Children of Salem

Salem Village Parish, Sabbath Day, March 30^th

From behind his slender pinewood pulpit, the gaunt Samuel Parris stood on a platform that raised him above his people. Parris 6’1 frame was now seven-foot tall, and his hapless expression, nose, chin, even his ears and the veins in his neck had been put into play—now part of the anger and rage he demonstrated against those who’d dare attack a minister’s daughter through channels of witchcraft and demonism.

His eyes, sunken and blackened from days and nights without sleep, seeing to the needs of the congregation while seeing to his bewitched children at home, told the story of a man put upon by the Devil himself.

Parris was disappointed he’d be unable to move to excommunicate Rebecca Nurse and her sisters today. Such action, he’d been advised was premature according to the judges who wished to lay more groundwork and preparation before such accusations as those against the Nurse and Towne women were made official and public. All the same, word got round. Word of what lay in wait on the court docket.

While the magistrates’ hesitation proved upsetting, Parris believed that the judges were leaning in the direction of his view of things. In fact, Parris felt confident that he had convinced Corwin and Hathorne of their duty once he’d ridded himself and his home of that weasel, Jeremiah Wakely. A traitor, whose sole purpose had been to discredit me, no doubt an agent for Mr. Higginson rather than Increase Mather—whose signature was no doubt now a forgery made by the man’s son—Cotton Mather!

Parris had revealed these truths to the Salem judges, but what had truly tipped the scales with the judges had been the matter of the old Towne land grant, which had been contested for years. What with the old man having no male heirs and what with the land falling into the hands of three sisters, all of whom married Nurse, Tarbell, and Cloyse men, and not one of them willing to return so much as an acre back to the common holdings of the village; it all added up to two angry and shrewd judges.

“If any one of these women in that family can be proved a witch . . . ” Parris had led the magistrates to the water.

Hathorne had nodded, saying, “A-And proved a witch at the time of being heir and assign—”

“W-When old Jacob Towne passed on,” added Corwin.

“Then that negates their rights to every bloody acre,” finished Parris the same night as Jeremiah Wakely had knocked him down with his horse—for which he meant to bring charges once he got round to it.

“Careful of foul words on your tongue, Mr. Parris,” Corwin had cautioned at their last meeting. “Such language can invite the devil in, as they say.”

Parris had gone away that night secure in the knowledge that the magistrates had as much to gain as he, as Putnam, as others of his faction if and when Rebecca Nurse and her sisters were formally accused, a warrant made, all three arrested, jailed, and brought to his church for the cleansing needed there. The ritual of excommunication had already been performed today with Goodwife Sarah Osborne. Goode had been put through the ritualized outcasting at the time he’d arranged to have her child, Dorcas Goode, removed from her.

Parris hadn’t brought Tituba into his church for public humiliation, referring to her as a cooperating eyewitness to the demonic reveling going on in Burnham Woods just beyond his apple orchard. He stressed that it was his orchard and not the parish orchard being picked clean by the devils. The previous week he’d stood at the pulpit and denounced those bold felons who filled a bushel basket to bring to his door as paltry payment for his rate. Every parishioner, including his closest allies such as Putnam, owed monies on his rate; every man, woman, and child had routinely paid their tithes to him in goods, often goods he had no need of, and if he saw one more basket of apples on his doorstep with a note attached with the word tithes scribbled across it, he’d publicly read these names at next Sabbath meeting.

“And I need not one more bean, nor potato, nor onion. My woodshed is full even now, my barn full of hay, my animals stocked with grain. What I need is coin.”

After speaking on these church business matters, he delivered his sermon, all the while upset, at the back of his mind thinking how much he’d wanted to deliver the sermon he’d first prepared for today—the one stolen by that miscreant Wakely and now in Hathorne’s hands. While he felt confident that Hathorne would bury the sermon until which time as it was appropriate to give it, and that he would not use Parris’ fervor and enthusiasm, nor his premature judgments against him. “After all,” Hathorne had summed up, “we are all of us going into the battle for souls in Salem.”

