"Testement"
by
Timothy Stillman
I am a goodly woman, tho aul I hafe is my witchcrafte. Though I am not a witche. The good people of Salem thinke otherwise. But I am a fine woman and I do not practise blacke magick. For that es again the laws of the land and the laws of my god in heaven above. I am setting down these words in my own cruud hand to give meaning to what hath happen to me on this night of Oct. 5, the year of our lorde.
I am a poore woman and a woman who lives singly. I wus not borne with a call over my face. I do not have the evile eye. I am a hard working woman who has truth to tell never been bussed on the lips by boy girl man woman or frogge when it comes to that matter. I reed little. I am not good at it. But I attend Pastor Dimsmore's services ever Sunday and stay with the church peeple there for all the 5 hors of sermon and git together. They had allowed the poor creeture that is me to do this. I am grattful to them fer this thing.
I have seen in the mirror myself. Therefore I know beyond dobt that I am not a witch, for then Pastor Dimsmore say one wood be a witch, if she casate no refleecton. Which is not true for me. I have never commeeeted adultry like Goodly Woman Hester prine. I am not embarrassed in what all of that involved. Because good woman Hester and Pastor Dimsdale will have to answer thos sticky queestons themselves. To a higher maker and judge than is me.
I have commeeeted self love becase no one else wood luv me and I has been see in the night hours in my ruud littel hut doing so on my own little bed. Not botheration to no one. Not to entece any. But too children seed me one night. And the next nite too. And I am sore punished. I did not see there little squirel ly faces at my window. Only when Proctor Amel came to me with the plite he was to put on my head like a bethreading with Satan the Dark Prince himseelf that I knew. That they haed told what I had doone.
They telled me in the courtroom that cheldren has been hirt by me. That this is my witchcrafte and I am making them---wan-ton. They say, so embarressed this, in front of the peeple of my villege, right ther in the open thet the town os beget with all sorts of buggery and sexual mis-content. I set chained before table and I heer these charges. I heer the peepel of the court say these things. That children boys and girls are in the night time teeking their apperell off and dancing neekid in the woods. And preying to a deevil god. This is truly more than misbegoten me can stand up to. I feel my face red with shame.
they are long and pointy, the fingers thet point back at me. They tell me I am raper. They tell me I am corruptor. They tell me I bring sexual maledicons to there lovely little children. But they know. They know and this is the sorce of my shame. That when I self love myself I am thinking, god in heeven help me, of boys and girls doin eevil thangs. And tho I did no eville things to them. I thot of doing them. And I stand convected in thought. If not deed. If you think a bad thing, the bibel says, then you have done this thing. I have thensefore dune this thing.
The courtroom is so hot and the words are soo meen. I have heerd clergy be meen but always to someone not us and that makes the diffrence. But when it is directed to me, then it hurts, like the fir they will burn me on and the hell i will be sent too. I have not had fances abut hurting anyone. I have not had fances about force or makin someone do what I say regerdless of if I want to or not. Pastor Dimsmore has indeed made us all do what he says, when he sais it. And he is meen. Terribly so. Sumeone shuld writ a book about that and put him in his place. Ficton it up and make it cume out to meen somethin more than actual happend.
Tho it is fall it is still hot and windows are close in the courtroom. But children listen and peep throu. I can see them. How i wish I could a seed them those nites when i was putting my finger into my self, even the words now chill me to the bone, that one leetle plessure that was mine is now gone, for i have no lust or no sex fer anyone now. They cood set me free and i would go off into wilder woods and live on berries and fresh spring watter fer the rest of my days. like the animal they teled me tha i am.
I am allow to speek at this triil, but why should I? There heeds are as thick as the maple wood thet make up the benches and desks here. They listen to nothin. When it didnt effect me I didnt either. Now it effects me and I do some mity hard listenin. And i alwaus will. From now on.
There have been other good ly women burnt at the steak. They have caut fire and have screemed in pain and everone cheeres and appluds and they feel good and holly and they seem to feel as tho they has dun there fella man a favor. And the women they has burnt too, as though somehow this showes their goodnesse and the goodnesse of their god who is no longer my god. he no longer clams me and i no longer clam him. i know i will burn in hell. i can do no less. i have discovered in all these days. i have discovered what made Good Woman Hester run. how muddle everthing got. how hopless is ones duty to god and village and man and how you cunt think no more sometime.
The 2 children testifyed. They told with big blusses on there faces what i did to myself. they were led to go into graffic detail of whut they saw. Shame hardened on me. i could only look at the floor and as I did that, I saw one of the law protectors had his hand a bit too neer his croch on his left leg. and i found that made me smile in spite of myself as tho he was storing up memores of whut they sayed for later on when he was a lone. I think it effected everone like that. The questoner kept asking them mure and mure detales and the children then started inventeng things. Started saying thangs that was not tru. I thoug the bib under my chin wood flood with the shame coming from me.
