The antics of these girls, not improbably first carried out in a spirit of sport, were begun at the parsonage about Christmas, 1691; but after a time they were challenged for their actions, when they declared that they could not help themselves, being bewitched. Instead of disregarding their folly or attributing it to childish mischief and putting a stop to it by the strong hand, Mr. Parris published the matter to the world. The children now found themselves of a sudden objects of the most widespread scrutiny; they also found themselves, it is not absurd to suppose, in a position where they deemed themselves in peril if they were discovered to be impostors. They were soon acknowledged as truly suffering from witchcraft; and then began the inquisition as to the guilty parties. Tituba, the Indian hag, who had probably taught them the tricks which they now put into effect against her, was the first named by them as one of their tormentors; and then followed the names of Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, two old women with few friends. Tituba confessed,--it is at least possible, because of the craze for notoriety often to be found in such people,--but the two white women denied their guilt, and all were sent to Boston for trial. The matter might now well have been allowed to die out; but the girls had tasted power and were anxious for more.
Tituba, in her confession, had implicated the two women, Good and Osburn, and "two others whose faces she could not see"; and the girls were importuned to name these other "tormentors." At first they refused,--probably because they had not held council to decide on the two to be named,--but at last they indicated two of the most estimable women in the community, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, aged respectively sixty and (about) seventy years. The village was thunderstruck, for these women, if not of the highest rank, were full of courtesy and kindliness and were well-educated and well-bred. None the less, they were accused, Goodwife Corey by little Ann Putnam,--at whose instigation it seems unnecessary to suggest,--Goodwife Nurse, whose husband was one of the most honored persons in the village, while she herself was regarded as a model of virtue and piety, by more than one of "The Afflicted Children," as the girls were now called; but the bearing of Mistress Putnam at the examination was sufficient to show where stood the chief accuser. The girls went into their regular fits at each answer to the questions, unshamed by the sight of the venerable lady standing there in her dainty dress and with her fragile figure and pure face; and Mrs. Putnam broke in on the magistrate's questions with "Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God and die? How oft have you eaten and drunk your own damnation?" It is no wonder that the accused, at such a horrible outburst of vindictive hate,--as she must have known it to be,--raised her hands to heaven with the cry, "O Lord, help me!" But at that the "Afflicted Children" went into the most extraordinary convulsions; and the foolish magistrate, Hathorne by name, who had until then been favorably inclined toward the prisoner, connected the spasms of the girls with the uplifted hands of the old lady, and this turned the tide against her. She was remanded for trial.