Tituba of Salem Village (8 page)

She closed her eyes, and then opened them. She stopped talking. The smell inside the barn was overpowering. It was dark in the interior, and she peered around, expecting to see someone inside. There was no one there.

Betsey squeezed her hand, and looked up at her. “Let’s not stay here, Tituba. It don’t smell good.”

“You wait for me outside. I want to look around.” But the child wouldn’t let go of her hand. Tituba stayed long enough to see that someone had been sleeping in a pile of old musty hay in a corner of the barn. It was hollowed out into a nestlike shape. Someone had lived in the barn, had perhaps planned to spend the winter there and been angered when the Parrises had moved in.

She was certain that the occupant of the barn had placed those rotten eggs on the front doorstep of this house as a warning of trouble to come.

Chapter 6

They ate heartily of the well-seasoned fish stew that Mary Sibley had prepared. It was so hot that steam came up from their trenchers, as they sat lined up on the settles. There was no table, so they held their trenchers in their hands as they ate.

The steam from the fish warmed the inside of Tituba’s nostrils. She leaned back against the settle, looking at the others. The girls sat side by side. Betsey had eaten everything that had been served to her. Abigail had a second helping and was still eating hungrily, head bent over her food. John was still eating, too. He sat next to the master. The master had finished and was staring into the fire.

Mary Sibley said, “I’ll be leaving ye now. I must be home before it’s dark.”

“Wait,” the master said, “I want you to hear the words of the agreement I drew up.”

He went into his study and came back with a neatly rolled paper. He stood in front of them, unrolled the paper, and began to read. Then he stopped, cleared his throat, said, “I should explain first that this says my salary is to be sixty pounds per year, one third in money and the rest in provisions. This is the exact wording:

“‘When money shall be more plenteous, the money part to be paid me shall accordingly be increased.

“‘Second, though corn or like provisions should arise to a higher price than you have set, yet, for my own family use, I shall have what is needful at the price now stated, and so if it fall lower.

“‘Third, the whole sixty pounds to be only from our inhabitants that are dwelling in our bounds, proportionable to what lands they have within the same.

“‘Fourth, no provision to be brought in without first asking whether needed, and myself to make choice of what, unless the person is unable to pay any sort but one.

“‘
Fifth, firewood to be given in yearly, freely
.

“‘Sixth, two men to be chosen yearly to see that due payments be made.

“‘Seventh, contributions each Sabbath in papers; and only such as are in papers, and dwelling within our bounds, to be accounted a part of the sixty pounds.

“‘Eighth, as God shall please to bless the place so as to be able to pay higher than the sixty pounds, that then a proportionable increase be made. If God shall please, for our sins, to diminish the substance of said place, I will endeavor accordingly to bear such losses, by proportionable abatements of such as shall reasonably desire it.’”

There was silence in the room. Mary Sibley’s expression was stubborn.

The master said, looking down at Goodwife Sibley, frowning at her, “You understood what I read? ‘
Firewood to be given in yearly, freely
.’ There should have been a woodpile here.”

“There could be a misunderstanding,” she said agreeably. “In the church record book it says, ‘the minister to find himself firewood.’ But ye talk it over with the committee. Meantime, ye’d better get firewood piled near the house. The winters is fierce. I’ll leave ye now before it gets dark. I’ll come again tomorrow and bring my niece, Mary Walcott. She’s older than your niece Abigail, but they’ll enjoy to know each other.”

She took a long, dark woolen cloak from a hook near the door, put it around her shoulders, then wrapped a shawl tight around her head and shoulders, and slipped quietly out the back door.

Tituba went upstairs to see to the mistress. She was asleep. She looked as though she hadn’t changed her position since they got her into bed. Tituba pulled the quilt closer and higher around her shoulders, put another log on the fire, then went back downstairs, thinking of all the trips she would make up and down these steep ladder-like stairs, carrying wood, carrying food.

