Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  “God works in mysterious ways…and so we must believe her parents taken from her for good reason—even if by fire at the hand of the pagans.”

  “Her parents were killed by Indians?” asked Jeremy.

  “They ventured too far westward, settled in an unsavory place,” explained Parris. “Years ago—ten maybe twelve. Time the child got over it.”

  “Putting her out, Samuel,” Mrs. Parris began, “you know I believe it was wrong but to place her in that sad home, that may be the cruelest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Enough, woman!”

  “I loved that child as if she were my own.”

  Parris’ jaw quivered as if she’d slapped him. “We must show Christian charity and patience to our kith and kin, and the Putnams were closer to the Lewises, and Mercy and Thomas’ family will—by God—prosper together, as will we all in time.”

  Jeremy wondered what this last meant. Wondered more about what hadn’t been said as what had been said, but Parris tugged at his arm. “Away.” The minister wanted no more words with his wife on the subject of either Mercy Lewis or the Putnam household.

  They tramped off together, lifting boots through snow for a house that Elizabeth Parris obviously wanted her husband to avoid as he might the plague.

  Chapter Five

  “So we go on our rounds, Reverend?” asked Jeremy as the two men in black strode the village path between the parsonage and the Putnam home.

  “We go to Deacon Putnam’s, yes.”

  “Ahhh, a Deacon is he?”

  “That and a Captain.”

  “Militiaman? Impressive.”

  Jeremy waited for more to come out of the parson’s mouth.

  “Mrs. Putnam sends word. She’s a woman with . . . well let us say much grieves her.”

  “I can imagine.” He’d gotten as much from Mrs. Parris’ words, but he also foggily recalled the rumors surrounding Mrs. Thomas Putnam and how her womb had killed so many unborn children.

  “I doubt you have the least conception.”

  “I suppose, sir, you are right on that score.”

  “You say, Mr. Wakely, that you’re from Maine?”

  “I said so, yes.”

  “However, you sound like one of these Salem bumpkins in your speech. Why’s that?”

  “Of late from Maine, sir, and besides no one sounds more the bumpkin than those from Maine.”

  “Ah-yes. That’s Wells, Maine? Anywhere near Casco Bay?”

  “In fact, quite near. But I did not give out Wells.”

  “There’s but two colonies there. Listen, young man, had you ever come across my predecessor, a Reverend George Burroughs? Understand he’s preaching in Casco Bay.”

  “Predecessor? Burroughs . . . Burroughs. I think not.” It wasn’t technically a lie, as Jeremy, the former citizen of the village had known Burroughs but Jeremy the apprentice did not, so far as Parris needed to know. “Afraid our paths never crossed.”

  “He is strangely my undoing here in Salem.”

  Jeremy inwardly gasped at this bit of revelation. “Sir?”

  “Even before I arrived.”

  “But how is that?”

  Parris had stopped their progress at the town green where they stood below a huge chestnut tree, its giant gnarled limbs serpentine in their chaotic pattern as if some god had unleashed elephant-sized snakes to run in every direction.

  Jeremy had to repeat his question. “Sir, how can this previous minister here be your undoing?” He silently prayed for an answer.

  Parris leaned in against the tree as if fatigued, and for certain he’d been up half or more of the night. “Why…why none of his own doing, I suppose . . . not directly I’m sure. I’ve no reason to believe Burroughs wished me any sort of harm.”

  “Indirectly then, you think?”

  “Yes, indirectly.”

  It took another ten seconds of silence before Parris chose to continue. “Indirectly, I should hope, as those who ran him from the parish are my support, you see, while—”

  “—While those who’d voted to keep Burroughs here are now your enemies, I presume?”

  “Are you in the habit of finishing the sentences of your elders, Mr. Wakely?”

  Have to be compliant,” Jeremy reminded himself, and the man is twenty years my senior. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Still…astute of you to realize it, Jeremiah,” continued Parris.” No matter who may’ve come along after this Burroughs fellow to take up duties here, he’d have surely faced the same sort of ah…wrath as I’ve felt.”

  “Then you’re a victim of misdirected wrath, is it, sir?”

