and peasââ
âI myself once saw a trick performed with a pea.â
Mr. Mather gives him another withering look. âAnd sieves and keys, thereâs no end of household implements that can be used.â
âBut these are only childrenâs games. Little Joseph plays with his farm toys for hours at a time. For him they are real. But no one else takes them seriously.â
âTo play at farms is to be a farmer in miniature. The order of things is left intact.
These
children were trying to subvert that order.â
âBut only in a childish way.â
âThe Devil is always waiting to come into our world. And what he wishes for most is a soft entrance.â
That word, Devil, gives Sewall a twinge of fear. He thinks of his own Betty. She too becomes prostrate when her imagination is fevered. She whispers in her dark cupboard of hell and damnation. She cries and rails and sobs. How readily could some outsider add up those clues and decide she is possessed? How terrible, to think of his little girlâs soul as the Devilâs soft entrance! âI find it hard to believe that the Devil can possess the soul of a child,â he says.
Just at this moment little Joseph enters the room, carrying his hornbook.
âFatherââ
âJoseph, you know you should knock before entering my study.â The boy ponders this for a moment then meekly trots back to the open door and knocks on its far side. âCome in, Joseph.â
He trots back. âFatherââ
âJoseph, I have a visitor, as you can see. Say good morning to Mr. Mather.â
âGood morning, Mr. Mather.â
Mr. Mather, hands clasped behind his back, gravely inclines both head and wig.
âFather,â says Joseph once more, with an infantâs patience (and persistence). He holds his little book up towards Sewall, who takes it.
âWhat is it you want me to see?â
âIâve written my name.â
Sewall bought the boy this primer from Michael Perryâs bookshop, near the Town House. Just last week he started attending dame school. It gave Sewall and Hannah a pang to see their little fellow, not yet four years old, with his hair brushed, his little frock crisp and clean, clutching his hornbook in one hand and his older sister Hannahâs hand with the other as she took him off for his first morning at Mrs. Townsendâs house. Both children exhibited a sort of diminutive self-importance, Joseph because of his first foray into the outside world, Hannah because of the responsibility of escorting her little brother.
On the flyleaf Mrs. Townsend has printed out JOSEPH, HIS BOOK, and underneath the child has attempted to copy what she has written. He has only managed two letters, as a matter of fact. The first is J, which is leaning strangely, like a tipsy reveller resting against a wall (Sewall saw enough of these during the time he acted as a constable), and the other is a snakelike S. In fact the letter S is pictured as a snake in the hornbookâs alphabet, which suggests Joseph has conned his lesson.
âThat is fine work, Joseph. See, Mr. Mather, the excellent J and S.â
âVery good indeed,â says Mr. Mather, passing the book back to Joseph. âYou are a forward towardly scholar and I hope, young man, that this is the first small vanguard of a host and multitude of letters that will sweep down from the high placesââ he raises an arm as if to point to a force of alphabetic Canaanites (or possibly Indians) gathered on the slopes, then lowers it in a grand sweeping motionâ âand crowd your page.â Joseph has looked up in bafflement, then down at his book as if hoping to spot a host and multitude already in occupation. Meanwhile Mr. Mather takes a penny from his pocket and gives it to him.
âThank you, Mr. Mather,â prompts Sewall.
âThank you, Mr. Mather,â chants Joseph, and scurries away.
Cotton Mather has had
Elise Marion
Shirley Walker
Black Inc.
Connie Brockway
Al Sharpton
C. Alexander London
Liesel Schwarz
John B. Garvey, Mary Lou Widmer
Abhilash Gaur