42. Saving a Flock of Children
BY DANIEL NEAL (1607)
ALL the plans of the English during the year 1696
seemed to be upset and nothing but murmurings and
complaints were to be heard from one end of the
Massachusetts province to the other. The Indians on the
other hand were strangely exalted with their late success and
threatened to ruin the whole country during the next summer.
In the meantime they posted themselves so advantageously
that it was
hardly safe for the people on the frontiers to stir out of their
houses. They killed many people who were at work in their
fields. To crown the calamities of the year there was a very
great scarcity of all sorts of grain, and the poor were ready
to break out into riot for want of bread.
In the winter the enemy were pretty quiet, but upon
the fifteenth of March, they made a descent upon the
outskirts of Haverhill, burnt about half a dozen houses and
captured thirty-nine persons. Among the prisoners was
Hannah Dunston, who was a very brave woman. At this
time she was weak and sick in her bed with only her nurse
and eight small children in the house, when the Indians
surrounded it. Her husband was at work in the field and
seeing the enemy at a distance he ran home and bade seven
of his eight children to get away as fast as they could to
some garrison in the town. He then informed his wife of her
danger, but before she could rise the enemy were so near
that her husband despaired of being able to carry her off. He
took his horse and his firearms, resolving to live or die with
his children. He overtook them about forty rods from his
house and drove them before him like a flock of sheep as
fast as their little legs would carry them till they got to a
place of safety about a mile or two from his house. The
Indians pursued him all the while, but he kept in the rear of
his little flock, and when any of the Indians came within
reach of his gun, he aimed at them and they made their
retreat.
