The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Read The Witch of Blackbird Pond Online
Authors: Elizabeth George Speare
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Elizabeth George Speare
Table of Contents
Sandpiper
H
OUGHTON
M
IFFLIN
H
ARCOURT
Boston New York
Copyright © 1958 by Elizabeth George Speare
Copyright renewed © 1986 by Elizabeth George Speare
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Sandpiper,
an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 1958.
SANDPIPER and the SANDPIPER logo are trademarks of Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this
book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
PZ7.S7376 Wi FT MEADE
ISBN: 978-0-395-07114-4 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-547-55029-9 paperback
Manufactured in the United States of America
DOM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500268207
INTRODUCTION
In 1958 I was in high school. Elvis was in the army in Germany, there was a new pope in Rome, and the so-called cold war against communist Russia was a bewildering and fearsome threat. These were the things on my mind in 1958. I didn't notice that someone named Elizabeth George Speare had written a book called
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
—and that's regrettable, for I likely would have read Kit Tyler's story and said, as many millions did then and have since, "It's about me!"
I was a bit of an outsider growing up, a reader and a loner, yearning to fit in but unwilling to shed my own fragile identity in order to do so. I could not see myself in the perky, fearless Nancy Drew or the wholesome, do-gooding Nan Bobbsey, or pretty and popular Sue Barton, student nurse. But Kit Tyler was like me, an ordinary girl, scared and lonely, stubborn and independent and a bit rebellious, trying to figure out a new world and make a place for herself in it. Yes, that was me.
In 1685 Kit Tyler comes from sunny Barbados to her aunt's family in the Puritan town of Wethersfield, Connecticut, with its hard, cold, restrictive life. What Kit learns throughout the book is just what I needed to learn as a young person—the value of being yourself, fighting for what you believe in, taking care of those who need care, seeing the beauty in things that might ordinarily seem plain, building friendships and community, and the importance of hard work. In a year in the Connecticut colony, Kit matures from anger and resistance to appreciate what she found without losing what she had, so that at the end she has two places to call home.
Kit Tyler's relatives and the rest of the people of Wetherfield are Puritans, English Protestants who left England in search of religious freedom but in their new land refused to extend that freedom to other faiths. Speare created many characters who embody the strength and dedication of the Puritans, but she did not shrink from illustrating as well the superstition, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness that led to the mob violence of the New England witch trials and troubles for Kit and the gentle Quaker Hannah Tupper.
Unfortunately, I didn't discover
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
in 1958. I read it first in a children's literature class as a twenty-something adult. But I grew up in the 1950s and lived through the suspicion and fear and the anti-communist hysteria. When I finally read the book, I realized that the same bigotry, intolerance, and damaging gossip that led to the early witch trials also informed the so-called witch hunts of the 1950s. The House Un-American Activities Committee and, later, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused many people of being communists or communist sympathizers. Although communism was not illegal, those named were placed on a "blacklist" and denied employment. Many lives were ruined during this shameful time in American history. We do not know how Elizabeth Speare felt about this "witch hunt"; we only know what she wrote, and
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
stands squarely against bigotry and intolerance and in favor of acceptance, justice, and respect.
I read the book as an adult, but in order to write this introduction, I wanted to know how those who came to the book as young women responded to the character and the themes. Did they see themselves in Kit? What did they find important or memorable about the book? So I asked some of them.
Some women loved it for its vivid, realistic picture of a Colonial New England beyond the romantic images of the
Mayflower,
Pocahontas, and the first Thanksgiving. Others remembered enjoying a literary crush on the fiery, vexatious seaman Nat Eaton. Cynthia Leitich Smith, a writer, identified with Kit's love of reading and her courage. My daughter found the romance charming, the witch trial exciting, and the values her own, but said, "For me that book is all about the image of that little cottage, filled with herbs and good smells and a cat and loved ones."
And countless young women cherished the story for the model it offered readers tired of books in which teen girls were, as my friend the Reverend Robbie Cranch put it, "portrayed as deferential flirts or swooning idiots." Kit is neither an idiot nor a flirt. She is lonely and confused but is also brave, compassionate, determined, and resilient.
And that character was not only me. She was Alyce of
The Midwife's Apprentice.
And Rodzina and Matilda Bone and Catherine and any of the girls I have written about. I found myself wondering how much of the Kit Tyler I encountered in my twenties stayed with me and reappeared thirty years later when I myself began to write.
Elizabeth Speare and I both wrote as children, but, busy with home and family and work, neither of us attempted a novel until we were nearly fifty. My first novel was
Catherine, Called Birdy.
