Six Women of Salem

by Marilynne K. Roach

  So on that day, while the specter of Rebecca Nurse reportedly lashed Annie Putnam with a chain as invisible as the specter yet raised visible welts, John Procter whipped Mary Warren with a firm hand. Gradually she responded to the beatings and quieted again. Nevertheless, others in the Village had already named Elizabeth Procter as a witch, and Mary, in the past, must have complained about her mistress to the other afflicted girls and probably in terms more disrespectful than just to call her “Betty.” Now insults like “hag” or “old witch”—if she used those terms—could have grim consequences. Soon others reported Goody Procter’s specter more and more often.

  If Rebecca Nurse’s family attended the Village Church’s next Sacrament Sabbath on March 27, Reverend Parris’s choice of sermon text would not have pleased them, but they would have had plenty to report to their mother when they next visited her in jail. “Have I not chosen you twelve,” Parris quoted, “& one of you is a Devil?” The text cited Christ’s remark to his disciples after Judas had betrayed him to the authorities, and Parris intended it, as his notes show, to parallel the “dreadful Witchcraft broke out here a few weeks past.” The two examined “by Civil Authority” and “vehemently suspected for shee-witches” were not merely local; they were members of the Salem town and the Salem Village Churches (Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey). The comparison was certainly clear to the congregation, for as soon as he announced the text a woman stood up from among the women’s benches, stalked out of the meeting house, and slammed the door behind her: Goodwife Sarah Cloyce, Rebecca’s youngest sister and a communing member herself. Apparently the rest of the Nurse and Cloyce kin present remained, as Parris’s notes mention no one else leaving. The afflicted grew agitated, and later they would say that Goody Cloyce curtseyed to the Devil at the gate outside.

  The remaining congregation then heard Parris’s sermon, in which he somewhat qualified his remarks. Christ’s “Church,” he said, “consists of good & bad, as a Garden that has weeds as well as flowers.” But there were many ways to commit evil other than outright witchcraft: drunkenness, slander, lies, pride, envy. Even church members should examine their own hearts for the weaknesses that let the Devil in even as they pray for a solution to the present crisis of the Devil’s invasion.

  “Pray we also that not one true Saint may suffer as a Devil, either in name, or body. The Devil would represent the best Saints as devils if he could,” he said—as Lawson had warned and as Rebecca Nurse had tried to explain to the court—“but,” he added, “it is not easy to imagine that his power is of such extent.” Rebecca’s family realized that Parris was convinced that the current suspects—including their own mother—were indeed allied with the forces of evil.

  The term “devil,” Parris explained, included humans as well as “wicked spirits,” those “vile & wicked persons . . . who, for their villany & impiety do most resemble Devils.”

  Being a full member of the church, Parris continued, and assuming one was saved did not guarantee that one was correct in the assumption. “This you & I may be, & yet Devils for all that.” He also warned the devilish hypocrites among the membership that taking communion under such lying circumstances made them deserving of “the hottest of God’s wrath.” So “if there be any such among us, forbear to come this day to the Lord’s Table, lest Satan enter more powerfully into you.” Sarah Cloyce had already left, but the rest of the full members must have feared what the neighbors might think if they did not come forward. Parris’s notes say nothing of any abstentions, and what the communing members of Rebecca’s family did is also not recorded. Francis was not a full member and would have left with the rest of the congregation after the main service. His daughter Mary Tarbell and her husband, John, son Samuel Nurse and his wife, Mary, were all communing members along with his sister-in-law Sarah Cloyce’s husband, Peter. Ann Putnam would likely have quashed her own reoccurring doubts of worthiness to take communion, applying all of Parris’s remarks to Rebecca Nurse.

  Before the communion service itself, the full members heard Parris read aloud Mary Sibley’s apology for her “rashness” of using the countermagic of the witch-cake. The voting members (only male) agreed to accept it by raising their hands—unanimously. Although the charm was admittedly magic, even if countermagic, it was not magic enough for Goody Sibley to be considered a witch. This may have caused more resentment among Rebecca’s kin: Why was their mother chained in jail and Goody Sibley—who had confessed to the charm—not even charged? Yet the men’s vote had been unanimous, indicating that Peter Cloyce, Samuel Nurse, and John Tarbell had voted to forgive Goody Sibley.

