University of Virginia Library

MARY RICE.

Wordsworth.

A fair girl was getting water at a spring. It bubbled
up, clear as crystal, in its bed of shelving rock.
All around was in the deep solitude of nature. The
path to the fountain was imperfectly wrought out by
the track of feet, amid the tangled thicket. The unpeopled
wild was overshadowed by dense masses of
forest-trees, which were now glowing with the rich
tints of a New England autumn, softened by the slant
rays of a declining sun.

But the being who alone gave life to this landscape,
bore no brow of hermit or of ascetic. Apparently
between sixteen and seventeen, her fully-rounded
form combined strength with the grace of
early womanhood. The beauty of health spoke
through her fine complexion and unconstrained
movement, while her hazel eye beamed with a
cheerful courage, as if, from the habit of looking on
the bright side of things, it had gathered brightness.
The light of her glad spirit seemed to flow forth
and mingle with the pure sunbeam, that was streaming
through every nook and glade of the wilderness.

Suddenly a boy, younger than herself, made his
way through the interwoven copse-wood. “Mary
Rice! sister! why did you not tell me that you needed

water from the spring? It is not my will and
pleasure that you should be either a hewer of wood
or a drawer of water.”

Regarding him with an affectionate smile as she
resigned her burden to him, they began to ascend
together a long and steep hill. Then a voice of
clear, rich music broke the silence.

“Brother mine, I have thought of late that there
was sadness on your brow. Am I right?”

“Yes, to be sure. How can it be otherwise in
this strange, lone place. I have never been contented,
the whole year that we have lived here. I wonder
why father removed from our old home in Marlborough.
It was far pleasanter there, where we
could see some other smoke besides our own, go
curling up into the blue sky. Here, if you take a
walk into the woods—and there is nowhere else to
walk—the deadly snake shakes its rattle at you, or
some serpent darts out a forked tongue, while the
only music is the howling of wolves, or the wild cat
purring in its lair.”

“Except the merry song of birds. Open your
ears just a moment now, to their melody. They
seem to be pouring out a full chorus, perhaps for our
especial benefit, perhaps their own sweet good-night
to each other.”

“The birds and you are particular friends, I perceive.
As for me, I think more of the war-whoop
of Indians. It is rather singular that father should
choose to settle on the very spot where they murdered

Serjent, and carried his family away captive.
They would naturally come to the old place again
when they prowl for prey. Now you need not look
so sharp at me, Madam Rice, as though you took me
for a coward. I tell you, if the worst comes to the
worst, you'll find me as good a soldier as ever taught
the red-skins how to skulk back to their wigwams.”

“In the mean time, bold brother, let us try to be
happy, and to make others so. Is it not the duty of
us, who are young, to help and cheer our parents,
and not hang like mill-stones around their necks, to
sink them in deeper waters?”

“Many thanks for your sermon, most reverend
teacher. It is right good and wholesome doctrine.
But if Uncle Gershom Rice should remove here, as
I understand he talks of doing, and my eyes behold
another roof among yonder tall, gloomy trees, so that
we are not quite cast out from all the world beside,
it would vastly add to the force of your exhortations.”

“Dear brother, as long as there is love in our own
hearts for each other and our Father in heaven, let
us not displease Him by complaining. Come, cheer
up for my sake. I dare say you'll live to see this
fine country full of people. Who knows but a future
race will number you among its very worthy
and renowned ancestors. Will not that be some
payment for fighting rattlesnakes, and running away
from bears and panthers? Come, my soldier that is
to be, bring us fresh milk from the cow, and see
what a nice supper I'll spread for you.”

And the tender, earnest kiss which she pressed on
the brow of the boy, rekindled that blessed strength
which springs from the certainty of being beloved.
As he turned from her, she called playfully after
him,

“Don't forget to put up our few sheep securely
for the night, from the visits of your particular friends,
the wolves. And look you, come back with a pleasant
face. It mightily helps on the work of the family.”

They parted at the door of a rude habitation, the
only one for miles. Its owner, Mr. Jonas Rice, a
man of singular firmness and intrepidity, resided
here with a large family of children, of whom Mary
was the eldest. He was literally the father of the
settlement; for, though an attempt to plant it had
been made nearly forty years before, the settlers
were soon dispersed through dread of the natives,
and the hardships of colonial life. After the death
of King Philip, and the cessation of the wars that he
sustained, another effort was instituted, which also
proved abortive.

