'Then let's get to work.'
The Scotch Bonnet had the most dramatic effect. Mavis gulped the coffee, squealed girlishly at the reapplied ice pack, but howled like a banshee after Meg slipped a pepper slice into her mouth.
'Language, language,' said Meg primly. The two sisters stepped back and surveyed their handiwork. Mavis glared at them, eyes glittering dangerously.
'And Myles claims you can't sober up a drunk,' said Quill. 'Actually, he's right,' said Edward Lancashire. 'All black coffee does is give you a wide-awake drunk. I don't know that Scotch Bonnet has ever been used as a remedy for drunks before. I'd say what you've got there is a wide-awake, very annoyed drunk.'
'You can write about it in your column,' Meg said pertly. 'Well, Esther? What d'ya think?'
'I think we've got ourselves a Clarissa,' said Esther grimly. 'Just in case, Quill, I want you to study that script. She'll make the ducking stool, but I don't know about the trial. C'mon, you.'
In subsequent years, Chamber meetings would be dominated periodically by attempts to resurrect The Trial of Goody Martin, and it was Esther West, newly converted to feminism, who firmly refused to countenance it. 'Anti-woman from the beginning,' she'd say. 'It was a dumb idea in the first place, and a terrible period in American history, and we never should have celebrated it the way we did. Now, Hamlet - that play by William Shakespeare? I've always wanted a hand in that.'
Mavis handled the ducking stool and the swim with a subdued hostility that augured well for the artistic quality of her impassioned speech at the trial to come. Marge Schmidt, Betty Hall, Nadine Gilmeister, Mrs. Hallenbeck, and others in The Crowd, may have yelled 'Sink or swim' with undue emphasis on the 'sink' part, but the audience failed to notice a diminution in the thrust of the whole performance, and joined in with a will.
Elmer Henry, Tom Peterson, and Howie Murchison dragged Mavis the forty feet from the pond to the bandstand, and the trial itself began. Dookie Shuttleworth, surprisingly awe-inspiring in judge's robe and wig, pronounced the age-old sentence:
'Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.'
Mavis soggily surveyed the audience, smoothed her dripping gown over her hips, and addressed the judges. 'My lords of the Court, I stand before you, accushed of the crime of witchcraft...'
So far so good, thought Quill, perched on a bench in the front row. The s's are mushy, but what the heck. Half the crowd's mushy from the heat and the beer.
'A crime of which I'm innoshent!' She burped, swayed, and said mildly, 'I'm not a crimin'l. lush tryin' to get along. Good ol' Southern girl in the midst of all of you' - She paused and searched for the proper phrase. 'Big swinging dicks?' she hazarded.
'She's off script!' screamed Esther. Apparently finding the response from the audience satisfactory, Mavis raised her middle finger, wagged it at a blond family of three in the front row, and took a triumphant bow.
Quill pinched her knee hard, a defense against giggling she hadn't needed since high school.
Dookie thundered his scripted response, 'Scarlet whore of the infernal city! Thou shalt die!' then called for the sledge. Harland Peterson drove Betsy and Ross to the side of the stage, the straw-filled sledge dragging behind them.
Mavis spread her arms wide, in her second departure from the script, and leaped into Harland's arms. He staggered, cussed, and dropped her into the straw. Responding to a harmless crack of his whip, Betsy and Ross phlegmatically drew the sledge down the path behind the shed.
As the business of trading Mavis for the hooded dummy went on in the back, Howie, substituting for Gil, read the grisly details of the sentence aloud, straight from the pages of the sentencing at Salem three hundred years before.... planks of sufficient weight and height to be placed upon the body of the witch...'
Harland Peterson appeared at the edge of the stage, scowling hideously. He waved at Howie, who ignored him.
'... and the good citizens of this town to carry out the justice of the Almighty...'
Harland gestured again, furiously.
'... and the law of the Lord is as stones, and as mighty as stones... What, Harland?'
'Barfed on my boots! I ain't drivin' that sledge! You git somebody else to drive that sledge.' He stomped off. Howie looked around helplessly. The crowd sniggered.
Harvey Bozzel, teeth displayed in a wide shiny grin, jumped off the stage and reappeared some minutes later on the front seat of the sledge, reins in hand. There was a scattering of applause. 'Gee!' he hollered firmly. Betsy and Ross turned obediently to the right. Meeting the wall of the municipal building, they stopped in their tracks.
Ripples of laughter washed through the audience. Quill stole a look at Elmer and Esther out of the comer of her eye and pinched her knee. She was going to have an almighty bruise.
'Haw! you durned fool. Tell 'em to haw!' Harland yelled. 'Haw!' said Harvey, in a more subdued manner.
Betsy, or perhaps it was Ross - Quill couldn't tell for certain - flicked an ear, gazed inquiringly at her partner in harness, then pulled to the left. This brought the forward edge of the sledge frame into view. Failing further direction, Betsy and Ross continued to pull left, and the sledge frame hit the shed side with a thud.
'Giddyap!' roared Harland at his horses. 'Ignore the durn fool up there.'
Ross, or perhaps it was Betsy, snorted, shook his head in genuine disgust, and pulled straight in response to the man who fed him oats twice a day - not to mention the occasional sugar cube. The sledge with the dummy finally emerged intact from behind the shed.
'You got that, Harvey, you idjit?' Harland shouted as he spelled out the commands to make them clear. 'H- A-W means left. G-E-E-U-P means right. 'Giddyap' means straight.'
Betsy and Ross broke into a rumbling jog. 'Giddyap' was something they understood. The dummy bounced on the sledge, black hood flapping in the breeze.
