The Little Maid at the Door by Mary E.

Wilkins Freeman.

Joseph Bailey and his wife Anne came riding down from Salem Village.

They had started from their home in Newberry the day before and had stayed overnight with the relative Sergeant Thomas Putnam in Salem Village, and they were on their way to the election in Boston.

The road wound along through the woods through Salem to Lynne.

It was sometime since they had passed a house.

May was nearly gone.

The pinks and the BlackBerry vines were in flower.

All of the woods were full of an indefinite and composite fragrance made up of the breaths of myriads of green plants in seen and unseen blossoms, Like a very bouquet of spring.

The newly leaved trees cast shadows that were as much part of the tender surprise of the spring as the new flowers.

They flickered delicately before Joseph Bailey and his wife Anne on the grassy ridges of the road, but they did not remark them their own fancy, past, gigantic projections which eclipsed the sweet show of the spring, and almost their own personalities.

That year, the leaves came out and the flowers bloomed in vain.

For the people in and about Salem Village there was epidemic, a disease of the mind, which deafened and blinded to all it save its own pains.

Anne Bailey, on the pillion, snuggled close against her husband's back.

Her fearful eyes peered at the road around his shoulder.

She was a young and handsome woman.

She had on her best mantle of sad colored silk, and a fine black hood with a top knot.

But she did not think of that.

Joseph, what is it on the road before us?

She whispered timorously.

He pulled up the horse with a great jerk, where he whispered back.

There there at the right, just beyond that laurel thicket, tis somewhat black, and it moves there there, oh, Joseph.

Joseph Bailey sat stiff and straight in his saddle like a soldier.

His face was pale and stern, his eyes full of horror and defiance.

See you it, Anne whispered again.

There now it moves.

What is it?

I see it?

Said Joseph in a loud, bold voice.

And whatever it be.

I will yield not to it, and neither will you, good wife.

Anne reached around and caught at the reins.

Let's go back, she moaned, faintly, Oh, Joseph, let us not pass it.

My spirit faints within me.

I see it's back among the Laurel blooms.

Tis the black beast they tell of.

Let us turn back, Joseph, let us turn back.

Be still, woman returned her husband, jerking the reins from her hands.

What think ye twould profit us to turn back to Salem village?

I trow that if it be one of the black beasts here, there's a full herd of them there.

There is not left but us to ride past it as best.

We may sit fast and listen you not to it, whatever it promise you.

Joseph looked down the road towards the Laurel bushes, his muscles now as tense as a bow.

Anne hid her face in his shoulder.

Suddenly he shouted, with a great voice, like a herald, Away with ye, ye cursed beast, Away with ye, we are not of your kind, We are gospel folk.

We have naught to do with you or your master.

Away with ye.

The horse leaped forward there was a great cracking among the laurel bushes.

At the right, a glossy black back and some white horns heaved over them, and then some black flanks plunged heavily out of sight.

Oh, shrieked Anne, Has it gone?

Good men?

Has it gone?

The Lord hath deliver us from the snare of the enemy, answered Joseph solemnly.

What looked it like, Joseph, what looked it like?

Like?

No beast that was saved in the ark?

Had it?

Fiery eyes?

Asked Anne, trembling, tis well, you did not see them?

Ride fast?

Oh, ride fast, Anne pleaded, clutching hard at her husband's cloak.

It may follow our track.

The horse went down the road at a quick trot.

Anne kept peering back and starting at every sound in the woods.

Do you mind the tale of Samuel and Deicott told last night?

She said, shuddering, how on his trip to Barbados, he sitting on the windlass on a bright, moonshiny night, which shook violently, and saw the appearance of that witch Coody Bradberry, with a white cap and a white neckcloth on her.

It was a dreadful tale.

It was not the sight of Mercy Lewis and Sergeant Thomas Putnam's daughter Anne, when they were set upon, and I choked to death by Goodie Proctor.

Know you that within a half mile we must pass the Proctor house, Anne gave a shuddering sigh.

I would if I were home again, she moaned.

