about how sick Jim Burroughs' wife is, and how there is 'tectives
around here to catch some one--I think you had better look out."
"It isn't 'tectives, Ralph, say detectives. Do wipe the sugar off your
mouth and speak more proper."
"Didn't know there was sugar on my mouth--Oh, yes, there was a lump
fell out of the hogshead when I was sweeping, and it was so dirty that
I did not like to put it back into the clean sugar, so I ate it."
"I thought you said you had not swept, for you could not find the
broom."
"Oh--I--yes--say, Mr. Stubbs, did you ever see a live detective?"
"Now, that will do, Ralph; never mind the sweeping; go and count
Mrs. Armstrong's eggs, for she is waiting. Now, Ralph, do not count
double-yelk eggs for two any more, do you understand?"
"I don't see why, as long as there might be a rooster and a pullet."
"Yes--yes--Mrs. Armstrong, he is coming as soon as he grasps the cause
of twins."
PAUL DIMOCK
Stubbs and the boy now trudged around the store waiting on customers
until about 10 o'clock, when Paul Dimock came in and engaged Stubbs in
an undertone, but being directly over my head, I could hear all. "I
have learned," said Dimock, "that two detectives are stopping at Deacon
Hobbs', and have been several days, and no one knows who they are
looking for."
"You see, Paul," said Stubbs, "that Hobbs was instrumental in Brother
Burroughs' arrest, and I have been told his daughter, Abigail, swore at
Salem that she saw two black devils standing behind Brother Burroughs
while praying--"
At this point a third party came in, and I recognized the well-known
voice of Susan Beaver.
"Isn't it awful about Deacon Hobbs?" she said. "I suppose that is your
secret? Why, I do think it is just terrible."
"What news, Mrs. Beaver? What have you heard?"
"Why, last night when Tom came home late, he said he saw two strangers
come out of the woods and sneak into the deacon's house. So, out of
curiosity, Sarah and I slid around and peeped in at the window, and
sure enough there they were, eating supper and the deacon was--hush,
there comes old Hobbs now."
"Good afternoon, Deacon," said Stubbs, "what is the news?"
"Bad news, awful bad. They say Fanny Burroughs is very low. My heart
aches for that family. James was a good boy, and I wonder if anyone
knows for certain that he is dead. I think possibly he may be among
the Indians yet, although Shepherds' folks are sure he is dead, or he
would come to Fanny. I suppose you have no particulars. Then there was
George, his father, that they hung down at Salem. I wonder where they
got evidence to convict him? To be sure, he and I did not exactly agree
as to our religious views, but I never took that to heart, and would
have done all I could to have saved him, even if he was not a regular
ordained minister. I think from his record here that he was honest,
don't you, Mr. Dimock?"
"Yes, Deacon Hobbs, I do. And James, his son, was an honest, upright
and worthy citizen, and whoever was instrumental in causing those
officers at Salem to come into our midst and take them away and murder
them outright will surely repent when it is too late. I believe they
have imprisoned Jim, and either have or will hang him, for the report
of his being killed by the Indians, or wolves, may have come direct
from Salem. Oh, Mr. Hobbs, it shatters my faith, that our Heavenly
Father allows such men to live. This is terrible," he uttered, as
he wiped the perspiration from his face and repeated, "terrible,
terrible." Then as if aroused by wrong, he raised his voice as he
faced the deacon, and continued: "Deacon Hobbs, I am no more safe than
they were. If an officer should come in here now and arrest me for
complicity with the devil, I should consider it my death knell, would
you not?"
"Well, really," began the deacon, "I do not know. You see, I have been
down to Salem and talked with Cotton Mather and others prominent in the
church, and they seem to be worthy Christians. I have thought George
Burroughs may have been convicted of some other crime. You see, the
prison is closely guarded and all we get is hearsay."
