much grief upon her spirit about her miserable condition, being
so near her time, she would be often asking the Indians to let
her go home; they not being willing to that, and yet vexed with
her importunity, gathered a great company together about her and
stripped her naked, and set her in the midst of them, and when
they had sung and danced about her (in their hellish manner) as
long as they pleased they knocked her on head, and the child in
her arms with her. When they had done that they made a fire and
put them both into it, and told the other children that were
with them that if they attempted to go home, they would serve
them in like manner. The children said she did not shed one
tear, but prayed all the while. But to return to my own
journey, we traveled about half a day or little more, and came
to a desolate place in the wilderness, where there were no
wigwams or inhabitants before; we came about the middle of the
afternoon to this place, cold and wet, and snowy, and hungry,
and weary, and no refreshing for man but the cold ground to sit
on, and our poor Indian cheer.

Heart-aching thoughts here I had about my poor children, who
were scattered up and down among the wild beasts of the forest.
My head was light and dizzy (either through hunger or hard
lodging, or trouble or all together), my knees feeble, my body
raw by sitting double night and day, that I cannot express to
man the affliction that lay upon my spirit, but the Lord helped
me at that time to express it to Himself. I opened my Bible to
read, and the Lord brought that precious Scripture to me. "Thus
saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes
from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come
again from the land of the enemy" (Jeremiah 31.16). This was a