July 1692

I can understand why Reverend Parris sent for me. To exceedingly fulfill the reason why Betty Parris was ill, I brought many books to his home. There was a woman named Goody Putnam who described her children’s situation to me. Unfortunately, she has lost seven out of eight children and her eighth child was starting to act strangely. She asked me if losing seven children is a natural occurrence. I was tempted to tell her how unusual it is to lose seven children within days of birth. I did not want to tell Goody Putnam that losing that many children at such an early age is most certainly anomalous. An urbane man named Giles Corey was questioning his wife’s actions. Giles is talked about by the people of Salem. He is accused of misconduct quite often. Recently, his wife Martha has been reading strange books. When she is in the midst of reading the books, Giles is unable to pray. When she leaves their home, he can successfully pray again. Giles’s issue intrigued me most because the same thing occurred when I had an afflicted person living in my home. I told Giles that we could discuss the issue later. Giles did not want to make it seem like his wife is fooling around with witchcraft but I think otherwise. Reverend Parris informed that me he observed Abigail dancing in the woods. Abigail immediately denied it and claimed that she was aimlessly dancing. Reverend Parris kept feeding me more bits of what he observed. Abigail blamed it on Tituba. Apparently, it was all Tituba’s doings and that she was communicating with the old boy. This story enthralled me greatly and I am not going to leave just yet. There is more to the story that I have yet to cover.