I coold not lissten. I tried to stop up my eers. But it wus not possibel. I heerd there inventons. And i stunned myself in the knowing that what they made up was the fancy i was having bout them as they looked on in at me withot my knowing it. So perhaps i may be a witche. I maye have cuckoled all the children in Salem. I may be the eevil parson they said i am. And as i listened to them goin on and on and deviseing these sexual detals i thout they were the witches insteed. how the courtroom got hushed as a toom when the littel boy a goodly boy with dark ravin hare and a face that looked as fare as a summer day and as freednly too went on and describbed such things as i put his member in my muth and i made him harden and i took my hand and stroked the girl beside himme and i turned from 1 to the other. and i cast them into the devil camp. And i knew what he was goin to say next. because that wuz exactly whut i was thinking then as they watched me. And the girl testefed that i made the boy put his member into her, purity of words make me not write this parte. But the pont is the courtroom was lissening with bated breeth. They were hangin on ever word. I culd feel the silence. The listening silence all roun me.
i imagined them imagining the children with them and how it would be with themselfs tonite. and i thought then i have bewitched the whole of the village. i have damed everone in it. even pastor dimsmore who shoold have been damed enough by now, i have damaged him more. and i wallowed in shame. and sometimes i looked at the boy and the girl when they were on the stand and i loathed the english law we had brught to this new land, the pomp and pump of it. the bloodlessnessse of it. The way everthing is cut and dryed. When in life nuthing is reely like that a tall. The questons give answers that are as inaccurte as they cun be. Words are twistd and meenings get all messed and torn apart. it is no good, this law busness. it is sometimes worse than the crime. it is sometime the crime.
the littel boy sayed that i made him and the littel girl take off there clothes and dance together to a devil jig in the moonlite outside my hut. Thet i feelt them all over and i did my self plessuring in front of them out in the moonlite on the hot nite. they described how i looked withut my clothes on. and that was an importent point. how would two small children know what a woman looked like nekkid. this wus anotur thing that made me feel like i wus gilty. that tho when they saw me in my lonly bed i was without apparell. But i was clothed in nite gown. And had mu hand up under the gown. they could have seed nothing. i am circumsized in quietude. i do not joy myselff when i did this thing. i make it quick and as plesureless as i possibly can. When it is over i go to sleepe.
My trill lasteed a wek. i was fond gilty. which wus not the biggest shock there has ever been. i am condemned to be burnt to deeth tomorrow. i haf never come to concluson i am a witch howesoever. even tho when i seed the children on the commons in my free days long ago i wood watch them, or in the schoolard, I would watch them, playing. their suppel limbs, their sweet faces, their constant running lags and there hands ever where and their sun burnt joy of living. of life. of everthiing seen all new and sparkly. and how i wished to run to them. be a part of them. be with them when they sleeped and dreamt. i wanted to be so close to them there dreems would be my dreems and i would not be a lonely women and i would not cry into my pillow at ngiht after i had fingered myself which always made me feel miserble. but i can't do it no longer and thet lettel bit of plessure is over.
i do not now think i bewitched children or the town. i do not now believe that ever childish mis deed can be lade at my door entrance. becase in this cold dark cell on whose floor of straw i must try to sleep but cain't i know that there is only so many fancy images of sexual that one can think and 1 can do and it is not a devil thing or a betwitchin thing they wus thinking when they watched in my window in the moon glow. That they coold imagne it al easy nough and they felt gultty about it or were caut doin it with eech other or something along those lins and they blammed it on me. and now god help me and now i wish i had dun it i wish i could have called them into my home and felt them all over and tooked off there apparellle and cood have felt their sex parts and had them du things that i coold watch and self plessure myself rite then and thare. Thet i coood hae seen and fellt how a boy differs from a girle feel wise, skin wise, kiss wise. that i wish i had seed them when i wus abusing myself and thet they so closee to me coold hae been closser.
