his solemn
assertion, made several years afterwards, that he was ignorant of them.
And yet, how could such things have been without the knowledge either of
himself or his wife? Mistress Parris has come down to us with the
reputation of a kindly and discreet woman--nothing having been said to
her discredit, so far as I am aware, even by those who had a bitter
controversy with her husband. And yet she certainly must have known of
the doings of the famous "circle," even if she refrained from speaking
of them to her husband.

At the very bottom of the whole thing, perhaps, were the West Indian
slaves--"John Indias" and his wife Tituba, whom Master Parris had
brought with him from Barbados. There were two children in the house, a
little daughter of nine, named Elizabeth; and Abigail Williams, three
years older. These very probably, Tituba often had sought to impress, as
is the manner of negro servants, with tales of witchcraft, the
"evil-eye" and "evil hand" spirits, powwowing, etc. Ann Putnam, another
precocious child of twelve, the daughter of a near neighbor, Sergeant
Putnam, the parish clerk, also was soon drawn into the knowledge of the
savage mysteries. And, before very long, a regular "circle" of these and
older girls was formed for the purpose of amusing and startling
themselves with the investigation and performance of forbidden things.

At the present day this would not be so reprehensible. We are
comparatively an unbelieving generation; and what are called "spiritual
circles" are common, though not always unattended with mischievous
results. But at that time when it was considered a deadly sin to seek
intercourse with those who claimed to have "a familiar spirit," that
such practices should be allowed to go on for a whole winter, in the
house of a Puritan minister, seems unaccountable. But the fact itself is
undoubted, and the consequences are written in mingled tears and blood
upon the saddest pages of the history of New England.

Among the members of this "circle" were Mary Walcott, aged seventeen,
the daughter of Captain Walcott; Elizabeth Hubbard and Mercy Lewis, also
seventeen; Elizabeth Booth and Susannah Sheldon, aged eighteen; and Mary
Warren, Sarah Churchhill and Leah Herrick, aged twenty; these latter
being the oldest of the party. They were all the daughters of
respectable and even leading men, with the exception of Mercy Lewis,
Mary Warren, Leah Herrick and Sarah Churchhill, who were living out as