Tituba of Salem Village (23 page)

The master picked up the papers and began to read. “It begins like this: Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with? Your answer to that question is: The Devil. The next question is: How does he come to you? Your answer is: In the form of a cat—” He intoned the words.

“This is not true,” she said, interrupting him.

“We have witnesses,” he said harshly. “Next you say that you have hurt these afflicted children and that yours was the evil hand that began all this dealing with the invisible world.”

“I say that?” she asked. She looked at her hands, at the backs, and then turning them over, held them palm upward and stared at them, thinking, They were useful hands, they were skillful hands, and there was wisdom and healing in them. “I will never say that my hands are evil.”

At that moment there was a great hullabaloo from outside. The guard and the master ran to one of the windows and looked out. The master made an exclamation of surprise.

“Come here, Tituba,” he said, beckoning to her. “Look at this.”

Outside on Ingersoll’s Common was a great gathering of people. They were making a path, dividing in two groups, so that there was a clear space. Ingersoll’s neatherd, Cow Harry, was beating a drum, head thrown back, stomach thrust forward. She could hear it quite clearly through the window. It was this sound that caused the people to turn aside, to make way for the men on horseback who were riding up to Ingersoll’s door. Marshal Herrick and two of his men came first, then two men in black clothing.

She had a vision while she stood there peering out through the thick wavy glass. She saw these black-garbed figures, riding, riding, down from Salem Town. She heard the stamp of the horses’ feet, the thudding sound they made on a clear, hardpacked place in the trodden path, heard them blowing out their breath, heard the jingle of harness. And she saw that Death rode with them.

“Judge Hathorne and Judge Corwin have arrived,” the master said. “We will begin shortly.”

Tituba thought thankfully, I will not have to walk past all those people. All I have to do is go down the steep stairs here at Ingersoll’s ordinary, stairs as steep as those at the ministry house, and go into the taproom. I simply walk down the stairs and I answer some questions.

Turning away from the window, the master said, “Now we must finish this quickly. Put your mark here.” His long thin forefinger seemed to stab at the paper as he indicated where she was to make her mark.

She shook her head. “It says what is not true, master. I have never hurt these children.”

He began to speak slowly, choosing his words carefully. “All confessing witches do just what you are doing now. They confess, and then they deny their guilt. I have written down all the things that you said when I questioned you in the keeping room at the ministry house. All my questions and all your answers are now a part of the record. I am the secretary for the hearings and for the court. According to this”—he tapped the papers with his bony forefinger—“you are a witch. By your own confession.”

“I am not a witch,” she said. She thought it strange that he was not angered by her denial.

“Woman,” he said, “there are shrewd things come in against you. We have witnesses and we have your confession and that is all we need. It doesn’t matter whether you put your mark on this paper or whether you don’t.”

He picked up his writing materials and thrust them inside his writing box, thrust the box under his arm and went out of the room without so much as a backward glance.

After he left she heard someone outside the door talking to the guard, saying that the prisoners were to be taken to the meetinghouse. She wondered if this included her.

Shortly afterwards, the guard entered the room and said, “Put your shawl around you.”

“My shawl?”

“Yes. And your cloak, too. We’re to go to the meetinghouse, and there’s a March wind out there.” He chuckled. “Time of madness, March is. Ingersoll’s big room can’t hold all the folk that have come for the witch trial. Come from miles around. Some of ’em even come from Boston.”

She went down the steep stairs ahead of the guard. As they approached the door, she heard a kind of roaring sound. Once outside she saw that Goody Good was just ahead of her, and it was taking two strong men to hold her and to drag her along. Just beyond Good, two strong men were helping Gammer Osburne. They were almost carrying her, for she was obviously so sick and so feeble she could not walk.

Tituba found herself breathing faster and faster, as though she had been running. She had never seen so many people in one place, standing so close together and making so much noise. Everybody wanted to see the witches. Everybody hated them.

The cry went up, “Here they come! Here they come!” and, “Here come the witches!”

