TITUBA'S STORY CONTINUED.
Abigail looked up again, after a little, with something of animation.
"But the Pequod Indian--what became of her? If the saviour of my mother
is alive, I must see her!"
Tituba cowered down to the floor again, and clasped both hands over her
knees, as she answered:
"She could not help it. They tore the two children apart. One was driven
into the forest; the other was carried into the meeting-house, and
baptized with a new name, by the very hands that had driven her sister
to the woods. In this golden-haired child, the soul of her own offspring
had entered. How could she leave it to follow the other? Were not the
wolves and panthers more merciful than the men who kept her little one?
"The Indian woman went into the edge of the woods, and built herself a
bark wigwam; she gathered shells from the beach and strung them into
wampum, which was money, as gold is now. She gathered willows from the
brook, and made baskets which she carried on her back to the village,
thus gaining a sight of the little one. Sometimes she would go into the
meeting-house, that she might catch a glimpse of the beautiful girl who
was possessed of her own child's soul, from the dark corner where these
godly people allowed the Indians and negroes to creep and watch them as
they worshipped God. They saw the Indian woman come Sunday after Sunday
with her sorrowful face; so in time they began to regard her as a
praying Indian, and one who might attain the salvation of her heathen
soul, by looking at them from afar off. She was a harmless, humble
creature, who asked but to follow the steps of the child she loved so
much, without making it known that the little girl was any thing to her;
like a dog they let her pass from dwelling to dwelling on week days, and
in the meeting-house on Sundays, without hindrance. Sometimes she got a
chance to speak to her child, to give her a bit of wampum, or a tiny
basket to pick whortleberries in; and this was all the happiness she
asked.
"One Sunday the Indian woman went into the meeting-house as usual. From
her dark corner she peered out, looking for her child in the old place.
The girl was not there, but down, close by the pulpit, she found her
clothed in white, like a spirit from the far hunting-grounds. By her
side was the minister, Samuel Parris, the man who had sat in judgment on
her sister. Another minister preached in the pulpit; the people looked
around restlessly, during the long sermon, and when it closed there was
a rustling of dresses all over the house, like the stir of leaves in the
forest.
"The Indian woman turned cold in her seat. For a little time she could
not see; but when her eyes grew clear, her child, her beautiful child,
whom she had worshipped afar off like a slave, that child stood in her
white garments before the communion-table, with her hand in that of the
old minister; and before them stood the man who had come down from the
pulpit, muttering words that could not reach the dark corner where the
poor Indian stood. But she knew that they were giving the young
girl--her child--to that stern old man for his wife. Filled with horror,
she strove to cry out and protest against it; but the tongue clove to
the roof of her mouth, and she was dumb. When she struggled to get down
from her high place in the gallery, and make her way to the pulpit, the
beadle stopped her rudely. 'Indians were not permitted,' he said, 'to
enter there.'
"While this poor Indian was struggling to pass him, the meeting broke
up. The crowd came down the aisles, almost sweeping her away; but she
stood firm, till that old man came forward, leading her child by the
hand. His bride saw the Indian mother, of whom she had but a knowledge
of vague kindnesses, and smiled softly as she drew near. Then the poor
creature knew that it was too late; that her white enemies had bound the
young one to them forever. So she forgot her own people, and followed
the old man and his bride sorrowfully home to his house. There was no
servant in the kitchen. She crept in through the back door and went to
work. Her heart was full of bitterness and love: hate for him, love for
her, the gentle one, who came in her meek beauty and settled down like a
dove in his home.
"At first the Indian watched for an opportunity to tell the young wife
that she had married the son of her mother's persecutor; that the father
of Parris had been one of Anna Hutchinson's judges; and that he, her
bridegroom, had been among the worst enemies of her own noble sister;
but when she saw the young wife settling down in her new home, so serene
and contented, the Indian's heart failed her, and she drudged on from
day to day, putting the cruel duty off, till at last one night--"
Abby, who had been greatly excited during this recital, suddenly threw
out her hand, laying it heavily on the old woman's shoulder.
