(2 of 2)
Suckle a Bird. Stimulated by a thrashing from her master, Tituba quickly confessed to witchcraft and spun a richly embroidered tale that held Salem spellbound. Red cats and red rats had come to her one by one and said, "Serve me." Though as an earthly creature she could not read, she had in her spectral phase seen nine Salem names in the devil's book.
Some sturdy old farmers belittled the whole affair—"bitch witches" sneered one; "get her a man and the wench'll settle down," laughed another. Oddly enough, those who had expressed their skepticism were among the next to be accused. Named among the new witches were John Procter, who had cured his maid's fits by plumping her down at a spinning wheel and threatening a thrashing if she stirred from it, and Martha Cory, a hearty matron who had rashly asserted she didn't believe in witches. ("Look!" screamed one of the girls at church service, "there sits Goody Cory on the beam, suckling a yellow bird betwixt her fingers!")
The hysteria spread through Massachusetts. Young girls lived in dread of a spectral rape by the devil and of giving birth to a demon child, while young men (and older) were haunted by the "shapes" of comely matrons who at midnight dropped down from a beam and snuggled close. The devil worked overtime; he was described by one hysteric as "a short and black man—a Wretch no taller than an ordinary Walking Staff ... he wore a high crowned hat with straight hair; and he had one Cloven Foot." Another accuser casually referred to him as "ye old boy."
Walk in the Clouds. With a kind of perverse logic, those who "confessed" were set free while those courageous enough to deny the accusations were almost all sent to the gallows. Scores of people were jailed, but a few hardy souls began to speak up against the hysteria; a Salem Quaker, a few clergymen, a Boston merchant. Those still in jail were quietly set free—on condition they pay the expense of their imprisonment.
Later, some of the accusers confessed that they had sinned. Wrote the Rev. John Hale, who had been a witness against one of the witches: "We walked in clouds and could not see our way. And we have most cause to be humble for error . . . which cannot be retrieved." And indeed it could not be retrieved, for before the nine months' hysteria spent itself 20 innocent men & women had been executed in Salem.