When the younger members of the family are otherwise mentioned in the
Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents' pride in the
eighteen-months-old infant's knowledge of the catechism, an acquirement
rewarded by the gift of a red apple, but which suggests the reason for
many funerals. Or, again, difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully
put down; and also deliquencies at the age of four in attending family
prayer, with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit.
Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stern conditions
imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms large in the
foreground of any sketch of family life handed down from the first
century of the Massachusetts colony. Perhaps the very earliest picture
in which a colonial child with a book occupies the centre of the canvas
is that given in a letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and
seventy-one he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though
Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first Volume of the
Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at night after her daily
task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Martyrs" seems gruesome reading for a
little girl at bedtime, but it was so popular in England that, with the
Bible and Catechism, it was included in the library of all households
that could afford it.

Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel Green, and, being
easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the "Book of Martyrs" as a
household treasure. Bunyan's dream, according to Macaulay, was the daily
conversation of thousands, and was received in New England with far
greater eagerness than in the author's own country. The children
undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with
wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions
illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of