"Do not speak of that. I cannot bear to hear in words what is in my own
remembrance like a vague, wild dream. Enough! My mother died in that
chair; her sister, Elizabeth Parris, expired the next day, with a
new-born infant slumbering in her arms. That infant is my cousin
Elizabeth. The meek, old man, whose heart began to break that night, was
my mother's cruel, cruel judge. But the Indian woman--what became of
her?"
The old woman folded her arms more tightly about her knees, and looked
up with the glance of a faithful dog.
"Her children were dead, but their little ones had no mother, so she
stayed in the kitchen."
"And died there?"
"Is Tituba dead that you ask this question of her?"
Abby stooped down, trembling all over, and drew the old woman up to her
bosom. She kissed her withered face and her swarthy hands, with a burst
of passionate feeling.
"And is it so? God forgive me that I did not guess this before! And you
have been our slave, our drudge! The meanest work of the house has
always been put upon Tituba--poor old Tituba, who saved our mothers from
the flames, who followed us from wilderness to settlement, who left her
own people for our sakes. And you are so old too! How many years,
Tituba, has it taken to make this hair so gray?"
"Tituba is almost a hundred years old; but she can see like a
night-hawk, and hear like a fox. When her children want help, they will
find her thought keen and her feet swift!"
"But you shall work no more. I will save you from drudgery at least."
"No, no. Let Tituba alone. She is used to it. Work--work--work. What
would Tituba be without work? Let her plod on in the old way, Mahaska.
The tree thrives best in its own soil. Dig honeysuckles and wild
strawberries from the wood--plant them in your garden, and they grow.
But when an old hemlock begins to die like this, let it stand--stir not
the earth about its roots."
The old woman touched her gray hair as she spoke, and drooped into her
old position. Abby sat looking at her in tender astonishment. She could
understand the great love which had brought that noble savage from the
wilderness to be a drudge in her uncle's kitchen; it exalted the old,
withered creature at her feet into a heroine.
"And for our sakes you gave up your people, your free life, all that
makes the happiness of a forest child; and came here to be a slave!"
"Tituba only followed her child!" was the simple answer.
"But Elizabeth Parris knew nothing of all this! To her you are only--"
Abby broke off, for she felt that the truths she was about to speak were
cruel.
"I am only old Tituba to her, but she is all the world to me."
"And yet you hate her father--her stern, kind-hearted father, for that
the minister is."
"He was your mother's judge before he became her father!"
"And she is the grandchild of Anna Hutchinson, equally with myself!"
said Abigail, musing.
"But not the child of King Philip. Not the sister of the last chief of
the Wampanoags, who now wanders like a wild beast through the lands his
people once owned. She, my golden-haired child, is not the one who must
avenge her grandmother's wrongs. From the beginning, she and her mother
were like singing birds to be fed and cared for. You and your mother
were eagles, with strength to swoop on their enemies and your own.
Elizabeth must never know the events that are making your face so dark."
"But why, why is the sunshine all for her, the darkness for me?"
answered Abigail, with sorrowful bitterness.
The old woman began to weave her hands together, and rock to and fro
with a troubled look.
"The eagle soars; the mocking-bird sings. One seeks her nest in the
leaves, the other sits on the crags."
"The bleak, bare crags for me--flowery hollows for her," said Abigail,
despondingly. "It was so with our mothers; it must be so with us."
As she spoke, the outer door of the house opened, and Wahpee, an old
Indian, who, like Tituba, had been for years a hanger-on of the
minister's kitchen, entered the sitting-room. He had been absent some
days, and it was in expectation of his return that the young girl and
Tituba were sitting up so late.
The Indian seemed tired with travel. His dress of homespun linen was
torn in places, and the rents pinned up with thorns just plucked from
their trees. The lank hair was moist, and a rain of perspiration
glistened on his tawny forehead. Abby rose from her seat, and went
eagerly toward him.
"Wahpee--Wahpee, have you seen him?--where is he now? Have any number of
his people joined him yet?"
Wahpee shook his head.