They say twas full of evil things, and that the black man himself kept tavern there since Goodman Proctor and his wife were in jail.

Did you mind what good wife Putnam said of the black head like a hog's that Goodman pearly saw it at the keeping room window as he passed, and the rumbling noises, and the yellow birds that flow around the chimney, and twittered like a psalm tune.

Oh, Joseph, there's a yellow bird now in the birch tree.

See see they had come into a little space where the woods were.

Joseph urged his horse forward.

We will not slack our pace for any black beasts nor any yellow birds, he cried in a valiant voice.

There was a passing gleam of little yellow wings in the birch tree.

He has flown away, said Anne.

Tis best to front them as you do, Goodman.

But I have not the courage what looked like a common yellow bird, his wings shone like gold.

Think you has gone forward to the practor house.

It matters not so it, But fly up before us, said Joseph Bailey.

He was somewhat older than Anne, fair haired and fair beard, with blue eyes set so deep under heavy brows that they looked black.

His face was at once stern and nervous, showing not only the spirit of warfare against his foes, but the elements of strife within himself.

They rode on, and the woods grew thicker.

The horses hoo made only a faint liquid pad on the mossy road.

Suddenly he stopped and whinnied.

Anne clutched at her husband's arm.

They sat motionless, listening.

The horse whinnied again.

Suddenly Joseph started violently and stared into the woods on the left and Anne also.

A long defile of dark evergreen stretched up the hill, with mysterious depths of blue black shadows between them.

The air had an earthy dampness.

Joseph shook the reins fiercely over the horse's back and shouted to him in a loud voice, did you see it?

Gasped Anne, when they had come into a lighter place.

Was it not a black man?

Fear not, we have outridden him, said her husband, setting his thin, intense face proudly ahead.

I would that we were safe and newberry, Anne moaned.

I would that we had never set out.

Think you not, Doctor Mather will ride back from Boston with us to keep the witch off.

I will bide there forever.

If he will not, I will never come this dreadful road again.

Else, what is that?

Oh?

What is that?

'tis a voice coming out of the woods like a great roar?

Joseph?

What is that?

That?

Was a black cat?

Run across the road into the bushes.

Twas a black cat, Joseph.

Let's turn back.

No, the black man is behind us and the beast.

What shall we do?

What shall we do?

Oh?

Oh?

I begin to twitch like Anne and Mercy last night.

My feet move I cannot stop them.

Now there is a pin thrust in my arm.

I am pinched.

There are fingers at my throat, Joseph.

Joseph, go to prayer, sweetheart, shouted Joseph, go to prayer.

Be not afraid, twill drive them away away with ye goody Bradbury away, goody, practor go to prayer, Go to prayer.

Joseph bent low in the saddle and lashed the horse, which sprang forward with a mighty back.

The green branches rushed about their faces.

Joseph prayed in a loud voice.

Anne clung to him, convulsively, panting for breath.

Suddenly they came out of the woods and into a cleared space, the Proctor House.

The Proctor House an shriek.

Mercy Lewis said, twas full of devils.

What shall we do?

She hid her face on her husband's shoulder, sobbing and praying.

The Proctor House stood on the left of the road, where there was some peach trees in front of it, and their blossoms showed a pink spray against the gray, unpainted walls.

On one side of the house was a great barn with its doors wide open.

On the other a deep plowed field with the plow sticking in a furrow.

John Proctor had been arrested and thrown into jail for witchcraft in April.

Before his spring planting was done.

Joseph Bailey reined in his horse opposite the Proctor House.

Anne.

He whispered, his voice full of horror.

What is is it?

She returned wildly.

Anne, Goodman Proctor looks forth from the chamber window, and Goody Practor stands outside by the well, and they are both in jail in Boston.

Joseph's whole frame shook in a strange, rigid fashion, as if his joints were locked.

Look, Anne, he whispered, I cannot look.

Anne turned her head.

Why she said, and her voice was quite natural and sweet.

It even had a tone of glad relief in it.

I see not but the little maid in the door.