A small tenement had been erected twelve years
before, near the site of the present lonely dwelling;
but it was soon destroyed by hostile Indians, and its
inmates massacred or made captive. To Mr. Rice,
therefore, belongs the honorary title of the father of
Worcester. Much would it have cheered him, amid
toil and peril, might he have caught a prophetic glance
of its present beauty, with its fair structures, its anti-quarian

halls, its polished society, and its flourishing
schools, pulsating in full prosperity, like a busy heart
in the bosom of its rich territory.

As Mary Rice entered their humble abode, a concord
of young voices greeted her. A flock of children
were gathered round the fire, which the chill
of an autumnal eve rendered acceptable. One little
girl was bemoaning a finger torn by a thorn. The
good sister bound up the wound, and comforted her,
enjoining upon all to be quiet, and not disturb their
mother, who, with feeble health, had charge of a very
young infant. She herself fed, and lulled to needful
rest a child of two summers, and then, with elastic
step and skillful hand, busied herself in preparations
for the evening meal.

The table of rough boards was soon covered with
a coarse white cloth, in whose spinning and bleaching
her industry had aided that of the mother. The
light corn-cakes and fresh butter were of her own
making. Large clusters of the native grape, now
fully ripe, were added by the care of her young
brothers. And as she arranged the simple viands,
and poured out the pure milk, her face was radiant
with that joy which gives health to the heart; a consciousness
of making those whom it loves comfortable
and happy.

The father came home from his work, and, raising
his hands, implored Heaven's blessing upon the
household board. By his side sat the meek and
cherished wife, pale, but convalescent; and while the

children partook, nothing loath, of the refreshment
provided, the hum of their voices, reverently lowered
in the parental presence, was like the music of a
bee-hive.

The repast finished, they drew around the blazing
fire. Young eyes turned spontaneously to Mary's
sweet, cheerful face, as buds to the sunbeam.

“Tell me a story,” said one, “as you do, when we
have been good, about him who slew the giant with a
sling, and the smooth stones from the brook.”

“And about the gleaner who gathered sheaves in
the field to feed her poor mother.”

“And sing us some of those sweet songs that you
sing when the great wheel goes round, where you
spin the wool for our stockings, and our warm winter
clothes.”

“It is time for your own evening hymn, and to go
to sleep, my little ones,” said the kind sister, holding
the young babe for them all to kiss, and then placing
it tenderly in the father's arms.

There was a low, buzzing whisper among the children,
and close approximation of heads, as if in a
cabinet council. At length a chubby girl, who had
sometimes been called the favorite of her sire, taking
courage from that flattery, stood up close beside his
knee and said,

“Father! we children want to know what you
are going to call the baby.”

“His name is Adonijah,” was the emphatic reply.
Then, still more slowly, as if dictating for a family

record, he repeated, “Ad-o-ni-jah Rice, born November
7th, 1714, at Sagatabscot Hill, Worcester, in
the Bay State.”

Whereat young eyes opened wider, and small
heads bobbed up and down, and here and there a
lisping tongue essayed the burden of the mighty
name. But the youngest framed their lips in vain to
the wonderful cognomen, and looked with new pride
on each other, and on the puny infant so unconscious
of its magnificent heritage.

“That is just the grandest name I ever did hear,”
said the child whose successful diplomacy had drawn
it from the paternal treasure-house.

“Father must have read all the books of history
in the world, to have it ready so, the very minute he
is asked.”

“Sister Mary says it's in the Bible.”

“Yes,” answered one of the older children, “it is
the name of a man in Israel who was crowned king.”

“I wonder if our baby won't be a crowned king
when he grows up?”

“King, I dare say, over the rattlesnakes and
wolves of Sagatabscot Hill,” murmured the querulous
brother.

Now came the singing of their simple hymn, in
which every little one, quietly seated, and with a
countenance composed to gravity, mingled an uplifted
voice. Then the good sister, bending over
their pillows, heard each utter the prayer in which
the devotion of childhood, half slumber and half

trust, had wrapped itself for ages. Perhaps the
scenery of their dreams was that night varied by the
image of their baby brother, with the unspeakable
name. Fancy, however, doubtless failed in presenting
the picture that time unfolded—the first-born son
of Worcester, in the garb, and with the dauntless
bearing of a soldier, jeoparding his life at the siege
of Louisburg; or, amid the carnage of West Point,
solacing himself, in the interval of many campaigns,
with the comforts of his home amid the Green Mountains
of Vermont; or, after the independence of his
country was secured, passing on within the limits of
another century, and bearing on his hoary head with
honor the weight of almost ninety winters.

