The Heretic's Daughter

Sarah begins her tale from the standpoint of a nine-year-old girl in December 1690, as her family leaves the settlement of Billerica for the town of Andover. They’re fleeing a smallpox epidemic to seek refuge at Sarah’s grandmother’s house. Unbeknownst to them, Sarah’s brother Andrew has already contracted the disease. The family dynamic isn’t a happy one. Sarah’s father, Thomas Carrier, is a giant of a man who speaks little and has alienated the church fathers in Billerica by his refusal to attend regular services. As a Welshman, a former soldier, and an outsider, he’s being blamed for the epidemic. Sarah’s mother, Martha, is outspoken and harshly judgmental. Her daughter isn’t fond of her: “She had a tongue, the sharpness of which would gut a man as quick as a Gloucester fisherman could clean a lamprey eel” (7-8).

Sarah has three older brothers: Richard, Andrew, and Tom. She also has a one-year-old sister named Hannah. Sarah carries something of her mother’s confrontational temperament: “I was not doted upon. I often challenged my betters and was therefore often chastised vigorously with a slotted spoon we children had named Iron Bessie” (6-7).

Arriving on a cold night, the family is welcomed by Sarah’s grandmother, Goody Allen. The living arrangements are cramped; Sarah must sleep in the garret with two of her brothers. Thomas must go before the town selectmen to learn whether they’ll allow the family to stay among them. He’s on the verge of being turned out because the selectmen fear that he has brought smallpox with him to Andover. However, the semi-retired preacher, Reverend Dane, speaks up in his defense. Andrew later tells his sister, “We must follow all the town’s laws and attend prayer service or we will be sent back to Billerica” (18).

Grandmother Allen persuades the Carriers that they must attend Sunday church services even though both Thomas and Martha dislike the idea. However, the entire family appears in the meetinghouse on Sunday. Sarah comments on the ordeal of sitting on a hard bench for hours in view of the disapproving new deacon, Reverend Thomas Barnard. He isn’t as kind as Reverend Dane: “He […] looked hard at us as we entered, pursing his lips and shaking his head at me when I did not drop my eyes in modesty” (21).

Shortly afterward, Andrew begins to show signs of smallpox. In a few days, it’s obvious that he has caught the disease. The entire family is placed under quarantine. One night, Thomas loads Sarah and Hannah into a wagon and sneaks out of town to his sister-in-law Mary’s house in Billerica. He intends for the girls to live with the Toothaker family until the danger has passed. Their absence must be kept a secret since they were ordered to remain in quarantine.

The girls remain at arm’s length among the Toothakers for fear of the disease but are allowed to enter the house. Sarah is happy to see her 11-year-old cousin Margaret again. Margaret is a strange girl who talks to invisible creatures that only she can see, but Sarah is intrigued by her. However, Sarah dislikes Margaret’s 13-year-old brother, Henry: He seems untrustworthy and sneaky.

Sarah settles happily into the new household because its members are much friendlier than her own family. Aunt Mary is kind and nurturing, while Uncle Roger tells wonderful stories of his battles in the Indigenous wars. He also does magic tricks and knows how to ferret out witches. Sarah notes, “From that time, there was not an hour that passed that I did not compare the fullness of my days with the dryness that was life with my own family” (40). Margaret teaches Sarah how to sew, and Uncle Roger tutors her in reading and writing. Sarah is surprised to learn that her uncle refuses to allow visits to the Carrier home because he believes that Thomas cheated him out of a parcel of land years earlier.

The frigid winter passes slowly, and one day the girls discover a young man hiding in the barn. He’s a runaway and is starving. Margaret points out that he’s a heretic because he’s a Quaker, but the girls manage to bring him food in secret. A day later, he disappears. Toward the end of winter, Uncle Roger seems to grow restless and rides his horse, Bucephalus, into town. He repeats this pattern many times, riding out in the morning and not returning until dark. One night, he comes home inebriated and says, “I’ll tell you a secret, shall I . . . Sarah? I’ve been trying to . . . disappear” (55). Uncle Roger claims that he’s a man of letters and a soldier rather than a simple farmer.

Embarrassed by his display, Margaret draws Sarah away, and they retire for the night. Margaret explains that her father visits the tavern in town and keeps company there with a sex worker. She followed him one night and was so angry that she cursed the sex worker, who soon afterward died of smallpox. Sarah thinks, “The thing Margaret had claimed to do, even towards saving her father, made a trembling start up in my middle” (59).

A few weeks later, Reverend Nason visits the house and tells the family of strange occurrences in Boston that seem to travel in the wake of the pox. A lively discussion of witchcraft then takes place between Roger and the clergyman as Roger discusses his theories about how to ferret out witches. He even draws Margaret into the conversation to tell what she knows on the subject. That night, Sarah finds herself wishing that her own family was dead so that she might live with the Toothakers forever. Afterward, she confesses that God must have cursed her for this wish because her father arrived the next day to take her home. She learns that her grandmother died, but the rest of the family survived the epidemic.