Just as Wakely meant for Hathorne and Corwin to condemn Parris for publicly disclaiming a woman not yet arrested, Parris meant to point out that he had a pipeline to the good souls whispering into the ear of his daughter and nieces. On the one count, he wanted to engage the enemy now, today, at this Sabbath Meeting, but on the second, suppose events turned, setting the magistrates against proceeding in the manner that he so hoped that they might? They had hinted at making contact first with authorities in Boston before proceeding. He must be patient and faithful that the judges would act in his favor.

In which case he must curb his tongue and slash his sermon from its present stark, sure prejudice against Francis Nurse and his kith and kin. After which, he hoped to move against his other stubborn, dissenting elder—John Proctor. He’d start with the wife, Goodwife Proctor.

But for the moment, his raw sermon blasting Rebecca Nurse for a heretic, if taken in the same light as Jeremiah Wakely had made of it, could work to his disadvantage; could even ruin a minister and end his hold over these people; could end his hold on the parish property he’d fought to keep now for three bitter years. Years filled with stress and turmoil no man should have to face. Turmoil brought on by people calling themselves his neighbors. People within his own congregation who first chose not to come to meetings, and slowly began having meetings elsewhere—out of their homes.

“I’ve shown the patience of Job . . . endured the pains of hell . . . the suffering yea of Christ himself at your hands!” he’d shouted at his congregation now from the pulpit that lifted him above all gathered before him (an abuse of Puritan belief in itself).

“Yes, at your hands!” he’d continued, his finger pointing and quaking at his flock, many of them children cringing against their mothers, but many another child unable to hold onto their mothers or fathers, as they had been removed from their families and placed into their positions as maid and manservant. Maidservants sat with their adoptive families, and few felt close enough to their foster parents to blubber into their clothing or clutch their hands despite the hell and brimstone the minister administered this morning.

“Do not misunderstand me!” Parris bellowed. “This indictment is not directed at all of you! Many of you have supported me in spirit and wellbeing, and you support me now in my darkest hour while under attack by the most heinous demons and witches ever Hades spawned. And for this, I humbly, humbly thank you who have always supported my family!”

This had sent up a wave of halleluiahs, grunts, and affirmations.

“My brethren . . . my brethren, I wish to relate to you a story…a story of betrayal which will explain to you the sudden absence of one Jeremiah Wakely who no longer resides in my home, no longer deserves my concern or respect, and no longer is—nor in truth ever was an apprentice in the ministry!”

Gasps escaped many in the congregation.

“He lied; his entire charade was a lie, and I being a humble man, untutored in the ways of chicanery and masquerade, only two days ago learned only recently his true nature and identity. The man was put on me to gather in evidence against me in order to find cause in the courts to remove me from you, to take me from my flock, and to set me a-wandering and adrift from you.”

“Who? Who is behind it all?” asked Thomas Putnam, standing and stating his lines rather dumbly and not so well as he’d practiced.

“I’m glad you ask, Deacon Putnam.” Parris followed with a tale of conspiracy against him, tying Jeremiah’s visit to Salem to a “certain element among us whom I have referred to many times at this pulpit to no avail. Say it with me, one and all.”

With Parris leading the congregation, they all said in chanting tone, “The dissenting brethren. The dissenters. Dissenters.”

“Yes, I believe it so,” added Parris. “The dissenting brethren among us.”

Francis Nurse, who’d dared to show for Sabbath Day, stood at this and shouted, “Mr. Parris, there is no one in this congregation who had any indication or knowledge that Mr. Wakely was anything but what he presented himself as.”

“No one, Mr. Nurse?”

“I am still an elder here, sir, and I am not given to lies or conspiracies of any sort. Nor is my wife, or anyone in our family.”

“Does that extend to your sisters-in-law and to the Tarbells, the Cloyses, and the Townes, sir?”

“None of whom had any contact with this man Wakely before his showing up here.”

“Can you say, Mr. Nurse, in all good heart, that no one in your camp asked Reverend Higginson down in the Harbor to arrange for this man Wakely to infiltrate my home like a common thief in the night?”

“I can, sir!”

“That no Nurse, no Cloyse, no Tarbell had any part to play in this spying, conniving man’s coming into my home? My home which is an extension of this church and therefore sacrosanct?”

“I tell you we had no part in any such doings, and with that I am leaving, sir.”

