Tituba of Salem Village (24 page)

Tituba felt Osburne stiffen with rage, and heard her catch her breath as though the outrage she felt had sickened her. Tituba said softly, “Quiet yourself.” She touched Osburne’s hand gently and then held on to her wrist with a firm grasp. She thought how dark the skin on her hand looked against the dreadful whiteness of Osburne’s skin. Osburne’s flesh felt slightly cool like that of a very old person or of an invalid. Mistress Parris’ hands felt just like this sick woman’s hands.

Hathorne asked Good what it was she said when she went muttering away from Mr. Parris’ house. She said that she did not mutter but thanked him for what he gave her child. Then he asked her what she said when she went muttering away from other persons’ houses.

Her answer was, “If I must tell, I will tell. It is the Commandments. I may say my Commandments, I hope.”

There was a snicker from the left-hand side of the room. Hathorne’s face reddened. He turned to Marshal Herrick and said, “Arrest the person who makes the next unseemly disturbance.”

He then called William Good to the stand. This was Sarah Good’s husband. Tituba looked at him in surprise. She did not know that Goody Good had a husband. His hair was long, too. He kept brushing it away from his eyes. She thought he looked rather like a sheep and decided that it was due to the shape of his face.

Judge Hathorne asked him if there was anything about his wife that had suggested to him she might be a witch. He said, “No.” Then he ducked his head forwards, and his voice broke. He said, “I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all good.”

The girls were then dreadfully tortured, and amid their screams and their piteous howls, they cried out it was Sarah Good and also Sarah Osburne that hurt them and tormented them. Mary Warren said that the tall black man was whispering in Good’s ear at that very moment. Judge Hathorne ordered the constable to remove Good from the meetinghouse. After she left, the girls were quiet.

“Place the prisoner Osburne at the bar,” Judge Hathorne said. Osburne was helped up on the minister’s chair, her arms placed so that she could support herself against the back of it.

Judge Hathorne began his examination of Goody Osburne by asking her, “What evil spirit have you familiarity with? Why do you hurt these children?” She denied that she hurt them, or that she had any familiarity with an evil spirit. He then said he had been informed that she had said she was more like to be bewitched than to be a witch. What did she mean by that?

“I was frighted one rime in my sleep,” she said, “and I saw or dreamed that I saw a thing like a tall Indian, all black, which did pinch me in my neck and pulled me by the back part of my head to the door of my house.”

Tituba thought, Mary Warren spoke of a tall black man and Goody Osburne is speaking of a thing like a tall Indian—all black. Why didn’t John do what I told him to do? Someone will surely say that John Indian is the tall black man. John Indian is a wizard or a warlock, with the power to cast spells—

There was a sudden violent noise, somewhere in the back of the meetinghouse in the part where it was darkest and most crowded with people. The sound was something between a great wailing cry and a shouting that went on and on, “Wahhhhhhhhhhhh!” and again, “Wahhhhhhhhh!”

“What is that noise?” Judge Hathorne demanded angrily. “Constable, arrest whoever it is that is making such a disturbance in this court—”

The sound came again, and there was a scrambling movement as though people were getting out of the way. They began to stand up and turn around to get a better look. Tituba stood up, too. And she saw John as he came leaping and running, and going over the benches, and knocking people down, shouting as he came. When he got near the area where the afflicted girls sat huddled together, he appeared to stumble, and fell on the floor, and rolled over and over, groaning and shouting, “Ah, ah, ah, ah!”

Tituba sat down, closed her eyes, and hoped that the relief she felt did not show in her face. John was now one of the bewitched. Though the folk talked about tall black men and black things like tall Indians, they could not now accuse John of being a witch or a wizard. He was now one of the afflicted.

The meetinghouse was filled with cries of, “He’s bewitched! He’s bewitched! Someone’s witched John Indian!”

There was such a tumult of talk and shouts, screams from the women, hoots and imitations of animals from the bound boys—they barked like dogs and mooed like cows—laughter mixed in with all the other sounds, that Hathorne recessed the hearing until later in the afternoon.

