You've both been hovering about here spying, haven't you?"

I was taken aback by the pinched look in her face, her pallor, the tightness about her mouth that gave her the look of a grown woman.

"What is there to spy on?" Abigail asked.

"Don't evade my question," Ann said.

"We're measuring the boundaries of this property," Abigail told her. "That should interest you, Ann. Your mother has spent her life involved in property disputes."

"I'd have a care if I were you, Abigail Hobbs," the girl warned. "The town fathers are growing weary of your heathen ways."

"Does Reverend Parris know you girls come here every day when he and his wife are out?" Abigail asked.

"We come for spiritual advice."

"From John Indian? Or Tituba?" Abigail's laugh rang out in the cold.

"We wait for the reverend," Ann said.

"Then why do you leave before he comes home? I care not for what you do in there," Abigail said. "But don't mix in my affairs, or the good reverend will soon know something is amiss in his house."

Ann turned to me. "She doesn't concern me. No one would listen to the ravings of a woman who lives in the woods at night. But you do concern me, Susanna English. Betty Parris has told me of your visits. I ask you not to come again."

"I don't need an invitation to visit the parsonage," I said.

"You are not welcome," she said. Her manner brooked no argument. Her voice was strong, her demeanor unflinching. There was about her some purpose that could not be denied. But I was nobody's fool.

"I'd be more concerned with little Betty Parris,"
I
told her. "Whatever goes on in there is causing her great torment."

"She had malignant fever. She is better now."

But I caught the gleam of wariness in her eye. And I knew I'd touched on some truth. When she spoke again, her voice was tempered.

"We cannot have people here if we cannot trust them," she explained quietly. "So don't hover about, please."

"I've better places to hover," Abigail said. "Come along, Susanna; leave the little coven of witches to themselves."

"
What mean you by that?
" Ann Putnam screamed.

We turned to see her shivering in the cold. "No harm," Abigail said. "Why are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid."

"I know fear in one of God's creatures, be it a deer in the woods or a person."

"The accusation of witchcraft is not to be taken lightly," Ann said.

Again Abigail laughed. "All girls 'twixt twelve and twenty are witches, don't you know that? How else can we accomplish our goal of becoming women?"

I saw Ann breathe easier. "Leave us alone. And we'll leave you alone, Abigail Hobbs. You have your pleasures, and we have ours. In this godforsaken place, we must find our pleasures where we can."

"What pleasures do you find in there?" I asked.

"Our gatherings are too simple for the likes of you, Susanna English," she said. "We're plain village girls whiling away the long and lonely hours. We have never worn silks and laces. We don't have books or fancy things in our houses. Your presence would give us great discomfort."

"Keep your precious gathering," Abigail said. "Come along, Susanna."

We took our leave. "She always was the queer one," Abigail said, setting her things in my cart. "Her mother made her such. So, Miss Sly Wench, you have been inside. How else would you know that what they do disturbs little Betty?"

"I met Betty one afternoon and she told me," I lied. "The poor child was frightened to death. She'd escaped the house and was walking around out here. I thought her ravings were from the fever."

I don't know if Abigail believed me. We spoke no more of the matter, and then when we picked up Ellinor we discussed other things. But I'd had a profitable afternoon, for I came away convinced something sinister was going on in the parsonage. Why else would Ann Putnam have ordered us away?

I'd learned, too, that I was not the only one dissatisfied with our way of life in Salem. Abigail Hobbs was trying to escape its suffocating effects. And, if I were to be truly honest with myself, so were the girls in the circle.

WINTER CAME IN
earnest to Salem. Streams froze. The wind and the wolves howled at night. People stayed by their firesides. Midwinter in New England is a frightful time when people take sick and die, a time of frozen whiteness divided only by night and day.

The snows were deep, and people ventured out just to care for their livestock, to fetch firewood, to clear paths to go to Meeting. Melancholy gripped many.

Christmas came and went. Celebration was forbidden in Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared papist and pagan at the same time. But in our house my parents remembered Christmas celebrations of their childhoods, and so we had plum cake, sugared treats, roast pig and fowl, and every other kind of delicacy Deborah and Mama could concoct in our kitchen.

One day, Elizabeth Putnam, wife of Joseph, came to Mama's variety shop. It was her first trip out after giving birth.

"It is said that little Betty Parris is having hysterical fits," Elizabeth said as she stood examining a red kersey bed cover.

"Is it the fever?" Mama asked.

"No, it is more like a turning of the mind. She cries in her sleep, will not eat, screams words at her parents. She says their slave Tituba is trying to poison her. She sees objects flying at her from across the room. She sometimes does not know her father when he picks her up."

"He is a harsh man, but everyone knows of his love for that child," Mama said.

"She has thrown the Bible across the room."

"Winter afflicts the spirit," Mama said.

" 'Tis more than winter."