See you not, Goodman Proctor in the window?

Nay, said Anne, smiling, I see not but the little maid in the door.

She is in a blue petticoat, and she has a yellow head, but her little cheeks are pale.

I trow see you not, good Wife Proctor in the yard by the well, asked Joseph.

Nay, Goodman, I see not but the little maid and the door.

She has a fair face, but now she falls a weeping.

Oh, I fear lest she be all alone in the house.

I tell you, Goodman Proctor and good Wife Proctor are both there, returned Joseph.

Think you I see not with my own eyes?

Goodman Proctor has on a red cap, and good wife Proctor holds a spindle.

He urged on the horse with a sudden cry.

Now the prayers do stick in my throat, he groaned.

I would that we were out of this devil's nest, Joseph implored Anne.

Prith ye, wait a minute.

The little maid is calling mother after me.

Saw you not how she favored our own little Susanna, who died?

Hear her?

There was not there but the little maid.

Joseph, I pray you stop.

Nay, I will ride till the nag drops, said Joseph Bailey with a lash.

This last will be too much.

I tell you they are there.

They are all so in jail.

Tis hellish work.

Anne said no more for a little space.

A curve in the road hid the Proctor house from sight.

Suddenly she raised a great cry.

Oh oh, she screamed, tis gone, Tis gone from my foot.

Joseph stopped.

What is gone my shoe?

But now I miss it from my foot.

I must alight and go back for it.

Joseph started the horse again.

Anne caught at the reins.

Stop, goodman, she cried, imperatively.

I tell you I must have my shoe, And I tell you I'll stop for no shoe in this place.

Were it made of gold?

Goodman, you know not what shoe tis.

Tis one of my fine shoes in which I have never taken steps.

They have the crimson silk lacings.

I have even carried them in my hand to a meeting house on a sabbath, wearing my old shoes, and only put them on at the door.

Think you that I will lose that shoe, Stop the nag.

But Joseph kept on grimly.

Think you that I will go barefoot or with one shoe into Boston, said Anne.

Know you that these shoes, which were a present from my mother, cossed bravely?

I trow you will needs loosen your purse strings well before we pass the first shop in Boston.

Well go on and you will.

And tis but a matter of my slipping down from the pillion and running back a few yards.

Joseph Bailey turned the horse about, but Anne remonstrated, nay, She said, I want not to go.

Thus, I am tired of the saddle.

I would like to feel my feet for a space.

Her husband looked around at her with wonder and suspicion.

Dark thoughts came into his mind.

She laughed.

Nay, she said, make no such face at me.

I go not back to meet any black man, nor sign any book.

I go for my fine shoe with the crimson lacing.

Tis but a moment since you were afraid, said Joseph, Have you no fear now?

His blue eyes looked sharply into hers.

She looked back at him soberly and innocently.

In truth, I feel no such fear as I did, she answered.

If I mistake not your bold front and your prayers drove away the evil ones, I will say a psalm as I go, and I trow not will harm me.

Anne slipped lightly down from the pillion and pulled off her one remaining shoe and her stockings.

They were her fine worked silk ones.

She could not walk with them over the rough road.

Then she sat forth, very slowly, peering here and there in the undergrowth beside the road, until she passed the curve and the reach of her husband's eyes.

Then she gathered up her crimson taffeta petticoat and ran like a deer with long, graceful leaps, looking neither to the right nor left, straight back to the Proctor house.

In the door of the house stood the tiny girl with a soft shock of yellow hair.

She wore a little straight blue gown, and her baby feet were bare, curling over the sunny doorstep.

When she saw Anne coming, she started as if to run, and then she stood still, her soft eyes weary, her mouth quivering.

Anne Bailey ran up quickly and threw her arms around her, kneeling down on the step.

What is your name, little maid?

She asked in a loving, agitated voice.

Abigail Procter replied the little maid shyly in her sweet, childish trouble.

Then she tried to free herself, but Anne held her fast.

Nay, be not afraid, sweet, she said, I love you.

I once had a little maid like you for my own.

