Children of Salem

ignorance flourish, stupidity prevail, and injustice the rule of the day.”

The Inn fell silent and Mercy Lewis sidled up to Jeremy, her beady eyes glaring ratlike at him. “You sound upset with us poor village folk, you false prophet!” The girl then pirouetted away from him as if in a dance and alone in her mind.

Jeremy turned back to the bar and finished his drink, wondering how he’d ever tell Serena about what they’d already put her mother through, and how she’d react. “Gentlemen,” began Jeremy, turning again and raising his empty ale cup overhead. “A toast to Mercy here, and all the afflicted children of Salem Village that they may sober up long enough to point fingers at the truly guilty.”

“Watch yourself, Jeremy,” Ingersoll whispered in his ear.

But Jeremy went on: “A rather unusual and smart generation of children here in the village, them who have found a way to punish their elders.”

The others had lifted their drinks at the first half of his toast, but they lowered their drinks by time the toast was made.

“These poor folk sitting as accused witches,” Jeremy continued with his diatribe, these are your neighbors! Accused and not yet tried, and you’re having them brought in chains and humiliated in your meetinghouse? And worse than you are the ministers and magistrates calling together an illegally appointed court.”

“Illegal!” shouted Thomas Putnam, spewing. “That’s a scandalous assertion!”

Ingersoll came half way over the bar despite his girth. “Careful what you say, here, Jeremy!”

“Without a charter—the charter Increase Mather has gone to secure for us, a Court of Oyer and Terminer cannot be called. That’s the law, and those who disobey it are outside the law.”

“That’s nonsense,” countered Putnam. “The judges know the law better’n all of us together. They know what they’re doing.”

“This is the King’s highest court, and I say again, we are without a charter, and therefore it is illegal for Sir William Stoughton—or even Governor Phipps—to call any such court together, as any result will have no appeal.” Finally, Jeremy was able to speak the language he knew, the law.

Behind him at one table, Jeremy heard a hearty, “Here, here! I guess the King’s permission is too much technicality for a Boston judge.” It was the tall, gaunt John Proctor surrounded by consolers, each with empty ale cup at hand as they’d completed the toast with Jeremiah Wakely.

For a half moment, Ingersoll couldn’t look Jeremy in the eye, but then he glared. “Look, Mr. Wakely, Governor Phipps himself sent Stoughton, Saltonstall and the others to help us out here, and so far as I’m concerned, the King can go to hell with Andros! No sir, I’ll put money on Sir William Phipps’ power in these colonies.”

This sent up a cheer among Putnam and his faction. Putnam then glared at Jeremy and added, “You come in on your white horse and in your minister’s garb a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a walking lie, Mr. Wakely, pretending to be a minister. For all anyone knows, you’re one of them.”

“One of them?”

“A cunning man, a wizard like Andover’s Wardwell.”

“I don’t know anyone named Wardwell, but I assure you, I am no wizard, for if I were—”

“Don’t come into our village and suppose you can tell us what is right and what is wrong.” Putnam stood with fists clenched.

Each man stared down the other.

Ingersoll retook the final ale he’d poured for Jeremy, and he poured it onto his wood floor behind the bar.

The gesture was clear. He was not wanted here.

Another man at the bar, Bray Wilkins, began telling the story of how his maidservant, Susana Sheldon, had been attacked in the night without provocation or warning. “She was chased about the kitchen and the whole house by a carving knife floatin’ in the air—invisible to me.”

“What happened next?” asked another man nearby.

“Why, when it finally was over, the girl fell faint, and I went to her, keeping my wife back, and Susana, she had bloody cuts on her arms, hands, and rents and tears in her clothes—and yet the me wife and me, we never saw no knife.”

The others let out a series of gasps. “Same thing at our house,” said Samuel Fiske, but our girl claimed she’d jammed a knitting needle into the armpit of the witch that gave her torment, and the next day we visited at the jail with authorities to search for the wound to the witch. Made the prisoners strip to display their armpits, and low’n’behold, one screamed out and she had a bloody wound there.”

“How old is magic tricks, man?” asked Jeremy to the man, but before anyone could answer, suddenly and noisily, the handsome John Proctor leapt to his feet, knocking over the chair where he’d been sitting with relatives.

All eyes were on Proctor now, ears pricked.

Proctor, a tall, handsome and imposing fellow came to Jeremiah’s side and defense, and the defense of his wife sitting in Gatter’s jail. “Are you all gone daft? Are you blind men? Do you see any ounce of reason in what you’re doing?” He whirled from man to man as he spoke, as if checking his back for a knife. “Mr. Wakely knows who’s behind this setting neighbor after neighbor like wolves hungry for flesh.”

Proctor settled on an eye-to-eye with Jeremy and said, “You sent dispatches back to Boston—to Mather, correct?” He then suddenly wheeled on Putnam. “When Mather himself comes to this place, and when he deals with the swine here, the fools following Parris’ track, you will find your heads on a stick!”

“Watch what you threaten here, Proctor!” warned Putnam.

Proctor went threateningly to Thomas Putnam. “When my Elizabeth and Francis’ Rebecca Nurse are vindicated, it will be you who will be pointed out for attempted murder.”

“None of the arrested have been cleared by the courts, John,” countered Putnam, glaring at Proctor.

“But you kind neighbors’ve already excommunicated my wife who is pregnant and going through this, and Rebecca, who is ill, and yet you put this madness on her!”

Jeremy saw Deputy Herrick standing now at the other end of the Inn, looking threateningly at Proctor.

Proctor held up a long sheath of paper with names not a third of the way down. “Who among you is man enough to stand with right?” he asked. “If you are, sign my petition for release of Mary Elizabeth Proctor and Rebecca Towne Nurse—to be remanded into the arms of their families now!”

Herrick looked around the room, and the room watched him, and no one signed Proctor’s petition. Jeremiah stepped up, took the pen and petition that Proctor held out and made a slow, exaggerated job of it by asking for Proctor’s back. Proctor turned and Jeremy signed the petition he laid between the other man’s shoulders. “It is the only thing for an enlightened man to do. If there be heretics among us, it is not Rebecca Nurse nor Mary Elizabeth Proctor.”

The noisy, busy place had gone silent. No one followed Jeremiah’s example. Herrick called out, “I will have a copy of that list, Mr. Proctor.”

“When it is filled, Herrick, you and Williard can act as buzzards over it.” Proctor stood his ground.

Herrick came close and said firmly in a near whisper, “I’d tread lightly if I were you.”

“Why don’t you try striking me with the butt of a gun as you did Francis?” This news sent up a gasp among many in the room. “Francis Nurse, one of your elders in the church, and they drag his wife from her home.”

“And they make secret plans behind closed doors with the Boston magistrates,” added Jeremy, “and yet we are called freemen and made unwelcome.”

“That’s enough, Wakely, Proctor,” countered Herrick, a bull-shouldered man with a full beard. “Showing disrespect to my office can earn you an arrest.”

“Disrespect? Your office?” began Proctor, his fists clenched.

Jeremy stepped between them. “Mr. Proctor’s only speaking the truth.”

“You keep out of this, outlander.” Herrick, a man with a tick in one eye and yellowed teeth from tobacco, held a finger in Jeremy’s face.

Jeremy calmly replied, “The Boston authorities are this minute working to rob Francis Nurse and Rebecca of their lands.”

“No one here believes your lies, Wakely!” shouted Putnam.

“Shut up! All of you,” ordered Herrick.