  Nevertheless, on the following day, March 28, members of Sarah’s and Rebecca’s families investigated the accusations for themselves. There was still time to clarify the facts of the matter. Samuel Nurse and his brother-in-law John Tarbell visited Thomas Putnam’s house to speak with the afflicted. Ann, her daughter, and the maid were well enough at the time that no one suffered any fits. Who, Tarbell asked, had first named his mother-in-law Nurse as one of the specter witches?

  As Tarbell later reported, Annie said that at the beginning of her problems, back before the others were affected, she had seen “the apperishton of a pale fast [i.e., pale-faced] woman that sat in her granmothers seat but did not know har name.”

  But who named Goody Nurse? Tarbell persisted. Mercy Lewis said that her mistress had. Ann Putnam said Mercy was the one who had told her daughter. Each thought the other had first identified the spirit.

  “It was you,” one said, and “It was you that told her,” said the other.

  “[T]hus they turned it upone one another,” Tarbell noted, and he noted also that it had happened “before any was afflicted at thomas putnams besids his daughter” and that either Mrs. Putnam or the maid or both had “told his daughter it was goody nurs.”

  On the same day Sarah Cloyce’s stepson-in-law Daniel Eliot also questioned some of the afflicted (unfortunately not named) when he and William Rayment Jr. encountered them at Ingersoll’s. Whoever they were, they were free of fits. Rayment, discussing the hearings, mentioned a rumor that Elizabeth Procter would be questioned the following day.

  Goody Ingersoll declared that she did not believe it. She had heard nothing about it.

  “[T]here goody procter,” cried one of the girls, pointing at empty air. “[T]here goody procter.” Then, “[O]ld wich Ile have her hang.”

  Rayment said they lied, for he could see nothing. Goody Ingersoll also called them liars, reproving them sharply for such dangerous talk, “for there was nothing.”

  “[T]hey semed to make a Jest of it,” Rayment later reported. As Eliot remembered it, “the garl said that she did it for sport they must have some sport.”

  Did those girls mean sportive jests at that moment, or were they doing this at other times when they were believed? Rebecca Nurse’s supporters, who had no doubt of her innocence, considered the accusations not so much mistaken as malicious lies.

  But not all untruths were necessarily conscious. When neighbors arrived to help tend the afflicted, Thomas and Ann Putnam told them that Mercy Lewis had named Elizabeth Procter among the tormenting witches. However, as Samuel Barton would report, “mercy lewes said that she did not Cry out of goody procter nor nobody she said she did say thear she is but did nat teel them who and Thomas Putnam & his wife & others told her that she Cryed out of goody pro[c]ter,” To that, Mercy answered that “if she did it was when she was out in her head for she said she saw nobody.”

  John Houlton likewise remembered how when Thomas and Ann Putnam said Mercy had seen or named Elizabeth Procter, “we heard the sayd mercy Lewis affirme that she never sayd that ever she saw her.”

  Thus, listeners heard what they expected and remembered what seemed to fit their fears and assumptions.

  Others were reporting Elizabeth Procter’s specter as well, for gossip had spread that news. The real Procters, however, kept Mary Warren under close watch at home, keeping her hard at work, with no time for
gadding and wool gathering.

  John and Elizabeth watched their hired girl with disapproving eyes, suspicious of any odd behavior. They assigned Mary Warren tasks during which they could watch her, and John likely beat her again as promised, especially if she seemed about to fall into convulsions again. Perhaps even Elizabeth slapped the girl back to attention. Both of them made it clear to her that if she did have a fit and if she seemed as though she were about to hurt herself falling into the hearth fire or down the well, they would not save her. He may have even threatened “to burn her out of her fitt.”

  At one point, according to Mary’s later testimony, John exclaimed that “if [they] are Afflicted”—and he doubted it—”I wish [they] were more Afflicted & you and all.”

