{"id":328,"date":"2008-09-26T06:46:51","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T10:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2008\/09\/26\/a-character-witness-at-the-salem-trials\/"},"modified":"2008-09-26T06:46:51","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T10:46:51","slug":"a-character-witness-at-the-salem-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"A Character Witness at the Salem Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my profession there is sometimes little warning, little time to prepare… or prepare adequately for a task at hand.\u00a0 I kept telling them that.\u00a0 Someone called out sick<\/em>?\u00a0 That’s not my fault.\u00a0 And yes, I’ll admit it takes me longer to study <\/em>a situation… and yes, yes… I’m not the best at thinking on my feet.\u00a0 <\/em>But hey, it was their call<\/em>, not mine. <\/p>\n

The date is clear.\u00a0 June 2, 1692.\u00a0 The Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem Town.\u00a0 William Stoughton the Lieutenant Governor served as Chief Magistrate.\u00a0 Thomas Newton was the Crown’s Attorney responsible for prosecuting the case against Bridget Bishop who stood accused of being a witch.\u00a0 The grand jury had heard the evidence in the morning, endorsed the indictment and the case was brought to trial in the afternoon.\u00a0 It is hard to see that justice was being served with the hastiness of the proceedings.\u00a0 That wasn’t my fault either.<\/p>\n

“Sirs, if it please, I am here to speak on behalf of Bridget Bishop against the claim that she is a witch.”<\/p>\n

“And your connection?”<\/p>\n

“She has been known to my family for years… and, er<\/em>… years.\u00a0 Yes, a very long time.\u00a0 She, well… she, uh… baked pies<\/em> for my family.\u00a0 Yes, that’s it.\u00a0 She’s an exceptional baker.\u00a0Oh, boy… that’s Bridget!\u00a0 Hah! Look at her over there in the dock!\u00a0 Quite a baker!\u00a0 When I was just a boy my mother would tell us, ‘I have a surprise… a Bridget Bishop pie for dessert!’\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 She made the best pies!\u00a0 My mother would never think of baking a pie.\u00a0 Never.\u00a0 Why when Bridget made the best.\u00a0 Do you like pies? One Christmas did she ever make the best pie.\u00a0 <\/em>Let’s see… yes, it was mincemeat pie… she made the best mincemeat pie.\u00a0 Did you ever have any?\u00a0 Gosh, the crust was magical.”<\/p>\n

“Magical?<\/em>“<\/p>\n

“Magical?\u00a0 Well… you know what I mean.\u00a0 *ahem*\u00a0 I mean, er… <\/em>{cough, cough} magical; but not in that sense.\u00a0 <\/em>If you know what I mean.\u00a0 Not in the biblical sense.\u00a0 <\/em>It was more like\u00a0 bippity-bobbidy-boo.\u00a0 <\/em>I didn’t mean that… *whew*\u00a0 What a pie!\u00a0 Anyway… uh, who are these\u00a0three little girls accusing Bridget of being a witch?!\u00a0 They probably didn’t do their chores!\u00a0 Or maybe they lost their mittens!\u00a0 Yes, that’s it!\u00a0 They lost their mittens!\u00a0 And their mothers said to them, ‘You lost your mittens,\u00a0you will get no pie!’\u00a0 Or something like that.\u00a0 Little bratty girls if you ask me.”<\/p>\n

“Let’s get back to the pie.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, the pie.\u00a0 You know anyone can make apple pie.\u00a0 I mean we have apples growing all over the place, right?\u00a0 Cortlands, Macintosh, Delicious, Empires… even Granny Smiths, right? I mean even your Honor <\/em>can make an apple pie.\u00a0 But mincemeat?\u00a0 Well, first you have to find mince trees, or maybe it’s mince bushes<\/em>… I forget.\u00a0 And then you have to peel the minces to get at the meat.\u00a0 Not easy, no siree!\u00a0 It takes talent!\u00a0 It’s a gift<\/em>!”<\/p>\n