In the course of a few evenings, one of those sudden
changes that mark the climate of New England
brought a tempest of snow, wildly sweeping over the
earth. The family grouped themselves around a fire
of huge logs, that imparted a strong heat and ruddy
flame. The father was busied in examining for one
of his sons some arithmetical exercises, made with
a fragment of chalk upon a slab of slate-stone. In
the long, quiet evenings, he pursued with the older
children a system of instruction, which Mary, during
the day, as household duties permitted, modified
for the younger; a system which afterward, as population
increased, he was induced to carry out more
efficiently, as the first preceptor of the infant settlement.
Such was the high regard for education
among our ancestors, that, ere it was possible to establish

schools in the wilderness, the fireside was a
school, and themselves teachers, of the rudiments of
knowledge and the fear of God.

The little ones were gathered in a circle, murmuring
in subdued tones, or listening to their elders.
Mary pressed the new-born infant to her bosom as
though it were her own, and the mother, who sat by
her side plying the knitting-needles, said tenderly,

“Children, do you hear how the storm rages?
When the blast strikes the tall forest trees, they groan
as if in pain or fear. Shall we not love the good God
who shelters us, and spares our life and health?”

She had scarcely done speaking, when one exclaimed,

“Father! do I hear footsteps around the house?
The dog pricks up his ears as if he thought something
was wrong.”

The fine large dog, who had been carrying on his
back the youngest girl until she grew weary of sport,
and then stretched himself before the fire to sleep,
was seen occasionally to start and listen; then, as if
satisfied that his vigilance was misplaced, laid his
broad head upon the warm hearth again. Now he
sprang up growling, and rushed from corner to corner
of the room, with his nose to the floor, as if searching
for some crevice in the walls, and then made his
stand at the door, barking violently.

The husband, perceiving the faint color leave the
lips of his invalid wife, spoke of the hoarse echo of
the storm, and bade the dog be still.

“But, father, father, I hear the moan of a human
voice. Some one is there, and in distress. Shall I
open the door?”

The thoughtful colonist was not ignorant that the
Indians often counterfeited the wail of suffering, as
well as the howl of the wolf, when intent on cruelty.
Anxious not prematurely to alarm the mother, in
whose mind the tragedy once enacted on that spot
was ever vivid, he saw with satisfaction that his
gun, ready loaded, was at his hand, and that the elder
boys came resolutely to his side, grasping such
weapons as they had been trained to wield. Mary,
with a clear, calm brow, sheltered the little ones,
who flew to her, and threw one arm around her
mother, speaking in a cheering voice, words of comfort.

“Sister Mary knows how to load and fire as well
as any body,” said a boy of five. “She can take aim
too, for I've seen her practicing, and I'll help her,
and fight for her, as long as I live;” breaking from
the circle of alarmed little ones.

There was a brief interval of breathless anxiety.
Separated for miles from any other habitation, who
could think of approaching their premises amid the
howling of such a pitiless storm, except some savage
horde intent on massacre? Footsteps were now distinctly
heard, and a voice which the howling blasts
made unintelligible. Every hand except that of infant
weakness grasped some defensive weapon, and
the feeble mother, inspired with courage, rose up

and wrapped her young babe for flight, speaking in
her heart to the God of strength.

A lull of the loud tempest made earnest words
audible.

“Have pity! Oh, have pity! My father was murdered
here. I have escaped from the Indians. I am
Thomas Serjent. Give me shelter, ere I perish.”

The door flew open. A youth partially clad in
Indian costume, and half enveloped in blinding and
adhesive snows, entered with feeble steps. A momentary
excitement lighted up his wan countenance,
and “God bless you!” trembled on his lips. Then he
sank exhausted and fainting to the floor. The alarmed
family chafed his temples and rubbed his chilled
limbs, eagerly essaying every means of restoration.
When somewhat revived and comforted by the
warmth of the fire, and nutriment cautiously administered,
to which he seemed to have been long a
stranger, but, more than all, cheered by expressions
of human kindness, his sad heart expanded, and he
would fain have related his story, with mingled sobs
of gratitude and grief.