  “That’s it in a word, victim of unwarranted wrath.” Parris scanned the movements of people as he spoke, his eyes never on Jeremy but rather studying his parishioners as they went about their morning, most involved in some industry.

  “Unwarranted wrath, sir? It must weigh heavily then. I mean . . . it’s a sad state of affairs if it is so.”

  “Of course, it is so.”

  “I mean to characterize your flock as against you.”

  “Trust me, you’ll see it and feel it on yourself soon enough, having chosen to stand so near me.”

  Jeremy nodded and kept silent. Parris muttered. “You’ll see their venom soon enough.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Jeremy gritted his teeth as they made the Putnam doorway. “But why, sir, would you wish it?”

  “Mr. Wakely, I do not wish what I have endured on a dog. However, as it is the case, I want you to feel their spite and poison as I do.”

  “But to call it up like some…incantation is—”

  “I want you, young man, to pass it along to Reverend Mather in that . . . that book you keep.”

  Jeremy stared at his new ‘master’ and bowed dutifully, and even as he formed his reply was thinking: Betty’s drawing. She’d shown it to her father, and he’d noted the unusual paper ripped from somewhere. Observant of the minister. “I only keep a record of my inmost feelings and perceptions sir. A learning tool.”

  “I see, a diary, eh?”

  “A personal, day-to-day reckoning with myself, Mr. Parris.”

  “Yes, self-evaluation. I am told tis a good thing!”

  “Some believe it so and I among them, yes.”

  “Reverend Higginson of the Town certainly harps on it.”

  “I’ve not met the gentleman.” The lie hung in the air.

  Parris said, “Still, you’ll no doubt also be making reports to Boston, I presume.”

  “I am required to give progress reports—ahhh reports of my progress, that is.”

  “Of course. Isn’t that one purpose of your being sent to me after all?” Parris actually sounded hopeful that Jeremy would indeed be informing the authorities in Boston of the dire situation poor Mr. Parris found himself faced with. “After all, they’ve not paid my rate, Jeremy, for several months now.”

  “I should be happy to report your side of the story, sir, if it’s your wish, but in truth, I only meant to inform only in so far as my growth and progress goes, sir.”

  “Hmmm . . . but perhaps you will be persuaded to make amendments to your personal reports—perhaps even attach a sermon I am preparing for next meeting day.”

  “Amendments…sermons, sir?”

  “Attachments!” Parris caught himself. “Must I spell out everything to you, Mr. Wakely?”

  Jeremy gave him a coy schoolboy look. “Are . . . are you saying there’s ah . . . something in it for me, Mr. Parris?”

  “I merely mean, Jeremiah—I can call you Jeremiah, can’t I?” The man had been doing so all morning. “While privately addressing you, I mean?”

  “Surely you may.”

  “I mean once you, too, are a victim of such utter disrespect and heartless actions as I’ve endured since my tenure here, that you will want to report the slander, the double dealing, the back-stabbing, and the venom.”

  “The Burroughs cont
ingent, you mean?”

  “They set the example, yes. But others follow.”

  A jet black raven with blue shimmering about its wings landed on a nearby limb where they stood, curiously looking as if eavesdropping.

  “But I was given to believe—told that is—that the previous minister here left this parish a broken convict, a man pitied as much as despised, his family lost to the fever, and he a debtor and broken man.”

  “All too true.” Irritated by the staring raven, Parris showed it off.

  “I heard talk of the other minister before Burroughs, too, that his family also died while he served in this parish. Of course, I don’t believe in curses, but some in Boston’ve called it a parish cur—”

  “Don’t say it! It’s nonsense.” Parris then shouted for anyone caring to hear, “Only hex on this place is human gullibility, greed, jealousy, and sin.”

  Parris began to cross the green to finish their walk to the Putnam home. Jeremy rushed to keep up. The other side of the green, Jeremy goose-stepped over sludge that ran down the middle of the village’s main thoroughfare in a foot-wide canal cut for delivering human waste and other foul matter away from the settlement.

  They’d stopped in the middle of a cow path, their discussion so intense that neither of them saw the gathering crowd growing around them.