"Ask Wahpee nothing; he has no words. Give him bread and dried-beef. The
Wampanoags planted no corn, and they have no muskets to shoot down the
deer that look in their eyes without moving as they file one by one
through the woods. Even the young fawns grow bold, now that the warriors
have given up their guns."
"And is he near and hungry?" cried Abby, hastening to the kitchen, where
old Tituba was dragging forth bread from a huge oven, in which it had
been left after the week's baking; and crowding loaf after loaf into a
flour sack, she helped to lift it on Wahpee's back.
Both Abigail Williams and Tituba would have followed the old Indian into
the forest; but he curtly ordered them back, and went on himself,
carrying the bag of bread. They stole after him at a distance,
notwithstanding his interdict, till they came to the meeting-house. Here
they paused. The shadows upon the brink of the woods were black as
death; and as the old man entered them he was lost in an instant.
"Let us wait," said Tituba, "they will come out together. Metacomet will
come to his mother's grave; and then we shall know what he is doing."
Abigail went silently after the old woman, and sat down on a flat stone,
half buried in moss and ferns, at the foot of a huge pine tree, which
sheltered two graves. There she seemed covered by a vast pall, the
shadows fell so heavily upon her.
Tituba dropped down at Abby's feet, and gathering her limbs together,
began a low chant, that mingled in the shiver of the pine leaves with
inexpressible mournfulness.
Abby leaned her head against the trunk of the pine and listened. Strange
to say, that chant, instead of depressing, kindled her spirit. She never
came to that spot, and heard the mysterious whispering of the leaves,
without a wish for action, an unaccountable desire to plunge into the
wilderness and remain there forever. Only one week before, she had
wandered to the same spot, and there, for the first time, learned from
his own lips that she had a brother; that the blood of King Philip
mingled with that of Anna Hutchinson, the martyr, in her veins; and that
on both sides the most terrible wrongs had been done to her ancestors by
the very people with whom she had unconsciously worshipped; nay! by the
man whose roof had given her a loving shelter, from the cradle up.
On that spot she had seen her kingly brother, in all the grandeur of a
noble presence inherited from his father, blended with the softened
grace of a mother, whose pure white blood softened the eagle glances of
his eyes and gave a glow to his face, kindling that which would
otherwise have been saturnine into the poetry of an ever changing
expression.
The slave chief had been rescued from his chains in Bermuda; and after
wandering over many countries, studying things that were far beyond the
grasp of a mere savage, had come back to his native forests, to gather
up the fragments of his people, and win back their rights, or avenge
their wrongs. Night after night he had waited by those graves, under the
pine tree, hoping that his sister would come and meet him.
She came at last, a thoughtful, innocent girl. The gentle romance of
affection, for there could be little more in a child who remembered her
mother only as she thought of her in dreams, led her to the edge of the
wilderness. She went away again, wounded by a terrible knowledge--a
sybil in her imagination, the pledged avenger of her mother's wrongs,
and of her father's and her grandmother's murder.
Thus the son and daughter of King Philip had met, for the first time
since their childhood. The boy knew that he still possessed a sister,
and this thought inspired him to greater struggles. Then Abby Williams
learned, from her brother's own lips, how it chanced that her brow was
darker than the sunny forehead of her cousin Elizabeth; that wrong and
death had scattered her family abroad, leaving her a dependent, where
she should have been an avenger.
All that week the hopeless girl brooded on the terrors of her birth, and
the wrongs her family had suffered; her days were one long, vague
dream--her nights restless with tossing thought. Never again would she
know what tranquil peace was under that roof! A journey of fifteen miles
only separated her from her uncle Parris and Elizabeth, so far as space
was concerned; but there was no means of measuring the interminable
distance that had grown up between their souls and hers in one single
week.
That night she had again spoken of her parents, and expected to see her
brother. During the hours that she waited, old Tituba had crept to her
feet, with new revelations and more startling surprises. The young girl
listened, seated in the very chair that had been her mother's
death-couch. She was a creature of sensitive feeling and keen
imagination, a thoughtful, ardent girl, to whom such knowledge came like
fire to steel, melting and hardening at the same time.