“Do you believe in witches, Judith?”
“Not really,” said Judith. “But she does look strange, and she never comes to Meeting.”
Kit looked at the distant gray figure again. It was easy to create any mystery about that lonely woman!
The long rows of onions looked endless. Judith began to pull out the weeds quickly. Kit looked at her cousin and then got down too. If she married William Ashby, would he make her weed his vegetables for him? No, she was quite sure that he never would. William would probably have servants.
Later that day when the two girls returned home, they found Mercy excited. “The most wonderful thing has happened, Kit! Dr. Bulkeley has recommended to the selectmen that you help me with the school this summer.”
“A school?” asked Kit. “Do you teach a school, Mercy?”
“Just for the younger children in the summer months. With your help I can take more pupils. We will teach to them letters and how to read and write their names. They can’t go to the grammar school till they can read. But many of their parents can’t teach them.”
“And where is this school?”
“Right here in the kitchen. You know how to read, don’t you? John Holbrook told Dr. Bulkeley you can read as well as he can.”
Kit was surprised. Had John repeated to Dr. Bulkeley that conversation on the Dolphin? Probably not. She had never mentioned books in this house, where the only book was the Holy Bible. “Yes, of course I can read,” she agreed.
“Well, they are going to send Mr. Kimberley, the schoolmaster, to test you. Then the school will begin next week. Father is pleased too, Kit. We’ll both be earning wages because every child pays four pence a week. Sometimes they pay with eggs or wool or such things.”
The more Kit thought about it, the more pleasant the school sounded to her. If she were earning wages, they would not make her do any housework. In the evening when they were sitting alone with Mercy, Kit asked her, “If I am earning wages, then maybe I will be useful, even if I’m not a boy.”
Mercy looked at her cousin. “What do you mean, Kit?”
“The first night I was here,” explained Kit, “Judith said that she would prefer to have a boy cousin.”
“Oh, Kit!” cried Mercy. “You heard that? She didn’t mean what you think. It’s just that father needs a boy so much to help. Mother has never told you much about our family, has she? You see, there was a boy, their first child, two years older than I was. We both caught some kind of fever. I got well, except for my leg, but he died.”
“I didn’t know,” replied Kit. “Poor Aunt Rachel!”
“And there was another boy, after Judith,” Mercy continued. “Father was so proud of him. But he lived only a week. Mother said it was the will of God. Well, of course that was a long time ago, but after that Father changed. And it has been so difficult to manage all this work without a son. That’s all she meant, Kit.”
Kit was silent. “From now on I should try to understand my uncle better,” she decided.
Chapter Nine
Mercy and Kit started teaching the school together. Mercy was patiently instructing beginners, while Kit was struggling with the elementary readers. The verses they tried to read were as boring and monotonous as church sermons. Kit’s Grandfather would never have let her read that! If only she could remember how her grandfather had taught her to read the words! He probably had made his own lessons, and now she decided to follow his example. Kit took a quill pen and wrote something. Then she gave it to read to young Timothy Cook. “Timothy Cook jumped over the brook,” he read with surprise. The other children giggled and then looked at their teacher with amazement.
Kit didn’t know that her methods were new and surprising. She only knew that the ten days since the school’s beginning had been the best she had had in Connecticut. She and the children had liked each other. The children brought her berries and flowers and wanted to sit next to her. There were eleven of them, eight small boys and three girls. It was difficult to keep those little kids interested for four long hours. Mercy used her patience, while Kit used some tricks. “You have all done very well this morning,” she would say at the end of their reading session. “Now I will tell you a story.”
At first, Mercy worried about this activity, but Kit could see nothing wrong in it. If only she had more stories to read to them! Now she had only the Bible, from which she chose the stories she liked best. Today she chose the story of the Good Samaritan. “One man,” she began, “went from Jerusalem to Jericho…” Suddenly, she had an idea. “You all know this story, don’t you?” she asked the children. They nodded. “Then let’s pretend that it is happening, right now, to us. You, Peter, will be the man traveling along the road. And three of you can be the robbers then. Martha and Eliza, you can be the priest and the Levite, who pass the man by. And Jonathan can be the Good Samaritan who helps him.”
The children were excited. They took their places and started acting, but soon the game became a little messy and loud. Both Kit and Mercy acted quickly, but not quickly enough.
Two tall figures were standing in the kitchen doorway. The sudden use of the stick brought silence and order into the room. Kit and Mercy saw their two visitors: Mr. Kimberley, the schoolmaster, and the Reverend John Woodbridge.
“What is this?” asked Mr. Kimberley angrily. “We’ve come to inspect your school, Mistress Wood, and what do we see?”
Mercy tried to explain, but Kit was first. “It is my fault, sir. I was reading a story to them from the Bible, and I thought that it might be more interesting to act it, like a play, you know.”
“To act it? The Bible?” Reverend Woodbridge stared at Mercy. “What were you thinking, Mercy, allowing such a thing?”
“I didn’t realize what we were doing, sir,” she whispered.
“I am shocked and disappointed,” Mr. Kimberley said. “The school is dismissed. Go home, boys and girls. Do not come back tomorrow. We will let you know if the school will continue.”
“Oh, please, Mr. Kimberley,” begged Kit. “You can’t dismiss the school because of what I did. Dismiss me, if you like.”
“We will have to decide if Mercy is responsible enough to continue teaching the school,” Mr. Kimberley said coldly. “But you are dismissed, young lady.”
When the men had gone, two tears ran slowly down Mercy’s cheeks. To see her tears was more than Kit could bear. In a panic she ran out the door and down the road, past the Meeting House, past the houses where her pupils lived. She didn’t care where she was going.
Kit stopped only when she reached the Great Meadow. There, without thinking she walked into a field and fell in the grass, crying. When she had finally stopped crying, she lay for a long time too tired to move or think. Maybe she even slept a little, but now she opened her eyes and looked up at the blue sky. The sun was shining, and the grass moved slightly in the wind. Suddenly, Kit knew that she was not alone there, and that someone was very close. She got up. Only a few feet away a woman was sitting and watching her, a very old woman with short white hair, colorless eyes and a wrinkled face. As Kit looked at her, the old woman spoke in a quiet voice, “You did well, child, to come to the Meadow. There is always a cure here when the heart is troubled. I know because I’ve found it myself. That is why I live here.”
Kit didn’t move, but stared in horror. She understood that this was the strange woman from Blackbird Pond – Hannah Tupper, the witch! Kit noticed a scar on the woman’s forehead. Was it the devil’s mark?
“People wonder why I want to live here, so close to the swamp,” the woman continued. “But I think you know why. I can see it in your face. The Meadows have spoken to you, too.”