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