SUSAN BEAVER
The reader will remember that Susan Beaver was talking when the deacon
came in, and now stood listening to his subterfuge, and Dimock's
stinging insinuations. As I remember Susan, she was short, stout, with
black eyes, glistening teeth, and quick movements. She tried to keep
silent, but now her cup of wrath was full, and reached the high-water
mark, where danger could not restrain the break, and she broke:
"Deacon Hobbs, you miserable old liar, I saw the detectives in your
house myself. Maybe they're waiting to take my husband to Salem. If so,
you can inform them that they can never cross our threshold unless it
is over my dead body. You say you do not know much about it. Was not
Abigail at Salem, swearing against the minister? Did not you both swear
he was in league with the Devil? Now you say he may have been convicted
of some other crime. George Burroughs, that worthy Christian minister,
defile his name, now he is dead, will you? Oh, you ought not to live
another minute," and suiting the action to the word, she sprang across
the store to the old cheese box. Now, I knew the cheese knife was long
and heavy, and in the hands of a desperate woman. Bang-slam-bang, they
went around and around the store, he holding a chair before him and
crying, "Help! Murder!" while she struck out wildly without speaking a
word. Dimock and Stubbs sprang in to save the deacon's life, but when
I peeped through the crack and saw the broad grin on Dimock's face, I
concluded their interference was not genuine. The deacon worked around
the counter, when she sprang on top and had him in a trap, at which
he dropped his chair and ran and plunged through the window headlong.
After he had escaped, and Susan had time to think, she sat down and
began to cry, but on being assured by Dimock that no one would think
the less of her, she left the store.
While Paul was helping board up the broken window, I overheard Stubbs
ask him: "Do you consider Cotton Mather and his associates murderers?"
"Oh, no," was the reply, "not exactly that. It is a phenomenal wave
of insanity. Similar waves have spread their gloomy pall over the
innocent, long before Joshua put the women and children to death
at Jericho. These Salemites are at war with the Devil on the same
principle that one nation wars with another; they justify themselves
through a spasmodic lunacy, that duty calls them to kill their fellow
beings.
"God works in a mysterious way. Cotton Mather may be blind. He may be
a tool in the hand of a higher power. Finite beings do not comprehend
the infinite. If God permits, does He not sanction? These cruelties
will have a tendency to humanize Christianity. When years have passed
and Brother Burroughs thinks over earthly life he will not regret that
his Maker called him home at noon. Friendship and love will increase
towards the Burroughs family. They are just leaving their lights along
the shore. The love of Jesus will spread when the church shall have
hatched out of its shell of ignorance; then it will stand on a higher
and more liberal plane; midnight to us may be morning to the angels.
Do you know, Stubbs, what is the main trouble with the human family?"
"I do not, Paul. What is it?"
"It is that they know less than they are aware of."
After the store had been closed and Stubbs was working on his books, I
heard the door open and some one come in.
"Good evening, doctor. How is Fanny Burroughs?"
The doctor came near and replied in an almost inaudible voice, "She is
dead." The little bullet-headed doctor was affected, for I could hear
his voice tremble. "Oh, well," he replied to Stubbs' inquiry, "She
had no disease, the poor girl actually died of a broken heart. Such
suffering I never saw before, but when she did go if you had seen her,
Stubbs, you would never question the theory of life beyond dissolution
of the body. She raised her eyes upwards, smiled so sweetly and said:
'Oh, father, father, where is Jim?' I am sorry, Stubbs, I have not
led a better life, for I have known Fanny Shepherd since she was born
and if God will forgive the past, I will turn over a new leaf and try
to meet her when I die. I know now that our minister, whom I always
ridiculed, was right there in the room with us when she was dying.
Besides, Mr. Stubbs, I believe Jim is alive, for if he had been dead he
would have been the first one for her to recognize. You see, she was
expecting to see him and he was not there."
Here Jim's heart and voice seemed to fail and Winnie put her arm around
his neck and they sobbed convulsively for a moment and then continued.
When all was still I crept from my hiding place, washed my face, but
could not eat. As usual, the shutters were closed, so I lit a candle
and began to rummage around the store. I found Stubbs had a new musket
with a horn of powder and a bag of shot, and as I knew he would gladly
give them to me, I took them. Then I waited until near dawn, when I
went out to the hill in the woods and stayed all day, on the very spot
where I had spent many happy hours with Fanny. I could look down into
the room where I had courted and wedded my dear Fanny, and could see
part on one of her arms, as her body lay near the window, in Father
Shepherd's house. Also I saw the village carpenter making my Fanny's
coffin and a stranger digging her grave. That night I slept in the
store again and the next day, from the same hill, I saw them lower her
body into the grave, but my heart was locked in despair; I could not
weep.
REVENGE
At night I came down and went to the grave. The distant stars seemed to
be shedding their soft light on a lonely world, while the moon about
setting cast her ghastly beams among the chestnut trees, making the
scene, oh, so lonely, in that silent little graveyard. Out upon the
cold waters of the bay I could see the silver waves glisten in the
moonlight among the familiar bayous, which I should never see again,
while far beyond the bosom of the great Atlantic seemed to heave a sigh
of grief at my loneliness. I fell upon dear Fanny's grave, kissed the
clay and wondered if she was there. Then breathing a long farewell, I
folded my hands in prayer, asking God to forgive me for the crime I was
about to commit.
