Such a Christmas Eve as it was. Father and Nathaniel, ragged and hungry, but safe, were home in time! Two of the large tallow candles in the polished brass candlesticks shone on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, and Hannah lighted the little Christmas tree again. She and brother Nathaniel, hands clasped happily together, sat in its light, so glad to be together again that they needed neither gifts nor sweets to make their Christmas joy.
[The Jack-O’-Lantern Witch]
The grim iron doors of the prison clanged shut and the turnkey fastened them. Hearing the sound, Desire touched the homespun sleeve of the little boy with whom she was walking home from market down the narrow street of the musty old town of Salem.
“Did you hear that sound of the locking of the doors, Jonathan? It means that they’ve caught and imprisoned another witch.”
The boy, a quaint little figure in his long trousers, short jacket, and ruffled shirt looked, wide-eyed, at the little girl. Quite as strangely dressed a child as Jonathan was small Desire, the only daughter of Elder Baxter who was high in authority in old Salem in those far-away days. Although not quite twelve summers and winters of the New England of a stern long-ago had painted Desire’s plump cheeks the pink of a rose and burned the shining gold of her hair, her gray frock with its short waist and long skirt nearly trailed the gray cobble stones of the street. Her soft brown hair was braided close to her head and pulled back tightly in front from her white brow and tucked out of sight beneath her stiff cap. A white kerchief was folded closely about her primly held shoulders and over her frock she wore a long, dark cape for the fall day was chill.
“‘DO YOU KNOW WHO THE WITCH IS, DESIRE?’ HE ASKED”
Jonathan set down the rush basket of food supplies that he was carrying for Desire, and he touched the iron paling that shut in the prison.
“Do you know who the witch is, Desire?” he asked, his voice low with awe.