A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials (Great Episodes)

by Ann Rinaldi

  6. The Girl Who Lived in the Woods

  LEADEN SKIES hung heavy with snow the night Father returned from Boston. Gusty winds blew from the northeast. He had no word of William. The Amity had come into Boston Harbor from Barbados with nails, ironware, fancy goods, and hogsheads of sugar and molasses. Yes, its captain had heard of the William and. Susanna, but that ship had left Barbados before he arrived.

  He had heard that its intrepid captain was eluding some Spanish pirates, headed perhaps for the Christopher Islands. Or Grenada or Guadeloupe.

  The night Father returned, we went into the company room after our meal, sitting in front of the fire to hear his latest news from Boston. Mary and I were stitching hems on linen pillow covers when Deborah answered the thumping sound at our front door and admitted Deliverance and William Hobbs from Topsfield Village.

  "What brings you out on such a night?" Father asked.

  As soon as they were in front of our hearth, partaking of Canary wine and honey cakes, William Hobbs told his tale.

  "Our daughter has run off again. She has not been home in two nights." William Hobbs choked back a sob. Deliverance leaned her head on Mama's shoulder.

  All of Salem knew of the Hobbses' troubles. Their only child, Abigail, who was sixteen, insisted on living in the woods.

  She preferred sleeping outdoors with the creatures of the wild to sleeping under her parents' roof. She could live for days in the salt marshes and the forests, existing on nature's bounty, and never look the worse for it.

  "She took some provisions," William Hobbs said. "And she will drink from streams. In summer, my wife and I abide such behavior, difficult as it is. But these nights are so cold! And snow is coming!"

  Clearly the poor man was beside himself. Deliverance could not even speak; she just kept shaking her head and sniffing.

  "We can no longer bear it," William Hobbs admitted. "We have done all in our power to make a proper and God-fearing young woman of her. She refuses to go to Meeting. She reads books! Not the Bible! Books! She writes her thoughts down on parchment. Surely this is not proper behavior for a young woman."

  "My own daughters read," Father said.

  The poor man was bewildered. "More than the Bible?"

  Father's voice was calm. "They have access to all the works in my library. Susanna just finished reading Paradise Lost."

  The man turned to regard me as if I had just sprouted horns. "Do they prefer the company of geese and deer to that of their mother and father? Do they slip about on the salt marshes or follow the streams like Indian women?"

  "Thank the Lord, they give us no torments," Father said.

  William Hobbs set his mug aside. "We have already been warned by the selectmen and magistrates. They say if we cannot keep our daughter from roaming the woods like an Indian squaw, they will take her from us and place her with some family who can."

  Father got up from his chair and began to pace. "I have always been of the mind that people's affairs are their own," he said. "But that is an Anglican belief. The Puritan community sees people's private affairs as belonging to the community. You will want to find your daughter before the authorities do."

  "She has been seen in Salem Village. In the vicinity of the parsonage," William Hobbs said.

  My heart leapt inside me. Dear Lord, had Abigail Hobbs heard of the circle? Was she wanting to belong? Mary and I had gone to dame school with her. Even then she had been unruly and wild, fearing nobody.

  I knew what concerned our magistrates and why the Hobbses were so fearful for Abigail.

  Women who read books, who wrote their thoughts on parchment, did not honor their fathers or ministers. They were considered dangerous. It went back to the time of Anne Hutchinson.

  Father had told us about Anne. She had been a self-proclaimed minister who had put forth her own independent religious beliefs and argued against ordained ministers.

  Massachusetts Bay Colony had never quite recovered from the heresies of Anne Hutchinson. In 1637, its leaders had tried her for thinking on her own and banished her and her followers to Rhode Island.

  "I will send some servants out tomorrow to search for your daughter," Father said.

  "She will run from your servants," William Hobbs predicted. "She is as nimble as a fox."

  "What would you have me do, then?" Father asked.

  "Your own daughters know her from dame school. Perhaps they could seek her out and ask her to come home."