Hastily I then walked towards Stubbs' store, resolved to settle with
Deacon Hobbs and then turn my back on white man forever. I entered the
store and wrote on a slip of brown paper: "Obadiah Stubbs, a friend has
taken your gun and ammunition," and placed the slip in the cash drawer.
When outside of the store I walked lively to the deacon's nearest
storehouse, then ran from one to the other, and at last set fire to his
home, then stepped back into the lilac bushes and cocked my gun.
Soon I saw great curls of smoke ascending from the storehouses on the
wharf, then the barns and sheds, and now the home had caught fire. Then
seeing the family in danger, to awaken them I seized a rock and dashed
it through the window.
The family were now aroused and Hobbs ran to the well for water, when
I raised my gun, but a shadow came before me, and I could not see him.
Again he ran out and again I raised the gun, determined to kill him,
just as I felt a soft pressure on my shoulder and turning quickly I
found myself alone. Then I knew I must not.
As I walked away from old Chestnut Hill, I gave one last, lingering
look. It was now daybreak, and as I gazed down on the little village
where I had spent so many happy days I saw that all of Deacon Hobbs'
wealth had ascended into smoke. Stubbs' old store looked as dingy and
dirty as ever. Father's church, on which I had often looked so fondly,
now seemed silently waiting to catch the first glimmer of the morning
sun as it came to give light and life to the hills and valleys of old
New England. Father Shepherd's house, the door through which I had
passed so many times with a light heart, were all plain to my view.
Once more I looked through the trees to the grave of Fanny and walked
away.
ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS
About noon, the first day out, I met three Indians and we took lunch
together, they furnishing bear meat and I cheese and crackers, which
I had borrowed from Stubbs. After this I trudged on, following an old
trail in a westerly direction, hoping to find Indians who could give me
shelter for the night, but finding none, I started a fire at dark to
scare the wolves away and prepared to stay in the woods alone.
As darkness came on and my fire lit up the woods, I was lonely and
yearned for a friend, while a strangeness came over me which caused me
to shudder. The excitement had past, and I was left to contemplate as
to the course I had taken and where my pathway of life might be leading
me. I saw myself, as only a short time before, a promising young man
of the wild wood harbor village; but now alone in the wilderness, soon
to be a ragged, friendless outcast. Was my condition better or worse
than Fanny's or father's? Silently I knelt and implored the unseen to
forgive all and keep me pure in heart as I wended my way over mountains
of trouble and through vales of temptation.
While pondering I heard the flapping of wings, and a large owl came and
lit on a dry limb above me and began its lonely hooting. The night was
still, save the occasional bark of a wolf and the echo of the bird's
dreary chant, which under ordinary circumstances would have startled
me, but now rising to my feet I gazed at the intruder with an eye of
gladness and longed to caress him as a friend, while I murmured, "Your
lot on earth as compared with mine is to be envied. Carelessly and
thoughtlessly your days pass with no regret for the past or anxiety for
the morrow, while my sympathetic heart, actuated by an ingenious brain,
dashes cold waves of sorrow against bleak rocks of cruel destiny."
I closed my eyes and again implored my Heavenly Father to increase my
strength to tread the thorny way. Then I pondered over my condition
again and cried, "Oh, the heart--the human heart--that beats in
sympathy! Oh, the soul that longs to comfort some one and yearns to be
loved in return!"
Gazing high into the far away Eternity where all seemed lovely and
serene, I said, "Silence is the token of love. Fanny is; yes, she still
lives, but she is silent and in her silence she loves me still."
Then the stars, hills and trees, like friends, came near and shared
with me my troubles, and as I sank upon the ground overcome I thought
I was a child again and mother whispered low and sweet, "Love your
enemies and Jesus will love you."
Resting upon a bed of leaves with my boots for a pillow, the angel
of dreams took me in her fair arms. Fanny and I were walking beside
a laughing crystal stream, gathering wild flowers, whose fragrance
seemed to fill the balmy air, where familiar birds came and warbled
sweet notes over our heads while the soft sunshine bore upon the
scene, peeping into the shady grove and forming our peaceful nook into
a perfect bower of love. Here upon a bank strewn with tiny violets I
kneeled at Fanny's feet and asked her to become my wife. She did not
speak, but looked on me with her own sweet smile as she glided softly
away. I arose to follow her, when I awoke and found myself alone in the
dark woods.
