True Stories From History and Biography (2 page)

As Grandfather was frequently impeded by the questions and observations of
his young auditors, we deem it advisable to omit all such prattle as is
not essential to the story. We have taken some pains to find out exactly
what Grandfather said, and here offer to our readers, as nearly as
possible in his own words, the story of

The ship in which Mr. Johnson and his lady embarked, taking Grandfather's
chair along with them, was called the Arbella, in honor of the lady
herself. A fleet of ten or twelve vessels, with many hundred passengers,
left England about the same time; for a multitude of people, who were
discontented with the king's government and oppressed by the bishops, were
flocking over to the new world. One of the vessels in the fleet was that
same Mayflower which had carried the Puritan pilgrims to Plymouth. And
now, my children, I would have you fancy yourselves in the cabin of the
good ship Arbella; because if you could behold the passengers aboard that
vessel, you would feel what a blessing and honor it was for New England to
have such settlers. They were the best men and women of their day.

Among the passengers was John Winthrop, who had sold the estate of his
forefathers, and was going to prepare a new home for his wife and children
in the wilderness. He had the king's charter in his keeping, and was
appointed the first Governor of Massachusetts. Imagine him a person of
grave and benevolent aspect, dressed in a black velvet suit, with a broad
ruff around his neck and a peaked beard upon his chin. There was likewise
a minister of the Gospel, whom the English bishops had forbidden to
preach, but who knew that he should have liberty both to preach and pray
in the forests of America. He wore a black cloak, called a Geneva cloak,
and had a black velvet cap, fitting close to his head, as was the fashion
of almost all the Puritan clergymen. In their company came Sir Richard
Saltonstall, who had been one of the five first projectors of the new
colony. He soon returned to his native country. But his descendants still
remain in New England; and the good old family name is as much respected
in our days as it was in those of Sir Richard.

Not only these, but several other men of wealth and pious ministers, were
in the cabin of the Arbella. One had banished himself for ever from the
old hall where his ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. Another had
left his quiet parsonage, in a country town of England. Others had come
from the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, where they had gained great
fame for their learning. And here they all were, tossing upon the
uncertain and dangerous sea, and bound for a home that was more dangerous
than even the sea itself. In the cabin, likewise, sat the Lady Arbella in
her chair, with a gentle and sweet expression on her face, but looking too
pale and feeble to endure the hardships of the wilderness.

Every morning and evening the Lady Arbella gave up her great chair to one
of the ministers, who took his place in it and read passages from the
Bible to his companions. And thus, with prayers and pious conversation,
and frequent singing of hymns, which the breezes caught from their lips
and scattered far over the desolate waves, they prosecuted their voyage,
and sailed into the harbor of Salem in the month of June.

At that period there were but six or eight dwellings in the town; and
these were miserable hovels, with roofs of straw and wooden chimneys. The
passengers in the fleet either built huts with bark and branches of trees,
or erected tents of cloth till they could provide themselves with better
shelter. Many of them went to form a settlement at Charlestown. It was
thought fit that the Lady Arbella should tarry in Salem for a time; she
was probably received as a guest into the family of John Endicott. He was
the chief person in the plantation, and had the only comfortable house
which the new comers had beheld since they left England. So now, children,
you must imagine Grandfather's chair in the midst of a new scene.

Suppose it a hot summer's day, and the lattice-windows of a chamber in Mr.
Endicott's house thrown wide open. The Lady Arbella, looking paler than
she did on shipboard, is sitting in her chair, and thinking mournfully of
far-off England. She rises and goes to the window. There, amid patches of
garden ground and cornfield, she sees the few wretched hovels of the
settlers, with the still ruder wigwams and cloth tents of the passengers
who had arrived in the same fleet with herself. Far and near stretches the
dismal forest of pine trees, which throw their black shadows over the
whole land, and likewise over the heart of this poor lady.