"What, then?" Mama asked.

"Her cousin Abigail is also afflicted. The good reverend has tried to keep his troubles to himself, but with so many coming and going at the parsonage, secrets cannot long be kept."

"Has he summoned the doctor?" Mama inquired.

"He has."

"And?"

"The doctor has dismissed all ailments but one," Elizabeth Putnam said. "He has pronounced the evil hand to be on them."

Mama's round, pleasant face stopped smiling. "What mean you by that?" she asked.

" 'Tis not my meaning but that of Doctor Griggs."

"What means he, then?"

"Witchcraft."

Mama's eyes sought mine. Bright sunlight streamed in the shop's window. Outside we could see people tramping about in the snow. A dog barked. A child's laughter echoed.

"Nonsense," Mama said briskly.

"So my husband, Joseph, says. He distrusts the verdict. As do many others. Those who have seen the girls say they look none the worse when they come out of their fits. And why should they? Tituba makes her little charges every delicacy to eat. They have been excused from prayers, study, from every chore. They have thrown off the yoke of discipline and do things other children would be whipped for."

"You sound as if you don't believe it, then," Mama said.

"Neither Joseph nor I believe it. Reverend Parris insists it is true. That those in demoniac possession throw off all discipline. So now he has sought the aid of other ministers. They will soon come and pray over the girls."

"My husband and I do not hold with witchcraft," Mama said.

Elizabeth Putnam's face broke into a smile. She nodded happily at Mama and then at me. "I am glad to know that, Mary. Now, tell me, what is the price of the bed cover? My husband is so happy with the birth of our daughter, Mary, he would have me select a gift for myself."

"It is one pound, ten shillings," Mama said. "It comes from England."

" 'Tis beautiful. But such a sum would buy ten bushels of wheat."

Mama smiled. " 'Tis my experience that when a husband wishes to buy his wife a gift, she would be a fool to refuse it."

"I will tell Joseph he may purchase this bed cover for me. Mary, don't spread this about, but I heard talk today of other girls now being afflicted."

"Who?" Mama asked.

"Mary Walcott. Elizabeth Booth. Susannah Sheldon. And Ann Putnam, my husband's niece."

I felt the color drain from my face. All were members of the circle!

Elizabeth Putnam picked up her basket and patted Mama's hand. "We must keep our senses, my Joseph says, and not give in to hysteria. Good day to you, Mary. Good day, Susanna."

Mama and I stared at each other for a moment, then Mama shook her head and went back to work. I was stocking items on the shelves, but I could not concentrate.

Witchcraft? The evil hand on Betty and Abigail and Ann Putnam? Likely the girls' afflictions had more to do with the mischief going on in the circle. I sensed young Ann Putnam's work in all of this. What path was she leading them down, I wondered.

It was plain that Reverend Parris did not know what transpired under his roof, or he would be meting out punishment, stern man that he was, and not calling in other ministers to pray over the girls. Yes, that was it! I stood as if under a spell myself, staring at the bolts of linsey-woolsey, buckram, and flannel, the rows of clogs, and the men's doublets on the shelves in front of me. And the thought came to me, like the sun through the window.

Little Betty was tormented with fear of her father discovering their doings. Perhaps he had already discovered what they were about. And to throw a mantle of protection over themselves, the other girls were mimicking Betty's condition.

Oh! I turned so quickly that I knocked a bottle from a shelf. It crashed to the floor.

"Susanna!" Mama's hand flew to her breast. "You startled me."

"I'm sorry, Mama." I picked up the unbroken bottle. Should I step forth and tell what manner of games were going on in the parsonage? No, no, I should try to speak with one of the girls first, to determine if they were lying, because I was the only one outside their circle who had reason to suspect them of it.

"Mama, wouldn't it be charitable if I brought some fresh apple tarts to Ann Putnam's? Of all those afflicted girls, she lives closest to us. Perhaps I could help her."

"Ann Putnam and her mother are trouble," Mama said grimly. "Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that Joseph Putnam is related to his brother, husband of the elder Ann. That woman has devoted her life to making others miserable. And her husband has allowed it. I don't know what's afflicting the daughter, but I'll wager the mother's had a hand in it."

"Then Ann is ill-used by her mother and deserves our sympathy," I argued.

"I have no sympathy for anyone in that household."

"Mama, it isn't like you to be uncharitable."

"Ann Putnam, senior, is just like her older sister who went before her," Mama explained. "You don't remember Mary Bayley. She was married to the first minister in Salem. She went on having child after child. They all died at birth. Mary Bayley blamed her malcontent neighbors because they hectored her husband. For some reason, this town has a way of doing such to its ministers. She blamed them for killing her children."

Mama sighed. "Ann Putnam, senior, still blames people hereabouts for her sister's death. As well as for the babes she herself lost before she had little Ann."

"I didn't know she had children before Ann."