She saw farmers in heavy boots. They were accompanied by their wives. The wives had small children holding on to their skirts; some of them were cradling infants in their arms. There were bound boys in leather breeches, and finely dressed ladies who must have come down from Boston, and sailors and fishermen from Boston and Salem Town.

There was always a clear space around Goody Good. She tried to thrust her pipe in the faces of the people who came near her. She cursed them fiercely. Her ragged clothing fluttered in the March wind as she tugged and pulled to get free of the men who held her. People held their noses, crossed their fingers. Tituba saw one man cross himself. She had not seen anyone do that since she left Barbados. There was a Frenchman in Bridgetown who used to make the sign of the cross over himself when he was upset or alarmed or excited.

The constables on each side of Tituba guided her along. They were not rough with her; they simply walked close to her to prevent her escape. Their progress was slow because they had to force a path through the noisy crowd.

The hullabaloo kept increasing. She could hear shouts of, “Die, old witch, die,” “You burned my child,” “You made my cow sicken,” “My butter wouldn’t come,” “My hens wouldn’t lay,” “The yarn kept breaking in the loom,” “My good man was struck dumb,” “Die, old witch, die.”

A rotten egg landed at her feet, breaking and giving off a rank sulphurous smell. Someone spat at her, and the spittle stuck to the front of her cloak. She glanced around to see who had done this, and a man standing near her covered his eyes with his hands and cried out in terror because she had looked at him. The bound boys began to chant, “She overlooked him. She overlooked him.” And a roar went up from the crowd.

She kept hearing the words, “Stinking witch, stinking witch.” She thought if these angry excited people should suddenly attack her and Goody Good and Gammer Osburne could the constables save them? Would they even try to save her? The closer they got to the meetinghouse, the more violent and disorderly the crowd became.

Finally it had become a howling mob. She expected to be knocked down and trampled to death in front of the meetinghouse door. She stood still, awaiting the first blow. Instead there was a ripping, tearing sound—and they all looked towards the meetinghouse. The great oak timber, which had stood propped up against the outside of the building ever since it was erected, crashed to the ground. No one was standing near it. The wind was not strong enough to blow it down. Men said afterwards it had been there for at least twenty years.

The sight and sound of this huge timber falling as though pushed by invisible hands silenced the crowd. Even Goody Good stayed quiet. Tituba thought it would be easy to believe that a god had spoken, a forest god, or some strange god of the Indians, or even the master’s god of wrath.

Chapter 18

People entering the meetinghouse were silent, still awed by the memory of the huge timber that had fallen so mysteriously. The only voice to be heard was that of Marshal Herrick crying out, “Way! Make way there!”, as he led the constables and the three prisoners through the crowd.

The marshal indicated that the prisoners were to stand on a table a little to one side of the pulpit. Good scrambled up by herself, Osburne had to be lifted up, and Tituba climbed up unaided, though she steadied herself by holding onto the arm of one of her guards.

Tituba had never before been in the meetinghouse. When they first came to Salem Village the master had decided that Abigail and Betsey must go to meeting every Sabbath day and that Tituba must stay at home with her ailing mistress. She studied the room, noting the heavy ceiling beams, the fact that the interior walls were of unmatched boards which had darkened with age, and that the windows were so small that very little light came into the big room. It was filled with people. Some of them were standing against the walls; some were sitting on long wooden benches; some were sitting in the windows. She wondered whether John was in the meetinghouse. There were so many people, and it was so dark near the back that she could not have picked him out of the crowd.

Cow Harry entered from a side door, just beyond the pulpit. He called out, “Rise. Rise. Rise for the honorable judges. Rise.”

There was a shuffling of feet and a pushing back of benches as the people stood. The judges, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, entered. The Reverend Samuel Parris came in just behind them. Hathorne and Corwin sat down at a long table in front of the pulpit. Reverend Parris sat down at a smaller table off to one side. He placed his writing materials in front of him, his quill, his inkstand, and his writing box. Judge Corwin made a gesture which indicated that they were to be seated.

