THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND - CSIR

"No, he wasn't really. He was very kind. But Mercy, he was fifty years old, and he had pudgy red fingers with too many rings
on them. You see, Mercy, why I couldn't wait to write? You do see why I can't go back, don't you?"
"Of course you can't go back," said Mercy firmly. Her hand reached for Kit's and pressed it warmly. "Father has no intention
of sending you back. You will just have to prove to him that you can be useful here."
By the end of that first day the word useful had taken on an alarming meaning. Work in that household never ceased, and it
called for skill and patience, qualities Kit did not seem to possess. There was meat to be chopped, and vegetables to prepare
for the mid- day meal. The pewter mugs had to be scoured with reeds and fine sand. There was a great kettle of soap boiling
over a fire just behind the house, and all day long Judith and her mother took turns stirring it with a long stick. Judith set Kit
to tend the stirring while she readied the soap barrel. Kit tried to keep a gingerly distance from the kettle, The strong fumes of
lye stung her eyelids and stirring the heavy mass tired her arms and shoulders. Her stirring became more and more
halfhearted till Judith snatched the stick in exasperation "It will lump on you," she scolded, "and you can just blame yourself
if we have to use lumpy soap ail summer."
Toward evening they set her at the easiest task they could devise--the making of corn pudding. The corn meal had to be added
to the boiling kettle a pinch at a time. Before half of it was consumed, Kit's patience ran out. The smoke made her eyes water,
and there was a smarting blister on one thumb. She suspected that Judith had invented the irksome procedure just to keep her
busy, and in a burst of resentment she poured in the remaining cupful all at once. She learned her mistake when the lumpy
indigestible mass was ladled onto her wooden trencher. There was nothing else for supper. After one shocked stare, the
family downed the mess in a silence that made Kit writhe.
After the candles were lit, Rachel and the two girls picked up skeins of yam and began to knit as Matthew drew the great
Bible toward him across the table. Matthew's voice was harsh and monotonous. Kit could not keep her mind on the words.
Every muscle in her body ached with weariness. As the reading went on her head grew heavier, and twice she jerked herself
painfully back from the brink of sleep. The others, intent on their knitting, did not notice. Only when her uncle closed the
Book and bent his head for the long evening prayer, did the clicking needles cease.
Kit, in her eagerness, went up ahead with a candle into the chilly bedchamber. But once there she remembered that in the
morning she would need a fresh gown from the trunks to replace the soot-stained calico. Going back down the stairs she
overheard some words not intended for her ears.
"Why does she have to sleep with me?" Judith demanded in a sulky tone.