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Well there are other things now you know. For instance these charges of children - that
they were abused by teachers or something like that. It reminded me very much of these
kids in Salem. In fact, one of the lines I have in the play is one of the girls who’s
been screaming about being attacked by various townspeople in the night, flying through the
windows. In this case she has been accusing some old woman who--wandering the high road
– a homeless woman. She says to Mrs. Proctor, “You know when
I turn to her she comes begging for food and cider, and I turned her away. For days after,
my stomach was bothering me, and I couldn’t hold any food down, so it was her. She was
bewitchin’ me. I know’d it at the time, but I wasn’t sure of it.” And Mrs. Proctor
says, “Well, you never mentioned it before.” That is before the witchcraft started. She
says, “Well I didn’t know it before, but now I remembered it, and how she cursed me.”
And this stuff going on I guess is still going on. You know the suggestibility in people’s
minds is fantastic.