Every Minute Seemed a Day Till He Came in, as Usual, to Breakfast!

People do not understand how their destructive moods, thoughts, and emotions affect the cerebro-spinal system and through that eventually the intestinal organs to the degree of creating poisons within those organs. It is not enough to take care of the diet and to eliminate foods which are harmful to physical health. It is equally necessary to take care of thoughts and feelings, and to eliminate all those which are harmful both to spiritual and physical health. Little girls still play at diving their future husband’s occupation using a variety of methods including the old rhyme, “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.” It is quite innocent in the twenty first century, but it was anything but innocent for the two seventeenth century girls who believed that they had conjured up a specter in the shape of a coffin. It was no wonder that they began to display hysterical symptoms, and that one of them was followed with diabolical molestations to her death. John Hale does not name the children, but the one who was cured was most probably Elizabeth Parris, the minister’s nine-year-old daughter. She disappeared from Salem Village late in March, when her father sent her to the household of Stephen Sewall in Salem Town, possibly because fits were known to be communicable and he wanted her removed from contact with those who were still having them. The other girl was probably Parris’ eleven-year-old niece, Abigail William, although we have no way of being sure; there is very little information about the later lives of the afflicted girls. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Tradition has it that they were assisted in their occult experiments by Tituba, a girl who was enslaved by Samuel Parris. Mr. Parris had brought Tituba to New England from Barbados, where he had been a merchant before becoming a clergyman. Tituba, like her husband John, was a Carib Indian, and it was suspected that she was the one who introduced the girls to using the egg and glass as a method of divining, which is similar to crystal gazing, as the white of an egg is poured into a glass being substituted for the fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Certainly she would often have been charged with the care of the children, and certainly she was soon involved in another occult experience. In any case, the two girls were very sick. So were several of their friends who has also, presumably, been experimenting with the occult. Chief among these were Ann Putnam, Jr. (twelve years old), May Warren (twenty), Mercy Lewis (nineteen), Mary Walcott (sixteen), and Elizabeth Hubbard (seventeen). Mr. Parris took them to various doctors, but they grew steadily worse. When Doctor Griggs made his diagnosis of witchcraft Mr. Parris apparently did not at first accept it; he simply continued the prayer and fasting which he hoped would cure the girls. If the minister was not anxious to believe the children were bewitched, the neighbours were. They began to ask the girls who was afflicting them, but at first they were unable to answer. It was then that Mary Sibley, the aunt of Mary Walcott, turned to white magic to break the witches’ spell. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

On February 25, 1692 she went to the minister’s Indians that he had enslaved, John and Tituba, and had them prepare a witch cake from a traditional English recipe, meal mixed with the children’s urine. It was baked in the fire and then fed to the Parris dog, presumably on the theory that the animal was a familiar—a messenger assigned to a witch by the Devil. The minister was appalled when he discovered, a month later, what had been done. Mary Sibley’s witch cake was, as Mr. Parris put it, “a going to the Devil for help against the Devil.” He lectured her privately about it and before the entire congregation called her to deep humiliation for what she had done. She acknowledged her sinfulness in tears, but I was far too late. The witch cake had been baked, and by it, as Mr. Parris said, “the Devil hath been raised among us, and his rage is vehement and terrible; and, when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows.” Because the witch cake worked—another instance of the efficacy of magic in a society which believes in it. Now the girls were able to name their afflicters: Tituba herself, and Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn—two old women of dubious reputation. When these names were known four yeomen of Salem Village in the County of Essex—Joseph Hutchinson, Thomas Putnam, Edward Putnam, and Thomas Preston—appeared before their magistrates and swore out warrants for suspicion of witchcraft. The warrants were issued on February 29, 1692 and on March 1, 1692 the three accused women were examined by two Salem magistrates who were to conduct the majority of the preliminary examinations: John Hathorne (whose great-great-grandson Nathaniel added a “w” to the family name) and Jonathan Corwin. The accused women did not make a very good showing. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