But they forbade, and insisted on his retiring to
that rest which he so much needed. That night the
prayers of the father, in the midst of his kneeling
dear ones, went up with unusual fervor to Him who
had graciously overruled their fears, and, instead of
the ruthless savage, brought to their humble dwelling
the exile and the orphan, that they might do
him good.

The pale and care-worn face of their guest, gradually
assumed the hue of health and happiness. Invited
by the master of the habitation to remain as
one of his own children, until something better should
offer for him, his gratitude to his benefactor knew no
bounds. All labor and service were counted joy,
and an added sense of security in their lonely situation
was derived from his presence. Portions of
his history, which from time to time he related, and
whose features of death and sorrow were but too familiar
to the ears of our early settlers, awakened
among the fireside listeners strong emotions of sympathy.

“It was in such a fearful storm as that from which
I found shelter under your blessed roof, that the savages
attacked my father's habitation. He had been
warned of the peril of dwelling in so solitary a spot,
while proofs of Indian depredation and massacre
seemed to multiply in the land. But he had become
attached to the fields which he cultured, and his nature
knew no fear. It had become mid-winter, and
the cold was intense. The darkness of a tempestuous
night gathered around us in the wilderness, yet
the five children sat happily with their parents at the
fireside, while the wild snows fell, and the forest
shivered at the shrieking blast.

“We fancied that we heard, at first, sounds as of
the prowling wolf. Then the door was cleft by the
Indian tomahawk. My father rushed forward with
his gun to defend his family, and fell, covered with

gashes, a lifeless corpse. They drove my mother
and her children out into the tempest. She folded
in her bosom the youngest, little Mary, a sickly babe,
not two years old, and began, at their command, a
toilsome march through the drifted snows. We were
about to ascend a steep hill, when, oppressed with
grief and misery, and weak from ill health, she fell
in the rear of the train. The leader of the party
paused, and, not appearing to notice her, bent his
keen eye into the depths of the forest, as if descrying
game, or apprehensive of pursuit.

“Thus the whole file passed by, and when the wearied
woman came slowly on with her deep heartwail,
and her head bowed down upon the face of
her little one, a single stroke from his hatchet laid
her low. The affrighted child rolled from her arms.
As if something like pity dwelt in their savage natures,
they took up the poor babe, who was creeping
to cling again to its dead mother, and wrapped it in
their blanket, and gave it parched corn, and told it
not to cry. I was permitted to lead by the hand my
sister Martha, a child of four summers, while my two
brothers, eight and ten years old, were forced on in
front. We were separated ere we reached the borders
of Canada, and I saw them no more. Whether
they all fell a prey to the tomahawk, or to the lingering
pains of Indian captivity, or whether that still
worse fate befell them, of adopting the hateful customs
of Roman and pagan life, is known only to that
God who, through stern trials of bereavement, famine,

and misery, so mercifully led me to this ark of
refuge.”

A burst of sorrow closed his narrative. Yet at different
times resuming it, he depicted the hardships
of his own lot amid Canadian wilds—the strange
mixture of noble traits with degrading cruelty, that
often marks the character of the aboriginal American,
and the remarkable providences that favored
him in effecting his escape, during a nightly revel,
when his usually watchful masters ventured from
their northern clime to explore the interior of New
England, having been lulled to security by his apparent
contentment during a captivity of twelve years.

Reinforced by this youth, the industrious settler,
with his two eldest boys, vigorously pursued the toils
preparatory to winter's comfort, which were facilitated
by the return of a brief interval of mild weather. In
the house was heard the clear voice of a happy child,

“Mary, sister Mary, you promised us, if we would
learn our lessons well for a whole week, to take a
walk with us, and gather nuts on some fine day. Have
we not been good? See! the snow is all gone, and
the sun shines bright and warm. The squirrels have
been busy so long in carrying the nuts to their houses,
that we shall scarcely get our part.”

“So you wish to rob the poor squirrels. Your
brothers have already been beforehand with them,
and secured quite a hoard. But I surely gave you
such a promise, dear little scholars. And as you
have kept your part of the contract, I must not fail

in mine. If our mother consents, we will go early
this afternoon with our baskets, a rare party of
gleaners.”

