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Page 4
Suppose it a hot summer's day, and the lattice-windows of a chamber in
Mr. Endicott's house thrown wide open. The Lady Arbella, looking paler
than she did on shipboard, is sitting in her chair, and thinking
mournfully of far-off England. She rises and goes to the window. There,
amid patches of garden ground and cornfield, she sees the few wretched
hovels of the settlers, with the still ruder wigwams and cloth tents of
the passengers who had arrived in the same fleet with herself. Far and
near stretches the dismal forest of pine trees, which throw their black
shadows over the whole land, and likewise over the heart of this poor
lady.
All the inhabitants of the little village are busy. One is clearing a
spot on the verge of the forest for his homestead; another is hewing the
trunk of a fallen pine tree, in order to build himself a dwelling; a
third is hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out
of the woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the
neighbors to lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a
spade and a bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal
article of food with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are
two or three dusky figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of
bone hanging from their ears, and the feathers of wild birds in their
coal black hair. They have belts of shell-work slung across their
shoulders, and are armed with bows and arrows and flint-headed spears.
These are an Indian Sagamore and his attendants, who have come to gaze
at the labors of the white men. And now rises a cry, that a pack of
wolves have seized a young calf in the pasture; and every man snatches
up his gun or pike, and runs in chase of the marauding beasts.
Poor Lady Arbella watches all these sights, and feels that this new
world is fit only for rough and hardy people. None should be here but
those who can struggle with wild beasts and wild men, and can toil in
the heat or cold, and can keep their hearts firm against all
difficulties and dangers. But she is not one of these. Her gentle and
timid spirit sinks within her; and turning away from the window she sits
down in the great chair, and wonders thereabouts in the wilderness her
friends will dig her grave.
Mr. Johnson had gone, with Governor Winthrop and most of the other
passengers, to Boston, where he intended to build a house for Lady
Arbella and himself. Boston was then covered with wild woods, and had
fewer inhabitants even than Salem. During her husband's absence, poor
Lady Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir from
the great chair. Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency, he
doubtless addressed her with words of comfort. "Cheer up, my good
lady!" he would say. "In a little time, you will love this rude life of
the wilderness as I do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute
as iron, and he could not understand why a woman's heart should not be
of iron too.
Still, however, he spoke kindly to the lady, and then hastened forth to
till his corn-field and set out fruit trees, or to bargain with the
Indians for furs, or perchance to oversee the building of a fort. Also
being a magistrate, he had often to punish some idler or evil-doer, by
ordering him to be set in the stocks or scourged at the whipping-post.
Often, too, as was the custom of the times, he and Mr. Higginson, the
minister of Salem, held long religious talks together. Thus John
Endicott was a man of multifarious business, and had no time to look
back regretfully to his native land. He felt himself fit for the new
world, and for the work that he had to do, and set himself resolutely to
accomplish it.
What a contrast, my dear children, between this bold, rough, active man,
and the gentle Lady Arbella, who was fading away, like a pale English
flower, in the shadow of the forest! And now the great chair was often
empty, because Lady Arbella grew too weak to arise from bed.
Meantime, her husband had pitched upon a spot for their new home. He
returned from Boston to Salem, travelling through the woods on foot, and
leaning on his pilgrim's staff. His heart yearned within him; for he
was eager to tell his wife of the new home which he had chosen. But when
he beheld her pale and hollow cheek, and found how her strength was
wasted, he must have known that her appointed home was in a better land.
Happy for him then,--happy both for him and her,--if they remembered
that there was a path to heaven, as well from this heathen wilderness as
from the Christian land whence they had come. And so, in one short month
from her arrival, the gentle Lady Arbella faded away and died. They dug
a grave for her in the new soil, where the roots of the pine trees
impeded their spades; and when her bones had rested there nearly two
hundred years, and a city had sprung up around them, a church of stone
was built upon the spot.
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