A Little Girl in Old Salem Part 24

And do it she did. Some way the house did get cleaned. "After a fas.h.i.+on," Elizabeth said. And the garden was made. Chilian and Eunice trimmed up roses. Cynthia and Miss Winn planted seeds. There were always some things that wintered over--sweet Williams, lilies of various sorts, pinks, laurels, some spiraeas, s...o...b..ll and syringas, hosts of lilacs that made a fragrant hedge. Cynthia thought it had never been so lovely before. She wore a nosegay at her throat, and in her belt just a few; she had the fine taste that never overloaded. She and Cousin Chilian used to walk up and down the fragrant paths after supper and no one fretted at them about the dew. Sometimes Rachel or Eunice would bring out a dainty scarf. And how many things they found to talk about. She loved to dwell on the times with her father, and it seemed as if she remembered a great deal more about her mother than she did at first, but she never imagined it was Cousin Chilian's memory that helped out hers.

She had enjoyed the school very much. There were no high up "isms" or "ologies" for girls in those days. She learned about her own country, for already there were some histories written, and the causes that led to the war. Some of the girls had grandmothers who had lived through those exciting years, and made the relation of incidents much more interesting than any dry written account that was mostly dates and names. What heroes they had been! And the old _Mayflower_ story and John Alden, and others who were to inspire a poet's pen.

Then there was the dread story of the witchcraft that had led Salem astray. Cousin Chilian would never have it mentioned, and had taken away several books he did not want her to see. But the girls had gone to some of the old places, where witches had been taken from their homes and cast into jail, the Court House where they had been tried, and Gallows Hill, that most people shunned even now.

One rainy evening, after her lessons had been studied, Cynthia went downstairs. Rachel had been fomenting her face for the toothache and was lying down. Cousin Chilian had gone to a town-meeting, and the house seemed so still that she almost believed she might see the ghost or witch of the stories she had heard. No one was in the sitting-room, or the kitchen proper, but she heard voices in what was called the summer kitchen, a roughly constructed place with a stone chimney and a great swinging crane. Here they did much of the autumn work, for Elizabeth was quite a stickler for having a common place to save something nicer.

Mother Taft always smoked a pipe of tobacco in the evening. "It soothed her," she said, after her tussle of fixing her patient for the night, "and made her sleep better."

"And it's my opinion if Miss 'Lisbeth could just have a good smoke at night 'twould do her more good than the doctor's powders."

"Why, Cynthy!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed.

"I was lonesome. Rachel's gone to sleep, Cousin Eunice--were there such things as witches over a hundred years ago?"

Eunice glanced at Mother Taft. Witchcraft was a tabooed subject, yet it lingered in more than one imaginative mind, though few would confess a belief in it.

"Well, people may talk as they like, but there's many queer things in the world. Now there's that falling sickness, as they call it. Jabez Green has two children that roll on the floor, and froth at the mouth, and their eyes bulge most out of their heads. They're lacking, we all know. But when they come out of the fit they tell queer things that they saw, and I do suppose it was that way then. They do act as if they were bewitched."

We know this misfortune now as epilepsy, but medical science in the earlier century did not understand that, nor incipient insanity.

"It was very strange," said Eunice rather awesomely. "And Mr. Parris was a minister and a good man, yet it broke out in his family."

"But he had them slaves, and in their own land black people do awful things to each other. But it was strange; again, after his wife was accused, Governor Phipps ordered there should be no more punished and all set free, and then the thing stopped."

"And it wasn't real witchcraft?" said Cynthia.

"Well, I wouldn't undertake to say. There were witches in Bible times and they kept themselves mighty close, for they were not to be allowed to live. And Saul had a hard time getting anything out of the witch of Endor, you know, Miss Eunice."

Eunice nodded. They were trenching on forbidden ground.

"My grandmother believed in them and she was a good G.o.d-fearing woman, too. You see what made it worse for Salem was their sending so many here for trial from the places round. Grandfather lived way up above Topsfield, had a farm there and 'twas woods all around. No one troubled them then, but afterward--well, they'd cleared the woods and built a road and new houses were put up around, for some people were glad enough to get out of Salem. There was a woman named Martha Goodno, who had been in prison, and people were shy of her. Grandmother had two cows, and folks turned them out in the woods then. One of them went in Martha's garden, but she spied her out and drove her off before much damage was done. The fence had been broken down and she laid it to the cow, but people said it had been down for days. Well, something got the matter with the cow. She gave good rich milk and mother saved it for b.u.t.ter.

But when she churned there came queer streaks in it that looked like blood. She doctored the cow, although it seemed well enough. One day a neighbor was in and the same thing happened. 'Throw some in the fire,'

said the neighbor, 'and if you hear of any one being burned you'll know who is the witch.' So grandmother threw two dippers full in the fire and she said it made an awful smell. The rest she dumped out of doors, she wouldn't feed it to the pigs. About an hour afterward another neighbor came in. Grandmother made a salve that was splendid for burns and cuts.

'Mis' Denfield,' she says, 'won't you come over to Martha Goodno's and bring your pot of salve. She's burned herself dreadfully drawin' the coals out of the oven, set her dress on fire just at the waist.' So mother went over and found it was a pretty bad, sure enough burn, and she was groaning just fit to die. Mother spread a piece of linen and laid it on and left her some salve. 'What did I tell you?' says mother's neighbor, and they nodded their heads. But the queer thing was that after that the cow was all right and she never had any more trouble.