Elizabeth Speare's was
Calico Captive,
based on a diary of 1807 that told of the four-year Indian captivity of Susanna Johnson and her family. Speare fully intended, she said, to do something similar for her next book, this time set where she lived in Connecticut, but she found nothing that inspired her until she realized that people were waiting, not in the pages of a diary but in her own mind: "There was a girl," she related in her Newbery acceptance speech, "lonely and insecure, a child who needed friendship, a wise and gentle old woman, and two young men, one shy and uncertain, the other self-confident and merry."
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
was awarded the Newbery Medal for 1959, the only time, according to the editor and literary critic Anita Silvey, that a book was chosen unanimously on the first ballot. It's a marvel of a book. The writing is clear, the atmosphere is vivid and convincing, and the characters are well drawn and fully human. Speare wrote only four novels for children, for which she was awarded two Newbery Medals and a Newbery Honor. Were she a baseball player, she would have by far the highest batting average in the history of the sport.
Elizabeth Speare presents contradictions and dualities that make her as three-dimensional and real as the rest of us. Writing in conservative, conformist 1950s America, she nonetheless tackled themes of bigotry, gossip, intolerance, and guilt by association. A Sunday school teacher and author of a Newbery-winning book about Jesus, she wrote, too, of the downside of religious faith. A homebody dedicated to her family, she always said home came first, but her creation, Kit, is a spunky, determined, outspoken girl who follows her own path.
Elvis is dead, there is yet another new pope, and the cold war is long over. Elizabeth George Speare died in 1994, but Kit Tyler will live on, as long as girls look to find themselves—their ordinary, brave, compassionate, outspoken, independent selves—in a book. May they, like Kit Tyler, also find home.
Karen Cushman
CHAPTER 1
O
N A MORNING
in mid-April, 1687, the brigantine
Dolphin
left the open sea, sailed briskly across the Sound to the wide mouth of the Connecticut River and into Saybrook harbor. Kit Tyler had been on the forecastle deck since daybreak, standing close to the rail, staring hungrily at the first sight of land for five weeks.
"There's Connecticut Colony," a voice spoke in her ear. "You've come a long way to see it."
She looked up, surprised and flattered. On the whole long voyage the captain's son had spoken scarcely a dozen words to her. She had noticed him often, his thin wiry figure swinging easily hand over hand up the rigging, his sandy, sun-bleached head bent over a coil of rope. Nathaniel Eaton, first mate, but his mother called him Nat. Now, seeing him so close beside her, she was surprised that, for all he looked so slight, the top of her head barely reached his shoulder.
"How does it look to you?" he questioned.
Kit hesitated. She didn't want to admit how disappointing she found this first glimpse of America. The bleak line of shore surrounding the gray harbor was a disheartening contrast to the shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados which was her home. The earthen wall of the fortification that faced the river was bare and ugly, and the houses beyond were no more than plain wooden boxes.
"Is that Wethersfield?" she inquired instead.
"Oh, no, Wethersfield is some way up the river. This is the port of Saybrook. Home to us Eatons. There's my father's shipyard, just beyond the dock."
She could just make out the row of unimpressive shacks and the flash of raw new lumber. Her smile was admiring from pure relief. At least this grim place was not her destination, and surely the colony at Wethersfield would prove more inviting.
"We've made good time this year," Nat went on. "It's been a fair passage, hasn't it?"
"Oh, yes," she sparkled. "Though I'm glad now 'tis over."
"Aye," he agreed. "I never know myself which is best, the setting out or the coming back to harbor. Ever been on a ship before?"
"Just the little pinnaces in the islands. I've sailed on those all my life."
He nodded. "That's where you learned to keep your balance."
So he had noticed! To her pride, she had proved to be a natural sailor. Certainly she had not spent the voyage groaning and retching like some of the passengers.
"You're not afraid of the wind and the salt, anyway. At least, you haven't spent much time below."
"Not if I could help it," she laughed. Did he think anyone would stay in that stuffy cabin by choice? Would she ever have had the courage to sail at all had she known, before she booked passage, that the sugar and molasses in the hold had been paid for by a load of Connecticut horses, and that all the winds of the Atlantic could never blow the ship clean of that unbearable stench? "That's what I minded most about the storm," she added, "four days shut away down there with the deadlights up."
"Were you scared?"
"Scared to death. Especially when the ship stood right on end, and the water leaked under the cabin door. But now I wouldn't have missed it for anything. 'Twas the most exciting thing I ever knew."
His face lighted with admiration, but all for the ship. "She's a stout one, the
Dolphin
" he said. "She's come through many a worse blow than that." His eyes dwelt fondly on the topsails.