After the recess, Judge Hathorne said there would be no interruptions, no laughter, or he would clear the court. Anyone guilty of unseemly behavior would be held in contempt of court.

There was absolute stillness in the meetinghouse. “And now,” Judge Hathorne said, “Call the prisoner Tituba.”

Tituba took her place, standing on the minister’s chair, her hands resting on the back of it, facing the great crowd jammed into the meetinghouse. She could feel the beat of her heart increasing in speed, increasing, and increasing until she felt as though she couldn’t breathe.

The questions started the same way: “Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?”

“None,” she said.

“Why do you hurt these children?”

“I do not hurt them,” she said.

At this point the girls started shrieking. They fell to the floor, staggered to their feet, fell again, rolled over, creating such a disturbance that the proceedings came to a halt. Abigail leapt into the air; her tongue seemed to be pulled way out of her mouth. People were standing up, watching her, too horrified to speak or to protest. Mercy Lewis started jumping up and down, and her cap fell off, and her cropped yellow hair was a shocking sight. Tituba stared in open-mouthed amazement for Mercy’s hair was shorter than it had been before. The girls fell to the floor and stayed there, not moving.

Reverend Parris said, “Your excellency, if you would order the prisoner to touch these afflicted children it will put them out of their agony.”

Judge Hathorne nodded, and one by one the girls, limp and apparently lifeless, were carried to Tituba. “Touch them,” he ordered.

Reluctantly, and knowing beforehand what would happen, Tituba reached out and touched Abigail, the first one to be lifted up to her. It was like magic. Abigail sighed, indicated she could stand by herself, stood up, smiled at Tituba, and walked back to her seat on the wooden bench.

The crowd gasped. The same thing happened when Tituba touched Anne Putnam, Mary Warren, Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Susanna Sheldon, and Elizabeth Hubbard. Even though she did not believe she was a witch, it upset her to see how quickly her touch restored them to normal.

Judge Hathorne said, “Why do you hurt these children?”

“I do not hurt them,” she said stubbornly, and thought, Why does he keep calling them children? Most of them are not children. Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Mercy Lewis are seventeen. Susanna Sheldon is eighteen. Mary Warren is twenty. They are young women. Some of them are taller than I am. Abigail Williams and Anne Putnam are children for they are only twelve years old. Little Betsey is only nine, but she is not here.

“Your Excellency,” the master said suddenly. “In order to save time—I would suggest—Well, may I read the prisoner’s confession? I have it here.”

Judge Hathorne nodded. The Reverend Samuel Parris began to read from his papers. There was silence in the big room. According to what he read, Tituba had confessed to hurting the children because Good and Osburne forced her to. She had said that Good’s familiar was a yellow bird and Osburne’s was a yellow dog. She had also said that she and Good and Osburne rode to witch meetings on sticks or poles. Sometimes they had gone to Thomas Putnam’s house and pinched Anne Putnam.

When he finished reading, Tituba said, “This is not true. None of this is true.” She wanted to shout, but her voice sounded small and weak even to her own ears. She held tightly to the back of the minister’s chair, so frightened that for a moment she could not breathe. She had not told the master any of these things. Who in this room would believe her? It was her word against the master’s word. He was the minister—and she was a slave. They would believe the minister.

Judge Hathorne said, “You deny this?”

She nodded. “It is none of it true,” she repeated. Her voice was so low in pitch and so small in volume that people leaned forwards trying to hear better. Her heart was pounding in her chest as though she had been running. Quiet yourself, she thought, quiet yourself. She loosened her grip on the back of the chair. She began to change the rapid rate of her breathing. She said the word “free” to herself, and breathed in, and then said “free” again, and breathed out. She said this word in her mind slowly, slowly, until she was breathing at her normal rate.

Judge Hathorne said, “Call the witnesses.”

The Reverend Samuel Parris rose and said, “I have here the testimony of Abigail Williams. I will now read it with your excellency’s permission.”

Judge Hathorne nodded.

The master read, “The testimony of Abigail Williams testifieth and saith that several times last February she hath been much afflicted with pains in her head and other parts, and often pinched by the apparition of Sarah Good, Sarah Osburne, and Tituba Indian, all of Salem Village.” He held the paper up for all to see. “Here is her mark, ‘A. W.’”

