Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886. 105
also been taken down with fits, and the reverend father at once recalled
the fact that Parsons had grnni bled because compelled to build his
chimney according to contract, and had even made a mysterious re-
mark that the bricks would do Moxon no good.
Public opinion now ran strongly against the Parsonses. No devi-
ation from the dead prose of life could take place, but it was mys-
teriously connected with the quarrelsome family in the lower part of
the street. Whenever the red coat of Hugh Parsons appeared,
women trembled and clung to their children. The terrible fact was
whispered in every kitchen, — Springfield had a witch !
Five months after the Marshfield-Parsons slander case the wife of
Hugh Parsons gave birth to a child, which lived but a year. The
mother's condition now became serious. Her husband was calcu-
lated by nature to irritate and annoy her. When he was about the
liouse frequent disagreements occurred, and his long absences she
considered heartless neglect of his family. These strained relations,
the eye of suspicion and tlie finger of the gossip turned upon them
by the community, and finally the death of the child, worked Mrs.
Mary Parsons's highly-strung organism into a flighty, hysterical con-
dition. She was being pushed down one more step in the long stair-
case that led her from vivacious maidenhood to the level of a social
outcast and the inmate of prisons.
Sarah, the wife of Alexander Edwards, added to the fear of Hugh
Parsons by telling how he had called at their house for milk, and
how, after she had refused to give him more than a pennyworth, the
cow almost " dried up," and the next day the milk was as " yellow
as saffron," and each day it turned to some other " strange odd
color." Neighbor Griffith Jones, not to be outdone in the relation of
wonders about the doings of Parsons, told the Bedorthas, who lived
next door, that upon the Lord's day he had left his wife at a neigh-
bor's house after the first sermon, and gone home. He proceeded to
" take up " his dinner and to put it ''on a little table made on a
cradle head." He then looked for a knife, he having two, but they