Tell me, dear heart, are you all alone in the house.

Then the child fell to crying again and clung around Anne's neck.

Is there anybody in the house, sweet, Anne whispered, fondling her and pressing the wet baby cheek to her.

The constables came and took them, sobbed the little maid.

They put my poppet down the well, and they pulled mother and Sarah down the road.

They took father before that, and Mary Warren did gibbon points.

The constables pulled Benjamin away too.

I want my mother.

Your mother shall come again, said Anne.

Take comfort, little dear heart.

They cannot have the will to keep her long away.

There there, I tell you she will come.

You watch in the door.

You will see her come down the road.

She smoothed back the little maid's yellow hair and wiped the tears from her little face with the corner of her beautiful and bordered neckerchief.

Then she saw that the face was all grimy with tears and dust, and she went over to the well which was near the door, and drew a bucket of water swiftly with her strong young arms.

Then she wet a corner of the neckerchief and scrubbed the little maid's face, bidding her to shut her eyes.

Then kissed her over and over.

Now you are sweet and clean, she said, little dear heart.

I have some sugar cakes in my bag for you, and then I must be gone.

The little maid looked at her eagerly.

Her cheeks were waxen, and the blue veins showed in her full childish forehead.

Anne pulled some little cakes out of the red velvet satchel she wore at her waist, and Abigail reached out for one with a hungry cry.

The tears sprang to Anne's eyes.

She put the rest of the cakes and a little pile on the door stone and watched the child eat.

Then she gathered her up in her arms.

Good Bye, sweetheart, she said, kissing the soft trembling mouth, the sweet hollow under the chin, and the clinging hands.

Before long I shall come this way again, And do you stand at the door when I go past.

She put her down and hastened away, but little Abigail ran after her.

Anne stopped and knelt and fondled her again.

Go back, deary, she pleaded, go back and eat the sugar cakes.

Butiful kind vision and the crimson taffeta, with the rosy cheeks and the sweet black eyes looking out from the French hood, with a gleam of gold, and delicate embroidery between the silken folds of her mantilla, with the ways like her mother's, was more to the deserted Abigail Proctor than the sugar cakes, Although she was sorely hungry for them.

She stood aloof with pitiful, determined eyes until Anne's back was turned.

Then as she followed, Anne looked around and saw her and caught her up again.

My dear heart, my dear heart, she said, and she was half sobbing.

Now must you go back else?

I fear harm will come to you.

My good man is waiting for me yonder, and I know not what he will do or say.

Nay, you must go back.

I would I could keep you, my dear Abigail, But you must go back.

Anne Bailey put the little maid down and gave her a gentle push.

Go back, she said, smiling with her eyes full of tears.

Go back and eat the sugars.

Then she sped on swiftly.

As she neared the curve in the road.

She thrust a band in her pocket and drew forth a dainty shoe with dangling laces of crimson silk.

She glanced around with a smile and a backward wave of her hand.

The glowing crimson of her petticoat showed for a minute through the green mist of the undergrowth.

Then she disappeared.

The little maid Abigail stood still in the road, gazing after her.

Her soft pink mouth opened, her hands clutching at her blue petticoat, as if she would thus hold herself back from following.

She heard the tramp of a horse's feet beyond the curve, then it died away.

She turned about and went back into the house with tears rolling over her cheeks, But she did not sob aloud, as she would have done had her mother been near to hear.

A pitiful conviction of the hopelessness of all the appeals of grief was stealing over her childish mind.

She had been alone in the house three nights and two days ever since her sister Sarah and her brother Benjamin and had been arrested for witchcraft and carried to jail.

Long before that, her parents, John and Elizabeth Proctor had disappeared down the Boston Road in charge of the constables.

None of the family was spared save this little Abigail, who was deemed too young and insignificant to have dealings with Satan, and was therefore not thrown into prison, but was left alone in the desolate Proctor house in the midst of the woods, said to be full of evil spirits and witches.

To die of fright or starvation as she might, there was but little mercy shown the families of those accused of witchcraft.