"What is happening?" Kit asked, noting the sudden activity along the deck. Four husky sailors in blue jackets and bright kerchiefs had hurried forward to man the capstan bars. Captain Eaton, in his good blue coat, was shouting orders from the quarterdeck. "Are we stopping here?"
"There are passengers to go ashore/' Nat explained. "And we need food and water for the trip upriver. But we've missed the tide, and the wind is blowing too hard from the west for us to make the landing. We're going to anchor out here and take the longboat in to shore. That means I'd better look to the oars." He swung away, moving lightly and confidently; there was a bounce in his step that matched the laughter in his eyes.
With dismay, Kit saw the captain's wife among the passengers preparing to disembark. Must she say good-bye so soon to Mistress Eaton? They had shared the bond of being the only two women aboard the
Dolphin
and the older woman had been sociable and kindly. Now, catching Kit's eye, she came hurrying along the deck.
"Are you leaving the ship. Mistress Eaton?" Kit greeted her wistfully.
"Aye, didn't I tell you I'd be leaving you at Saybrook? But don't look so sad, child. 'Tis not far to Wethersfield, and we'll be meeting again."
"But I thought the
Dolphin
was your home!"
"In the wintertime it is, when we sail to the West Indies. But I was born in Saybrook, and in the spring I get to hankering for my house and garden. Besides, I'd never let on to my husband, but the summer trips are tedious, just back and forth up and down the river. I stay at home and tend my vegetables and my spinning like a proper housewife. Then, come November, when he sails for Barbados again, I'm ready enough to go with him. 'Tis a good life, and one of the best things about it is coming home in the springtime."
Kit glanced again at the forbidding shore. She could see nothing about it to put such a twinkle of anticipation in anyone's eye. Could there be some charm that was not visible from out here in the harbor? She spoke on a sudden impulse.
"Would there be room in the boat for me to ride to shore with you?" she begged. "I know it's silly, but there is America so close to me for the first time in my life—I can't bear not to set my foot upon it!"
"What a child you are, Kit," smiled Mrs. Eaton. "Sometimes 'tis hard to believe you are sixteen." She appealed to her husband. The captain scowled at the girl's wind-reddened cheeks and shining eyes, and then shrugged consent. As Kit gathered her heavy skirts about her and clambered down the swaying rope ladder, the men in the longboat good-naturedly shoved their bundles closer to make room for her. Her spirits bobbed like the whitecaps in the harbor as the boat pulled away from the black hull of the
Dolphin.
As the prow scraped the landing piles, Nat leaped ashore and caught the hawser. He reached to help his mother, then stretched a sure hand to swing Kit over the boat's edge.
With a bound she was over the side and had set foot on America. She stood taking deep breaths of the salt, fish-tainted air, and looked about for someone to share her excitement. She was quite forgotten. A throng of men and boys on the wharf had noisily closed in on the three Eatons, and she could hear a busy catching up of the past months' news. The other passengers had hurried along the wharf to the dirt road beyond. Only three shabbily-dressed women lingered near her, and because she could not contain her eagerness, Kit smiled and would have spoken, but she was abruptly repulsed by their sharply curious eyes. One hand moved guiltily to her tangled brown curls. She must look a sight! No gloves, no cover for her hair, and her face rough and red from weeks of salt wind. But how ill-mannered of them to stare so! She pulled up the hood of her scarlet cloak and turned away. Embarrassment was a new sensation for Kit. No one on the island had ever presumed to stare like that at Sir Francis Tyler's granddaughter.
To make matters worse, America was behaving strangely underfoot. As she stepped forward, the wharf tilted upward, and she felt curiously lightheaded. Just in time a hand grasped her elbow.
"Steady there!" a voice warned. "You haven't got your land legs yet." Nat's blue eyes laughed down at her.
"It will wear off in a short time," his mother assured her. "Katherine, dear, I do hate to let you go on alone. You're sure your aunt will be waiting for you at Wethersfield? They say there's a Goodwife Gruff going aboard, and I'll tell her to keep an eye on you." With a quick clasp of Kit's hand she was gone and Nat, shouldering her trunk in one easy motion, followed her along the narrow dirt road. Which one of those queer little boxlike houses did they call home? Kit wondered.
She turned to watch the sailors stowing provisions into the longboat. She already regretted this impulsive trip ashore. There was no welcome for her at this chill Saybrook landing. She was grateful when at last the captain assembled the return group and she could climb back into the longboat. Four new passengers were embarking for the trip up the river, a shabby, dour-looking man and wife and their scrawny little girl clutching a wooden toy, and a tall, angular young man with a pale narrow face and shoulder-length fair hair under a wide-brimmed black hat. Captain Eaton took his place aft without attempting any introduction. The men readied their oars. Then Nathaniel, coming back down the road on a run, slipped the rope from the mooring and as they pulled away from the wharf leaped nimbly to his place with the crew.