Sarah Good behaved with all the malic and deceit one could expect of a witch. When she was asked who it was afflicted the children if he did not, she was quite willing to accuse her fellow-prisoner Sarah Osburn. Her husband, William testified “he was afraid that she either was a witch or would be one very quickly.” When Mr. Hathorne asked if he had any concrete evidence of her practicing witchcraft he replied that he had not; he thought her a witch for “her bad carriage to him.” “Indeed,” said he, “I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all good.” Besides this unintentional pun he offered the information that he had seen a “strange tit or wart” on his wife’s body, the implication being that this was a so-called “witch’s tit” at which the Devil and his familiars sucked the blood of the witch. Her four-year-old daughter Dorcas also testified against her, announcing that her mother had familiars: “three birds, one black, one yellow, and that these birds hurt the children and afflicted persons.” John Hathorne asked most of the questions and established the judicial attitude that was to prevail throughout most of the examinations and the trials. Rather than adopting the stance of impartial investigator, as Willard had done at Groton in 1671, and Cotton Mather at Boston in 1688, he acted more like a prosecuting attorney than a magistrate, assuming the guilt of the person under examination and trying to force a confession with bullying questions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

“Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?”

“None.”

“Why do you hurt these children?”

“I do not hurt them. I scorn it.”

“Who do you employ, then, to do it?”

“I employ nobody.”

“What creature do you employ then?”

“No create, but I am falsely accused.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

To cover up an unhealthy condition is not to cure it. And so long as a human is immersed in an entirely separative and selfish outlook, so long as one habitually fears, worries, holds grudges, or hates, so long must one be regarded as “sick” and “unwell.” We laugh at what we call he folly of our ancestors, and their notions of destiny, and he malignant influences of the stars. For what will our children deride us? Perhaps for dreaming that friendship was a reality, and that constant love dwelt upon the Earth. There is no credulity more blind, no ignorance more childish, than that of the sage who tries to measure Heaven and Earth and the things under the Earth, with the small two-foot-rule of one’s own brains. Dare we presume to argue concerning any mystery of the Universe, it is inexplicable, and therefore impossible? What I must confess is to me a thorough ghost story; its external and circumstantial evidence being indisputable, while its psychological causes and results, though not easy of explanation, are still more difficult to be explained anyway. The ghost, like Hamlet’s was an honest ghost. For her daughter—an old lady, who bless her good and gentle memory! has since learned the secret of all things—I learnt this veritable tale. ‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Winchester to me—it was in the early days of table-moving, when young folk ridiculed and elder folk were shocked at the notion of calling up one’s departed ancestor into one’ dinner table, and learning the wonders of the angelic World by bobbings of a hat or the twirling of a plate;–‘My dear,’ continued the Mistress, ‘I do not like playing at ghosts.’ #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

She looked serious, as if she hardly liked to speak about ghosts, either from a sense of awe or from fear of ridicule. However, no one could have laughed at any illusions of the gentle lady, who never uttered a harsh or satirical word to a living soul; and this evident awe was rather remarkable in one who had a large stock of common sense, little wonder and no ideality. I was rather curious to hear Mrs. Winchester’s ghost story. ‘My dear, it was long time ago, so long that you may fancy I forget and confuse the circumstances. However, I do not. Sometimes I think one recollects more clearly things that happened in one’s teens—I was eighteen that year—than a great many nearer events. And besides, I had other reasons for remembering vividly everything belonging to this time—for I was in love, you must know.’ She looked at me with a mild depreciating smile, as if hoping my youthfulness would not consider the thing so very impossible or ridiculous. No; I was all interest at once. ‘In love with Mr. Winchester,’ I said, scarcely as a question, being at that Arcadian time of life when one takes a natural necessity, and believes as an undoubted truth, that everybody marries one’s first love. ‘Yes, my dear; Mr. Winchester. He was a young gentleman of good parts; and he was very found of me. Proud, too, rather. For though you might not think it, my dear, I was actually a beauty in those days.’ I had very little doubt of it. The slight lithe figure, the tiny hands and feet—if you had walked behind Mrs. Winchester you might have taken her for a young woman still. Certainly, people lived slower and easier in the last generation than it ours. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

