ldon, each aged eighteen; and Mary
Warren and Sarah Churchill, each aged twenty. These, however, though the
leaders in a way, did not long retain the supremacy; for it was found
that Ann Putnam, aged twelve, and Mercy Lewis, aged seventeen, were
preeminent for mischief and ingenuity. Another leader in the mischief
was Mrs. Ann Putnam, about thirty years of age and probably of unsound
mind, though she was apparently not suspected of anything beyond
vindictiveness and eccentricity. She was a beautiful and well-educated
woman, admirably fitted for the part she was destined to play in the
coming orgy of murder.

The antics of these girls, not improbably first carried out in a spirit
of sport, were begun at the parsonage about Christmas, 1691; but after a
time they were challenged for their actions, when they declared that
they could not help themselves, being bewitched. Instead of disregarding
their folly or attributing it to childish mischief and putting a stop to
it by the strong hand, Mr. Parris published the matter to the world. The
children now found themselves of a sudden objects of the most widespread
scrutiny; they also found themselves, it is not absurd to suppose, in a
position where they deemed themselves in peril if they were discovered
to be impostors. They were soon acknowledged as truly suffering from
witchcraft; and then began the inquisition as to the guilty parties.
Tituba, the Indian hag, who had probably taught them the tricks which
they now put into effect against her, was the first named by them as one
of their tormentors; and then followed the names of Sarah Good and Sarah
Osburn, two old women with few friends. Tituba confessed,--it is at
least possible, because of the craze for notoriety often to be found in
such people,--but the two white women denied their guilt, and all were
sent to Boston for trial. The matter might now well have been allowed to
die out; but the girls had tasted power and were anxious for more.

Tituba, in her confession, had implicated the two women, Good and
Osburn, and "two others whose faces she could not see"; and the girls
were importuned to name these other "tormentors." At first they
refused,--probably because they had not held council to decide on the
two to be named,--but at last they indicated two of the most estimable
women in the community, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, aged
respectively sixty and (about) seventy years. The village was
thunderstruck, for these wo