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The Horrible Example of the Thumb Twins, or to what a Pass Disobedience may bring a Child.
Doubtless some who read these words will recall how in childhood they were brought to obedience and wholesome respect for authority by hearing a mother, or grannie, or aunt, or servant tell them the awful story of the Thumb twins, and to what their disobedience brought them. It is true that these children had never been well, and for them to fall from health to point of death was not a long fall. Nor when one considers what good use has been made of their example, and how many other children have learned decent docility from their story, can one wholly regret the incident which occurred as follows.
On the twentieth day of November (the day had been a mellow, warm, yellow day) the disobedient Labour and Sorrow went to the willow brook, and there found, as they hoped to find, the witch-woman awaiting them. She was all in fine scarlet as her fancy was. The children said they dared not stay and play—their mother had sent them to Goody Greene’s to buy mints. She would wonder if they did not return within the hour. They said (a long time later) that Doll smiled at them in a terrible fashion and suggested to them that what their mother wanted was of no importance. But the twins for once were mindful of their good mother’s wishes. They said again they could not stay. They had only come to tell her that they could not stay. ‘Well, take that then,’ said the witch, and angrily tossed across the brook and to their feet two dolls that she had contrived out of corn husks and pumpkin seeds. So she went away, and the twins went to Greene’s.
They came home again and they were late as usual, or rather as always, for they were dawdling, mischievous children. Their mother was angry with them. She could not whip nor even shake them. She dared not, they were too feeble. She put them to bed without their dinner and there they lay to supper-time, talking and whispering, laughing to each other. She bade them get up for supper. They would not, but lay in their bed. No one thought further of them until morning. The truth is that, having no dinner and no supper, they grew hungry and so they ate the dollies, which were made mostly of pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin in all its parts, even the seeds of it, is wholesome food. It could not be this that sickened the children, yet from that day they sickened.
For forty-eight hours they were afflicted in their stomachs. This passing a little, an even more grievous malady seized their bowels, which seemed to rot away. Their very bones gave out from within them, refusing to support their weight, etc. They pined, would not eat because of the pain they were in. First it was ‘My belly, mamma, oh, my belly!’ and the next, ‘My throat, mamma!’ or ‘My head, mamma, my miserable bowels! My vitals are decaying within me.’ These frightful pains were the result of their disobedience, for if they had done as bidden—that is, if they had eschewed the young woman and received no presents from her—they never would have so suffered.
They had thus sickened and suffered for a week, and then Mrs. Thumb, putting fresh linen upon their bed, found, between bed and wall, all that remained of the pumpkin-seed poppets. It was plain that these two poppets were intended to represent the twins. They were all but identical, yet was the one (Sorrow) plumper than the other (Labour). They had dark eyes, made from little buttons, and light hair fashioned from corn silk. In this respect they simulated the brown eyes and yellow hair of the twins. The one was tied about the waist with a red rag, and the other with a blue, and it was thus in these two colours Mrs. Thumb habitually dressed them.
The twins gaped at their mother as she found these things, and their eyes were guilty eyes. She asked them from whence came these dollies. They swore they did not know. Perhaps a cat had brought them in. They were sure a cat had brought them in. Their mother told them they were lying and they said nothing. She said she would shake them, and they said that they were far too sick, and Labour offered to fall into a spasm. Well, if they would not tell from whence these things were, would they tell who it was that had eaten out the pumpkin seeds that had made their vitals. The twins responded heartily, yes, it was they themselves who had eaten up the vitals. The woman cried out in anguish, ‘My children, oh, my poor children, it is your own vitals that you have eaten, God help us all!’ And she rushed from the sick-room, weeping, wringing her hands, screaming to her husband, her son.
For three days the twins would not say from whence were these poppets. Their mother fancied it was old Goody Greene had given them, because she knew that the girls had been to her evil hut on the very day they sickened. Now Greene, as well as Mr. Kleaver, had been called in every few days to advise in the care of the twins. Mrs. Thumb was enraged to think that she had thus allowed the woman access to her darlings. But Widow Bilby told her to look to Doll, for she knew that she had in her own room pumpkin seeds with red and blue rags, and corn silk. She warned her, ‘Look to Doll.’