Marshal Herrick read the warrant again. Then he read what he called the officer’s return: “According to this warrant I have apprehended the persons within mentioned and have brought them accordingly and have made diligent search for Images and such like but can find none. Salem Village, this 1st March, 1692. Joseph Herrick, Constable.”

When the marshal finished reading, he handed the papers to the Reverend Samuel Parris.

Judge Hathorne said, “We will open with prayer, Mr. Parris.”

Tituba tried to follow the master’s prayer, but she couldn’t keep her mind on what he was saying. Goody Osburne leaned against her heavily, and she wondered how long the sick woman could stand without any other support. The sour smell of Goody Good stayed in her nostrils. The master’s harsh voice went in and out through her thoughts like a shuttle going in between the warp threads of an intricate pattern on a loom.

He said that many persons in several families of this little village had been vexed and tortured in body and soul by witchcraft and diabolical operations. When Tituba heard the word “witchcraft,” she began to listen closely and carefully.

“The Devil hath been raised amongst us,” he said, and his voice increased in volume, “and the Devil’s rage is vehement and terrible. We are here witnesses to the sin of witchcraft which is the work of the Devil. We all know that the unrepentant witches who refuse to confess their guilt, refuse to admit their sin, must die. We also know that those taken in the sin of witchcraft who confess their sin and repent, and thoroughly amend their ways and their doings, will be pardoned and live. We ask Thy blessing on this hearing. May the Lord be praised. Amen.”

A voice from somewhere in the back of the crowded room said distinctly, “Say yes, you’re a witch and you’ll live. Deny you’re a witch and you’ll die.” Someone made a sound like a horse blowing out his breath. There was laughter and a low-pitched gabbling from the back of the room.

Both judges scowled. Hathorne banged on the table, using a short stout stick. “We will have quiet,” he said, “or I will order the marshal to clear the meetinghouse.”

The crowd was suddenly silent, not because of Judge Hathorne’s threat, but because the afflicted girls were being led in. They were seated on a bench quite near to where the judges were sitting, not far away from the prisoners. Marshal Herrick indicated that the prisoners were to get down from the table. He showed them where they were to sit. Then he indicated that Goody Good was to take her place alone, standing on the minister’s chair. The chair had been turned around so that the back formed a bar where she could rest her hands. When she stood up on the chair and the girls saw her, they stiffened and started to shriek. Tituba felt Osburne tremble at the sound. When Judge Hathorne began to question Goody Good, the girls were silent.

Question: “Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?”

Answer: “None.”

Question: “Have you made no contract with the Devil?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Why do you hurt these children?”

Answer: “I do not hurt them. I scorn it.”

Goody Good indicated her contempt and hatred for the crowd that watched her, for the judge who questioned her, and for the girls who cowered away from her whenever she glanced in their direction by snarling her answers. Her matted gray hair hung down, partly obscuring her face. She kept shaking her fist at the crowd, and her ragged clothing fluttered about her as she moved.

At one point, Judge Hathorne stopped questioning her to ask the girls if this was one of the persons who had tormented them. By way of reply, they fell to the floor, screaming and crying out that she was choking them and pinching them. Tituba, who had hardly dared glance in their direction, now saw that they were all there: Abigail Williams, Anne Putnam, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren, Elizabeth Booth, Sarah Churchill, Mary Walcott, Susanna Sheldon, and Elizabeth Hubbard with her knitting. Betsey Parris was not among them.

Judge Hathorne asked Good how the girls came to be tormented when she looked at them. She said, “What do I know? You bring others here, and now you charge me with it.”

“Why, who was it then?” he asked.

“I do not know, but it was some you brought into the meetinghouse with you.”

“We brought you into the meetinghouse.”

She said, “But you brought in two more.”

Judge Hathorne leaned forward and said sharply, “Who was it then tormented these children?”

“It was Osburne,” she said spitefully.

“That’s right—love thy neighbor,” said a voice from somewhere behind Tituba. A little murmur ran through the crowd, and Hathorne gave them a warning glance.