Tituba of Salem Village Read Online Free PDF Page B

out when he came, so he sat by the fire in the keeping room, waiting for him to return. It was Betsey who started talking about all the dead trees and plants.
    When the master returned he brought cold air into the room with him. He stamped his feet, rubbed his hands together, and stood in front of the fire, warming himself before he took off his greatcoat and his woolen cap. He cut off the heat of the fire from the weaver and from the children.
    The weaver stood up and talked to him, standing in front of the fire, too. He said, “I need a helper. I had one of those fiendish bound boys and he’s run off. I’d like to teach Tituba to weave. She’s got good hands for weaving and spinning.”
    “What are you offering in return?” the master asked.
    “Good woolen cloth?”
    The master shook his head. “No,” he said. “We need money more than cloth. It will have to be coins. Come, we’ll discuss it in my study. Is there a fire in there, Tituba?”
    “No, master. It is laid and I will light it.” She did not remind him that he had said it was a waste of wood to keep a fire going when he was not in the room.
    She did not know how many coins the weaver paid for her services. But every afternoon she sat in his snug warm room, learning how to weave, how to thread the loom, how to work out a pattern. To her own surprise, she enjoyed it. He kept roaring fires going in his fireplace. After two hours of work he’d bring her a dish of boiling hot tea. Every day he said the same thing, “Helps keep out the chill. Come, sit by the fire and drink your tea.”
    He laced his own tea with rum. He drank it slowly; and then, having wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he would add another log to the fire and go back to work.
    At first her arms and shoulders ached from leaning forward and pushing the shuttle back and forth, back and forth. Once she became accustomed to this motion, she found she could work very fast.
    She stayed at the weaver’s until the light began to fail. She left reluctantly. When she reached the street outside, she pulled her shawl tight around her head and neck and hurried to get inside the master’s dreary little house. It always seemed cold in the house, and so before she unwrapped her shawl, she poked the fire, added another log, drew the curtains, hoping to make this draughty keeping room feel like the weaver’s big warm room.
    One afternoon the weaver had a big order to fill, and she was later than usual when she returned to the little house next door.
    The voice of the mistress, faint, querulous, came from the front of the house. “Tituba, is that you? Bring me a drink of the herb tea. I am faint for the want of it.”
    Abigail said petulantly, “I thought you weren’t ever coming back. Where were you?”
    Betsey said, “Titibee, Titibee, I’m so glad to see thee,” and hugged her.
    Tituba returned the hug and said to Abigail, “Why didn’t you fix some of the herb tea for your Aunt Parris?”
    “I didn’t know how. Besides you should have done it.”
    “I can not be in two places at once, miss.”
    “You could if you were a witch,” she said angrily.
    Tituba boxed her ears soundly, hands cupped, striking the child’s ears very hard. Abigail’s cap fell off, and she shrieked, making a hideous sound that filled the room. Tituba shook her and said, “You stop that.”
    Betsey cried out, “Oh, don’t,” and clapped her hands tightly over her own ears.
    There was a thud from the small front room where the mistress lay in bed. Tituba said, “She’s fallen out of bed,” and hurried into the room, Abigail and Betsey following close behind her. The mistress was lying on the floor.
    “I tried to get out of bed. All that uproar—” she said. “I’m all right. It’s just that my legs wouldn’t hold me up. What happened?”
    Tituba said, “I boxed Abigail’s ears for being saucy.”
    Abigail helped Tituba get the mistress back in bed. Tituba shook her finger under Abigail’s