[Illustration: POOR JIM, LONELY BUT NOT ALONE, FANNIE IS NEAR.]
Morning came at last, and not being able to taste my food, I trudged
on, and in a few days reached Springfield, where I first assumed the
name of James Hall. There I worked about ten days for a man named Anson
Newell, but when I learned there were two families there from Salem I
feared detection and decided to go.
HUNTING FOR BABY
I now abandoned the idea of living with the Indians and worked my way
over the Green Mountains, then down the Hudson River to New York.
During the winter my mind was continually on my baby boy, and when
spring came I started East to try to locate him. At Hartford I stayed a
few days, hoping to find someone from Casco Bay, but being unsuccessful
I went on and spent the night with about thirty Indians in the dark
grove south of Wabbaquassett Lake. Here I found a buck and his squaw,
who had lived near Casco Bay, but they knew nothing of church affairs.
Next morning near Stafford, just as I was turning north from the
river bend, I met a party of hunters, one of whom I recognized as
Josiah Converse, from near Casco Bay. After passing, I overheard him
remark--"That man looks and walks just exactly like Jim Burroughs, and
if I did not know he was dead, I would swear it was he." This remark
disturbed me, for I had thought that my full beard and shabby clothes
had disguised me. Soon I passed near my baby boy but did not know it.
When I arrived at Casco Bay I was puzzled as to how I was to get my
information. Stubbs' store could not be approached now, as I had left
traces of my last visit and someone might be on the alert, so I hung
around Chestnut Hill three days, secreted near the road, hoping to see
someone passing who was a stranger. Several acquaintances passed each
day, among whom was old Deacon Hobbs, which made my blood boil, and
I almost forgot that I was to love my enemies. One day a strange boy
approached and I ran up to the brow of the hill and then turned and met
him.
"Does Deacon Hobbs live in this town?" I inquired.
"Yes, he lives over there in that cottage."
"Do you think he wants to hire a man?"
"Oh, no, he does not want help. He is poor now; all he had is burned
up."
"Who did it?
"We do not know, but think it was an angel from heaven, and every one
is glad."
"Why were they glad?"
"Oh, because he killed the minister. That was last year, and I was not
here."
"How did he do it?"
"Well, he did not kill him, but he got some folks down in Salem to come
up and arrest him and they hanged him."
"Did he kill anyone else?"
"Yes, he killed James Burroughs and Fanny, too, so Mr. Shepherd says."
"Who were they?"
"James was the minister's son and Fanny was his wife. I live with the
Shepherds and heard them say these things."
"Did James and Fanny have any children?"
"Yes, they must have had one, for I heard Mrs. Shepherd tell how the
minister's sister came on from Boston and took it home with her."
Then looking inquiringly in my face, he said, "Say, mister, are you
sick?"
"Oh, no," I replied, and we passed on.
On arriving at Boston I learned that uncle had died and Aunt Hannah had
gone with her sister, Abigail, who lived in Salem. In Salem, with great
difficulty, I learned they had sold out all their property and gone
West. All further efforts were fruitless and I returned to New York and
began to work at my last winter's job, where I worked quietly, ever on
the alert to gain tidings of my boy.
MULDOON
One day while I was working with an Irishman named Muldoon, the
proprietor, Mr. Benjamin, came along, leading his little daughter, who,
pointing to Muldoon, said, "Papa, what makes you hire paddies? I do
not like them." Muldoon resented the innocent prattle, and turning to
Benjamin, said: "Will ye allow that wee bit of a brat to spake that way
of a gintleman?"
"You are no gentleman to call a child a brat, and if you answer back
I'll discharge you at once."
Pat tugged away in silence and when Benjamin had gone he said: "I niver
knew but one mon in me life as mane as ould Benjamin and that was
Cotton Mather himself."
"What do you know about Cotton Mather?" I eagerly inquired.
"Nothing good, sir."
"Were you ever at Salem?"
"Do yees think that auld Ben aught to larn that wee bit of a snipe to
insolt the loikes of me?"
"But, Pat, that does not answer my question."
"Thin why should a gintlemin aloix yee be axen meself quistions which I
niver knew a-tal-tal?"
"Yes, you do know, and if I explain why I am so anxious you'll tell me
all you can, won't you, Pat?"
"Yees moight be an officer."
"Nonsense, Pat, haven't you worked beside me for a long time?"