Francis stomped from the meetinghouse, and every son, nephew, niece with him. They left a large hole in the pews they’d occupied. Some were snatched at by other members of the church, and some were scolded.

John Tarbell, a brother-in-law to Francis Nurse, stopped at the meetinghouse door to say, “I’m a simple man. Cut my lumber. Work hard to feed my family, put food on the table. Francis speaks the truth. We are none of us cohorts with this fellow Wakely or Mr. Higginson in any kind of plan to undermine Mr. Parris, although we respect and admire the old minister at Salem Town as we might a grandfather—who by the way lies on his deathbed and is himself no part of this business! That’s all I ’ave to say.”

Parris had shouted after the retreating figures, “You say you’re not in cohorts with these conspirators, yet Wakely has been seeing Francis Nurse’s daughter!”

This sent up a fresh round of grunts, gasps, and a giggle or two from the older children.

“Words got round! It’s true,” added Ingersoll, “but it don’t prove the girl’s family is plotting with Jeremy Wakely.” Ingersoll stood to make his point, and shrugging, he added, “I knew Jeremy was up to something moment I saw him dressed as a minister. He was never comfortable in the role.”

“You didn’t know anymore’n the rest of us about the man,” countered Thomas Putnam.

“You needn’t get belligerent about it,” defended Ingersoll. “I spent more time with him than you. I sensed he was uneasy is all I’m saying.”

“Do you think him the black man spoken of by the witnesses?” asked Mrs. Putnam. “The one who holds the Devil’s book?”

The entire congregation from the oldest man to the youngest child had been raised on the Antichrist, and they all knew that the Antichrist conducted an anti-ritual that mocked the rituals of their church, and the bible he held and marked names in was the antithesis of the Holy Bible.

“No, Wakely is nothing more than a misguided, used man in a badly conceived plot against me,” countered Parris. “No, the Antichrist serving up the Black Sabbath in those woods has been positively identified!”

This sent up a fresh round of gasps and everyone began searching the features of others.

“Wakley is a pawn for the Boston authorities, but this man I will name, he is a pawn for authorities of Hell itself! Our own deputized authorities are on their way to Maine as we speak to arrest this man! To bring him back to face charges here in what once was his own pulpit!” Parris brought a righteous fist down on his pulpit.

“Burroughs?” asked Bray Wilkins from the back of the room.

“Aye, you’ve deciphered it!” Parris replied as if rewarding Wilkins. “Right and we must ever remain in the right, my brethren.”

“Reverend George Burroughs, a cunning man, a warlock?” asked Thomas Putnam, pretending he’d never heard the accusation before.

“He was a strange sort, after all,” added another parishioner.

“I recall his dancing about like a madman while preaching,” said the carpenter, Fiske.

“As if on hot coals even as he used the word of God,” suggested Anne Putnam Senior.

“Remember his doing cartwheels on the green,” said another.

“Back flips and contortions no man could possibly do without—”

“—Without some strength and agility perhaps given him from-from outside forces.”

“Do you recall the strength he displayed?”

Parris came down to the floor and went to the end of the front pew where he had insisted his wife be in attendance with the sick Betty in her arms. “In mid-sermon, this man Burroughs once lifted this very pew and balanced it on one hand—or so Brother Putnam once informed me.

“And the pulpit itself!” added Putnam.

They all contemplated how Burroughs’ behavior mocked the very meetinghouse he preached in, and how he had once lifted an entire pew while people sat in it. He’d done so, ostensibly to demonstrate, he had said, God’s hand in the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah. He had made the suggestion that the women among the villagers were more cunning than Delilah ever hoped to be.

Suddenly his voice raised several octaves higher, Parris said, “The money-changers desecrated the Temple, and only one man—Christ—one brave man—stood up against them, to cry out against their desecration, and now an ugly desecration has returned to stain this land, and why do you suppose? Why this time? And in this remote place, why should the ruler of all Hades come here to Salem, eh?”

The meetinghouse had fallen silent.

“A good question,” Ingersoll mustered a response.

“Why now indeed? Why not now?” asked Parris. “Why, think on it! We are without a Charter. Withheld from us by England since the overthrow of Andros,” continued Parris. “In effect, without rule. We are without rule ourselves! Here where we Puritans have carved out ground for a new Jerusalem, a new and decent place on the face of this scarred old world? A world filled with money-changers and sinners! Why this time and place indeed!”

