Giles Corey, Yeoman | Page 4

home with you
through the wood.
Ann. I must be going.
Paul (hesitatingly). Then let me go with you, Mistress Ann! I can well
do my errand here later.
Ann. Nay, I can wait whilst you do the errand, if you are speedy. I fear
lest the delay would make you ill at ease.
Martha (quickly). There is no need, Paul. I will go with Ann. I want to
borrow a hood pattern of Goodwife Nourse on the way.
Paul. But will you not be afraid, goodwife?
Martha. Afraid, and the moon at a good half, and only a short way to
go?

Paul. But you have to go through the wood.
Martha. The wood! A stretch as long as this room--six ash-trees, one
butternut, and a birch sapling thrown in for a witch spectre. Say no
more, Paul. Sit you down and keep Olive company. I will go, if only
for the sake of showing these silly little hussies that there is no call for
a gospel woman with prayer in her heart to be afraid of anything but the
wrath of God. [_Puts a blanket over her head._
Ann. I want no company at all, Goodwife Corey.
Phoebe. Aunt Corey, let me go, too; my stint is done.
Martha. Nay, you must to bed, and Nancy too. Off with ye, and no
words.
Nancy. I'm none so old that I must needs be sent to bed like a babe, I'd
have you know that, Goody Corey. [_Sets away apple pan; exit, with
Phoebe following sulkily._
Martha. Come, Ann.
Ann. I want no company. I have more fear with company than I have
alone.
Martha. Along with you, child.
Olive. Oh, Ann, you are forgetting your cape. Here, mother, you carry
it for her. Good-night, sweetheart.
Ann. I want no company, Goodwife Corey. [Martha _takes her
laughingly by the arm and leads her out._
Paul. It is a fine night out.
Olive. So I have heard.
Paul. You make a jest of me, Mistress Olive. Know you not when a
man is of a sudden left alone with a fair maid, he needs to try his

speech like a player his fiddle, to see if it be in good tune for her ears;
and what better way than to sound over and over again the praise of the
fine weather? What ailed Ann that she seemed so strangely, Olive?
Olive. I know not. I think she had been overwrought by coming alone
through the woods.
Paul. She seemed ill at ease. Why spin you so steadily, Olive?
Olive. I must finish my stint.
Paul. Who set you a stint as if you were a child?
Olive. Mine own conscience, to which I will ever be a child.
Paul. Cease spinning, sweetheart.
Olive. Nay.
Paul. Come over here on the settle, there is something I would tell thee.
Olive. Tell it, then. I can hear a distance of three feet or so.
Paul. I know thou canst, but come.
Olive. Nay, I will not. This is no courting night. I cannot idle every
night in the week.
Paul. Thou wouldst make a new commandment. A maid shall spin flax
every night in the week save the Sabbath, when she shall lay aside her
work and be courted. There be young men here in Salem Village,
though you may credit it not, Olive, who visit their maids twice every
week, and have the fire in the fore room kindled.
Olive. My mother thinks it not well that I should sit up oftener than
once a week, nor do I; but be not vexed by it, Paul.
Paul. I love thee better for it, sweetheart.

Olive. My stint is done.
Paul. Then come. (She obeys.) Now for the news. This morning I
bought of Goodman Nourse his nine-acre lot for a homestead. What
thinkest thou of that?
Olive. It is a pleasant spot.
Paul. 'Tis not far from here, and thou wilt be near thy mother.
Olive. Was it not too costly?
Paul. I had saved enough to pay for it, and in another year's time, and I
have the help of God in it, I shall have saved enough for our house.
What thinkest thou of a gambrel-roof and a lean-to, two square front
rooms, both fire-rooms, and a living-room? And peonies and
hollyhocks in the front yard, and two popple-trees, one on each side of
the gate?
Olive. We shall need not a lean-to, Paul, and one fire-room will serve
us well; but I will have laylocks and red and white roses as well as
peonies and hollyhocks in the front yard, and some mint under the
windows to make the house smell sweet; and I like well the
popple-trees at the gate.
Paul. The house shall be built of fairly seasoned yellow