And now I must part with that little company I had. Here I parted from my
daughter Mary (whom I never saw again till I saw her in Dorchester,
returned from captivity), and from four little cousins and neighbors, some
of which I never saw afterward: the Lord only knows the end of them.
Amongst them also was that poor woman before mentioned, who came to a sad
end, as some of the company told me in my travel: she having 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 sweet cordial to me when I was
ready to faint; many and many a time have I sat down and wept sweetly over
this Scripture. At this place we continued about four days.