“A gift you say?\u00a0 I gift from the devil<\/em> I say!!”<\/p>\n

“No, no… it’s not that <\/em>type of gift.\u00a0 Devil’s Food?\u00a0 Ha, ha.\u00a0 No, no… not that.\u00a0 My, my no.\u00a0 If anything it’s Angel’s Food Cake.\u00a0 <\/em>But that’s cake, and we’re talking about pie.\u00a0 But if Bridget made a cake, it would certainly be angel’s<\/em> food cake… yes it would. In all its white, slightly sticky splendor.\u00a0 I could use a piece of cake right about now!\u00a0 Sure could.\u00a0 I don’t suppose you like cake do you?\u00a0 No, sticky and all?\u00a0 Not like an righteous pie is it?\u00a0Cheese cake is not bad… it’s really more pie than cake {cough, cough}.\u00a0 You see if those girls had behaved like they were meant to, then their mothers would have given them some righteous<\/em> mincemeat pie.\u00a0 Instead\u00a0those beastly little girls\u00a0had to make up all this blarney<\/em> about Bridget Bishop being a witch… as if it was Bridget’s fault that they were denied the pie.\u00a0 Now how fair is that?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Never mind the children.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, I couldn’t agree more!\u00a0 The children never minded their parents!\u00a0 They didn’t do their chores.\u00a0 They lost their mittens.\u00a0 In fact they probably lost their entire family’s supply of mittens… and we all know how harsh are winters are here.\u00a0 Remember we’re still in the mini ice age.\u00a0 <\/em>It makes finding mince bushes all the more difficult.”<\/p>\n

“The children do not stand accused in this court.”<\/p>\n

“Well, maybe they should.\u00a0 And while we’re at it Master Prosecutor… what is that dark stuff above your lip?\u00a0 Some devil’s food cake I’d wager!”<\/p>\n

“It’s called a moustache!”<\/p>\n

“Sure… disguise it with a foreign sounding word.\u00a0 Speaking in tongues<\/em> are we?\u00a0 A sure sign of the devil if you ask me!\u00a0 Moustache?\u00a0 Call it what you will, Sir… it looks like devil’s food cake… and poorly<\/em> made devil’s food cake if you ask me… Master Prosecutor<\/em>!”<\/p>\n

“This is absurd!\u00a0 I’m not on trial here!”<\/p>\n

“And neither should Bridget Bishop!\u00a0 On what basis? On the word of three snotty nose girls with watery eyes?\u00a0 Bridget Bishop appeared before them as a spectral vision<\/em>?\u00a0 Nay I say!\u00a0 This vision<\/em> (if we can call it that) was probably a product of nothing more than an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese or a fragment of underdone potato.\u00a0 They wanted<\/em> it to be Bridget Bishop… because they wanted a wedge of delicious pie… and, and it was denied to them!\u00a0 Denied not<\/em> without cause… but because they lost their family’s heirloom mittens!\u00a0 Aye, there is the crime!\u00a0 There is no crime in making great pies!\u00a0 It’s a calling<\/em>!”<\/p>\n

“A calling?\u00a0 How do you mean?”<\/p>\n

“A calling?\u00a0 Well, er {cough, cough} not like you<\/em> think I mean. No, no a different<\/em> type of calling. Like, uh… like when you go to someone’s house a-calling<\/em>.\u00a0 You know, *ahem*, like they have a prized pig or something and you go a-calling<\/em> to see the pig and you bring them a tasty pie.\u00a0 It’s like saying, thank you in advance for giving me a rasher of bacon when you kill your pig!<\/em>\u00a0 See?”<\/p>\n

“Do you have anything to add?”<\/p>\n

“I certainly do!\u00a0 It will be a mockery, nay tragedy if this court finds Bridget Bishop guilty of practicing witchcraft!\u00a0 She practices nothing of the sort.\u00a0 She bakes pies like an angel<\/em>.\u00a0 Practice?\u00a0 Maybe darning<\/em>!\u00a0 She darns socks.\u00a0 She darns sweaters.\u00a0 She may even darn an afghan or two!\u00a0 But she didn’t darn<\/em> those kids!\u00a0 And it would be a pity for this town to lose a… a, uh… pie maker.\u00a0 And that’s all I have to say!”<\/p>\n

That’s the way it went.\u00a0 It’s real.\u00a0 You can check the trial transcripts… word for word.\u00a0 I answered the call… did the best I could, given the hurried nature of the proceedings.\u00a0 Those people’s minds were made up.\u00a0 You could see that… anyone<\/em> could see that!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bridget Bishop went to the hangman’s noose the next day on June 3, 1692.\u00a0 A bunch of kooks<\/em> if you ask me.\u00a0 Almost as bad as those arrogant French Officers who accused Alfred Dreyfus of treason.\u00a0 They should have known better; but their minds were made up, too.\u00a0 I wasn’t particularly successful\u00a0then either.\u00a0 But… a different time, a different trial… and a different story for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my profession there is sometimes little warning, little time to prepare… or prepare adequately for a task at hand.\u00a0 I kept telling them that.\u00a0 Someone called out sick?\u00a0 That’s not my fault.\u00a0 And yes, I’ll admit it takes me … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-brief-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}