Children of Salem

buildings whatsoever. They had petitioned for clarity from the church assize, then the village assize, next Salem Town church assize, and finally the town court. No one had wanted to settle the issue.

At first, both the village and town magistrates, Corwin and Hathorne, had been in sympathy with the wrong side, but over the years, working slowly behind the scenes, Samuel had won over Judge John Corwin and Judge Jonathan Hathorne, and Hathorne had introduced Parris to the Boston magistrate Judge William Stoughton, who on reviewing the evidence, said that Parris had a case—and a good one at that.

But Judge Stoughton had also warned Samuel to take each Select Committeeman on one at a time. “Do not attempt a lawsuit against the entire group; if you do so, you’ll lose pitifully.”

So Parris had bided his time, and he’d sent off lawsuit after lawsuit to the higher court in Boston, and he waited . . . and waited . . . and waited for his day in court, a day that had as yet to come. Instead comes Mr. Jeremiah Wakely with a letter of introduction from Reverend Increase Mather, former president of Harvard Theological College and present head of state in the colony, presiding over the First Church of Boston, and the courts by extension. So had Stoughton finally done as promised? Had he taken Parris’ case to the top man, Increase Mather? Only to see Mather leaving for England?

Parris stood and paced, the floor boards beneath him squealing from his weight. He and his wife Betty had but one child, and he’d once sired a bastard that he’d gotten rid of. Ill-luck, disaster, black cloud, calamity, ruin, adversity—whatever one called it—tragedy had followed him like a character in a Greek play.

Frustration chilled Samuel Parris more than the cold cutting through the crevasses and cracks of the worthless place he’d fought to own for so long now. Desperation always felt cold. A man seeing himself at the end of days with nothing to show for but a failing business and a failing reputation in Barbados—where copper and other precious ores were in short supply—must act and act now for the good of his child and his wife.

The thought gave him a fresh idea for yet another sermon—one that would outstrip that weakly worded diatribe he had shared with Wakely as a trap. A single word of that sermon gets back to me through his contact with Judge Stoughton, and he would know for certain the purpose of Jeremiah’s being here. It was the only reason he had allowed Postmaster Ingersoll to let Jeremy’s letter up till now go through to Boston.

Parris smiled at his cleverness and contacts that now had tentacles as far away as Boston. He quickly located pen and inkwell and began jotting down notes for the real sermon he meant to deliver at the meetinghouse.

He scribbled and mumbled the words under his breath as he went: “Brethren, when you harm me, you harm my family. When you withhold my rate, you withhold bread from the mouth of my child, nay, my entire family. Look on my wife here; look on my child here (stand Elizabeth, Betty). Look on them. They have pure hearts and have no grievance with you, yet you harm my loved ones in your skullduggery toward your minister in this pitiless plot— your conspiracy—committing shameful sin against a mother and child while you target a man with your gossiping tongue. It’s as sure a curse as any witchcraft, your unchristian stand against your own minister.”

Parris found himself repeating his habit of wetting the quill pen with his tongue before dipping it again in the inkwell as he worked for stronger language to follow. He needed something even more dramatic than displaying his wife and child before the dissenters. He needed something to make them take honest to God notice, but what might that be? He feared he’d be up most of the night contriving it.

# # # # #

The Nurse-Towne Family home same night

“Are you sure, Mother, that this is wise?” asked Serena, helping her mother, Rebecca, prepare food for the next day’s repast beneath the trees.

“Don’t be foolish, Serena! We’ve already put it off a week thanks to everyone’s complaints! Besides, I sent word round to all the family. Everyone will come, and we’ll have a wonderful time.” Rebecca busily cleaned her best pewter dishware.

“But if it is as cold tomorrow as today—”

Mother stopped in her work to stare at her daughter. “Are you worried about the weather, or what our neighbors might say?”

“Both to be honest.”

“Look here, Serena,” began Rebecca, taking her daughter’s hands in hers, guiding her to sit with her a moment. She pointed to her bedroom window. “Dear, I’ve looked out from that upstairs window all winter! Abed—staring at that big tree of ours and those idle tables lined below it.”

“Our family gathering ground for as long as I remember,” Serena said.

“Precisely. All winter long while I fully expected to die of whatever it is the doctor has no idea of— my affliction, as he calls it—”

“That doctor calls anything he can’t diagnose affliction or auge or both!” Serena laughed. “I’ve forgotten more medicine learned from you than that churn-headed butter-brained man ever knew!”

Rebecca could not hold back a giggle at Serena’s colorful characterization of Dr. McLin. “Yes, I fear it’s so, but now listen to me, child.”

“Go on, Mother.” Serena dried each dish as Rebecca rinsed.

“Abed up there for so long, and so I made a promise to myself.”

“A promise? Let me guess.”

Rebecca patted her daughter’s hand in a mock spanking. “How tart your tongue’s become since I’ve not been around.”

“Tart indeed! Growing up with all these boys of yours!”

“Oh, how bright you are, Serena. Now as to my promise to myself and to my Maker, it was a simple enough wish: If I should live long enough, I’d gather my family one and all about me again in a time of happiness . . . like pulling a warm blanket about me.”

“But all we Nurses, Eastys, Cloyses, and Townes do when we get together is fight.”

“I’d love to see a lively family battle!”

Serena laughed, and her mother joined in.

“Promised,” Rebecca said, staring out the window at the dry sink. “Promised before God that if He allowed me this one last spring that—”

“Please, Mother, don’t speak as if—”

“Everyone knows I’m a practical woman.”

“And stubborn.”

“Yes and faithful to God.”

“And without fear of this or the next world.”

Rebecca patted Serena’s cheek with her fingertips. “I’ve done well with my time here, and while acts do not ensure us a seat in His house, well, I have my hope that my heart is pure enough for reward—though I beg none.”

“To be sure, amen.” Serena leaned into her mother, and they hugged warmly.

“The story is all over the village,” said Serena’s father, stepping into the kitchen.

“What story is that?” asked Serena.

“You’d not believe how many lips the story is on.”

“What story is that, Father?” pressed Serena.

“Why the story of you and your mother’s plans for a picnic amid the snow.”

“Blast them!” said Rebecca.

“Mother!” replied Serena, blast being a standin for a curse word.

“I care not for gossips and snipes.”

Francis had grabbed a fistful of freshly baked bread and leaned into his wife, smiling. He whispered into her ear, “So? They’re saying you’re out of your head, Rebecca, but you care not?”

“And on hearing it, did you strike ’em with that blackthorn shillelagh of yours?”

A square-shouldered, short man whose waistcoat and pants always looked too small for him, Francis Nurse smiled and lifted his crooked walking cane. “I threatened a few, but no one’s been battered, no.”

“Whatever do you mean, no one?” persisted Rebecca, a curling grin threatening to take hold.

“I didn’t want jail time or the stocks today, dear.”