It was a moving argument. A strange vapor of energy hung in the air above the heads of the assembled people as their minister had rushed up and down the aisles, bringing home his point. An odor of brine, aging oak wood pews, the sand floor, the mud shuffled in on boots and shoes conspired with the perspiration of the hundred or so assembled here.

“Look you all into the eye of your neighbor and determine if he be friend or foe!” Parris continued. “Which of you live a lie among us? Which of you have broken covenant with your faith, with me, and with God?”

Parris had them in silence once again.

The smallest child and babe had frozen. “No amount of deeds or acts can change the course of God’s greater design. We all know this! Those Chosen among us, they’re not selected tomorrow . . . ” He paused to allow this to sink in . . .“nor yesterday, but at the beginning of time, my brethren!”

Halleluiahs punctuated the single voice that now filled the meetinghouse from entry to pulpit, spilling out the windows and doors.

“We all know the faith!” continued Parris, roaming the large space. “Everyone here knows that he or she, whether elder, deacon, husband, Goodwife, child, or maidservant, that one’s fate is sealed. Sealed not by man or dictum or law but by God. Not even the Harbor Town Council can change that.”

This brought about a mix of laughter and groaning agreements among those remaining.

“But we must ever remind ourselves of these facts,” Parris solemnly reminded them, moving up and down the rows, meeting people in the crowd eye-to-eye. “Outward prosperity, outward show whether the richest merchants in our midst with the greatest number of livestock, and yes, children and grandchildren and friends and relatives—these are no indicators of God’s grace! We all know this from birth, correct?”

The elders erupted with a chorus of amens and corrects, punctuated by the sounds of several young girls in the meetinghouse shouting, “True, too true!” Among these was little Anne Putnam and Mercy Lewis.

“What then is an indication that God shines upon us?” asked Mrs. Putnam, surprising everyone. Women seldom voiced a word in meeting, and in a single day, she’d spoken up twice, emboldened by Parris’ words.

As if emboldened by her mother’s question, Anne Junior began barking in the manner of a dog, growling and going onto all fours, crawling down the aisle, where she went into a sudden, uncontrollable fit—limbs suddenly freezing up, turning to wood.

“My God!” cried out Mrs. Putnam, going to her child and falling over her, covering her with her body. “Harm me, take me, not my child!” she pleaded as if to some invisible person. “It’s Mrs. Bailey,” she called out to others. “James Bailey’s poor wife.”

“Why does she attack your, Anne?”

“She’s angry!” cried the child, Anne. “Come back from the grave, angry that none knew she was murdered, too, ’long with her children!”

The crowd shuddered at these words.

Little Anne continued. “Poisoned by her maidservant and husband, ’long with the children.”

“But why? Why?”

“To run off together—her and Bailey! They were lovers, sinners!”

Ingersoll worked hard to recall aloud, “Who was this maidservant? Try as I might, I can’t picture her, nor recall a name.”

“We’ll scour the colonies to find anyone guilty, so as to return the guilty to justice,” Parris assured his frightened congregation, most now on their feet, prepared to bolt yet holding, curious, hoping to catch a glimpse of the spirit, the deceased Mrs. Bailey that little Anne pointed to in the ether over their heads.

Suddenly Mercy Lewis fell to the floor kicking and screaming that some ugly hag was stabbing her with needles, trying to jam one into her brain and another into her heart. She scuttled across the dirt floor like a crab, and she then grabbed hold of Anne, the two hugging one another now in a mimic of how they held one another in private.

At this, the entire congregation became agitated, some rushing for the exit, some knocking others out of the way for a better look at the suffering children. The screams, shouts, and general pandemonium had turned the once peaceful meetinghouse into a snake pit.

Another Nurse man, Joseph, shouted over the din but no one could hear his words: “What uses would you have us make of this sermon, Mr. Parris?”

No one heard but Anne Putnam who looked up at Joseph Nurse with two chilling speckled eyes of coal and hatred. A stark look of loathing that was not lost on young Joseph Nurse, who, among all the Nurse clan, had heard of the false allegations going around about Mother Nurse.