When she got downstairs, she sent the little girls up to bed. The door of the master’s study was closed. She could hear him moving around inside the room—probably hunting for more papers and signatures to prove that the farmers of Salem Village were to provide their minister with wood. She sat down by the fire, and sat there so long and so quietly that a mouse came out of his hole and scampered across the floor.

John came in from outside and put a huge log on the fire. He said quietly, “It’s an oak log. It’ll burn all night once it gets going.”

There was a soft, flickering yellow light in the immediate area of the fireplace. The rest of the room was so dark there didn’t seem to be any corners. John sat down on one settle and she curled up on the other. They said nothing, waiting for the master to go to bed before they talked.

Finally the door to the study opened and the master came out. He had a lighted candle in his hand. He came into the keeping room to bid them good night. His body made a grotesque shadow on the wall—very tall, very stooped in the shoulder—and the hand that shielded the candle and the arm looked as long as a bedpost.

They waited until they heard his footsteps going up the stairs. Then John said, “What do you think?” He got up from the settle, put one of the stools directly in front of the fire, and sat down, his legs hunched up to his chin.

“Nobody has ever really liked this house,” she said. “It’s been years since anybody had a garden here or kept a cow. This isn’t a good house.” She waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t, she said, “Someone’s thrown dead animals down the well. Somebody’s been living in the barn.”

“Just neglected,” he said easily. “It’ll be all right. If somebody’s been living in the barn, they probably got angered when they heard the master was going to live here and threw a dead rabbit or a dead squirrel down the well. I’ll clean it out tomorrow. We’ll get the place fixed up for winter. Plenty of wood. We’ll need a mare and a cow. In the spring we’ll get pigs. In a year or two we’ll have a pleasant place here.”

She didn’t argue with him. He had probably heard a farmer talk this way. We’ll get a mare. We’ll get pigs. In a year or two everything will work out. She didn’t believe it would ever be a pleasant place to live. The master was getting ready to fight with these farmers and fishermen who lived in Salem Village. There was only one of him and four hundred or more of them, counting their families in, too. They hadn’t forgotten how long it took him to decide to come to the Village, all of nine months. He had made trips to the Village, and they had made trips to Boston. Some of them promised him one thing, and others promised him something else. She doubted they’d ever get it straightened out.

She closed her eyes and then opened them, studying the room in the firelight. The fire was burning quietly, no sparks, no smoke coming into the room. No sound inside the house. None outside either. Everything was still. Then slowly, slowly, as though an invisible hand were pushing it, the door of the minister’s study opened. She sat up, hand over her mouth, so that no sound of a scream would come out, and made a violent motion to attract John’s attention, and then pointed to the door.

John stood up, hands on hips, watching. No one came into the room. The door stayed open.

Tituba said, “Who opened the door? Did you see anyone?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. Doors in old houses often open by themselves. The floors slant and the latches don’t hold. They get worn down, and—”

She said, “John, I don’t like this house—”

“Hush,” he said. “We have no choice. We have to stay here.” He put his arms around her. “Remember the slave has no choice but to go with the master. But remember also the slave has to survive. We will survive.”

His arms were strong; his shoulders were broad, and his breath was sweet, and she went to sleep in his arms. The last thing he said to her was, “No matter what the master says about firewood, I’ll see that there’s plenty of it. Otherwise we will all freeze.”

When she awakened in the morning, she was certain she was in Bridgetown, in Barbados, and that it was a beautiful warm morning. She jumped up quickly, thinking she would swim in the little inlet just beyond the house. Then she shook her head and a feeling of sadness came over her. There was a big roaring fire in the fireplace in the keeping room, and John was standing in front of it, rubbing his hands together, warming them. That meant it was cold outside, and he must have brought wood in and added a big log to the fire. He had already cooked mush in an iron pot. It was steaming over the fire.

He was laughing at her. “Where were you going? Looked as though you were going to run off somewhere in your sleep.”