i imagine lots of self abuse is going on in this village of Salem with its stern faces and its flat shadowy hats and its closed mooths and its clossed minds and its off limits to everone not jest like them is. i wish i cood be a cleening woman agan. i wish i could have made this all not happene and could feel proude when a man of good repute and postion would have danned to say hullo to me in passing me on the board sidewalk some day and i did not think mayelf eny diffrent then they and i thot that others were wrong and evile and of the debbile. and we had to keepe them confined and eventully sent to their just punishment. and i wonder if i was not of the devil then, after the court got thro with ne, after the graffic testmony got finished, after i seed that man in court with his hand close to his crotch as the child testfied, after the gossps and the back biters and the back stabbers and the front stabbers and the self abuse they dun themselfes to those children that i had no part off--
--well i cant help but wonder if i now am a witchey woman becase of them, because of there bellcocity, because of their marble heeds, because of there need to get some fatted caff sacrfied for there own sins, and i wonder now tho i never thot this way afore if it is wrong to be of the devil? if it is wrong to not luste after flesh and to want to have relations with someone if it is wrong not to give children the right to there own feelings till they're stove up like the elders and deecons of the churches here and the prim pious ladies in all there bussle and dry goods shoppin and cannin foods for winter come, and their children in there schoolin and must of there schoolin is reeding the bible and all the terrible stuff in thre that somehow makes burning a witch a thing of beeuty and love and pints of ale afterwords because a man deeling with a minon of satin proportions desevers a littel jar rite after jist to steedy his nerves.
they hae made me what i am? i think that mae be so.
i wonder what hands were busy where on whos body real or maginary and whut those haqnds did. i tried to abuse myself a littel erlier tonite, but cant of course because the funreal pire gets to burnin all desre but sadness out of a person. i think there coold be money in this if a persson do it right. i mean if a perrsson coold rite this stuff down and coold make it reel morel and outraged and shameful but go in greet detaile about whut happened like those children testifying on the stand this is the greetest thing that has happened on their lives. And might ever happen in thrre lifes. money coold be made on this. it got the courtroom excited. why would not a book of this get reeders excited as lonng as the purpose of the book was made clear--avod this at all cost, dont let what happen to them happen unto you. Money is a subject Dimsmore and the town fathers are quite intrested in. maybe one of them will hae the idee some day.
i wish i had had sexx with someone. it would make all o this eesier i feeel. i wish the boy named Legiance and the girl named Idebelle had cum into my room that nite and i wish they had asked me questons and i wish they had laid me back down in my rude bed and i wish they had layed on top of me and i wish i could have felt the little boy's hard member through his thick wool breeches and i wish the girl idebelle had put her hand under my nitegownn and felled me there and askt why was it so hairry when heres wasnt and i would tell her and the boy wooold feel me too and they would be like littel elfs with the green glow all round them an they woold laughed and giggeled and been cited and have taken off my gown and would hae eech suckled at my nipples and playyed with my breests and they would a takin off their apparelle and they would ha pushed my gown up and off my heed.
And the little boy Legiance could ha suckled at my nipple and felled himslef at the same time and would have rubbed his boy member on my naked stomach and the girl woold look at all thet close, and now i am come. now i have did it and i feel the powree washin thru me an i wish to be out o this prison with the sad happy flowing gushin thru me and my eyes not centrered on a dark cell wall but out in the woods with the moon fool and the aire hotte and fairies everywhere and beetiful littel yellow an green glows and it would all be like a beetiful boticelli it woold be nekkid cherubbs everywhere and they woold be looking up at me and they woold be kissing me and they woold let me kiss there owne magickal flessh and there wooldbe music farr away and we woold be like a wood carvin done a long long time ago. our fleshe woule be lit as if from with in and we would glowwe with sexuality and love and kindness and the joy and spirt of childhood woood be theires and would be mine as well.
They wil rejoce tomorrow as much as they can these stupd men with there stupd stern faces under their flatt shadow hats and there will be such hatred in there harts and they will sey preise jesus and sing hyms as i fry to death as i catch fire as i scream and smolder and feel the welcoming tongue of the flammes of hell there to greet me, and these men will let there hate, and that of the wommen too, spill over and they will think themselfs a nobel bunche for what they hae done. and after the fire is over my remains willl be taken out to the woods and bured like those of a jackel or rabid wolff and that will be the endin of me. and i hafe to tell you i both luv and hate the children wh statded this. hate because they lied and lied to get themeselves out of some sort of trubble, and hate them because they did not do the things with me they sad they did and if they had i would have gone into the flames glady. and i love them becase they taut me somethings will all ae this. they defineed sum things fer me that i would have livedd withut knowing. like i was like the other commoners in this town. like i was a part of something.
when i was not a part of anythin at all. and that there sex fancies were mine and and if only we could have explorred them together what a lovely thing it wood have been. there is another women on trial for withcraft and there hafe been and will be more and when the eville is burnt out of Salem town, when the eville is thus finlly gone away and the deville is no more here, then the reele eville will be rulin the town, the county, the state, the cuntrry, will be preachin at the churches and the reele eville will be the people in the courtroom listtenign to ever lurrid detail and the eville will be the man with his hands close to his crotch area as the childe spoke and there will be no one to smote the eville down because the eville are in charge and are making damed sure they bring up their childrenne to be as eville as theye are and i have no dobt that they will.
Evergreen Smalley HUMAN BEING Oct. 5, yeare of no lorde Salem jail last wille and testemente an decleraton of freedom