chasing_silver

1689

It started, as it usually does, with a misunderstanding.

"By Providence, Jebediah, if your cow wanders onto my land I'll sort her for sure this time!" Goodman Kinley growled at Jebediah Cruff. "I can't think hide nor hair why she's here always, but if she's eating my good crops, man, you'll have to answer for it in the high court, and you won't get any of the beef, either!"

The man's jowls quivered, and Jeb stifled a laugh. "Goodman Kinley, I guarantee, she just broke through the fence. I've told you time and again it's down at the west corner, sir. If you'd just have your hands fix it, she would have no cause to break through."

"That's what you say," the man shook his fist at Jeb, "but I don't see as you keep your word. My fence is fine. Get your own hands to fix yours."

Jeb knew at this point there would be no getting through to the angry gentleman. Besides being the son of a magistrate, he was known throughout Massachusetts as being unreasonable, unpleasant, and condescending. He shrugged and turned away.

"I'll do my best to keep her from your land, Kinley."

"See that you do!" Goodman Kinley turned and stomped away, his long black cloak swirling around him in the October wind. The days were getting darker earlier, and when Jeb turned back to the house, he was surprised to find his wife, Prudence, standing beside him.

"Ah, Prue. I didn't see you there."

"The supper's been on an hour hence," she replied, and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't let Disobedience Kinley get to you."

"I know, but I can't help it. He just sticks in the craw so tightly."

"You know the cow didn't break his fence; he's a skinflint, Jeb. He won't fix it for love or money. Just be sure you don't cross him much more. We need his father to buy the oats this year. Otherwise ..."

They both didn't voice it, but the struggling colony of Huntington, Massachusetts, was failing fast. The next town over, Salem, was attracting more and more settlers, and there were few left in Huntington to really make a go. Yet, Jeb didn't want to give up. He was determined to eke out a living in this strange, wind-and-ocean-swept little hamlet.

Jed nodded slowly. "I just wish he'd get what's coming to him," he muttered. "I'm so tired of all of his haverin'."

Prue squeezed his arm. "Pay him no mind. You have a family to provide for."

They ducked under the low door of the rough-hewn homestead Jeb had built, and said no more.

//~//

It was Patience Kinley who showed the first symptoms after the harvest was in.

Jeb was cutting the last of his oats when he heard a screaming coming from the hollow past the back forty. He immediately dropped his scythe and ran for all he was worth down into the wooded area, just where his and Goodman Kinley's land met.

The little girl, only six, was tearing at her bonnet, screaming for all she was worth. Her sister, Sarah, was struggling to get it off her, but Patience kept slapping her hands away and babbling in what sounded to Jeb like pure nonsense.

"By the cross, Sarah, what's amiss here? Why is she screaming like that?"

"I don't know, Goodman Cruff," gasped the older girl. "She isn't talkin' neither. Just shrieking nonsense, I don't know what she's doing!"

Just then, Patience gagged and vomited, a glutinous mass of what looked like cereal.

"There's her breakfast gone," said Sarah, looking disgusted. "Fresh oats an' all."

The younger girl coughed, blinked, and then looked up lucidly. "The crops are diseased," she said, in a flat voice. "This colony won't last the winter."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Sarah. "Goodman Cruff, help us. Go for Doctor Layman."

But Patience was swaying on her feet, and Jeb rushed up to catch her as she fainted. "You'll need to go, Sarah," he ordered tersely. "Get the doctor."

But as fast as Sarah ran, Patience never regained consciousness. She passed away that night.

Jeb stared out the window as the preacher and Goodman Kinley's magistrate friends from the next town over gathered outside of the house. He knew he and Prue would attend the funeral in a few days.

Prue put a hand on his shoulder. "You did what you could, Jeb."

"But it's so strange, Prue. She said that the crops were diseased."

"She was raving, husband. It's not for you to know about what she meant."

But Jeb wasn't so sure.

//~//

After Patience's funeral, the days turned colder and the leaves blazoned brightly on the hillside. Jeb got the last of the oats from his shared field with Kinley in and began trying to sell them to whomever would buy. Magistrate Kinley, Goodman Kinley's father, had been too distraught over the death of a grandchild, and Jeb hadn't dared approach him. It just wasn't the time for selling, because people weren't in the mood for eating.

It was because the colony was literally dying.

Besides Patience, three others had come down with the "havers", as the local preacher was beginning to call it. They were majority children, but there had been one old and feeble grandfather who had passed on, too. The symptoms were the same - ranting, screaming, clawing at the face and head, then vomiting and fainting. None regained consciousness.

Jeb was feeling uneasy as he moved among the market in the next town, Peabody, trying to sell the bushels of oats on his wagon. He had left Prue and the children at home. Most in Peabody were cheerful, but there was a strange undercurrent. Anyone from Huntington was widely avoided.

It was all confusing until Jeb caught the word "witch" under the breath of a woman at the next stall, and then saw the entire crowd turn to look at him and his neighbours.

