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Margaret Smith's Journal in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1678-9, a fiction by John Greenleaf Whittier |
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NEWBURY, June 1, 1678 |
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_ To-day Sir Thomas took his leave of us, being about to go back to Boston. Cousin Rebecca is, I can see, much taken with his outside bravery and courtliness, yet she hath confessed to me that her sober judgment doth greatly incline her towards her old friend and neighbor, Robert Pike. She hath even said that she doubted not she could live a quieter and happier life with him than with such an one as Sir Thomas; and that the words of the Quaker maid, whom we met at the spring on the river side, had disquieted her not a little, inasmuch as they did seem to confirm her own fears and misgivings. But her fancy is so bedazzled with the goodly show of her suitor, that I much fear he can have her for the asking, especially as her father, to my knowledge, doth greatly favor him. And, indeed, by reason of her gracious manner, witty and pleasant discoursing, excellent breeding, and dignity, she would do no discredit to the choice of one far higher than this young gentleman in estate and rank.
I went this morning with Rebecca to visit Elnathan Stone, a young neighbor, who has been lying sorely ill for a long time. He was a playmate of my cousin when a boy, and was thought to be of great promise as he grew up to manhood; but, engaging in the war with the heathen, he was wounded and taken captive by them, and after much suffering was brought back to his home a few months ago. On entering the house where he lay, we found his mother, a careworn and sad woman, spinning in the room by his bedside. A very great and bitter sorrow was depicted on her features; it was the anxious, unreconciled, and restless look of one who did feel herself tried beyond her patience, and might not be comforted. For, as I learned, she was a poor widow, who had seen her young daughter tomahawked by the Indians; and now her only son, the hope of her old age, was on his death-bed. She received us with small civility, telling Rebecca that it was all along of the neglect of the men in authority that her son had got his death in the wars, inasmuch as it was the want of suitable diet and clothing, rather than his wounds, which had brought him into his present condition. Now, as Uncle Rawson is one of the principal magistrates, my sweet cousin knew that the poor afflicted creature meant to reproach him; but her good heart did excuse and forgive the rudeness and distemper of one whom the Lord had sorely chastened. So she spake kindly and lovingly, and gave her sundry nice dainty fruits and comforting cordials, which she had got from Boston for the sick man. Then, as she came to his bedside, and took his hand lovingly in her own, he thanked her for her many kindnesses, and prayed God to bless her. He must have been a handsome lad in health, for he had a fair, smooth forehead, shaded with brown, curling hair, and large, blue eyes, very sweet and gentle in their look. He told us that he felt himself growing weaker, and that at times his bodily suffering was great. But through the mercy of his Saviour he had much peace of mind. He was content to leave all things in His hand. For his poor mother's sake, he said, more than for his own, he would like to get about once more; there were many things he would like to do for her, and for all who had befriended him; but he knew his Heavenly Father could do more and better for them, and he felt resigned to His will. He had, he said, forgiven all who ever wronged him, and he had now no feeling of anger or unkindness left towards any one, for all seemed kind to him beyond his deserts, and like brothers and sisters. He had much pity for the poor savages even, although he had suffered sorely at their hands; for he did believe that they had been often ill-used, and cheated, and otherwise provoked to take up arms against us. Hereupon, Goodwife Stone twirled her spindle very spitefully, and said she would as soon pity the Devil as his children. The thought of her mangled little girl, and of her dying son, did seem to overcome her, and she dropped her thread, and cried out with an exceeding bitter cry,--"Oh, the bloody heathen! Oh, my poor murdered Molly! Oh, my son, my son!"--"Nay, mother," said the sick man, reaching out his hand and taking hold of his mother's, with a sweet smile on his pale face,--"what does Christ tell us about loving our enemies, and doing good to them that do injure us? Let us forgive our fellow-creatures, for we have all need of God's forgiveness. I used to feel as mother does," he said, turning to us; "for I went into the war with a design to spare neither young nor old of the enemy. "But I thank God that even in that dark season my heart relented at the sight of the poor starving women and children, chased from place to place like partridges. Even the Indian fighters, I found, had sorrows of their own, and grievous wrongs to avenge; and I do believe, if we had from the first treated them as poor blinded brethren, and striven as hard to give them light and knowledge, as we have to cheat them in trade, and to get away their lands, we should have escaped many bloody wars, and won many precious souls to Christ." I inquired of him concerning his captivity. He was wounded, he told me, in a fight with the Sokokis Indians two years before. It was a hot skirmish in the woods; the English and the Indians now running forward, and then falling back, firing at each other from behind the trees. He had shot off all his powder, and, being ready to faint by reason of a wound in his knee, he was fain to sit down against an oak, from whence he did behold, with great sorrow and heaviness of heart, his companions overpowered by the number of their enemies, fleeing away and leaving him to his fate. The savages soon came to him with dreadful whoopings, brandishing their hatchets and their scalping-knives. He thereupon closed his eyes, expecting to be knocked in the head, and killed outright. But just then a noted chief coming up in great haste, bade him be of good cheer, for he was his prisoner, and should not be slain. He proved to be the famous Sagamore Squando, the chief man of the Sokokis. "And were you kindly treated by this chief?" asked Rebecca. "I suffered much in moving with him to the Sebago Lake, owing to my wound," he replied; "but the chief did all in his power to give me comfort, and he often shared with me his scant fare, choosing rather to endure hunger himself, than to see his son, as he called me, in want of food. And one night, when I did marvel at this kindness on his part, he told me that I had once done him a great