They leaped and shouted for joy. How happy is
childhood with simple pleasures, ere the tastes of artificial
life tinge and trammel its enjoyments. Autumn,
which had been unusually changeable, sometimes
fostering the misty, luxuriant loveliness of the
Indian summer, and anon breaking out in the harsh,
fitful caprices of winter, was now taking a final farewell.
It moved mournfully, like one bearing adversity,
and musing upon lost wealth. It seemed to be
contrasting the memory of golden harvests with the
penury of naked trees and frost-bound earth, while
the cold, blue streams, ready to become ice, mocked
at its broken sway and departed glory.

But no such sad reflections oppressed the merry
troop who bounded through the forest glade. Their
glad hearts made the drear landscape beautiful.
They indeed found themselves rather too late for the
autumnal spoil of nuts, yet occasionally a few were
discovered, over which they exceedingly rejoiced.

At length, the careful elder sister warned them that
it was time to return home. Just then a strange
sound in the thicket alarmed them, and through tangled
branches they saw two large, glaring eyes of a
panther. He at first seemed in a quiescent state,
but rising leisurely, prepared to move toward them.
Mary, seizing the two youngest children by the
hand, and bidding the others not to separate from

her, fled with breathless speed. The frightful creature
followed, not with rapid pace, but steadfastly;
his feet patting among the rustling leaves and fallen
underwood, and his cat-like breathing convinced
them that he was near. As if sure of his prey, he
glided quietly along, till, growing excited in the pursuit,
he gained upon them, and reaching a more open
place, seemed crouching for a spring. Mary, with
her flying group, turned a short angle to a more
closely-wooded path, illusively hoping that if the
leap were in a right line, they might thus avoid it.

At that moment was heard the sharp report of a
rifle. The huge monster sprang high in air, uttering
a shrill cry, and then, with a deep, prolonged growl,
rolled and quivered in tides of blood.

A stately Indian emerged from the forest. The
dread of captivity gave new speed to the fugitives.
A commanding yet gentle voice arrested their flight.

“Stay! I will not hurt a hair of your heads.
Poor tremblers! Ye are taught to hate alike the
wild beast and the Indian. Look! Did not the Indian
slay the fierce creature that would have destroyed
you? Go now in peace, and when you reach
your home, say that the outcast Indian saved you.”

Tears of gratitude flowed over the face of the
young girl. Yet strange awe enchained her tongue,
so that she could scarcely articulate “Thanks!
thanks!”

Rushing feet approached. The sound of the rifle
spread alarm, and Jonas Rice, with all the efficient

members of his family, flew in arms to the spot. A
little girl hasted to meet them.

“Oh father! father! he saved our lives. He
killed the dreadful beast. He, the good red Indian.”

What painter could have sketched that group on
the verge of the forest. In the center, the excited father,
his vengeful purpose suddenly checked, clasping
the little daughter who had borne the embassy
of peace, like the dove with the olive leaf, over the
heaving deluge; by his side, his two sons, gazing
on the monster, still writhing in its death-gasp; and
the rescued youth shading his eyes with his hand,
as if forbidden by innate hatred to look upon an
Indian except as a foe.

Opposite was the red man, erect and lofty, his
temples sprinkled with gray. Mary stood near him,
pale as marble, yet more beautiful than ever, with
holy emotions; two fair children clung to her side,
and a little one of three summers, hid its sweet face
in her garments.

The stately chieftain, resting on his rifle, spoke as
one in sadness, yet with a firm tone.

“White man, these forest lands were my fathers'.
I roam here this day, a stranger and alone, yet not
unarmed. Since thy people came among us, we
have need of such weapons. With mine have I
saved the lambs of thy flock. Take them back to
thy fold, and when ye too much hate the poor Indian,
remember that he slew them not.”

Tears glistened in the eyes of the father. He
stretched out his hand: “Come, come to my house,
that we may bless you there.”

“Sagamore John enters not the cabin of any white
man. The ghosts of his fathers murmur at midnight
that he is the enemy of their race. This hand hath
shed their blood; yes, the blood of fighting men.
But that of the woman and the babe hath not stained
my garments.