Jeb went to the local Meetinghouse, where the women of Peabody were serving lunch for sale. He ran into Goodman Johnson, who was buying a sizeable portion of an oat and beef pottage.

"Haven't you heard?" he said in answer to Jeb's question as to why they were all being shunned. "They say Huntington's been witched. All our children's dyin'. Something about the crops."

"It's not witchin'," replied Jeb. "They ate something is all. I don't know what, but those kids will eat the berries they find."

"I don't know, Jebediah," said Johnson, licking his lips. "It's something from the devil, they're saying. Why else would we be losing the few children we have?"

Jeb didn't have any answer for him, and after bidding him goodbye, he headed the few miles back to Huntington Hamlet. He kissed Prue and the kids, and stared long into the fire that evening, silent and wondering if he would be penniless by the winter.

On the next street over, Goodman Johnson was already dead.

//~//

By December, Huntington had three families who hadn't been touched by the havers. Four women had been questioned and subsequently hanged for witchcraft, but no one knew for sure what was causing the neverending plague. There had been a lull in the sickness as everyone turned to the canning and pickled foods they'd prepared during the summer, and the deaths slowed to a halt. It seemed that the havers might be some kind of summertime disease, everyone thought.

Jeb was worried about his household. His children were getting thinner and thinner. They were exhausting their canned vegetables and fruits, and he'd been forced to slaughter the cow that kept breaking through Goodman Kinley's fence. Not that it mattered, now. Goodman Kinley and the rest of his family had been buried in the Meetinghouse yard two months ago - all victims of the havers.

Jeb, in his barn, dug into the unsold oats and pulled out a handful of the groats that he had hoped to dispose of back in the autumn. He watched the snow settle on his gloved hand, and then with a sigh, filled the bucket he had brought. They could make porridge, or grind them for some kind of bread, he figured.

Prue was tight-lipped as she combined the last of the beef broth she had made and the groats in the pot that night, but the children were excited to finally be eating something warm and hearty.

As they dug in, Prue gave Jeb a world-weary smile. "So we survive another evening," she said, giving a slight chuckle.

Jeb smiled weakly in reply, hating that he couldn't provide for his family beyond stealing from next year's crop, and took another bite.

//~//

Present day

Larry Cruff was always interested in genealogy, and much to the disdain of the rest of his family, loved to take trips to his ancestors' old lands to wander the cemeteries and try to pick out gravestones that might be his family.

His trip to the outskirts of Peabody, Massachusetts, was one of these endeavours.

"Dad, this is boring," complained Jason, his son. "Who cares about your long-dead relatives or whatever?"

"I do," said Larry cheerfully. "And this is interesting, kids - this was where they said that people of Huntington were witches."

"Why?"

"Not sure. The records don't show much," said Larry. "I guess we'll have to see what the old Peabody Archives have to say."

In the Archives building, Larry found the names listed in one of the old Puritan Bibles and nearly jumped in excitement. There they were - Jebediah, Prudence, and their three children.

But Larry looked more closely. They all appeared to have died within a week of each other, Jeb being the final one to expire.

"I wonder what happened," he mused. The Archival librarian looked up.

"Is that one from 1689?"

"Yeah. I looked them up on Ancestry - these guys were all my relatives," said Larry proudly. Jason just rolled his eyes.

"Oh yeah, they had a huge witch panic that year," said the librarian. "Something about some kind of plague that took the whole town down. They basically burned the Meetinghouse afterwards and now Huntington is just the cemetery. You can go look if you want, but the stones all say the same thing."

"What do they say?" Larry was aware that gravestones often listed the cause of death, and it wasn't listed in the Bible.

"I don't even really know what the word means. We generally know what they meant by certain diseases, but no one has figured out what they died of," she replied. "Anyway, maybe you'll have an idea. Go look for yourself."

In the cemetery, which was right across the street from the Archives, Larry followed the map of the old section given to him by the librarian until he found the Cruff family. The stones were almost toppled over in the tall, unkempt grass. Only Jeb's could still be faintly made out under the lichen.

"Jebediah Cruff, Goodman and farmer
Died December 16, 1689
of the havers".

This has been an entry for therealljidol. The prompt this week was "haver", which is a Scottish word meaning "to rant or babble foolishly". It is derived from the Scottish word for oats, and can still be found in the word "haversack", which originally meant a sack that carried oats.

Many crops grown in the time this story is set were subject to a fungal infection called ergot. Wheat was mostly affected, but oats were also sometimes affected. Ergot poisoning is a type of food poisoning that can kill you if untreated. Signs and symptoms vary but include dizziness, convulsions, and psychosis, or hallucination, and ranting.

Jeb and his family, due to contaminated oats that grew in the shared field between him and Goodman Kinley, died of ergot poisoning along with the rest of the fictional town of Huntington. But due to the lack of knowledge or sanitization of any crops, to the citizens surrounding the town, well, it very well might have been "the havers" brought on by witchcraft. Who's to say?

Thank you for reading and voting!