service; asking me if I was not at Black Point, in a fishing vessel, the summer before? I told him I was. He then bade me remember the bad sailors who upset the canoe of a squaw, and wellnigh drowned her little child, and that I had threatened and beat them for it; and also how I gave the squaw a warm coat to wrap up the poor wet papoose. It was his squaw and child that I had befriended; and he told me that he had often tried to speak to me, and make known his gratitude therefor; and that he came once to the garrison at Sheepscot, where he saw me; but being fired at, notwithstanding his signs of peace and friendship, he was obliged to flee into the woods. He said the child died a few days after its evil treatment, and the thought of it made his heart bitter; that he had tried to live peaceably with the white men, but they had driven him into the war. "On one occasion," said the sick soldier, "as we lay side by side in his hut, on the shore of the Sebago Lake, Squando, about midnight, began to pray to his God very earnestly. And on my querying with him about it, he said he was greatly in doubt what to do, and had prayed for some sign of the Great Spirit's will concerning him. He then told me that some years ago, near the place where we then lay, he left his wigwam at night, being unable to sleep, by reason of great heaviness and distemper of mind. It was a full moon, and as he did walk to and fro, he saw a fair, tall man in a long black dress, standing in the light on the lake's shore, who spake to him and called him by name. "'Squando,' he said, and his voice was deep and solemn, like the wind in the hill pines, 'the God of the white man is the God of the Indian, and He is angry with his red children. He alone is able to make the corn grow before the frost, and to lead the fish up the rivers in the spring, and to fill the woods with deer and other game, and the ponds and meadows with beavers. Pray to Him always. Do not hunt on His day, nor let the squaws hoe the corn. Never taste of the strong fire-water, but drink only from the springs. It, is because the Indians do not worship Him, that He has brought the white men among them; but if they will pray like the white men, they will grow very great and strong, and their children born in this moon will live to see the English sail back in their great canoes, and leave the Indians all their fishing-places and hunting-grounds.' "When the strange man had thus spoken, Squando told me that he went straightway up to him, but found where he had stood only the shadow of a broken tree, which lay in the moon across the white sand of the shore. Then he knew it was a spirit, and he trembled, but was glad. Ever since, he told nee, he had prayed daily to the Great Spirit, had drank no rum, nor hunted on the Sabbath. "He said he did for a long time refuse to dig up his hatchet, and make war upon the whites, but that he could not sit idle in his wigwam, while his young men were gone upon their war-path. The spirit of his dead child did moreover speak to him from the land of souls, and chide him for not seeking revenge. Once, he told me, he had in a dream seen the child crying and moaning bitterly, and that when he inquired the cause of its grief, he was told that the Great Spirit was angry with its father, and would destroy him and his people unless he did join with the Eastern Indians to cut off the English." "I remember," said Rebecca, "of hearing my father speak of this Squando's kindness to a young maid taken captive some years ago at Presumpscot." "I saw her at Cocheco," said the sick man. "Squando found her in a sad plight, and scarcely alive, took her to his wigwam, where his squaw did lovingly nurse and comfort her; and when she was able to travel, he brought her to Major Waldron's, asking no ransom for her. He might have been made the fast friend of the English at that time, but he scarcely got civil treatment." "My father says that many friendly Indians, by the ill conduct of the traders, have been made our worst enemies," said Rebecca. "He thought the bringing in of the Mohawks to help us a sin comparable to that of the Jews, who looked for deliverance from the King of Babylon at the hands of the Egyptians." "They did nothing but mischief," said Elnathan Stone; "they killed our friends at Newichawannock, Blind Will and his family." Rebecca here asked him if he ever heard the verses writ by Mr. Sewall concerning the killing of Blind Will. And when he told her he had not, and would like to have her repeat them, if she could remember, she did recite them thus:-- "Blind Will of Newiehawannock! "Blind Will was the friend of white men, "Poor Will of Newiehawannock! "Now his fields will know no harvest, "Woe the day our rulers listened "Oh! the Lord He will requite us; "There'll be many a captive sighing, "And the Papist priests the tidings "Let the Lord's anointed servants "Let the maiden and the mother "Poor Will of Newiehawannock! A young woman entered the house just as Rebecca finished the verses. She bore in her hands a pail of milk and a fowl neatly dressed, which she gave to Elnathan's mother, and, seeing strangers by his bedside, was about to go out, when he called to her and besought her to stay. As she came up and spoke to him, I knew her to be the maid we had met at the spring. The young man, with tears in his eyes, acknowledged her great kindness to him, at which she seemed troubled and abashed. A pure, sweet complexion she hath, and a gentle and loving look, full of innocence and sincerity. Rebecca seemed greatly disturbed, for she no doubt thought of the warning words of this maiden, when we were at the spring. After she had left, Goodwife Stone said she was sure she could not tell what brought that Quaker girl to her house so much, unless she meant to inveigle Elnathan; but, for her part, she would rather see him dead than live to bring reproach upon his family and the Church by following after the blasphemers. I ventured to tell her that I did look upon it as sheer kindness and love on the young woman's part; at which Elnathan seemed pleased, and said he could not doubt it, and that he did believe Peggy Brewster to be a good Christian, although sadly led astray by the Quakers. His mother said that, with all her meek looks, and kind words, she was full of all manner of pestilent heresies, and did remind her always of Satan in the shape of an angel of light. We went away ourselves soon after this, the sick man thanking us for our visit, and hoping that he should see us again. "Poor Elnathan," said Rebecca, as we walked home, "he will never go abroad again; but he is in such a good and loving frame of mind, that he needs not our pity, as one who is without hope." "He reminds me," I said, "of the comforting promise of Scripture, 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.'"