  "I'll go, Father," I volunteered immediately. I did not want Mary near the parsonage, asking questions about what was going on. "Abigail never liked Mary. Don't you remember, Mary, how she would take your hornbook in school? And how she would hide it from you?"

  "Yes," Mary said. "Forgive me, Mistress Hobbs, but she was a scourge to everyone."

  "I think little of being the mother of such a dafter," Deliverance admitted.

  "I'll go with Ellinor, Father," I said.

  The snow held back overnight, thank the Lord. But all of nature seemed intent upon making us miserable. The air the next morning was so damp that one's bones near froze. Molasses's breath came out in spurts of whiteness, as did our own.

  Before we got to the parsonage, I dispatched Ellinor to the house of Joseph Putnam, uncle of Ann. His wife, Elizabeth, had just given birth, and I sent Ellinor along with a basket of honey cakes and sweetmeats from our pantry.

  With her out of the way, I approached the parsonage. Abigail sat on some evergreen branches on the ground, a bit away from the house.

  "Abigail?"

  "We are here on the edge of madness, Susanna English. We are a lost people without a home."

  "You have a home, Abigail. And parents who wish you there."

  "Don't you ever think that we sit on the edge of a vast wilderness, without knowing what's out there?" She looked up at me intently.

  "I try not to ponder that, Abigail."

  "My father says we are a special people who have a covenant with God. I say God has forgotten us, if He ever knew we exist."

  I was not about to debate the Lord's concern for us in such raw surroundings. "Aren't you cold?" I asked.

  "It is nothing as to the coldness in some people's hearts."

  "Abigail, we don't see each other much anymore. But I always felt in sympathy with you, even back in dame school."

  "You were one of the kinder ones," she admitted. "But I hated dame school. I longed to read poetry. They made us read the Bible. Didn't you ever wonder why the evergreen stays green all winter while all the other trees die? Why the mockingbird mocks those different from him? Where the geese go in winter?"

  "The geese go south. My mother's family lives in Virginia. I've been there. My father's ships go there regularly to trade."

  "I'd like to see Virginia." Abigail drew up her knees, bundled her cloak around her, and gazed pensively into the winter landscape. "Wouldn't you love to go to London?"

  "Someday, my brother William will take me with him on a real sea voyage," I said. "And I'll meet a fine ship's captain. William will introduce me to him. And we'll marry, and my husband will take me with him on his travels. We'll winter in the West Indies. I'll travel to London and come home wearing the latest fashions."

  "And they'll persecute you here in Salem for wearing such clothing. I hate this whole place. I hate the rules they make us live under. I care not for fine clothing, but they won't even let us read books. All our elders are hypocrites."

  "Surely not your good people. Or mine, Abigail."

  "Most grown-ups are. Living as I do, I see and cannot be seen. Outside people's houses at night, I hear their sobbing, their cries, their voices raised in argument. One summer's evening, I came upon two people in the wood. They were naked and frolicking. He was married to someone else and so was she. Next day, I saw them in Meeting with their rightful spouses. I don't go to Meeting anymore. Have they sent you to fetch me home, Susanna?"

  "Your mother and father have much concern for you."

  "They know I can
care for myself."

  "The magistrates have threatened your mother and father, saying they will put you with another family if yours cannot keep you properly."

  "I could live on my own. This rule Puritans have about making unmarried people live under the guidance of a family is senseless."

  "Such talk will bring you trouble, Abigail. You've heard the stories about Anne Hutchinson."

  "Yes, and my only regret is that she lived before my time. I do harm to no one. Why do the magistrates plague me?"

  "They want you to be a true daughter to your parents."

  "I've helped my father slaughter his hogs. I've sheared sheep, washed and bleached and dyed wool, hoed the garden, helped with the candle and soap making. What I do with my own time is my affair."

  "They say you are acting like an Indian squaw."

  She sighed. "I wish I could be as free as an Indian squaw." She stood up. "It isn't my wandering ways that upset the magistrates. It's that I read. And write down my thoughts. So, now I am to go home and be a docile daughter? And what of my needs? My wants?"

  "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.

  7. The Evil Hand

  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."