  Mary, puzzled, asked, “[M]aster, w[ha]t make you Say soe?”

  “[B]ecause [they] goe to bring out Innocent persones.”

  “That could nott bee.” But Mary pondered on the possibility and evidently considered whether or not witch-specters really caused her symptoms.

  The more Mary mulled over exactly what she had been feeling and experiencing, the more her symptoms calmed. She now resisted the urge to panic until it faded and no longer overcame her. She thought how her symptoms were more the confusions of a truly distracted mind and not what they had seemed. As embarrassing as that might be, Mary was relieved and thankful to have escaped the turmoil she had fallen into.

  The following Thursday’s lecture on March 31 took place in Salem town, and the day was observed as a public fast on behalf of the afflicted. Either before or after the lecture, according to Parris’s niece Abigail Williams, about forty witches held a mocking sacrament in her uncle’s parsonage at the Village, where Sarah Cloyce and Sarah Good acted as deacons to serve a sacrament of red flesh and blood in a mockingly literal parody of the Lord’s Supper. Now Reverend Parris had that invasion to worry over, this contemptuous assault carried out in his own home at a time when his opponents questioned his fittingness to serve the church’s Sacraments. In Salem town old George Jacobs (as would later be reported) made some small disturbance from the audience, most likely snorting disagreement as to how much sympathy need be extended to the supposed afflicted.

  ____________________

  Mary English, seated in a pew on a cushion and trying to attend to Reverend Noyes’s fast day lecture, cannot help remembering the insults once leveled against her late mother, when that Dicer woman had called Eleanor Hollingworth a “black-mouthed witch . . . and a thief and all her children.” At least that outburst had led to a slander suit rather than a witch trial, and it had happened years ago, but one never knew. Surely Dicer’s display of vulgar ill humor and choice of words (the insult “whore” was hurled about then as well) needn’t be taken seriously after all this time—certainly not in comparison with the present spectral goings-on.

  Mary hears Reverend Noyes describe the sufferings of the afflicted folk—nothing like that had been happening when Goody Dicer lost her temper—and hears a snort of derision from the rear of the meeting house. People turn to gawk, and a ripple of whispers identifies old George Jacobs as the source. Evidently not everyone believes it is happening now either.

  This tangle will be sorted out soon. Mary composes herself to listen.

  Elsewhere in the meeting house Bridget Bishop, seated on a bench, looks straight ahead toward the pulpit, but she cannot concentrate on Reverend Noyes’s words. She can feel people in the audience watching her, brief furtive glances when they think she isn’t looking. Earlier she had caught the gaze of her friend Alice Parker, but neither spoke. Both know how neighbors gossip about them, exchanging old suspicions of possible witchcraft, but only Bridget knows what it is like to be formally accused and arrested, to be questioned before the magistrates and made to listen to dangerously nonsensical accusations against herself, to be jailed awaiting a trial that could bring about her death. She has endured all that—and survived. She does not wish ever to endure it again.

  Bridget does not want to attend today’s lecture either, but staying away could seem suspicious. With some neighbors, she thinks, anything I do seems suspicious to their minds.

  To judge from the crowd, others have taken the same precaution of showing up. She shifts on the hard seat and realizes that even with the great number of people in attendance, she has a comfortable amount of room on the bench—the women to either side are making sure they do not sit too near.

  Are they afraid of me, or are they afraid of being seen with me?

  The knot in her stomach tightens, and she feels an all-too-familiar sick emptiness. She knew it, but now she feels it. She can no longer pretend the nightmare is not happening again. Although so far the afflicted live at a distance in the Village and not in town, news from the Village is hardly encouraging—girls, young women, and even married matrons are shouting and tumbling down in public while yelling accusations. It is only a matter of time before all this creeps closer to home.

  She hazards a look about and sees two women she knows only by sight, their heads together, whispering. One glances over her shoulder in Bridget’s direction but snaps her head back when she sees Bishop looking at her. They are afraid.

  Fear makes them dangerous.

  Surrounded by this doubtful swarm of people, hemmed in by potential enemies, Bridget feels utterly alone.

