University of Virginia Library

June ye 10th.

I went this Morning with Rebecca to visit Elnathan
Stone, a young Neighbor, who has been lying
sorelie 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 Warre 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
care-worn 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 Deathbed. She received us with small
civilitie, telling Rebecca that it was all along of the
Neglect of the Men in Authoritie that her Son had got
his death in the Warres, 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 kindlie and lovinglie, and gave her sundrie nice
daintie 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 faire, smooth
Forehead, shaded with brown curling Hair, and large,
blue Eyes, verie sweet and gentle in their look.
He told us that he felt himself growing weaker,
and that at Times his bodilie 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 manie Things he would like to
doe 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 Pitie for the poor Savages even, although he had
suffered sorelie 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 verie 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 doe 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
Warre 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 doe 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 manie bloody Warres, and won
many precious souls to Christ.”

I enquired of him concerning his Captivitie. 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
readie 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 hearte, 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 Rebeeca. “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 marvell 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 well
nigh 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 speake 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 Warre.

“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,
verie earnestlie. And on my querying with him about
it, he said he was greatlie 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,

neare 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
Deers 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 worshipp Him,
that he has brought the White men among them; but
if they will pray like the White men, they will grow
verie 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 me, 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 Warre upon the Whites, but that
he could not sit idle in his Wigwam, while his young
Men were gone upon their Warre 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 bitterlie, and that when he enquired
the cause of its Griefe, he was told that the
Great Spirit was angrie 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 speake 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
scarcelie 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 Familie.”

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:

A young Woman entered the House just as Rebecca
finished the Verses. She bore in her Hands a pail of
Milk and a Fowl neatlie 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 sinceritie. Rebecca seemed greatlie
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 familie 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 sadlie 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.”'