Ruth of Boston: A Story of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Otis James
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as did my parents and Susan's, and now because there is little of interest to set down regarding the building of the village, am I minded to tell that which I heard our fathers talking about evening after evening, as we sat in the great cabin when the day's work was done.
To you who have never gone into the wilderness to make a home, the anxiety which people in our condition felt concerning their neighbors cannot be understood. To us, if all we heard regarding what the savages might do against us was true, it was of the greatest importance we should know who were settled near at hand, if it so came that we were driven out from our town.
OUR NEIGHBORS
Now you must know that many years before, which is much the same as if I had said in the year of our Lord, 1620, a number of English people who had been living in Holland because of their consciences not permitting them to worship God in a manner according to the Church of England, came over to this country, and built a town which was called Plymouth.
This town was not far by water from our settlement; indeed, one might have sailed there in a shallop, if he were so minded, and, in case the wind served well, perform the voyage between daylight and sunset.
It was, as I have said, settled ten years before we came to this new world, and the inhabitants now numbered about three hundred. There were sixty-eight dwelling houses, a fort well built with wood, earth and stone, and a fair watch tower. Entirely around the town was a stout palisade, by which I mean a fence made of logs that stand eight or ten feet above the surface, and placed so closely together that an enemy may not make his way between them, and in all respects was it a goodly village, so my father declared.
Near the mouth of the Neponset river Sir Christopher Gardner, who was not one of our friends in a religious way, had settled with a small company, and farther down the coast, many miles away, it was said were three other villages; but none among them could outshine Salem, either in numbers of people, or in dwellings.
When we were on the shore in Charlestown, looking straight out over the water toward the nearest land, we could see, not above two miles away, three hills which were standing close to each other, and Master Thomas Graves, who had taken charge of the people that first settled in the town of Charles, had named the place Trimountain; but the Indians called it Shawmut. There only one white man was living and his name was Master William Blackstone, as I have already told you.
It seemed to me a fairer land, because of the hills and dales, than was our settlement, and yet it would not have been seemly for me to say so much, after our fathers and mothers had decided this was the place where we were to live.
GETTING SETTLED
The days which followed our coming to Charlestown were busy ones, even to us women folks, for there was much to be done in taking the belongings ashore, or in helping our neighbors to set to rights their new dwellings.
The Great House, in which Governor Winthrop would live, was finished first, and into this were moved as many of our people as it would hold.
Then again, there were others who, not content with staying on the Arabella after having remained on board of her so long, put up huts like unto the wigwams made by the Indians, which, while the weather continued to be so warm, served fairly well as places in which to live.
If I said that we made shift to get lodgings on shore in whatsoever manner came most convenient for the moment, I should only be stating the truth, for some indeed were lodged in an exceeding odd and interesting fashion.
Susan's father, going back some little distance from the Great House, cut away the trees in such a manner as to leave four standing in the form of a square, and from one to another of these he nailed small logs, topped with a piece of sail cloth that had been brought on shore from the Talbot, finishing the sides with branches of trees, sticks, and even two of his wife's best bed quilts. Into this queer home Susan went with her mother, while my parents were content to use one of the rooms in the Great House until father could build for us a dwelling of logs.
THE GREAT SICKNESS
It seemed much as if Susan was in the right, when she said that the deaths of Lady Arabella and Henry Winthrop were ill omens, because no sooner had all our people landed from the ships, or come up through the forest from Salem, than a great sickness raged among us.
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