  “I was given to understand that a great deal of piety, love, and humane actions had been taken on behalf of both Bailey and Burroughs,” said Jeremy, shaking his head. “That some took pity on these poor ministers, paid their bills, even jail fees in Mr. Burroughs’ case.”

  “Yes, so I’ve been told . . . and that they sent him off with the clothes on his—”

  “Same with the man before these two, Deodat Lawson.”

  Suddenly Parris’ face went white. “How much of the parsonage history do you know, Mr. Wakely?” Parris looked and sounded again like the suspicious creature that Jeremy had encountered the night before.

  “I know Salem’s history, especially its theological history, well sir.”

  “Aye . . . before coming here.” Parris had retreated tenfold due to thoughts rumbling inside now. Jeremy could see the confusion on his face. “Did much study then before arriving, did you, Mr. Wakely? But never knew Burroughs, despite spending time in Maine, eh?”

  “Maine is a large place, and truth be told, sir, I was never one for study, not in truth.”

  Frustration made the man stomp, sending a cascade of mud over Jeremy’s boots. “Then how in the name of Jehovah do you know so much about our affairs in Salem?”

  “I suspect, Mr. Parris, you knew nothing of the so-called curse when the Select Committee hired you without full consent of the parish.”

  Parris blanched. “Verily…next to nothing, in fact—but plenty of gossip since, which is how I’ve always taken it.”

  To test the man’s responses further, Jeremy took it a step further. “I thought not; perhaps had you done your homework before accepting—”

  “This chat is at end, Mr. Wakely.” He indicated the small crowd in the street gathered around them. Too many prying eyes and ears. But when Parris stepped ahead of Jeremy, the younger man could not help but couch a grin. At the same time, Parris, and to a lesser degree, Jeremy, faced a terrible greeting when the ragged, bottle and rag woman of the village, the crone Sarah Goode blocked their path. She held a crooked old Shillelagh like a wand, and with the walking stick, she punctuated the vile, angry curse spewing from a near toothless mouth. “May your hearth belch fire to burn your house t’ground, Parson!”

  “Get from my sight, woman!” shouted Parris, continuing past the obstacle with Jeremy keeping step.

  But the wrinkled old woman pursued, chanting. “May your black servant cut your throat as ya sleep! ‘Cause ya stole and sold her baby like you did mine! For pieces of eight!”

  Parris grabbed up a huge dirt clod and hurled it at the woman, barely missing.

  “May your wife wither and dry up like a diseased cow!”

  Parris rushed at her like an angry dog, baring his teeth. “And may God strike you down for the witch you are!”

  “If God loves justice, it’ll be you struck down!”

  “Your own daughter,” spewed Parris, “Dorcas, she told me of your dark contract with the Devil.”

  This did not in the least slow Goode. “And may your child suffer the torments of Hell, till you give my Dorcas back!”

  Jeremy feared he’d have to intervene somehow, as the venom between these two threatened to erupt further unless someone broke off. Parris threatened her under his breath. “I swear out a warrant and have you arrested, ye old—”

  “Mind my words!” warned Goode. “Return my Dorcas or face my curse on ya and all ya hold dear!”

  “The curse of God upon you, hag, bitch!” cried Parris.

  “Aha! Swearin’ like a common sailor!” She cackled a sound that filled the street and brought people to their windows and shop doors. “Ya’ll heard ’im . . . swearin’ at a poor old woman now are ya?”

  “Foul, filthy creature!” Parris grabbed for her cane, but she snatched it away at the last moment.

  “You men in black, all alike.” Goode gave Jeremy a look from head to toe. “Deceivers!” She then pointed her cane at Jeremy and shouted to the maddening crowd, “I seen this one come to the parsonage by cover of night! Him on a white charger, but we all know the Devil does take a pleasin’ form, and that horse looked at me with one eye belongin’ to Beelzebub, or Belial sure ’nough!”

  “Shut your ugly hole, you witch!” Parris belted back.

  “You may have others fooled—” Goode pointed to her left eye—“but not these eyes.” She ambled off, disappearing between the livery stable and Ingersoll’s Ordinary & Inn. Bottles tied to her, dangling about neck and hips, rattled as she moved off, and yet neither Parris nor Jeremy had earlier heard her approach. Parris remarked on how uncannily the old woman had taken them unawares. Then he waved it off, saying, “Devil take her.”

