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reports that Edmund barred the door, requiring the men to force their way in. “I tried to calm him,” Joseph says. “I assured him that I brought with me the peace of Christ and reminded him that he must do as the Court has ordered.”
    Mary pictures the scene as he describes it—Edmund roaring that he will not allow them to take his grandson. The men breaking down the door, subduing Edmund and Bess. Seizing Silvanus. She imagines the boy, John, bravely trying to beat them off as Silvanus throws his head back and wails with terror. Bess, frantic and weeping as her babe is carried away to his new owner.
    Mary can think of nothing to say to her husband, though she wants to ask why he agreed to participate in such a wicked enterprise. She believes he ought to fall to his knees and beg the Lord’s forgiveness. She prepares a basket of food—a beef pottage, a loaf of bread,turnips, and potatoes—and makes her way in secret to the Parker farm.
    There is no calming Bess. She clings to Mary, sobbing and moaning, wetting her cloak all the way through. Mary wishes she could assure her that Silvanus will thrive, that he will be well cared for. Yet she does not know what will become of him. There can be no assurance that his owner will be kind—or even regard the boy as a child of God.
    When Mary leaves, it is near twilight. She walks away with a stone in her heart. It seems that she can hear Bess all the way home, continuously moaning in the most broken voice Mary has ever heard: “Silvanus! Silvanus! Silvanus!”



CHAPTER THREE
    That summer, the land parches to dun under a sun that sears everything—crops, earth, even livestock. Wells dry up, obliging the men to dig new ones, but the water tastes brackish and bitter and dusty, as if God has dipped in a dirty finger. For the second year in a row the wheat harvest fails. Strange lights blaze in the night sky. Witches are found in pious congregations. Barns burst into flame and children drown. Entire families are struck down by the pox.
    Even Mary can discern these signs. Clearly, sin and darkness have ensnared New England in a deadly net. When she learns that Deacon Park has sold both Bess’s lover and her son, and that Bess herself has been bound out again—this time to a judge’s family in Salem—she is certain the day of God’s wrath is at hand.
    Thus she is not surprised when, in late June of 1675, word comes from Boston that Indians have attacked the village of Swansea, in Plymouth Colony. Pagan tribes have joined to form an army and are marching north into Massachusetts Bay. In mid-August Indians lay siege to Quabaug, a frontier town west of Lancaster. Afortnight later, on a hot Sabbath morning, they attack farms in the north sector of Lancaster itself, butchering George Benet and all his animals outside his barn and leaving Lidia widowed with five babes and no relation to come to her aid. Joseph Farrar meets the same fate. His poor wife is in a stupor for weeks, abandoning her children to fend for themselves. The MacLoud family is slain in their dooryard as their house burns before their eyes. The Indians do not even spare four-year-old Hannah. Two days later, a violent storm rips trees from the ground and ruins the fields of wheat and maize.
    Weekly, Joseph’s brow glistens with the exertions of his preaching. He cries out and smacks the air with his fists. God, he reminds the congregation, does not hesitate to rebuke those He loves. Has He not visited earthquake, fire, and plague upon the Bay Colony? Is not Lancaster’s disobedience as great as any of the Bay towns?
    By November, the Indian situation has grown so desperate that the selectmen consider enclosing the entire town. Someone calculates that it will require a fence eight feet tall and twelve miles long and they abandon the plan. Instead, the largest homes are designated garrison houses. Two men are appointed to build a stockade around the Rowlandson house, providing a measure of safety but spoiling