  ( 5 )

  April 1 to 19, 1692

  Mary Warren walks up the muddy road, past meadows newly green with spring to the center of Salem Village. In the distance a farmer urges his yoked oxen onward as they plow a dark furrow. The air holds the scent of new leaves, freshly turned earth, and dung enriching the plowed fields.

  Ahead, where the road parts, is Ingersoll’s ordinary, but Mary passes that as well. Others are gathered there, including some of the still-afflicted girls. Their occasional shouts and cries float from the open windows along with the murmur of onlookers.

  Mary continues east and downhill toward the meeting house, where the road branches again. Outside the building stands a notice board tacked with fluttering notes—notices of committee meetings and requests for prayers of thanks or supplication. Tomorrow Reverend Parris will read these to the congregation so that neighbors may pray for one other.

  She digs into her pocket and finds the scrap of paper with her own semiliterate request for prayers of gratitude to God for her deliverance. The fits have receded and ceased. Her own fears and foolishness had caused them, she now knows. How like the delirium of the mad the symptoms had been—a sobering thought. What a relief it is not to feel the cloud of plaguing uncertainty always pursuing her. She takes a pin from her pocket, presses it through the paper into the wood, and taps it in with a rock. There!

  She has been mistaken, gravely mistaken, but now she feels clear and free.

  She turns and begins the walk back to the Procter farm, as the wails of the afflicted drift behind her, faint in the distance. She does not see the figures step from the ordinary and watch her for a moment before heading toward the notice board.

  ____________________

  Putting up a note to request neighborly prayers for help or thanks was a common custom into the nineteenth century. Once Mary Warren was well enough for the Procters to allow her out of their sight now and then, she wrote a request for prayers of thanks for her deliverance from the fits (or had someone else write it, for though she could read after a fashion, writing was taught after reading, and not everyone learned the skill). She posted it on the notice board at the Village meeting house on Saturday, April 2. But the Procters, when they learned what she had done, were anything but pleased to hear about their business being thus announced to local gossips. Elizabeth Procter, to judge from later descriptions, rousted Mary from sleep that night with sharp and angry words regarding what she had done.

  However, the note was already posted, so Reverend Parris read it along with any other prayer requests the following day. Although Mary thanked God for her recovery, other people remembered that the witch
-specters had promised an end to pain if the victim joined them on the Devil’s side. Mary’s pain had stopped, so what were they to think?

  After the services some questioned Mary. (The records don’t say who spoke with her, but Elizabeth Hubbard later seemed most insulted by the idea, giving the Putnams reason to wonder. Only two days beforehand Thomas and Ann had watched while their maid Mercy Lewis resisted joining a bloody witch-sacrament, saved, the girl told them, by the sudden appearance of a shining angelic-like figure of a man. Once the witch-specters fled, Mercy had heard a choir of angels singing psalms, as the Village congregation had recently done, including Psalm 110, which had been the text of Reverend Parris’s January Sacrament sermon, as well as a song from the Book of Revelation, which her mistress so often consulted.)

  If Mary Warren had been mistaken, what about the other afflicted girls? They “did but dissemble,” said Mary. (The Oxford English Dictionary presents a thorough definition of the word “dissemble” through the centuries: to disguise, to pretend, to feign, to conceal a true intention, to deceive, to shut one’s eyes to a fact.)

  Ann Putnam was convinced of the cause of her own troubles, and she trusted Annie’s statements. Was Mary Warren calling them all liars? Had the Procters told her to say this?

  As gossip focused on Mary’s request just as they had predicted, the Procters had more reason to be angry with the girl. The evening after the Sabbath service an exasperated Elizabeth Procter exclaimed—if accurately recorded—that both Mary and stepson John would be called witches soon. This might imply that Mary was involved with the master’s son, as he showed more sympathy for the maid’s fits than the master and mistress did or because he helped her write the prayer request. However, the earlier incident of John Sr.’s specter sitting on Mary’s lap suggests carnal thoughts toward her master. (Mary would relate that incident in the course of an afflicted confession, so the whole episode is uncertain and inconclusive.)