True Stories of History and Biography | Page 5

grave.
Mr. Johnson had gone, with Governor Winthrop and most of the other
passengers, to Boston, where he intended to build a house for Lady
Arbella and himself. Boston was then covered with wild woods, and
had fewer inhabitants even than Salem. During her husband's absence,
poor Lady Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir
from the great chair. Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency,
he doubtless addressed her with words of comfort. "Cheer up, my good
lady!" he would say. "In a little time, you will love this rude life of the
wilderness as I do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute as
iron, and he could not understand why a woman's heart should not be of
iron too.
Still, however, he spoke kindly to the lady, and then hastened forth to
till his corn-field and set out fruit trees, or to bargain with the Indians
for furs, or perchance to oversee the building of a fort. Also being a
magistrate, he had often to punish some idler or evil-doer, by ordering
him to be set in the stocks or scourged at the whipping-post. Often, too,
as was the custom of the times, he and Mr. Higginson, the minister of

Salem, held long religious talks together. Thus John Endicott was a
man of multifarious business, and had no time to look back regretfully
to his native land. He felt himself fit for the new world, and for the
work that he had to do, and set himself resolutely to accomplish it.
What a contrast, my dear children, between this bold, rough, active man,
and the gentle Lady Arbella, who was fading away, like a pale English
flower, in the shadow of the forest! And now the great chair was often
empty, because Lady Arbella grew too weak to arise from bed.
Meantime, her husband had pitched upon a spot for their new home. He
returned from Boston to Salem, travelling through the woods on foot,
and leaning on his pilgrim's staff. His heart yearned within him; for he
was eager to tell his wife of the new home which he had chosen. But
when he beheld her pale and hollow cheek, and found how her strength
was wasted, he must have known that her appointed home was in a
better land. Happy for him then,--happy both for him and her,--if they
remembered that there was a path to heaven, as well from this heathen
wilderness as from the Christian land whence they had come. And so,
in one short month from her arrival, the gentle Lady Arbella faded
away and died. They dug a grave for her in the new soil, where the
roots of the pine trees impeded their spades; and when her bones had
rested there nearly two hundred years, and a city had sprung up around
them, a church of stone was built upon the spot.

Charley, almost at the commencement of the foregoing narrative, had
galloped away with a prodigious clatter, upon Grandfather's stick, and
was not yet returned. So large a boy should have been ashamed to ride
upon a stick. But Laurence and Clara had listened attentively, and were
affected by this true story of the gentle lady, who had come so far to die
so soon. Grandfather had supposed that little Alice was asleep, but,
towards the close of the story, happening to look down upon her, he
saw that her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed earnestly upon his
face. The tears had gathered in them, like dew upon a delicate flower;
but when Grandfather ceased to speak, the sunshine of her smile broke
forth again.

"O, the lady must have been so glad to get to heaven!" exclaimed little
Alice.
"Grandfather, what became of Mr. Johnson?" asked Clara.
"His heart appears to have been quite broken," answered Grandfather;
"for he died at Boston within a month after the death of his wife. He
was buried in the very same tract of ground, where he had intended to
build a dwelling for Lady Arbella and himself. Where their house
would have stood there was his grave.
"I never heard any thing so melancholy!" said Clara.
"The people loved and respected Mr. Johnson so much," continued
Grandfather, "that it was the last request of many of them, when they
died, that they might be buried as near as possible to this good man's
grave. And so the field became the first burial-ground in Boston. When
you pass through Tremont street, along by King's Chapel, you see a
burial-ground, containing many old grave-stones and monuments. That
was Mr. Johnson's field."
"How sad is the thought," observed Clara, "that one of the first things
which the settlers had to do, when they came to the new world, was