Let some of goody practor's familiars minister unto the brat.

One of the constables had said, with a stern laugh, when Abigail had followed wailing after her brother and sister on the day of their arrest.

Yea, said another.

She can send her yellow bird or her black hog to keep her company.

I her tears will soon be dried.

Then the stoutly tramping horses had borne out of sight, and bearing the mocking faces of the constables.

Sara's fair agonized one turned backward towards her little, deserted sister, and Benjamin raised a brave, youthful clamor of indignation.

Let us loose, Abigail heard him shell.

Let us loose, I tell ye, ye are fools rather than we are witches.

Ye a, fools and murderers.

Let us loose, I tell ye.

Abigail waited long, thinking her brother's words would prevail, But neither he nor Sarah returned, and the sounds all died away, and she went back to the house sobbing.

The damp spring night was setting down in a palpable mist, and the woods seemed full of voices.

The little maid had heard enough of the terrible talk of the day to fill her innocent head with a vague, superstitious horror.

She threw her apron over her head and fled blindly through the woods.

And now and then she fell down and bruised herself, and rose up, lamenting sorely, with nobody to hear her.

As soon as she was in the house, she shut the doors and barred them with the great bars that had been made as protection against Indians, and now might wax useless against worse than savages, according to the belief of the colony.

All the night the little maid shrieked and sobbed, and called on her father, and her mother, and her sister and her brother.

Men faring in the road betwixt Boston and Salem Village heard her with horror, and fled past with psalm and prayer, their blood cold in their veins.

They related the next day to the raging terror stricken people, how at midnight the accursed practor house was full of flitting infernal lights and howling with devilish spirits, And added a death dealing tale of some godly woman of the village who outrode their horses on a broomstick, and disappeared into the Proctor house.

The next day, the little maid unbarred the door and stood there, watching up and down the road for her mother or some other to come.

But they came not, Although she watched all day.

That night she did not sob and call out.

She had become afraid of her own voice and discovered it had no effect to bring her help.

Then, too early in the night she had heard noises about the house, which frightened her and made her think that perchance the dreadful black beast for which she had heard them discourse was abroad.

The next morning she found that two horses and a cow and a calf were gone from the barn.

Also, there was left scarce anything for her to eat.

In the house.

There had been some loaves of bread, some boiled meat, and some cakes.

Now they were all gone, and also all of the meal from the chest, and the potatoes and the pork from the cellar.

But for the last she did not care.

Since she was not old enough to make a fire and cook.

She had left for food only a little cold porridge and a blue bowl, and that she ate up at once and had no more and a little buttermilk and a crock, which she not being over fond of it, served her longer.

But that was all she had for a day and a night, until good wife Anne Bailey gave her the sugar cakes.

These she ate up at once on her return to the house.

Then again she stood watching in the door.

But nothing passed along the road save a partridge or a squirrel.

It was accounted a bold thing for any solitary traveler to come this way save a witch, and she, it was supposed, might find many comrades in the woods beside the road, and in the Proctor house, which was held to be sort of a devil's tavern.

But now no witch came, nor any of her uncanny friends, unless indeed a squirrel or a partridge were familiar demons in disguise.

Nothing was too harmless and simple to escape that imputation of the devil's mask.

Abigail took her little pewter porridger from the cupboard and got herself a drink of water from the bucketful that good wife Bailey had drawn.

Then she stood on a stone and peered into the well, leaning over the curb.

Her poppet was in there her dear ragged doll that Sara had made for her, and dressed in a beautiful silver brocade made from a piece of a wedding gown that was bought from England.

One of the constables had caught sight of Little Abigail Proctor's poppet, and being straightway filled with a suspicion that it was an image whereby Goody Procter afflicted her victims by proxy, had seized it and thrown it into the well.

The other constables had chidened him for such ratschness, saying it should have been carried to Boston and produced as evidence at the trail, and Little Abigail had shrieked out in panic for her poppet.

She could see nothing of it now, and she went back to her watching place in the door.

In the afternoon, she felt sorely hungry again and searched through the house for food.

