A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials Read Online Free PDF Page A

was the town hag. Lord, forgive me. Those are not my words; they were applied to her by our magistrates after she was accused of spreading smallpox in the most recent epidemic.
    It is not in the Puritan soul to be merciful to those who go about as tramps. The Puritan code leaves no room for those who manifest oddities or weaknesses of nature. The Puritan virtues are very plain. They are hard work, cleanliness, orderliness of mind and manner, perseverance, courage, piety, a knowledge of one's sins, a desire for forgiveness, hatred for the Devil and all his works, obedience to the clergy, and impatience with heathens.
    Heathens, of course, are Baptists, Quakers, and all other manner of miserable heretics.
    Sarah Good embodied everything the proper Puritan was supposed to disdain. She was unkempt in appearance. She smoked a pipe. And while her husband, who was landless, went about hiring himself out as a laborer, Sarah went begging. In the past she had taken all of her many children with her as she went door-to-door asking for handouts. But the town magistrates had seen to it that her children were taken in by various good-standing members of the community.
    Somehow she had managed to keep her youngest, five-year-old Dorcas, with her. And now she was again with child.
    She nodded to me as I approached. "How are ye this evening?"
    "I'm fair to middling, Mistress Good. And you?"
    "It's this cough that's a plague to me." And she went into a spasm of coughing.
    "You should be home. And little Dorcas with you."
    "We haven't finished our rounds yet this night. I've nary enough for the soup pot for when my William comes home from his labors."
    I noticed how little Dorcas was shivering in the flimsy cloak that would not suffice once winter came in full force. I minded that bolt of good wool behind me in the cart, as well as the flour and sugar, the salted codfish, and the corn.
    Well, Susanna English, I told myself, you've sinned enough for one day. Here is how you can make up for it. If Sarah Good isn't the poor of Salem, no one is.
    But in my heart I knew the wrong of such thinking. I knew my mother's wares were not meant for Sarah Good alone. And that I would be violating some code of honor by handing them all over to her just to be done with my chore. But exactly what code of honor would be violated by helping out these miserable creatures, I was not sure.
    I was afflicted with confusion. And since this is not a state of mind of which I was very fond, I ended it all by scrambling from my seat and rummaging around again in the cart's depths.
    "Here, take this bolt of wool," I said to Sarah. "My mother wants you to have it for a new cloak for Dorcas."
    The woman was fully taken back. "She does?"
    "Yes. And here, take this salted codfish. And this bag of flour, and go home and bake some bread for your husband."
    She accepted my gifts in wonderment. The lines on her face softened. And the wrinkles wreathed a smile.
    "I thank ye so much, dear child."
    "Go home now," I chided. "The wind blows bitter this night. Get little Dorcas to a warm fire before she catches her death."
    I got back into the cart and guided Molasses down the rest of English Street. The cart was much lighter now, for it was empty.
    As for my heart, it was lighter, too. But it was also very full of good feeling. I don't care if Mama does scold, I told myself. Giving all those things to Sarah Good was worth it.

4. My Father's House
     
    MY FAMILY WAS indeed at meat when I went into the house. And on one side of the highly polished three-foot-wide board that was our table, a place was, as always, set for William. Mayhap he would come in the door some night as we took our meal.
    "You're late," my father said.
    "And wet," Mama added. She was not the kind to scold, but she took one look at my muddy, soaking skirts and I knew what she was thinking—that I would take cold.
    "I'm all right, Mama. In truth, all I need is food." I took my place next to Mary at the board. Like