All the inhabitants of the little village are busy. One is clearing a spot
on the verge of the forest for his homestead; another is hewing the trunk
of a fallen pine tree, in order to build himself a dwelling; a third is
hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out of the
woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the neighbors to
lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a spade and a
bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal article of food
with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are two or three dusky
figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of bone hanging from their
ears, and the feathers of wild birds in their coal black hair. They have
belts of shell-work slung across their shoulders, and are armed with bows
and arrows and flint-headed spears. These are an Indian Sagamore and his
attendants, who have come to gaze at the labors of the white men. And now
rises a cry, that a pack of wolves have seized a young calf in the
pasture; and every man snatches up his gun or pike, and runs in chase of
the marauding beasts.

Poor Lady Arbella watches all these sights, and feels that this new world
is fit only for rough and hardy people. None should be here but those who
can struggle with wild beasts and wild men, and can toil in the heat or
cold, and can keep their hearts firm against all difficulties and dangers.
But she is not one of these. Her gentle and timid spirit sinks within her;
and turning away from the window she sits down in the great chair, and
wonders thereabouts in the wilderness her friends will dig her grave.

Mr. Johnson had gone, with Governor Winthrop and most of the other
passengers, to Boston, where he intended to build a house for Lady Arbella
and himself. Boston was then covered with wild woods, and had fewer
inhabitants even than Salem. During her husband's absence, poor Lady
Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir from the
great chair. Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency, he doubtless
addressed her with words of comfort. "Cheer up, my good lady!" he would
say. "In a little time, you will love this rude life of the wilderness as
I do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute as iron, and he could
not understand why a woman's heart should not be of iron too.

Still, however, he spoke kindly to the lady, and then hastened forth to
till his corn-field and set out fruit trees, or to bargain with the
Indians for furs, or perchance to oversee the building of a fort. Also
being a magistrate, he had often to punish some idler or evil-doer, by
ordering him to be set in the stocks or scourged at the whipping-post.
Often, too, as was the custom of the times, he and Mr. Higginson, the
minister of Salem, held long religious talks together. Thus John Endicott
was a man of multifarious business, and had no time to look back
regretfully to his native land. He felt himself fit for the new world, and
for the work that he had to do, and set himself resolutely to accomplish
it.

What a contrast, my dear children, between this bold, rough, active man,
and the gentle Lady Arbella, who was fading away, like a pale English
flower, in the shadow of the forest! And now the great chair was often
empty, because Lady Arbella grew too weak to arise from bed.

Meantime, her husband had pitched upon a spot for their new home. He
returned from Boston to Salem, travelling through the woods on foot, and
leaning on his pilgrim's staff. His heart yearned within him; for he was
eager to tell his wife of the new home which he had chosen. But when he
beheld her pale and hollow cheek, and found how her strength was wasted,
he must have known that her appointed home was in a better land. Happy for
him then,—happy both for him and her,—if they remembered that there was a
path to heaven, as well from this heathen wilderness as from the Christian
land whence they had come. And so, in one short month from her arrival,
the gentle Lady Arbella faded away and died. They dug a grave for her in
the new soil, where the roots of the pine trees impeded their spades; and
when her bones had rested there nearly two hundred years, and a city had
sprung up around them, a church of stone was built upon the spot.

Charley, almost at the commencement of the foregoing narrative, had
galloped away with a prodigious clatter, upon Grandfather's stick, and was
not yet returned. So large a boy should have been ashamed to ride upon a
stick. But Laurence and Clara had listened attentively, and were affected
by this true story of the gentle lady, who had come so far to die so soon.
Grandfather had supposed that little Alice was asleep, but, towards the
close of the story, happening to look down upon her, he saw that her blue
eyes were wide open, and fixed earnestly upon his face. The tears had
gathered in them, like dew upon a delicate flower; but when Grandfather
ceased to speak, the sunshine of her smile broke forth again.

"O, the lady must have been so glad to get to heaven!" exclaimed little
Alice.