“I was in Bridgetown,” she said. The master entered the keeping room, and she didn’t add that she had been dreaming. He looked at her curiously. He was rubbing his hands, too, so it must be cold in the mistress’ room upstairs, fire probably gone out.

She rebuilt the fire in the mistress’ room, fed her, fed the children, swept the floor of the keeping room, and sanded it. If John could clean out the well and start building a woodpile, they would have water and she could cook. They would be able to keep warm until the master found out whether he was to provide his own firewood or whether the parish was to provide it.

The master came out of his study, said, “I am going to see Deacon Ingersoll. We must straighten out the matter of firewood.”

In the days that followed she had to admit that the master had been right about his need for a separate parlor or study. There were always committees composed of three or four men who met with him. He spent a great deal of time writing, keeping records, careful records of the provisions that were brought in, of the money that was paid him.

He started with a meeting late the next afternoon. Four men came to the house and sat with him in his study. They got into an argument. She could hear their voices through the door.

When the voices in the study were at their loudest and angriest, there was a knock at the front door. Tituba was sweeping the hearth; the girls, Betsey and Abigail, were behind the house, helping John build the woodpile. He had found an old sled behind the barn, and he had made sides for it, and by piling it with wood and hitching himself to it as though he were a horse, he could pull a big load of wood from the nearby woods to the house. The little girls helped him unload it and stack it, though they could only handle the smaller logs.

She opened the door and then stepped back away from it, frightened. She recognized the smell, the same smell that had been around the dooryard when they arrived, the smell that had been in the barn. This, then, was the person who had slept in the hay. At first glance she thought, This is an old woman with two heads. Both heads had matted, uncombed hair hanging down over their faces. She wondered what race of people had skin that was dark gray in color, and then she saw that the woman’s skin was so dirty it looked gray rather than white.

The woman’s clothing was ragged and torn—she looked literally like a bundle of rags. She said, “We’re hungered, Dorcas and I. We’re hungered.”

The woman had a child on her back, strapped to her back the way the Indian women carried their children. The child looked to be about three years old. The child’s head seen over the old woman’s shoulder made her look as though she had two heads.

But she wasn’t an old woman. She pushed Tituba aside with a quick, hard thrust of her arm and entered the house. She looked around the keeping room, looked at the fire, bent over the black pot that stood on the hearth. She moved with the speed and agility of a young, strong woman. The kitchen was filled with the sour, dreadful smell of her.

The master came out of his study and frowned when he saw the woman.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Tituba thought the meeting had not gone well—he sounded cross.

“Food,” she said. “Dorcas and I are hungered.”

“Be off with you,” he said harshly. “There is no excuse for beggars. Be gone before I take a stick to you.”

Her eyes glittered under the matted hair. But she said nothing. She went out of the house, down the stone steps; as she reached the weed-covered path, she turned towards them and shook her fist and muttered something. Tituba could not understand what she said.

The men had come out of the master’s study and were watching her.

The master told Tituba what their names were: Deacon Ingersoll, the tall man with the kind face; Sergeant Thomas Putnam, shorter, with a more severe expression; Captain Walcott, younger; and Marshal Herrick, a handsome man with a swaggering air. They were dressed very much alike. They all wore felt hats with broad brims that came down almost to their shoulders in back, and heavy shoes; they had swords at their sides and each man carried a musket. This surprised her. In Boston, men moved freely about the wharf and the streets without muskets.

When she mentioned this later to John he said that the farmers in the Village always carried their muskets with them, never beyond the reach of their hands, almost a part of their dress like their shoes, because there was always the danger of attack by the Indians. Many of them had taken part in the war against the Narragansett.

Deacon Ingersoll said, “That was Goody Good. If she comes again, feed her. It’s better to feed her.”

“Why?” the master asked.

“Because no one knows what it is she mutters when she goes away. Just now when she went down the path she was muttering to herself. She might work some mischief against you.”

“Against the pastor?” the master said.