"Sure, but you moight be."
"No, I am not, and you should not be afraid, for you have never
committed any crime."
"Oh, but it was the innocent that they murthered. But, Jim, if yees
will lit me come to your room at the did o' night and yees will kiss
the Holy Cross and hold the sacred Mary to your heart while ye swear
niver to till, I might till yees the bit I know."
When Pat arrived at midnight he whispered in my ear, "Ye see, that if
Cotton Mather hears that I till the truth he will git some one to swear
I am posist with the devil and they will hang me sure."
After I had explained to him how large a dowery had been left for the
Burroughs family, and that a child had been lost, he said: "Then it
is not Giles Corey yees are after hearing, for I might tell yees more
about him, for I lived with him both before and after he was dead."
"No, I want you to tell me all about George Burroughs. Did you ever
hear about him?"
"Faith and indade, I did, I heard him make his last prayer when on the
gallows, asking God to forgive his inimies and we all wipped loike
babbies, we did."
"Did he have a family?"
"Yis, a son. A fair young mon. He looked so much loike yees that I
think of him when yees walk along, but he is dead, poor bye. When he
started home he lost his way and the wolves ate him. Some said he may
not be ded, but shot up in prison to be hung, but I know he was dead,
for I hilped to bury his bones."
"Did you see them?"
"No, they were in a box, but I knew he was ded, fer he did not smill
like a live man, and his wife died, but they had a little one, who is
alive now."
"Where is he?"
"He was first taken to Boston to his Aunt Hannah's and thin to his Aunt
Abigail's in Salem, thin a man came on from Stafford, Conn., and took
him to keep. His wife was Aunt Hannah's daughter and Aunt Agibail wint
to Stafford hersilf."
The day I arrived at Stafford Street I walked from Hartford, and the
nearer I came the faster I walked. When I arrived at the village some
men were working on the road and in answer to my inquiry, said: "The
widow Abigail Drake lives in that red house," which they pointed out.
I called on her under the pretense of buying her home, and staid quite
a while. She mentioned some of the best families, Deans, Converses,
Richardsons, etc., but I could not find out who had the boy until I
spoke of the church, when she mentioned that Deacon Felker had adopted
a boy who was her nephew. Then I asked her who his parents were. She
hesitated, and then said, "His father and mother are both dead."
"Were you acquainted with his father?"
"Yes, I was; he was a man about your build, only when I saw him last he
was in trouble, and pale and thin."
"What trouble?"
"Trouble," she replied wiping the tears away with her apron. Then
coming near me inquired quizzically, "What is your name?"
I saw she was on the point of detecting me, and looking straight in her
eye I answered, "James Hall."
Again she hesitated and then said, "You do look so much like James
Burroughs, who is dead, that I thought the dead had been raised." She
then told me all about father's execution, Fanny's death and mine,
after which I walked over to Deacon Felker's.
When I arrived, there was no one in but the deacon, so I struck him
up for a job. Soon I saw a lady coming up the walk who I at once
recognized as Cousin Phoebe, whom I had not seen for fifteen years.
Beside her ran a little boy. The deacon introduced me, and in shaking
hands I squeezed hers so hard that she looked up quickly, then
presuming me to be very rough, she spoke pleasantly. Then I picked up
my own little boy and as in some phantom mirror, Fanny seemed to look
me right in the face.
While waiting for tea, Winnie Richardson came in and adroitly
introduced herself by saying, "I presume our town looks tame to you,
especially if you've been living in the city, but to us who have never
traveled Stafford is the center of the world."
At the conclusion of Jim's story the sweet Winnie softly caressed the
troubled man with her arm around his neck, and here we leave Winnie
and Jim, to whirl and swirl in their frail barques of life, on the
restless waves of time, until they mysteriously cross the bar out into
the unknown ocean of Eternity, from whence, if they return to guide our
thoughts, we do not comprehend it.
[Illustration: OUR MOUNTAIN HOME NEAR WABBAQUASSETT LAKE, BUILT BY
WARREN RICHARDSON, 1832.
PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN, 1870, EXCEPT MARIETTE. LEFT TO RIGHT. ELIZA,
ADELIA, COLLINS, CAROLINE, MERRICK, GORDON, JANETTE.]
OUR WABBAQUASSETT MOUNTAIN HOME
John, my Grandfather Richardson, son of Uriah, built his home on the
east side of the Devil's Hopyard, while Abner, one of John Dimock's ten
sons, built his home on the west side.