Mr. Rawson and Sir Thomas Hale came yesterday from Boston. I was rejoiced to see mine uncle, more especially as he brought for me a package of letters, and presents and tokens of remembrance from my friends on the other side of the water. As soon as I got them, I went up to my chamber, and, as I read of the health of those who are very dear to me, and who did still regard me with unchanged love, I wept in my great joy, and my heart overflowed in thankfulness. I read the 22d Psalm, and it did seem to express mine own feelings in view of the great mercies and blessings vouchsafed to me. "My head is anointed with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." This morning, Sir Thomas and Uncle Rawson rode over to Hampton, where they will tarry all night. Last evening, Rebecca had a long talk with her father concerning Sir Thomas, who hath asked her of him. She came to bed very late, and lay restless and sobbing; whereupon I pressed her to know the cause of her grief, when she told me she had consented to marry Sir Thomas, but that her heart was sorely troubled and full of misgivings. On my querying whether she did really love the young gentleman, she said she sometimes feared she did not; and that when her fancy had made a fair picture of the life of a great lady in England, there did often come a dark cloud over it like the shade of some heavy disappointment or sorrow. "Sir Thomas," she said, "was a handsome and witty young man, and had demeaned himself to the satisfaction and good repute of her father and the principal people of the Colony; and his manner towards her had been exceeding delicate and modest, inasmuch as he had presumed nothing upon his family or estate, but had sought her with much entreaty and humility, although he did well know that some of the most admired and wealthy Young women in Boston did esteem him not a little, even to the annoying of herself, as one whom he especially favored." "This will be heavy news to Robert Pike," said I; "and I am sorry for him, for he is indeed a worthy man." "That he is," quoth she; "but he hath never spoken to me of aught beyond that friendliness which, as neighbors and school companions, we do innocently cherish for each other." "Nay," said I, "my sweet cousin knows full well that he entertaineth so strong an affection for her, that there needeth no words to reveal it." "Alas!" she answered, "it is too true. When I am with him, I sometimes wish I had never seen Sir Thomas. But my choice is made, and I pray God I may not have reason to repent of it." We said no more, but I fear she slept little, for on waking about the break of day, I saw her sitting in her night-dress by the window. Whereupon I entreated her to return to her bed, which she at length did, and folding me in her arms, and sobbing as if her heart would break, she besought me to pity her, for it was no light thing which she had done, and she scarcely knew her own mind, nor whether to rejoice or weep over it. I strove to comfort her, and, after a time, she did, to my great joy, fall into a quiet sleep. This afternoon, Robert Pike came in, and had a long talk with Cousin Broughton, who told him how matters stood between her sister and Sir Thomas, at which he was vehemently troubled, and would fain have gone to seek Rebecca at once, and expostulate with her, but was hindered on being told that it could only grieve and discomfort her, inasmuch as the thing was well settled, and could not be broken off. He said he had known and loved her from a child; that for her sake he had toiled hard by day and studied by night; and that in all his travels and voyages, her sweet image had always gone with him. He would bring no accusation against her, for she had all along treated him rather as a brother than as a suitor: to which last condition he had indeed not felt himself at liberty to venture, after her honored father, some months ago, had given him to understand that he did design an alliance of his daughter with a gentleman of estate and family. For himself, he would bear himself manfully, and endure his sorrow with patience and fortitude. His only fear was, that his beloved friend had been too hasty in deciding the matter; and that he who was her choice might not be worthy of the great gift of her affection. Cousin Broughton, who has hitherto greatly favored the pretensions of Sir Thomas, told me that she wellnigh changed her mind in view of the manly and noble bearing of Robert Pike; and that if her sister were to live in this land, she would rather see her the wife of him than of any other man therein. _ |
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