hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?â Then I asked: âWhat then is man? What are all our dearest connections and creature comforts? How fading and uncertain! How unwise and unsafe it must be to set our hearts on such enjoyments.â And though I longed for the overthrow of Satanâs Kingdom, I was at that moment suddenly at peace with the trials set before me.
I would it had turned out otherwise, but now we live in remote quiescence in the same house. He no longer comes to our bed, but sits up and sleeps by fits. I become more and more occupied with household affairs, and with trade and village life.Even as Mr. C. grows in his distraction, it is my duty to get our living and my delight to increase our means. In another time, I might have fled to the family and the friends of England, my homeland. But it is my lot to bear my circumstances in this less strife-torn corner of the world.
June 24, 1646
This week has been a time of infernal heat, the like of which England never knows. Even men who could no more swim than stones bathed in the river. Our animals wandered into the flood up to their bellies and shoulders when they came to drink. A goodly number of fowl have died, and four marauding cattle enclosed in the pound took ill and seem near death. Only today has relief come upon a terrible storm that might have been Doomsdayâs onslaught.
There are days when I am overwrought, but such feelings have no object. They are formless, and futile. I am sure I will learn to live without a husband, for so I must live though I am but in my twenty-sixth year. I have learned by my trials to judge less the excesses of my fellows, especially those in false marriages. How poorly equipped are we to persevere in this our condition of Sin. âWhat is man that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment.â Though I pray for perseverance, I believe I can no longer hope for the renewal of my marriage.
Yesterday at market they told of a shoemaker and a cooperâs wife elsewhere on the Pascataqua. One might think us, as the ministers and magistrates of Boston have said, become a haven for lewd persons fleeing Zion. Yet this is but an instance of such widespread events throughout the colony, to say nothing of the Province of Maine. More notorious still!
A captain, known as a rake, was sent some time ago out of Boston for living up to his fame with a certain wife who wasyoung and comely and the most jovial of spirits. Word got about that they were sequestered behind locked doors frequently of mornings or afternoons while her husband, a sawyer, was away at the saw pits. They were brought to a hearing and she maintained they prayed together. That seemed doubtful, but there not being two witnesses to certain adultery, they paid ten stripes for their pleasures, and their indiscretion.
July 18, 1646
In this month of our great plague of caterpillars Mr. C. announced that for the sake of certain studies and investigations he must travel to the American tropics. Indeed, he explained, he planned to gain passage by the return voyage of a ship already lying and unloading at the Isles of Shoals bound for the Indies. As he spoke of these far-off investigations, my astonishment distracted me from any comprehension of his words. Now it seemed to me that the black wormâs destruction of our wheat and barley was the herald of Mr. C.âs final destruction of that gracile living we had created out of wilderness. Whence come such afflictions? Many said of the caterpillars that they fell to earth from the heavens during a great thunderstorm. For where none were seen before suddenly, after the torrent, the bare ground and grassy places were completely covered with them. After the ministers and people throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut kept a day of humiliation against the pests, the worms vanished. Just as the devoured tassels and withered ears, so is my green hold upon the New World to be
I would it had turned out otherwise, but now we live in remote quiescence in the same house. He no longer comes to our bed, but sits up and sleeps by fits. I become more and more occupied with household affairs, and with trade and village life.Even as Mr. C. grows in his distraction, it is my duty to get our living and my delight to increase our means. In another time, I might have fled to the family and the friends of England, my homeland. But it is my lot to bear my circumstances in this less strife-torn corner of the world.
June 24, 1646
This week has been a time of infernal heat, the like of which England never knows. Even men who could no more swim than stones bathed in the river. Our animals wandered into the flood up to their bellies and shoulders when they came to drink. A goodly number of fowl have died, and four marauding cattle enclosed in the pound took ill and seem near death. Only today has relief come upon a terrible storm that might have been Doomsdayâs onslaught.
There are days when I am overwrought, but such feelings have no object. They are formless, and futile. I am sure I will learn to live without a husband, for so I must live though I am but in my twenty-sixth year. I have learned by my trials to judge less the excesses of my fellows, especially those in false marriages. How poorly equipped are we to persevere in this our condition of Sin. âWhat is man that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment.â Though I pray for perseverance, I believe I can no longer hope for the renewal of my marriage.
Yesterday at market they told of a shoemaker and a cooperâs wife elsewhere on the Pascataqua. One might think us, as the ministers and magistrates of Boston have said, become a haven for lewd persons fleeing Zion. Yet this is but an instance of such widespread events throughout the colony, to say nothing of the Province of Maine. More notorious still!
A captain, known as a rake, was sent some time ago out of Boston for living up to his fame with a certain wife who wasyoung and comely and the most jovial of spirits. Word got about that they were sequestered behind locked doors frequently of mornings or afternoons while her husband, a sawyer, was away at the saw pits. They were brought to a hearing and she maintained they prayed together. That seemed doubtful, but there not being two witnesses to certain adultery, they paid ten stripes for their pleasures, and their indiscretion.
July 18, 1646
In this month of our great plague of caterpillars Mr. C. announced that for the sake of certain studies and investigations he must travel to the American tropics. Indeed, he explained, he planned to gain passage by the return voyage of a ship already lying and unloading at the Isles of Shoals bound for the Indies. As he spoke of these far-off investigations, my astonishment distracted me from any comprehension of his words. Now it seemed to me that the black wormâs destruction of our wheat and barley was the herald of Mr. C.âs final destruction of that gracile living we had created out of wilderness. Whence come such afflictions? Many said of the caterpillars that they fell to earth from the heavens during a great thunderstorm. For where none were seen before suddenly, after the torrent, the bare ground and grassy places were completely covered with them. After the ministers and people throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut kept a day of humiliation against the pests, the worms vanished. Just as the devoured tassels and withered ears, so is my green hold upon the New World to be
Similar Books