They were halfway across the harbor when a wail of anguish broke from the child. Before anyone could stop her the little girl had flung herself to her knees and teetered dangerously over the edge of the boat. Her mother leaned forward, grasped the woolen jumper and jerked her back, smacking her down with a sharp cuff.
"Ma! The dolly's gone!" the child wailed. "The dolly Grandpa made for me!"
Kit could see the little wooden doll, its arms sticking stiffly into the air, bobbing helplessly in the water a few feet away.
"Shame on you!" the woman scolded. "After the work he went to. All that fuss for a toy, and then the minute you get one you throw it away!"
"I was holding her up to see the ship! Please get her back. Ma! Please! I'll never drop it again!"
The toy was drifting farther and farther from the boat, like a useless twig in the current. No one in the boat made a move, or paid the slightest attention. Kit could not keep silent.
"Turn back, Captain," she ordered impulsively. "'Twill be an easy thing to catch."
The captain did not even glance in her direction. Kit was not used to being ignored, and her temper flared. When a thin whimper from the child was silenced by a vicious cuff, her anger boiled over. Without a second's deliberation she acted. Kicking off her buckled shoes and dropping the woolen cloak, she plunged headlong over the side of the boat.
The shock of cold, totally unexpected, almost knocked her senseless. As her head came to the surface she could not catch her breath at all. But after a dazed second she sighted the bobbing piece of wood and instinctively struck out after it in vigorous strokes that set her blood moving again. She had the doll in her hand before her numbed mind realized that there had been a second splash, and as she turned back she saw that Nathaniel was in the water beside her, thrashing with a clumsy paddling motion. She could not help laughing as she passed him, and with a feeling of triumph she beat him to the boat. The captain leaned to drag her back over the side, and Nathaniel scrambled in behind her without any assistance.
"Such water!" she gasped. "I never dreamed water could be so cold!"
She shook back her wet hair, her cheeks glowing. But her laughter died away at sight of all their faces. Shock and horror and unmistakable anger stared back at her. Even Nathaniel's young face was dark with rage.
"You must be daft," the woman hissed. "To jump into the river and ruin those clothes!"
Kit tossed her head. "Bother the clothes! They'll dry. Besides, I have plenty of others."
"Then you might have a thought for somebody else!" snapped Nat, slapping the water out of his dripping breeches. "These are the only clothes I have."
Kit's eyes flashed. "Why did you jump in anyway? You needn't have bothered."
"You can be sure I wouldn't have," he retorted, "had I any idea you could swim."
Her eyes widened. "Swim?" she echoed scornfully. "Why my grandfather taught me to swim as soon as I could walk."
The others stared at her in suspicion. As though she had sprouted a tail and fins right before their eyes. What was the matter with these people? Not another word was uttered as the men pulled harder on their oars. A solid cloud of disapproval settled over the dripping girl, more chilling than the April breeze. Her high spirits plunged. She had made herself ridiculous. How many times had her grandfather cautioned her to think before she flew off the handle? She drew her knees and elbows tight under the red cloak and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Water dripped off her matted hair and ran in icy trickles down her neck. Then, glancing defiantly from one hostile face to another, Kit found a small measure of comfort. The young man in the black hat was looking at her gravely, and all at once his lips twisted in spite of himself. A smile filled his eyes with such warmth and sympathy that a lump rose in Kit's throat, and she glanced away. Then she saw that the child, silently clutching her sodden doll, was staring at her with a gaze of pure worship.
Two hours later, dressed in a fresh green silk, Kit was spreading the wet dress and the woolen cloak to dry on the sun-warmed planking of the deck when her glance was caught by the wide black hat, and she looked up to see the new passenger coming toward her.
"If you will give me leave," he said, with stiff courtesy, removing the hat to reveal a high fine forehead, "I would like to introduce myself. I am John Holbrook, bound for Wethersfield, which I learn is your destination as well."
Kit had not forgotten that comforting smile. "I am Katherine Tyler," she answered forthrightly. "I am on the way to Wethersfield to live with my aunt. Mistress Wood."
"Is Matthew Wood your uncle then? His name is well known along the river."
"Yes, but I have never seen him, nor my aunt either. I do not even know very much about her, just that she was my mother's sister back in England, and that she was very beautiful."
The young man looked puzzled. "I have never met your aunt," he said politely. "I came to look for you now because I felt I should ask your pardon for the way we all behaved toward you this morning. After all, it was only a kind thing you meant to do, to get the toy back for the child."