"Grandfather, what became of Mr. Johnson?" asked Clara.

"His heart appears to have been quite broken," answered Grandfather; "for
he died at Boston within a month after the death of his wife. He was
buried in the very same tract of ground, where he had intended to build a
dwelling for Lady Arbella and himself. Where their house would have stood
there was his grave.

"I never heard any thing so melancholy!" said Clara.

"The people loved and respected Mr. Johnson so much," continued
Grandfather, "that it was the last request of many of them, when they
died, that they might be buried as near as possible to this good man's
grave. And so the field became the first burial-ground in Boston. When you
pass through Tremont street, along by King's Chapel, you see a
burial-ground, containing many old grave-stones and monuments. That was
Mr. Johnson's field."

"How sad is the thought," observed Clara, "that one of the first things
which the settlers had to do, when they came to the new world, was to set
apart a burial-ground!"

"Perhaps," said Laurence, "if they had found no need of burial-grounds
here, they would have been glad, after a few years, to go back to
England."

Grandfather looked at Laurence, to discover whether he knew how profound
and true a thing he had said.

Not long after Grandfather had told the story of his great chair, there
chanced to be a rainy day. Our friend Charley, after disturbing the
household with beat of drum and riotous shouts, races up and down the
staircase, overturning of chairs, and much other uproar, began to feel the
quiet and confinement within doors intolerable. But as the rain came down
in a flood, the little fellow was hopelessly a prisoner, and now stood
with sullen aspect at a window, wondering whether the sun itself were not
extinguished by so much moisture in the sky.

Charley had already exhausted the less eager activity of the other
children; and they had betaken themselves to occupations that did not
admit of his companionship. Laurence sat in a recess near the book-case,
reading, not for the first time, the Midsummer Night's Dream. Clara was
making a rosary of beads for a little figure of a Sister of Charity, who
was to attend the Bunker Hill Fair, and lend her aid in erecting the
Monument. Little Alice sat on Grandfather's foot-stool, with a
picture-book in her hand; and, for every picture, the child was telling
Grandfather a story. She did not read from the book, (for little Alice had
not much skill in reading,) but told the story out of her own heart and
mind.

Charley was too big a boy, of course, to care any thing about little
Alice's stories, although Grandfather appeared to listen with a good deal
of interest. Often, in a young child's ideas and fancies, there is
something which it requires the thought of a lifetime to comprehend. But
Charley was of opinion, that if a story must be told, it had better be
told by Grandfather, than little Alice.

"Grandfather, I want to hear more about your chair," said he.

Now Grandfather remembered that Charley had galloped away upon a stick, in
the midst of the narrative of poor Lady Arbella, and I know not whether he
would have thought it worth while to tell another story, merely to gratify
such an inattentive auditor as Charley. But Laurence laid down his book
and seconded the request. Clara drew her chair nearer to Grandfather, and
little Alice immediately closed her picture-book, and looked up into his
face. Grandfather had not the heart to disappoint them.

He mentioned several persons who had a share in the settlement of our
country, and who would be well worthy of remembrance, if we could find
room to tell about them all. Among the rest, Grandfather spoke of the
famous Hugh Peters, a minister of the gospel, who did much good to the
inhabitants of Salem. Mr. Peters afterwards went back to England, and was
chaplain to Oliver Cromwell; but Grandfather did not tell the children
what became of this upright and zealous man, at last. In fact, his
auditors were growing impatient to hear more about the history of the
chair.

"After the death of Mr. Johnson," said he, "Grandfather's chair came into
the possession of Roger Williams. He was a clergyman, who arrived at
Salem, and settled there in 1631. Doubtless the good man has spent many a
studious hour in this old chair, either penning a sermon, or reading some
abstruse book of theology, till midnight came upon him unawares. At that
period, as there were few lamps or candles to be had, people used to read
or work by the light of pitchpine torches. These supplied the place of the
"midnight oil," to the learned men of New England."