Tituba of Salem Village (5 page)

Tituba put her hand over her own mouth so her anger would not come out in the form of rude words. She could see Mistress Susanna Endicott in the house in Bridgetown, kneeling down in front of the great carved chest that stood at the foot of the vast bedstead, sobbing, “You were my jewels. You were my jewels.” Soft white hands covered with rings and a jeweled necklace fastened at her round throat. She sold us, not her rings or her necklaces, but her human jewels. She gambled us away. And cried about it afterwards. They were the tears of the man-eating crocodile, moaning and crying to attract his victim and then eating the victim, tears still streaming out of his eyes as he chewed and swallowed. She decided she would not tell John about this, not until she could tell it without anger.

The weaver inquired gently for Mistress Parris. He said, “With the coming of spring, she’ll feel better. Spring’s on its way. Ye can feel it and smell it.”

Tituba wondered if he knew what he was talking about. It was just as cold now in the middle of March as it had been in January. That night when John came home from the tavern she asked him whether he thought spring was on its way, and he said yes, the ice was breaking up in the harbor. The folk who came to the tavern said it was a sure sign that winter was over.

He said, “I’ve been able to get home every night this week. I couldn’t have fought my way through some of those drifts before.”

She nodded in agreement. The weather had changed. There had been an abatement of the wind that had blown all during the winter. She no longer awakened at night, jarred out of sleep by the sound of the wind in the chimney, a roaring sound that made her think she was in Barbados on the plantation where she grew up. When she was finally thoroughly awake, she found she was panting as though she’d been running, the dream so real that she thought she’d been working with the cane cutters in the sugar-cane fields and that a storm had arisen, one of those tropical storms with violent winds, and that the full brunt of the wind was almost upon them and the order had gone out, “Hurry cane, hurry cane,” and it meant they had to hurry the cane out of the fields before it was ruined.

These dreams were so vivid that she was always surprised and shocked and disappointed to find that she was not in Barbados but that she was huddled on the hard wooden settle in her new master’s kitchen in the little house in Boston. The wind made a howling in the chimney, and the fire had died down until it was only a glow of embers at the back of the fireplace. She would get up shivering and pile on wood, and then gradually the room would get warmer, and finally it would be so hot in front of the fireplace that she had to move away from the fire.

Sometimes when the wind roared in the chimney like that, her dreams about Barbados were so vivid that she thought she could smell the sweet smell of the crushed cane as it was being cooked. She’d never before had dreams that included odors—places and people and all kinds of happenings, but not smells. When she awakened she would sniff the air, and there was never anything even resembling the smell of boiling cane. There was the slightly smoky smell of the room and the smell of dampness that was characteristic of all the houses near the waterfront.

But all she said aloud to John was, “When spring comes I’ll be able to go in the woods and look for plants and herbs.”

“Maybe along the edges. It’s not safe to go deep into the woods. There’s Indians and there’s wild animals—”

“You sound like the mistress,” she said, amused.

It was six weeks or more before she went along the edge of the woods, looking for herbs. Spring came slowly to Boston. First the wind abated. Then the snow and ice began to melt. The days were longer. One day at noon it was warm enough, so that she could go out without her shawl fastened tightly around her head and shoulders.

People walking past the little house no longer hurried by, bent over, bundled up against the wind. The trees and shrubs that had looked as though they were dead and that had been dark silhouettes against the whiteness of the snow began to acquire pale-green, delicate-looking leaves.

Some days it was still very cold, but the water in the harbor was no longer a dark ominous gray. It looked greenish-blue, and the waves were tipped with white, and the water sparkled in the sun. She heard birds singing and knew they were nesting.

Even the harbor came alive again. She took the children to the Long Wharf to watch the boats come in and go out, their sails billowing in the brisk offshore wind.

There was enough daylight late in the afternoon, so that she could walk along the edge of the woods, basket over her arm, as she searched for herbs, for the roots of plants. She was certain she would find plants like the ones she had known in Barbados. She had to find something to give the mistress for her cough was worse.

