Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry Page A

his throat or lungs.
    Betsey and Abigail were bored and restless. Tituba, watching them and listening to them, understood exactly how they felt. She felt the same way. The days were so short that it seemed as though night set in soon after they had their noonday meal. She cooked and spun and wove and cleaned. The money cat stayed so close to the fire, his paws tucked under his chest, that she thought he’d singe his multicolored fur. The master shut himself up in his study, working on his sermons and his prayers.
    It was so cold in the master’s study that his ink froze in his inkstand. She could hear him stamp his feet and thought she could hear him rub his hands together—a dry sound that she disliked.
    On the second of January the weather turned warmer. The snow began to melt—first it softened and then it actually melted. In the afternoon, the master said, “I shall take the mare and go visit the sick.”
    Tituba sat by the fire, spinning flax into linen thread.
    Abigail said, “Tituba, now that Uncle Parris has gone out, tell us about Barbados,” a note of command in her voice.
    “No, miss. Not now. You put more wood on the mistress’ fire upstairs. And Betsey, you carry some of the hot herb tea up to her.”
    “When we come downstairs, then will you tell us about Barbados?”
    “We’ll see—”
    Abigail returned to the room first; she moved quickly with a self-assurance that suggested she was older than she was. Betsey followed close behind her. Tituba made no effort to conceal that thin, frail, awkward Betsey was her favorite. She gave her the lightest tasks, quite often held her in her arms and crooned to her as though she were a baby. Sometimes Betsey seemed to be dreaming, sitting with eyes half-closed. She forgot to answer if asked a question. She stayed quite close to Tituba, leaning against her if they sat on the settle, cuddling up to her as if for warmth and love.
    “Now?” they said. “Now? Will you tell us about Barbados now?”
    She nodded and stopped spinning. They all sat down at the trestle table and rested their arms on the table.
    She started talking about the island rather slowly. Then she got up and walked up and down, talking faster and faster, gesturing as she talked, thinking that if she talked fast enough she could dispel this cold winter afternoon. She hoped to make it disappear—all of it: the gray, heavy sky, the white snow, gray-black trunks of trees, and the forest that surrounded them, ominous, endless—broken here and there by frozen coves and ponds and brooks—ice everywhere. So cold outside that if you took a sudden deep breath of the cold air it seemed to reach inside your lungs and all the moisture in your lungs turned to ice—even your eyeballs frozen, the tips of your fingers, your toes without any feeling, numbed by the cold.
    She did not tell them that almost every night she dreamed her soul was in Barbados, that it went back there to be warmed by the sun and cooled by the trade wind. She did not tell them that when she awakened in the morning, she lay still without moving long enough to allow her soul to re-enter her body. She had discovered that if she was slightly chilly her dreams of Barbados would be more vivid. But the memory of these dreams lingered, and so she was able to make the girls see the island again. Their eyes followed her as she walked up and down.
    Betsey said, “The island is yellow-white in the sun.”
    Abigail said, “It blazes in the sun; it is so yellow and the sunlight is so strong.”
    “The water is warm,” Betsey said, “And I am swimming in it. In a little pool of blue water all my own. I haven’t any clothes on. Nobody can see me.”
    “I smell the sugar cane. They are cooking the cane,” Abigail said. She had her head thrown back, and her eyes were closed. She sniffed as though she really smelt something.
    Tituba said, “There is the sweetish smell of rum and the bitter sharp smell of coffee. And the trade wind is blowing