Then she went out to the sunny field behind the house and found some honeysuckle in the rocks and sucked the honey greedily from their horns.

On her return to the house, she found a corn cob which she snatched up and folded in her apron and began tending.

She sat down in the doorway in her little chair, which she dragged out of the keeping room, and hugged the poor poppet close and crooned over it.

Be not afraid, she said, I will not let the black beast harm you.

I promise you I will not.

That night she formed a new plan for her solace and protection in the lonely darkness.

All of the garments of her lost parents and her sister and her brother that she could find she gathered together and formed a circle on the keeping room floor.

Then she crept inside with her corn cob poppet and lay there, hugging it all night.

The next day she watched again in the door, but now she was weak and faint, and her little legs trembled so under her that she could not stand and watch, but sat in her small straight back chair, holding her poppet and peering forth wistfully.

In the course of the day, she made a ship to creep out into the fields again, and lying flat on some sun heated rocks, she sucked some more honey drops from the honeysuckles.

She found two on the edge of the woods, some young wintergreen leaves, and she even pulled some blue violets and ate them.

But the delicate, sweet and aromatic fare in the spring larder of nature was poor nourishment for a human baby.

Poor little Abigail Proctor could scarcely creep home, still clinging fast to her poppet, scarcely lifted herself into her chair in the door, scarcely crawled inside her fairy ring of her loved one's belongings.

At night she rolled herself tightly in an old cloak of her father's.

And it was a sweet and harmless outcome of the dreadful superstition of the day, grafted on an innocent childish brain, that it seemed to partake of the bodily presence of her father and protect her.

All night long she lay there.

Her mother cooked good meat and broth and sweet cakes, and she ate her fill of them.

But in the morning she was too weak to turn her little body over.

She could not get to her watching place in the door.

But that made no difference to her, for she did not fairly know that she was not there.

It seemed to her that she sat in her little chair, looking up the road, and down the road, she saw the green branches weaving together and hiding the sky.

To the northward and the southward.

She saw the flushes of white and rose in the flowering undergrowth.

She saw the people coming and going.

There were her father and mother, now coming with a store of food and presents for her.

Now following the constables.

Out of sight, there was that fine pageant, passing as she had seen it pass once before, of the two Magistrates, their worshipful masters, John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin, with the Marshal Constables and aides, splendid and awe inspiring in all of their trappings of office, to examine the accused.

In the Salem meeting house, there were the Minister's parison Noise, coming with severe malignant faces, to question her mother as to whether she had afflicted Mary Warren, their former maid servant, who was now bewitched.

There went Benjamin, clamoring out boldly at his captors.

There came Sarah with the poppet which she had drawn out of the well, shaking the water from its silver brocade.

All this the little maid Abigail Proctor saw, threw her half delirious fancy as she lay weakly on the keeping room floor.

But she saw not the reality of her sister Sarah, coming about four o'clock in the afternoon.

Sarah Proctor, tall and slender in her limp bedraggled dress, with her fair, severe face set in a circle of red shawl which she had pinned under her chin, came resolutely down the road from Boston, driving a black cow before her with a great green branch.

She was nearly fainting with weariness, but she set her dusty shoes down swiftly among the road weeds, and her face was as unyielding as an indian's.

When she came in sight of the Proctor house, she stopped a second Abigail.

She called Abigail.

There was no answer, and she went more swiftly than before.

When she reached the house, she called again Abigail, but did not wait except while she tied the black cow by a rope which was around its neck, to a peach tree.

Then she ran in and found the little maid her sister, Abigail, on the floor in the keeping room.

She got down on her knees beside her, and Abigail smiled up at her, face waveringly.

She still thought herself in the door, and she had just seen her sister, come down the road, Abigail.

What have they done to you?

Asked Sara in a sharp voice, and the little maid only smiled.

Abigail, Abigail, what is it?

Sara took hold of the child's shoulders and shook her, but she got no word back.

Only the smile ceased, and the eyelids drooped faintly.

Are you hungry, Abigail?