  The battle over, his flushed features softening, Parris waved at someone in the Putnam house at the window on the ground floor. Another window displayed two children’s faces pressed against an attic window.

  Jeremy wondered if the children had seen the altercation in the street between Mr. Parris and Witch Goode. But for now, he found himself on the doorstep of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, where on the inside they could hear faint, whispered yet highly charged argument.

  # # # # #

  After several raps on the oak door, Parris and Jeremy still stood on the doorstep of the Putnam house—a modest, two-story saltbox-styled cabin home. From all appearances, Jeremy felt that a rather dreary, dark interior awaited within if and when someone opted to open the door and welcome them in. Samuel Parris vigorously knocked on the Putnam door again. “We are come!” he shouted at the door. “Come at your bidding! Hello, inside the house!”

  The door creaked in on rusted hinges to reveal a fire at the hearth in the common room, but Jeremy felt only the coldness of this place engulf him. A grim couple stood apart from one another, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Putnam. The man a scarecrow figure with bloodshot eyes, the wife a dried up, frail-looking stick figure herself, her eyes ringed with darkness, and at the center of each—a frightful, unfathomable deadness. How deep can melancholy go, Jeremy silently wondered. How strong can its grip become? He knew it intimately, but gauging by this woman, Anne Carr-Putnam Senior, he’d merely scratched the surface of depression in those darkest hours when he’d given up Serena.

  “Welcome, Reverend Parris,” said Thomas Putnam. “Welcome to our humble home.”

  Understatement, Jeremy noted, a familiar characteristic of people hereabouts to understate the obvious.

  “And do tell,” said Thomas as if the spokesperson here, “who is this young gentleman in your company?”

  Suspicion, Jeremy noted in the tone of the otherwise welcoming words and accompanying smile, as the Putnams awaited Parris’ introductions.

  Parris fo
rmally, stiffly introduced Jeremy as his apprentice, being sure to add that Increase Mather himself had sent Jeremy “to be among us, to be my helpmate, and to apprentice in the Lord’s work under my tutelage. I have a letter signed by Mather to the effect, Thomas, Goodwife Putnam.”

  Jeremy bowed dutifully, reminding himself of the role he played here, one of the contrite apprentice to Mr. Parris, his mentor. At the same time, he recognized Captain Thomas Putnam as a key player in current village and church politics, and the likely role he played in fanning the gossip of this current ‘curse’ afflicting the parish. Mather had filled Jeremy in on who stood to gain and who stood to lose by Parris’ continued appointment as minister. While Anne and Thomas Putnam stared stupidly at Jeremy, it took some shrinking for him to appear a mere pawn in village affairs. At the same time, Reverend Parris busily worked to convince the Putnams to allow his apprentice across their humble threshold.

  Jeremy only half heard Parris’ words ending with, “The young man is here to observe and learn how I minister to my congregation. That is the extent of his interest.”

  “To study in the Word?” Thomas Putnam asked, nodding as if he knew the answer to begin with.

  “To one day become an ordained minister.” Jeremy tried to meet Putnam’s eye but found it impossible as the man’s eyes looked everywhere but in Jeremy’s direction.

  Putnam pulled Parris inside and closed the door on Jeremy. Through the cracks and crevices, Jeremy caught snatches of conversation inside.

  “Mercy can’t stay,” Mrs. Putnam flatly stated.

  “She’s corruptin’ little Anne,” added Mr. Putnam in a raised voice.

  “Give it time, Thom.”

  “She’s caused my wife tears, Sam.”

  “These matters take time . . . patience . . . but in time.”

  “You talk to the wench. You warned her.”

  “I will talk to her, of course.”

  Putnam whispered something Jeremy could not make out.

  Parris grunted, hemmed, hawed, and muttered, “Would I’ve brought ’im if I thought ’im that?”

  Putnam stood back and went to the window where he raised a hand and gave a nod to Jeremy, a gesture meaning everything’s all right. He then cracked the door, saying, “Whatever you say, Mr. Parris.”