"Let no man make a jest at Pumpkins, for with this fruit the Lord was pleased to feed his people to their good content, till Corne and Cattell were increased," wrote Johnson. Later (by 1650) the goodwives served "apples, pears and quince tarts instead of their former Pumpkin Pies," and by that time wheat bread was no dainty. Society in the Massachusetts Bay in the seventeenth century was divided into several groups. First came the merchant class which also included the ministers and those possessed of wealth. Edward Randolph reported to the Lords of Trade in 1676, that in Massachusetts there were about thirty merchants worth from £10,000. to £20,000. "Most have considerable estates and a very great trade." Next came the freemen and the skilled mechanics. This class furnished the town officials and constituted the backbone of the colony. Then came the unskilled laborer and a step lower was the indentured servant. The merchant lived well and wore fine clothing forbidden to his more humble neighbors. The status of the servant may well be shown by the deposition presented in Court at Salem in 1657 by an apprentice to a stone-mason in the town of Newbury, Massachusetts, who testified that it was a long while before "he could eate his master's food, viz. meate and milk, or drink beer, saying that he did not know that it was good, because he was not used to eat such victualls, but to eate bread and water porridge and to drink water."[39] [39] _Essex County Quarterly Court Records_, Vol. II, p. 28. It has been stated frequently that in the olden times in New England every one was obliged to go to church. The size of the meetinghouses, the isolated locations of many of the houses, the necessary care of the numerous young children, and the interesting side-lights on the manners of the time which may be found in the court papers, all go to show that the statement must not be taken literally. Absence from meeting, breaking the Sabbath, carrying a burden on the Lord's Day, condemning the church, condemning the ministry, scandalous falling out on the Lord's Day, slandering the church, and other misdemeanors of a similar character were frequent.