Each afternoon she came back with an empty basket. She was sorely tempted to go deeper and deeper into the woods. But John kept warning her about Indians, saying that they were red devils who would scalp her and then kill her, that they were always at war with each other and with these new white settlers. So she simply contented herself with poking about the roots of trees with a long stick.

Late one afternoon she looked up, surprised to find a young woman watching her curiously. She had dark eyes that sparkled and a rosy complexion. She was wearing a black silk hood and a long full cloak of a dark red material.

“What are you looking for?” she said.

Tituba explained about her sick mistress, about the roots and herbs that grew in Barbados, and that she hoped to find them here in the woods near Boston.

The woman said, “I don’t know what grows in Barbados, but I can show you what I gather here in these woods. Come.” She turned directly into the heavily forested area.

Tituba hung back, “I don’t think it’s safe to go in there, mistress.”

“I’m not going in very far. Nothing will hurt us. The Indians no longer come this close to Boston. And I’ve never seen any wolves or bears at the edge of the woods.”

“Yes, mistress,” she said.

“My name is Judah White.”

Tituba bowed. “I am called Tituba,” she said.

After that they met on the edge of the woods whenever the weather was fine. They came back from the woods with their baskets laden with the roots of plants, with the leaves, with the flowers. Tituba tied the herbs in bundles and hung them from the beams in the keeping room. It wasn’t a big room, and she sometimes thought it looked like a simpler’s shop she’d seen in Bridgetown. People came from miles to buy the cures that the simpler recommended.

Judah brought her a bundle of iris roots. She told her to brew them just as though she were brewing tea—to cut off thin slices of the root, cover it with boiling water, and let it sit until all the rich healing quality of the iris had gone into the water. She suggested that Tituba give this to her sick mistress and said it would stop the sharp pain she had in her chest and it would help the dreadful cough that left her so exhausted.

One afternoon when they came out of the woods with their baskets filled with the roots of lily of the valley, they saw ahead of them the Reverend Parris. He was walking slowly along the trodden path at the edge of the woods. The unexpected sight of his tall, thin, black-clad figure made a chill run down Tituba’s spine. She shivered, just the way she did on a winter’s morning when her bare hand touched the iron latch on the front door of the little house where they lived.

Judah glanced at her curiously, then slowed her pace to match Tituba’s. “Do you know that man?” she asked.

“He is my master, the Reverend Samuel Parris.”

“I’ve been looking for you, Tituba,” the master said, as soon as he came abreast of them. “Your mistress needs some of your new tea to quiet her pain.”

Judah nodded to Mr. Parris and went swiftly down the trodden path. Her long full cloak brushed against the weeds and the tall grass that bordered the path. Tituba thought there was something loving in the way the cloak brushed against the grass. She smiled thinking that if the grass were a cat it would be singing. Other people said that cats purred but Tituba felt that they sang.

“Who is that woman?” the master asked, watching Judah’s swift progress down the path.

“Her name is Judah White, master.”

“Judah White!” he said. He turned and stared at Tituba. “How do you come to know her?”

“I met her at the edge of the woods one day. Ever since then we’ve been going after herbs and roots. She heals the sick with the brews she makes.”

“That woman is a witch. Never go into the woods or anywhere else with her.” He looked past Tituba, and he said, “Where did she go? Where is she now?” His voice increased in volume. “She’s vanished,” he said. There was a note of fear in his voice.

Tituba turned and looked, too. The trodden path ran straight as a crow flies for a long distance. Judah was nowhere in sight. Tituba thought she saw the dark red cloak disappearing behind the trunk of a tree, but she was not certain.

“Master,” she said timidly. “Why did you say that Judah White is a witch?”

“She came here from the Isle of Jersey where she is known to be a witch. The Boston clergy have been warned about her. Now come along, your mistress needs you.”

He continued as he strode along. “It is by virtue of evil spirits that witches do what they do. None of them do good. If a witch does good, it is only that she may do hurt.” He turned and faced her, saying emphatically, “There is a law in the Colony that says, ‘If any man or woman be a witch, they shall be put to death.’”