‘Yes, I was the beauty of Bath. Mr. Winchester fell in love with me there. I was much gratified; for I had just been reding Miss Burney’s Cecilia, and I thought him exactly like Mortimer Delvil. A very pretty tale, Cecilia; did you read it?’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Was it his ghost you saw?’ ‘No, my dear, no; thank goodness, he was still alive. He used to call me and was a good friend of the family. Ah!’ with a slow shake of the head, half pleased, half pensive, ‘you would hardly believe, my dear, what a very pretty fellow he was.’ I could scarcely smile thinking about these last century novels and the loves of our great-grandmothers. I listened patiently to the wandering reminiscences which still further delayed the ghost-story. ‘We had been staying in New Haven, Connecticut; my father Leonard Pardee was a carriage manufacture, and he was married to my mother Sarah Burns. We were staying at the Kneeland Townsend house, I was passionately fond of Gothic architecture, and had often admired this window, but I had thought had never seen it look do beautiful before. The mansion’s history dated back to the founding of the New Haven Colony in the 1630s. It was the Townsend mansion, my dear, that I remember we took of last walk on East Shore—my mother, Mr. William Winchester, and I—before she went back home our home at 186 Sherman Avenue. She was very restless to go, being too delicate for the Townsend gaieties. Besides, she had a large family a home, of which I was the second youngest. My dear mother had gone about with me, taken me to all the shows and sighs that I, a hearty and happy girl, longed to see, and entered into them with almost as great enjoyment as my own. But tonight she was pale, rather grave, and steadfastly bent on retuning home. We did all we could to persuade her to the contrary, for on the next night but one was to have been the crowing treat of all our New Haven pleasures: we were to see Halmet at the Bethel Opera House, with Edward O’ Connor Terry and Adelaide Neilson! Think of that, my dear. Ah! you have no such sights now. Even my grave father longed to go, and urged in his mild way that we should put off our departure. But my mother was determined. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

‘It had never crossed my mind to wish to part from her, or to enjoy any pleasure without her. Though my lips said nothing, perhaps my sad eyes said only too much, and my mother felt it. She walked with us a few yards, slowly and thoughtfully. I could see her now, with her pale face, tired face, under the cherry-coloured ribbons of her hood. She had been very handsome as a young woman, and was most sweet-looking still—my dear, good mother!

‘Mr. Winchester overwhelmed my mother with his delight and gratitude. She walked up and down for some time longer, leaning on his arm—she was very fond of him; then stood looking on the beach, upwards and downwards.

‘“I suppose this is my last walk in New Haven. Thank you for all the care you have taken of me. And when I am gone home—mind, mind, William, that you take special care of Sarah.’’

‘These words, and the tone in which they were spoken, fixed themselves on my mind—first, from gratitude, not unmingled with regret, as if I had not been so considerate to her as she to me afterwards—But we often err, my dear, in dwelling too much on a word. We finite creatures have only to deal with ‘’now’’—nothing whatever to do with ‘’afterwards.’’ In this case, I have ceased to blame myself or others. Whatever was, being past, was right to be, and could not have been otherwise. My mother went home next morning, alone. We were to follow in a few days, though she would not allow us to fix any time. Her departure was so hurried that I remember nothing about it, save her answer to my father’ urgent desire—almost command—that if anything was amiss, she would instantly let him know. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

‘We went to the play. Ah, you know nothing of what a play is, now-a-days. You never saw Lilian Adelaide Neilson and Edward O’Connor Terry. Though in dresses and shows it was far inferior to the Hamlet you took me to see last week, my dear—and though I perfectly well remember being on the point of laughing when in the most solemn scene, it became clearly evident that the Ghost has been drinking. Strangely enough, no after events connected therewith—nothing subsequent ever drove from my mind the vivid impression of this first play. Strange, also, that the play should have been Hamlet. Do you think that Shakespeare believed in—in what people call “ghost”?’