“Sagamore John is old. His head used to tower
among the warriors, like Wachusett above the hills.
Now the snows that settle upon it melt not away
when spring returneth. The blood that used to burn
in his breast at the sight of thy fighting men is like
the brook that the frost overtaketh. What have I
to hope or to fear any more from man?

“Go now, if thou wilt, to thy governor, and denounce
me. I read hatred in the eye of one nearest
to thy side. Drag me, if thou canst, before thy courts.
At their word have my people been shot down like
dogs, with none to bury them. I, too, have been in
their prisons. I know the mercies of white men.
But my soul defieth their power. Brave, and without
shame, shall it go to the shades of its fathers.”

And he drew himself up haughtily to his full
height, while his brow enkindled with a chieftain's
pride. Mary laid her hand upon his arm, and said,

“We bless you; we will pray for you to our God.”

His fiery eye grew calm, and assumed its native
coldness.

“Thy soul is beautiful, though thou art of that
pale race whose hearts are hollow and cold. Knowest
thou that I have seen the teacher Eliot, that old,
good man? He hated not the poor Indian. He
came to my cabin. The best of my food I set before
him. He slept upon my own bed of skins. I
could not have harmed him any more than the mother
who nourished me.

“I was then young, and the blood in my heart was
high; but I bowed down when he prayed. He told
us of a Great Spirit whose name was love. He said
it was written in His Book that men should do good
to their enemies. Thy God is not my God, yet I
remembered His words. They fell from the lips of
that old, meek prophet like music.

“Now I go back to my woods, to be hunted like a
beast of prey. But my heart will be lighter in my
bosom when death cometh, that I have saved the
poor innocents.”

He disappeared in the recesses of the forest, and
they returned to their dwelling. Henceforth their
history was unmarked save by those events that
checker the course of an advancing colony, which in
about four years numbered two hundred settlers,
and more than fifty habitations.

Mr. Gershom Rice, the brother of its bold pioneer,
was the first to plant a family by his side. He has
also the honor of being the first to open his house for
the social worship of God, and the first to call forth
from the half unbroken wild the blossoming boughs

of a fair fruit-orchard. The benefit of his labors and
example was protracted to extreme longevity. In
the words of the Swedish poet,

The ancestor of Worcester also lived to a good
old age, until he saw the slender branch of his planting,
ingrafted on the stock of a broad-shadowing and
independent nation. Mary, our heroine, carried into
her own home the virtues which had rendered that
of her father so happy; for whoever is faithful in the
duties and affections of a daughter and elder sister,
has given hostages not to fail in those of a wife or
mother.

In those early days, when a man's house was literally
his castle, and his means of defence within his
own domestic circle, the gentler sex partook of his
heroic spirit. The languor of delicate nerves then
constituted no attraction. The dangers that surrounded
woman, awakened no morbid apprehension,
but girded her with new strength to act, to suffer, or
to solace. She vindicated her title to the name by
which she was first introduced to her partner in
Eden, “a help-meet for him.”

The simple life of our early settlers, though replete
with hardship, was favorable to the growth of
domestic virtues. Like a rough and thorny sheath,
it guarded well the hidden kernel. The philosophy
of moderated desires, which in our own times is too
oft an unlearned or a despised lesson, was the birth-right

of our ancestors. Courage was kept in exercise.
Industry had no time to slumber. Faith sprang
upward to a stronger life.

These habitudes wrought visibly on the nature of
woman. Lofty rooms, and luxurious carpets, and
the attendance of many servants, were not essential
to her happiness. So that her heart was right and
her hands busy, health was wont to invigorate her
frame, and her brow to be tinged with the beauty of
the affections. Wealth and fashion, which often foster
but the weeds of our nature, had no chance to
sow for her, seeds of self-indulgence and vanity. The
temptations of artificial life were not there to lead
her away from the plain intent of her Maker, until
she became no longer a helper to her husband or a
true mother to her children.

Not by indolence or extravagance did she place
obstacles in the way of matrimony, thus driving to
disappointment or vice those to whom she might have
been as a ministering angel. Why is it not so still
in every part of our Republic? Why should she
ever choose to be as a bubble on the foam of life, or
a burden to sink her companion deeper in troubled
waters? Rather let her firmly bear with him its
storms, and redouble its sunbeams by reflecting them
from the mirror of a cloudless spirit, until, “time's
brief voyage past,” they enter the haven of eternal
life.