In her heart the woman was convinced that her little ones suffered from witchcraft. Mr. Zelley, who showed at that time a most stubborn disbelief in such infernal manifestations, or perhaps wishing to protect the wicked, pooh-poohed the idea. Mr. Kleaver also said that such wasting fevers were indeed far from rare. By the New Year he promised the twins would be well or in their coffins. He himself had seen no signs of demoniacal possession.
The woman asked the children—for who should know as well as they? At first they stoutly denied the idea and then weakened, admitting that it was possible. When their mother pressed them further, they put their heads under the bedclothing and remained mute. The mother decided to spy upon them to see if between themselves they might not prove more honest.
She told them she was going abroad. And she left the door of the chamber open into the fire-room. Having bid them farewell and slammed the front door, she returned on tiptoe to the stool she had set herself behind the chamber door. There she listened. They talked little and but casually. And then at last Labour said, ‘I wish we had not eaten the pretty poppets Mistress Dolly made us. I wish we had them to play with.’ So she knew that in truth the poppets were from Doll. Nothing more of consequence was said.
That very night, however, they woke up the whole house, screaming that a great tawny cat had come down the chimney and had sat upon their chests, kneading its paws and purring most hideous. Father, mother, and brother flew to them. They saw no cat, but there were two red fresh scratches on the face of Labour. Their father reproved them for their fancies, reminding his wife how since early childhood they had been subject to night fears. The children were ashamed. They put their heads under the bedclothing. From then on, however (when their father was not present), they often spoke of this cat, and suggested even more horrible visions that came to torment them. Every day their plight was more piteous.
Almost in the middle of December, close to the shortest day of the year, the woman sat by her hearth, pondering these things. She was determined to find the truth for herself. Husband, doctor, and minister were all wilfully blind.
The children lay sick in the next room, and often seemed like to die. The one said to the other, ‘She will come again to-night.’ At the word ‘she’ the woman pricked her ears. It was only of the cat they had spoken before, and this cat they called ‘he.’ The child said, ‘She will bring her baby and let us play with it.’ The other said, ‘Oh, I hope she will not come. Although she seems kind to us, I am afraid that it is she who hurts us, for God knows we are bewitched.’ (She vomited a little.)
The woman went to the door, saying, ‘Pretty pets, who comes to you, and of whom is this baby?’ She spoke quietly. They hid their heads and would not answer. The woman went again to the fireplace and listened. ‘I think,’ said one, ‘it is her cat that comes to hurt us,’ and the children whispered together. The woman trembled with excitement. She did not go immediately to the children! Instead she sat close by the fire and listened. Sorrow said, ‘And the little black man with the little black hat....’ She could hear no more. But later Sorrow was saying, ‘Little people came, no bigger than my finger. They ate a little feast of honey and suet, served out to them in acorn cups—like those Mistress Dolly makes for us....’ And later, ‘There was a tiny queen. She looked just like Mistress Dolly, only smaller, a Mistress Dolly you could put away in a teacup, and her baby was no bigger than a thumb nail....’ The mother now felt she had proof. She hurried to her children, begging them to tell her all. Could Mistress Dolly, then, shrink no bigger than a poppet? And who was the little black man? At first the children would not speak, but, as was usual, stubbornly hid their heads.
She wept and prayed over them, begging them to be frank with her, for, if it were only known who bewitched them and how, they might be cured. As it was they would grow sicker and weaker, and finally languish and die. They protested they did not want to die, and began to weep and cast themselves about. And at last they confessed to everything (but in the midst, Labour was thrown into a grievous fit). They told how it was Bilby’s Doll had given them the poppets; how she came to them every night—not cruelly using them, but amusing and diverting them. ‘And she had with her a book ...’ said Sorrow. ‘My children, my poor miserable children ... was it a black book, and have you signed?’ Yes, it was a black book. No, they had not signed.
Then the pious woman got out the Bible, and she made them kiss it and swear that no matter how ill-used they were, or how delicately they were tempted by the witch, they would remain fast-sealed to God and not sign away their souls to Hell—no matter if devils did come and pull their vitals up by the roots and run needles through their eyeballs and brain-pans. The children, lamenting, shrieking, and yet for once obedient, promised and swore as they were bid.