I could not say; but I thought Mrs. Winchester’s ghost a very long in coming. She was visibly affected, and it was not without an effort that she proceeded in her story.

‘I wish you to understand exactly my position that night—a young girl, her head full of enchantment of the stage—her heart of something not less engrossing. Mr. Winchester had supped with us, leaving us both in the best of spirits; indeed my father had gone to bed, laughing heartily at the remembrance of he antics of Mr. Grimaldi, which has almost obliterated the Queen of Hamlet from his memory, on which he ridiculous always took a far stronger hold than the awful or sublime. I was setting—let me see—at the window, chatting with my maid, Stella, who was brushing the powder out of my hair. The window was open half-way, and looking out on East Shore; and the summer night being very warm and starry, made it almost like sitting out of doors. There was none of the awe given by the solitude of a midnight closed room, when every sound is magnified, and every shadow seems alive. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

‘As I said, we had been chatting and laughing; for Stella and I were both very young, and she had a sweetheart, too. She, like every one of our household, was a warm admirer of Mr. Winchester. I had just been half scolding, half smiling at her praises of him, when St. Paul’s great clock came booming over the silent ocean.

‘“Eleven,’’ counted Stella. “Terrible late we be, Mistress Sarah: not like Bath hours, I reckon.”

‘“My mother will have been in bed an hour ago,” said I, with a little self-reproach at not having thought of her till now. The next minute my maid and I both started up with a simultaneous exclamation.

‘“Did you hear that?”

‘“Yes, a bat flying against the window.”

‘“But the lattices are open, Mistress Sarah.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

‘So they were; and there was no bird or bat or living thing about—only the quiet summer night, the beach nearby and the stars.” “I be certain sure I heard it. And I think it was like—just a bit like—somebody tapping.”

‘“Nonsense, Stella!” But it had struck me thus—though I said it was a bat. It was exactly like the sound of fingers against a pane—very soft, gentle fingers, such as, in passing her flower-garden, my mother used often to tap outside the school-room casement at home. “I wonder, did father hear anything. It—the bird, you know, Stella—might have flown at his window, too?”

‘“Oh, Mistress Sarah!” Stella would not be deceived. I gave her the brush to finish my hair, but her hand shook too much. I shut the window, and we both sat down facing it. At that minute, distinct, clear, and unmistakable, like a person giving a summons in passing by, we heard once more the tapping on the pane. But nothing was seen; not a single shadow came between us and the open air, the bright starlight. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

‘Startled I was, and awed, but I was not frightened. The sound gave me even an inexplicable delight. But I had hardly time to recognize feelings, still less to analyse them, when a loud cry came from my father’s room.

“Sarah,–Sarah!”

‘Now my mother and I had both one name. I ran to his locked door, and answered.

‘It was a long time before he took any notice, though I head him talking to himself, and moaning. He was subject to bad dreams. So my first alarm lightened. I stood listening, knocking at intervals, until at last he replied.

‘“What do’ee want, child?’’

‘“Is anything the matter, father?’’

‘“Nothing. Go to bed, Sarah.”

‘“Did you not call? Do you want any one?’’

‘“Not thee. O Sarah, my poor Sarah,’—and he seemed to be almost sobbing, ‘Why did I let thee leave me!” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

“‘Father, you are not going to be ill? It is not anxiety, is it?’ (for that was the time when he wanted my mother most, and indeed, when he was wholly unmanageable by any one but her.)

‘“Go away. Get to thy bed, girl; I don’t want ‘ee.’