The little maid shook her head softly.

It cannot be, that, said Sara, as if half to herself.

There was enough in the house.

But what is it, Abigail?

Look at me?

How long is it since you have eaten?

Abigail yesterday?

Whispered the little maid dreamily.

What did you eat?

Then?

Some posies and leaves out in the field.

What became of all the bread that was baked, and the cakes and the meat?

I have forgot, No, you have not tell me, Abigail.

The black beast came in the night and did eat it all up, and the cow and the calf, and the horses too.

The black beast.

I heard him in the night, and in the morning twas gone.

Sarah sprang up robbers and murderers, she cried in a fierce voice.

But the little maid on the floor did not start.

She shut her eyes again and looked up and down the road.

Sarah got the bucket quickly and went out in the yard to the cow.

Down on her knees in the grass, she went in milk.

She then carried in the bucket, strained the milk with trembling haste, and poured some into Abigail's little pewter porridger.

She was wont to love it warm, she whispered with white lips.

She bent close over the little maid and raised her on one arm while she put the porridger to her mouth.

Drink, Abigail, she said, with tender command, tis warm the way you love it.

The little maid tried to sip, but shut her mouth and turned her head with weak loathing, and Sara could not compel her.

She laid her back and got a spoon and fed her a little, by dint of much pleading to make her open her mouth and swallow.

Afterward, she undressed her and put her to bed in the south front room.

But the child was so uneasy without the ring of garments, which she had arranged, that Sara was forced to put them around her on the bed.

Then she fell asleep directly and stood in her dream watching in the door.

Sara herself stood in the door, looking up and down the road.

There was the sound of a galloping horse in the distance.

It came nearer and nearer.

She went down to the road and stood waiting.

The horse was reined in close to her, and the young man who rode him sprang off of the saddle.

It is you, Sara, You are safe home, he cried eagerly, and would have put his arm about her, But she stood aloof sternly.

For what else do you take me?

My apparition, she said, in a hard voice, sweetheart, Know you that I have but just come from the jail in Boston, where I have lain fast chained for witchcraft.

See you my fine apparel with a prison air in it.

Know you that they called me a witch and said that I did afflict Mary Warren and the rest.

I marvel, not that you kept your distance, Carr, I might perchance have hurt you, and they might have accused you since you were in fellowship with the witch.

I am marvel not at that I would have no harm come to you, though far greater than this came to me.

But wherefore did you let my little sister Abigail starve, that I cannot suffer coming from you, David.

The young man took her in his arms with a decided motion, and indeed she did not repulse him, but began to weak Sarah, he said earnestly, I was an ip witch.

I knew not of you and Benjamin being cried out upon until within this hour when I returned home, and my mother told me, I knew not you were acquitted, and was on my way to Boston to you when I saw you at the gate.

And as for Abigail, I knew not at all, and so twas with my mother for she but now wept when she said that the poor little maid had been taken with rest.

But you mean not that, sweetheart, She has not been let to starve.

They stole the food away in the night, said Sarah, and the horses and the cow and calf.

I found the cow straying in the woods, but now on my way home, and drove her in and milked her.

But Abigail would take scarce a spoonful of the warm milk.

She has had but little to eat for three days, and has been distracted with fear being left alone she has ever been but a delicate child, and now I fear she has a fever on her and will die with her mother away.

I will go for my mother's sweetheart, said David cart eagerly.

Bring her under the cover of night, then, said Sarah, else she may be suspected if she comes to this witch tavern, as they call it.

Oh, David, think you she will come.

I am in a sore strait.

I will bring her without fail, sweet and a flask of wine also, and the needments for the little maid, cried David.

Only do you keep up, good heart?

Perchance?

Sweet the child may amend soon, and the others will soon acquit.

Nay, weep not, poor lass, poor lass, thou haste me whatever else fail thee poor solace though that be, And I will fetch thee my mother right speedily.

She has ever set a great store by the little maid, and knows much about ailments.

And I doubt not that they will sooner quit, they say my mother will, said Sarah tearfully.

