Today in Salem: The tavern owner is picking a splinter from the wooden table, listening intently to the other men and trying not to leap up from his chair. He’s used to greeting his customers and walking from table to table, not sitting at one.
It’s the Sabbath, and the men of the church have met at the tavern to discuss a troubling matter. Three families have not attended worship in several weeks, all of them related to the beloved Rebecca Nurse: her son, her daughter, and her brother-in-law. Including their spouses and children, their meeting house benches have been conspicuously empty.
“She was hanged three weeks ago,” one of the deacons says. He is a thoughtful man who takes his duties seriously. But he is also a member of the powerful Putnam family, which no one around him forgets. “They should be here, praying for understanding and forgiveness.”
The tavern owner is also a deacon, and now he looks up from the splintered table. “Yes, but can they not pray from their homes? Is understanding only to be found at the meeting house?”
The other men agree with one deacon or the other, and the conversation is pointed. As a group, though, they agree on one thing: the families must explain themselves. They appoint a committee of four men to visit the families: Rev Samuel Parris, the two church deacons, and the 73-year-old patriarch of the powerful Putnam family.
The other men drift away while the newly formed committee gathers more closely around the splintered table. They quickly make their first decision: They will wait before visiting the families. There’s another hanging in a few days, and they have much prayer and work to do. Perhaps the Nurse families will right themselves without intervention.