‘I thought he was angry with me for having been in some sort the cause of our delay, and retired very miserable. Stella and I sat up a good while longer, discussing the dreary prospect of my father’s having a fit of the anxiety here at the Townsend estate lodgings, with only us to nurse him, and my mother away. Our alarm was so great that we quite forgot the curious circumstances which had first attracted us, till Stella spoke up, form her bed room.

‘“I hope master beant going to be very ill, and that—you know—came for a warning. Do’ ee think it was a bird, Mistress Sarah?’”

‘”Very likely. Now, Stella, let us go to sleep.”

‘But I did not, for all night I heard my father groaning at intervals. I was certain it was the anxiety, and wished from the bottom of my heart that we had done home with mother. What was my surprise when, quite early, I heard him rise and go down, just as if nothing was ailing him! I found him sitting at the breakfast-table in his travelling coat, looking very distraught and miserable, but evidently bent on a journey. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

‘“Father, you are not going to the manor at Sherman Avenue?”

‘“Yes, I be.”

‘ “Not till the evening coach starts,” I cried, alarmed. “We can’t, you know?”

‘“I’ll take a post-chaise, then. We must be off in an hour.”

‘An hour! The cruel pain of parting—(my dear, I believe I used to feel things keenly when I was young)—shot through me—through and through. A single hour, and I should have said goodbye to William—one of those heart-breaking farewells when we seem to leave half of our poor young life behind us, forgetting that the only real parting is when there is no love left to part from. A few years, and I wondered how I could have crept away and wept in such intolerable agony at the mere bidding goodbye to William—William, who loved me. Every minute seemed a day till he came in, as usual, to breakfast. My red eyes and my father’s headaches explained all.

‘“Doctor Hooker, you are not going?”

‘ “Yes, I be,” repeated my father. He sat moodily leaning on the table—would not taste his breakfast. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

‘“Not till the night coach, surely? I was to take you and Mistress Sarah to see Mr. Gilbert Stuart, the Legislature’s commissioned painter.”

‘“Let the Legislature and painters alone lad; I be going home to my Sarah.”

‘Mr. Winchester used many arguments, gay and grave, upon which hung with earnest conviction and hope. He made things so clear always; he was a man of bright parts, and had great influence over my father.

‘“Sarah,” he whispered, “help me to persuade the Doctor. It is so little time I beg for, only a few hours; and before so long a parting.”

Ay, longer than he thought, or I.

‘“Children,” cried my father at last, “you are a couple of love birds. Wait till you have been married twenty years. I must go to my Sarah. I know there is something amiss at home.”

#RandolphHarris 15 of 21

May be an image of 1 person, furniture and indoor

‘I should have felt alarmed, but I saw Mr. Winchester’s smile; and besides, I was yet glowing under his fond look, as my father spoke of our being “married twenty years.”

‘“Father, you have surely no reason for thinking this? If you have, tell us.”

‘My father just lifted his head, and looked me woefully in the face.

‘“Sarah, last night, as sure as I see you now, I saw your mother.”

‘“Is that all?” cried Mr. Winchester laughing; “why, my good sir, of course you did; you were dreaming.”

‘ “I had not gone to sleep.”

‘“How did you see her?”

‘“Coming into the room just as she used to do in the bedroom at home with the candle in her hand and the baby asleep on her arm.”

#RandolphHarris 16 of 21

‘“Did she speak?” asked Mr. Winchester, with another and rather youthful smile; “remember, you saw Hamlet last night. Indeed, sir—indeed, Sarah—it was a mere dream. I do not believe in ghosts; it is not possible, it is against human wisdom—nay, even Divinity itself.”

‘William spoke so earnestly, so justly, so affectionately, that perforce I agreed; and even my father became to feel rather uncertain. He, a businessman, the head of a family, to yield o a mere superstitious fancy, springing probably from a hot supper and an over excited brain! To the same cause Mr. Winchester attributed the other incident, which somewhat hesitatingly I told him.

‘“Dear, it was a bird; nothing but a bird. One flew in at my window last spring; it had hurt itself, and I kept it, and nursed it, and petted it. It was such a pretty, gentle little thing, it put me in mind of Sarah.”

