THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND - CSIR

The long rows of onions looked endless, their sharp green shoots already half hidden by encroaching weeds. Judith plumped
matter-of-factly to her knees and began to pull vigorously. Kit could never get over her amazement at her cousin. Judith, so
proud and uppity, so vain of the curls that fell just so on her shoulder, so finicky about the snowy linen collar that was the
only vanity allowed her, kneeling in the dirt doing work that a high-class slave in Barbados would rebel at. What a strange
country this was!
"Well, what are you standing there for?" Judith demanded. "Father says we have to do three rows be- fore we can go home
for dinner." Kit lowered herself gingerly and gathered a halfhearted handful. At the second tug an onion shoot came too, and
glancing to see if Judith had noticed, she guiltily thrust the tiny root back into the earth and patted it firm. Bother the things,
she would have to keep her mind on them! All at once tears of self-pity brimmed her eyes. What was she doing here anyway,
Sir Francis Tyler's granddaughter, squatting in an onion patch?
She jerked at the weeds. If she should many William Ashby, would he expect her to weed his vegetables for him? Her hands
stopped moving at all while she considered this. No, she was quite certain he never would. Did it seem likely that his mother,
who sat so elegantly in meeting, had ever touched a chokeweed? There were no blisters under those soft gloves, Kit wagered.
She knew by now that the humble folk who sat in the very back of the Meeting House were servants of the fine families of
Wethersfield. William would own servants himself, beyond a doubt. She wiped a grimy hand across her eyes. Perhaps she
could endure this work for a time if the future offered an escape.
A more immediate escape offered itself that very noontime. The two girls returned home to find Mercy brimming with
excitement, her gray eyes sparkling.
"The most wonderful thing, Kit! Dr. Bulkeley has recommended to the selectmen that you help me with the school this
summer."
"A school?" echoed Kit. "Do you teach a school, Mercy?"
"Just the dame school. For the younger children, in the summer months. With you to help me I can take more pupils."
"What do you teach them?"
"Their letters, and to read and write their names. They can't go to the grammar school, you know, till they can read, and many
of their parents can't teach them."