the dead of winter; the building of those ten small houses, with oiled
paper for windows; the suffering of that first winter and spring, in which
woman bore her whole share; these were the first steps in the grand
movement which has carried the Anglo-Saxon race across the American
continent. The next steps were the penetration of the wilderness westward
from the sea, by the emigrant pioneers and their wives. Fighting their way
through dense forests, building cabins, block-houses, and churches in the
clearings which they had made; warred against by cruel savages; woman was
ever present to guard, to comfort, to work. The annals of colonial history
teem with her deeds of love and heroism, and what are those recorded
instances to those which had no chronicler? She loaded the flint-lock in
the block-house while it was surrounded by yelling savages; she exposed
herself to the scalping-knife to save her babe; in her forest-home she
worked and watched, far from the loved ones in Old England; and by
discharging a thousand duties in the household and the field, did her share
in a silent way towards building up the young Republic of the West.

Sometimes she ranged herself in battle beside her husband or brother, and
fought with the steadiness and bravery of a veteran. But her heroism never
shone so brightly as in undergoing danger in defense of her children.

In the early days of the settlement of Royalton, Vermont, a sudden attack
was made upon it by the Indians. Mrs. Hendee, the wife of one of the
settlers, was working alone in the field, her husband being absent on
military duty, when the Indians entered her house and capturing her
children carried them across the White river, at that place a hundred yards
wide and quite deep for fording, and placed them under keepers who had some
other persons, thirty or forty in number, in charge.

Returning from the field Mrs. Hendee discovered the fate of her children.