Tituba walked a little behind him, thinking about the iris roots from which she made the tea that soothed the mistress’s cough and quieted her pain and helped her digest her food. Judah White had given her those dark-brown roots—the color of the earth on the outside, but inside they were white. When Tituba cut thin even slices from the root it gave off a faint but lovely fragrance. She was certain that only a good woman would bring so precious a gift.

Chapter 4

That spring the farmers from Salem Village came to see the master again. There were five of them—big men who wore clumsy boots and had heavy callused hands. Tituba noticed their hands when they removed their woolen caps. They nodded to her and said, “How-d’ye-do, mum,” when she asked them to come in.

They left a barnyard smell behind them—a smell that lingered in the keeping room long after they were gone and made Abigail turn her pointed little nose up in the air and say, “Ugh!”

Afterwards the master sat by the fire in the keeping room. He bent forward, scowling at the fire, his chin resting on one of his thin hands.

Tituba wondered what he saw when he stared at the fire. She thought, I always see Bridgetown; the sun is shining and the fishing boats are going out. Did he see Barbados? What did he see? Surely not heaven, because he frowned so.

The next day the master made a trip to Salem Village. He borrowed a mare from Mr. Conklih, the weaver. He was gone for three days.

Tituba searched her mind for a way to describe what the little house was like without the master. The rooms seemed bigger and more filled with light. There was the merry sound of laughter and the brisk sound of people moving around freely, not on tiptoe. Betsey and Abigail laughed and talked as much and as loudly as they pleased. They ran and skipped and played games. The mistress smiled at their lighthearted play.

After the children and the mistress had gone to bed, Tituba told John that Mistress Susanna Endicott had sold them to pay a gambling debt. It seemed a good time to tell him this. They were sitting by a brisk fire in the fireplace in the keeping room. She felt free to speak out loud, not whispering or speaking in a hushed voice as she would have done if the master had been there.

John’s face clouded, and he frowned. Then he shook his head, saying, “There is no need to cry about it now. It is like milk that was spilt. You can’t pour it back again.”

Suddenly he laughed. He said, “You were always reading those fortunetelling cards for Mistress Endicott. Why didn’t you see this in the cards?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I could see things that were going to happen and sometimes I couldn’t.”

There was an exclamation of surprise from the doorway of the room where the mistress slept. Abigail came into the keeping room. She stood in front of Tituba, staring at her. “You can tell fortunes?” she asked.

Tituba hesitated. She said reluctantly, “My mistress, the one in Barbados, liked to have her fortune told. She sent me to a gypsy woman who lived near the bay in Bridgetown. The gypsy woman taught me how to read cards.”

“Will you tell my fortune?”

She shook her head. “I have no cards. Besides I have not done that for so long I have probably forgotten how.”

“Can you read palms?” Abigail asked, holding her hand out towards Tituba.

Tituba said, “No, I can’t.” She stood up and said briskly, “Best not get in the habit of being wakeful at night. Come, I will tuck the covers around you.”

She wondered if she should ask Abigail not to tell the master that she could tell fortunes and decided that it was better to say nothing. It didn’t really matter.

When the master returned, he was dispirited, out of sorts. Tituba half expected Abigail to say, “Uncle Parris, Tituba is a fortuneteller!” But she seemed to have forgotten about it; at least she did not mention it.

While the master warmed his thin hands in front of the fire in the bedroom, he described Salem Village. “It’s just a village,” he said unhappily. “It used to be called Salem Farms. I doubt that four hundred people live there. They are mostly farmers and fishermen. The farms are very far apart.”

“I thought Salem was a busy port like Boston,” the mistress said.

“Salem Town is a busy port. But Salem Village is very small. It’s a separate village with its own meetinghouse. Salem and Salem Village are distinct and separate one from the other.”

“Will you accept the offer to be their minister, Samuel?” the mistress asked.

“If they will agree to my terms,” he said slowly. “It’s not what I wanted—”