"After she was well she took a spite against another neighbor, who used to spin flax and sell the thread. Then her flax took to cutting up queer, and would break off, and turn yellow, and trouble her dreadfully.

Mother was there one afternoon when it bothered so. 'Just throw a handful in the fire,' says mother. 'Fire's purifying;' and she did. They sent to mother again for salve, for Martha had scalded her right hand.

Then the folks talked it over and a letter was written and tucked under her door, warning her to move, and the next-door man bought the place.

I've heard grandmother tell this over--she lived to be ninety, and she was a good Christian woman, and she never added nor took away one iota.

There, I oughtn't have told all this before the child; she's white as a ghost."

"You must go to bed this minute," exclaimed Eunice. "I'll go up with you."

CHAPTER XI

THE VOICE OF A ROSE

There were some marvellous ghost stories in those days, and haunted houses as well. The society of Psychical Research would have found many queer things if it had existed at that time. The sailors spun strange yarns over the power we call telepathy now. Many of the families had a retired captain or disabled first mate, or supercargo, who had seen mysterious appearances and heard warning voices. And it recalled to the little girl some of the stories she had heard in India that she pieced out of vague fragments. Maybe there were curious influences no one could explain.

Elizabeth improved a little. She had been moved from cot to bed, but now they packed her in a big chair and pushed her over to the window where she could see the vegetable garden and the chicken yard. They had not had very good luck at the hatching this season. The hens had missed Elizabeth's motherly care. She had trained them to an amusing habit of obedience, and the little chickens were her delight. Was she never to be out among them again?

One day Cynthia came up with two roses in a gla.s.s, most exquisite ones at that.

"Cousin Elizabeth," she began, "do you remember the little rosebush you put in my garden last summer? We thought it would die. It came out beautifully in the spring and these are the first roses that bloomed. I thought you ought to have them. Are you never going to get well enough to walk around the garden? Cousin Eunice has kept it so nice."

Elizabeth Leverett's heart was touched and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. She had taken up the rose from a place where it had been smothered with those of larger growth and given it to the child who had begged for "a garden of her very own." She had not supposed it would live. And that Cynthia should bring her the firstfruits!

"I'm obliged to you," she returned huskily. "They are very beautiful."

And she wondered the child had not given them to Chilian.

"I wish you liked a few flowers every day," the little girl said wistfully.

"Well--I might;" reluctantly.

"They are so lovely. The world is so beautiful. It's very hard to be ill in summer, in winter one wouldn't mind it so much. But I am glad you can sit up."

Was it tears that Elizabeth winked away?

She had many serious thoughts through these months of helplessness. She had always measured everything by the strict line of duty, of usefulness. There was a virtue in enduring hardness as a good soldier, and the harder it was the more virtue it held in it. Her room was plain, almost to bareness. There had been a faded patchwork top quilt at first, until Mother Taft insisted upon having something nicer. But it had to be folded up carefully at sundown, when the likelihood of calls was over.

And she did put one of the new rugs on the floor.

"That's beginning to go," Mrs. Taft said. "Some one will catch their foot in it and have a bad fall."

"It could be mended, I suppose."

"Yes. There's a new one needed in the kitchen. I'll sew it up for that.

Land sakes! you've got enough in this house to last ten lifetimes!"

Friends came in to sit with her and brought their work. Sometimes she sewed a little, but drawing out her needle hurt her back after a while.

She read her Bible and Baxter's "Saints' Rest" And she wondered a little what the other world would be like. She had never thought of heaven with joy--there was the judgment first. And now that she could begin to sit up it did prefigure recovery.

Most schools had kept open all the year round, but now the higher ones were giving a month's vacation. Altogether it had been a happy year to Cynthia. She had really been adored at school. Her frocks were admired, she let the girls curl her hair, usually she wore it tied in a bunch behind--not unlike the queue. Then she had some rings that she coaxed Rachel to let her wear, it was such a pleasure to lend them to the girls. She was learning what was considered necessary for a girl in those days; a good deal more with Cousin Chilian. She kept her love for the Latin and often read to him. She began to draw and paint flowers, she joined the dancing-cla.s.s, which was a delight to her; but Chilian suggested she should not mention it to Elizabeth. She pirouetted up and down the path like a fairy, and he loved to watch her.

There had been parties among the girls, but he would rather not have her go, it was a bad thing for children to be up so late. She went to take tea now and then. The Turners were very fond of her and the Uphams wanted her once a week. She wondered if she might ever ask any one to tea.

Then they planned what they would do in this wonderful vacation. Go off for day's rides, take sails up and down, there were so many places. She was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with joy.

Chilian was called up in the night by Mother Taft.

"She's had a stroke. And she seemed so smart yesterday. She even laughed over some school stories Cynthia told. That child's brought her flowers every morning, and she's softened so much to her. I really think she's been getting religion, as one may say, and being prepared."

Chilian heard the stertorous breathing. The eyes were half open and rolled up, her face was drawn. He took the hand. It was cold and heavy.