And Benjamin is a quit now, but had best kept for a season out of Salem village.

But my father will not be a quit.

He has spoken his mind too boldly before them all.

Nay, sweetheart, said David Carr, mounting, twill all have passed soon?

Tis but a madness go in to the little maid and be of good comfort.

Sara went sobbing into the house, but her face was quite calm.

When she stood over little Abigail.

The child was still asleep, and she could rouse her only for a moment to take a few spoonfuls of milk.

Then she turned her head on the pillow with weary obstinacy, then shut her eyes again.

She still held the poor corn cob poppet fast.

Sarah washed herself, braided her hair, and changed her prison dress for a clean blue linen one.

Then she sat beside Abigail and waited for David Carr and his mother, who came within the hour.

Good wife Car was renowned through Salem village for her knowledge of medicinal herbs and her nursing.

She had a gentle sobriety and decision of manner, which placed her firmly in her neighbor's confidences.

They seeing how she abode firmly in her own, and arguing from that then she had too the good fortune to have made no enemies.

Consequently, her ability had not incurred for her the suspicion of being a witch.

Good Wife car brought a goodly store of healing herbs of bread and cakes and meat, and she brewed drinks and met her face pale and soberly faithful in her close white cap, untiringly over Abigail Proctor.

But the little maid never rose again.

A fever engendered by starvation and fright and grief had seized upon her, and she lay in the bed with her little corncaw baby for a few days longer, and then died.

They made a straight white gown for her and dressed her in it, and after washing her and smoothing her yellow hair, and she lay, looking longer and older than in life, all set about with flowers pinks and lilacs and roses from good Wife Carr's garden until she was buried, and they had the ip witch minister come for the funeral.

For David Carr cried out in fury that minister Paris, who had prosecuted this witchcraft business, was her murderer, and blood would flow from her little body if he stood beside it.

And that was the same with minister Noise and Sarah Practic's pale face had flushed up fiercely in assent.

The morning after the little maid Abigail Proctor was buried, Joseph Bailey and his wife Anne came riding down the road from Boston, and they were in brave company and needed to have but little fear of wae witches, for the Great Minister Cotton Mather's rode with them, his Excellency the Governor of the colony, two worshipful magistrates, and two other ministers, all on their way to a witch trial in Salem.

As they neared the Proctor house there was much discourse concerning it and the inmates thereof many strange and dreadful accounts, and much godly denuncication.

And as they reached the little curve in the road, they came suddenly in sight of a young man and a tall, fair maid standing together at the side of some white flowering bushes.

And Sarah Proctory, even with her little sister Abigail dead and her parents in danger of death, was smiling for a second space in David Carr's face, for the love and hope and tragedy that make God possible, and the selfishness of love that makes life possible.

Were upon her in spite of herself.

Then she saw the cavalcade approaching, saw the gleam of rich raiment, and heard the train mp and jingling.

The smile faded straightway from her face, and she stood behind David in the white ouler bushes.

And David stood before her and gazed with a stern and defiant scowl at the gentry as they passed by.

And the great cotton Mathers gazed back at that beautiful white face rising like another flower out of the bushes, and he speculated with himself if it were the face of a witch.

But good wife Anne Bailey thought only of the little maid at the door, And when they came to the Proctor house, she leaned eagerly from the pillion, and she smiled and kissed her hand.

Why do you thus, Anne, her husband asked, looking about her, See you not the little maid in the door.

She whispered low, for fear of the godly company.

I trow She looks better than she did.

The roses are in her cheek, and they have combed her yellow hair and put a clean white gown on her.

She holds a little doll too, I see, nobody said Joseph Bailey, wondering.

Nay, but she stands there.

I never saw nought shine like her hair and her white gown.

The sunlight lies full at the door.

See see she is smiling.

I trow all her griefs be well over.

The cavalcade passed the Proctor house, but good wife Anne Bailey's sweet face was turned backwards till it was out of sight, towards the little maid in the door and the little Maid at the door by Mary E.

Wilkins Freeman