“What say you to this, Tituba?” Judge Hathorne asked.

She shook her head to indicate that it was not true.

“Have you ever pinched Abigail?” When she hesitated, he said insistently, “Answer the question.”

“Not in the way it sounds there.”

“You have pinched her?”

“Only as any person might pinch a child to—” She faltered, and stopped speaking. She had sometimes pinched Abigail, but she couldn’t remember why.

“To what?”

“I don’t remember. I think it was because she had pinched her little cousin. I wanted her to know how hurtful it could be.”

“Then you have pinched her. This is true.”

“But—”

“You have pinched her.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I did not do this often or make her have pains in her head—”

“You have pinched her. So this testimony you agree is true,” he said flatly. “Call the next witness.”

“Wait,” she said. “I never had to do with any witchcraft.”

“Tell us who hurts the children,” Judge Hathorne said.

“I do not know.”

“You say you never had to do with any witchcraft. Maybe you mean you never covenanted with the Devil. Did you never deal with any familiar?”

“No, never.”

“What cat is it the children speak of? Answer. Did you have a cat?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and wondered where the cat was and what had become of him.

“Could the cat talk?”

“No. It could not talk.”

“We have searched for the cat who is your familiar. Where is the cat now?”

“I do not know.” She hoped he was deep in the forest—as safe as a cat can ever be safe. His fur would lose its sleek shininess, and he would have a strange wildness about him. Perhaps he would never again sit near a hearth, watching a fire.

“The cat could talk to you.”

“No,” she said emphatically. Her voice sounded out loud and clear.

“The cat could do your bidding.”

“No, no.” She shook her head vigorously and felt a dull ache that began at the top of her head and reached down into her neck. Any sudden movement made her head ache. This was the result of the dreadful blows that the master had given her.

“Did you talk to the cat?”

“Just as any person would talk to an animal—a horse or a cow. There is nothing wrong with talking to an animal.”

“The court is not interested in your views of right and wrong,” Judge Hathorne said severely. “We have witnesses who say the cat answered you. Call Mercy Lewis.”

Before Mercy Lewis could testify, she began to shriek for she was taken in a fit, which made her body stiffen so that she could not move. When she regained the power to move, she jumped up and down, and her cap fell off again, revealing the short, cropped yellow hair. The crowd yelled, “Touch her! Touch her! Put her out of her agony!” The constables carried Mercy Lewis to Tituba, and at Tituba’s touch she was instantly healed of her fit.

Mercy stood up on the table, so everyone could see her. She said, “Tituba’s cat is a money cat. A very strange-looking cat. It has shining yellow eyes with green in the centers. Very loving the cat is to Tituba. She covers the cat with her long skirts when she sits down. Three different times when Mary Warren and Anne Putnam, Junior, and I were at the ministry house we heard her say to the cat, ‘Puss, are you sure you want to go out into that terrible cold and that high drifted snow?’ And the cat answered ‘Yes, Tituba, I must be off about my business.’”

Abigail Williams said this was true, and so did Anne Putnam and Mary Warren. Mercy Lewis was about to step down from the table when Judge Corwin leaned forward and said, “I have some questions.” It was the first time he had spoken since the proceedings started. His voice was high in pitch and sharp in tone.

He said abruptly, “What is a money cat?”

Mercy Lewis looked slightly confused. “Well, it’s all colors, black and yellow and white and gray.”

“Why is it called a money cat? Does it have something to do with money?”

“It’s supposed to bring a person good luck—a good fortune.”

“Do you believe this?”

“I—well—it’s what the folk say.”

“Answer my question. Do you believe that what you call a money cat can bring a person good luck or a good fortune?”

Mercy Lewis hung her head. Finally, she said, “I don’t rightly know.”

Judge Corwin muttered something about superstitious beliefs, and then he said, “Did all of you young women go to the minister’s house during the winter?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Every day, if the weather was good.”

“Do all of you live close by the minister’s house?”

“No, sir. Some of us had to go a mile. Some of us two miles. Some of us more than that.”

“What did you do there?”