‘“Did it?” said I.

‘“And at last it got well and flew away.”

‘“Ah! that was not like Sarah.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

‘Thus, my father being persuaded, it was not hard to persuade me. We settled to remain till evening. William and I, with my maid Stella, went about together, chiefly in Mr. Kneeland Townsend’s Gallery, and in the quiet shade of our favourite East Shore location. And if for those four stolen hours, and the sweetness in them, I afterwards suffered untold remorse and bitterness, I have entirely forgiven myself, as I know my dear mother would have forgiven me, long ago.’

Mrs. Winchester stopped, wiped her eyes, and then continued—speaking more in the matter-of-fact way that seniors speak than she had been lately doing.

‘Well, my dear, where was I?’

‘On the harbourside East Shore Park.’

‘Yes, yes. Well, we came home to dinner. My father always enjoyed his dinner, and his nap afterwards; he had nearly recovered himself now: only looked tired from loss of rest. William and I sat in the window, watching the barges and wherries down the harbour; steamers were still new technology then, you know. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

‘Some one knocked at the door with a message for my father, but he slept so heavily he did not hear. Mr. Winchester went to see what it was; I stood at the window. I remember mechanically watching the red sail of a Margate hoy that was going down the river, and thinking with a sharp pang how dark the room seemed, in a moment, with William not there.

‘Re-entering, after a somewhat long absence, he never looked at me, but went straight to my father.

‘“Sir, it is almost time for you to start” (oh! William). “There is a coach at the door; and, pardon me, but I think you should travel quickly.”

‘My father sprang to his feet.

‘“Dear sir, indeed there is no need for anxiety now; but I have received news. You have to get home, sir!”

‘“Sarah, my Sarah!” Without another word my father rushed away without his hat, leaped into the post-chaise that was waiting, and drove off.

#RandolphHarris 19 of 21

‘“William!” I gasped.

‘“My poor little girl—my own Sarah!”

‘By the tenderness of his embrace, not lover-like, but brother-like—by his tears, for I could feel them on my neck—I knew, as well as if he had told me, that I should never see my dear mother any more.’

‘She had died at home in bed,’ counited the Mistress after a long pause—‘died at night, at the very hour and minute when I had heard the tapping on the window-pane, and my father had thought he saw her coming into his room with a baby on her arm, perhaps to remind them of when they were young and in love and had their first child. A parting memory for him to hold in his imagination until they were reunited in Heaven.’

‘What a strange story!’

‘I do not ask you to believe in it. How and why and what it was I cannot tell; perhaps it was foreshadowing my life. I only know it assuredly was so.’ #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

‘And Mr. Winchester?’ I enquired, after some hesitation.

The Mistress shook her head. ‘Ah, my dear, you will soon learn how very, very seldom one marries one’s first love, but I did. However, something unspeakable happened to the love of my life and my baby girl. My family was cursed. Don’t’ blame him; it was not his fault. Don’t blame him—my dear—don’t blame him. It was as well perhaps, as things turned out.’ I am going to plant a heart in the Earth, water it with love from a vein. I am going to praise it with the push of muscle and care for it in the sound of all dimensions. I am going to leave a heart in the Earth so it may grow and flower, a heart that throbs with longing that adores everything green, that will be strength and nourishment for birds, that will be the sap of plants and mountains. We will revere Thee and sanctify Thee in the mystic utterance of the holy seraphim who hallow Thy name in the sanctuary described in the vision of Thy prophet: And the seraphim called unto one another saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Sarah Winchester is a very mysterious lady, and perhaps her haunting started in New Haven, at the time she met William Winchester. It is also possible that the Townsend Estate in New Haven was the inspiration for her glorious mansion, or maybe it was the mansion on Sherman avenue, or may both? But no one will ever know for sure. All we know is the occult dazzles so many. The Winchester Mansion has gone through many changes throughout the centuries.

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