a spirited young woman, was making soap in a large kettle over the fire.
--She seized her ladle and dashed the boiling liquid in the faces of the
assailants, scalding one of them severely, and was only captured after
such a resistance as can scarcely be conceived of by the delicately
framed and tenderly nurtured occupants of the places of our great-
grandmothers. After plundering the house, the Indians started on their
long winter march for Canada. Tradition says that some thirteen persons,
probably women and children, were killed outright at the garrison.
Goodwife Bradley and four others were spared as prisoners. The ground
was covered with deep snow, and the captives were compelled to carry
heavy burdens of their plundered household-stuffs; while for many days in
succession they had no other sustenance than bits of hide, ground-nuts,
the bark of trees, and the roots of wild onions, and lilies. In this
situation, in the cold, wintry forest, and unattended, the unhappy young
woman gave birth to a child. Its cries irritated the savages, who
cruelly treated it and threatened its life. To the entreaties of the
mother they replied, that they would spare it on the condition that it
should be baptized after their fashion. She gave the little innocent
into their hands, when with mock solemnity they made the sign of the
cross upon its forehead, by gashing it with their knives, and afterwards
barbarously put it to death before the eyes of its mother, seeming to
regard the whole matter as an excellent piece of sport. Nothing so
strongly excited the risibilities of these grim barbarians as the tears
and cries of their victims, extorted by physical or mental agony.
Capricious alike in their cruelties and their kindnesses, they treated
some of their captives with forbearance and consideration and tormented
others apparently without cause. One man, on his way to Canada, was
killed because they did not like his looks, "he was so sour;" another,
because he was "old and good for nothing." One of their own number, who
was suffering greatly from the effects of the scalding soap, was derided