“Lordy massy, boys: why, ye wouldn't sleep for a week. Why, ye don't know. Why, the Indians in them days wa'n't like no critter ye ever did see. They was jest the horridest, paintedest, screeehinest, cussedest critters you ever heard on. They was jest as artful as sarpents, and crueller than any tigers. Good Dr. Cotton Mather calls 'em divils, and he was a meek, good man, Dr. Cotton was; but they cut up so in his days, it's no wonder he thought they was divils, and not folks. Why, they kep' the whole country in a broil for years and years. Nobody knowed when they was safe; for they were so sly and cunnin', and always watchin' behind fences and bushes, and ready when a body was a least thinkin' on't to be down on 'em. I've heard Abiel Jones tell how his father's house was burnt down at the time the Indians burnt Deerfield. About every house in the settlement was burnt to the ground; and then another time they burnt thirty-two houses in Springfield,--the minister's house and all, with all his library (and books was sca'ce in them days); but the Indians made a clean sweep on't. They burnt all the houses in Wendham down to the ground; and they came down in Lancaster, and burnt ever so many houses, and carried off forty or fifty people with 'em into the woods. “There was Mr. Rolandson, the minister, they burnt his house, and carried off Mis' Rolandson and all the children. There was Jerushy Pierce used to work in his family and do washin' and chores, she's told me about it. Jerushy she was away to her uncle's that night, so she wa'n't took. Ye see, the Lancaster folks had been afeard the Indians'd be down on 'em, and so Parson Rolandson he'd gone on to Boston to get help for 'em; and when he come back the mischief was all done. Jerushy said in all her life she never see nothin' so pitiful as that 'are poor man's face when she met him, jest as he come to the place where the house stood. At fust he didn't say a word, she said, but he looked kind o' dazed. Then he sort o' put his hand to his forehead, and says he, 'My God, my God, help me!' Then he tried to ask her about it, but he couldn't but jest speak. 'Jerushy,' says he, 'can't you tell me,--where be they?' 'Wal,' says Jerushy, 'they've been carried off.' And with that he fell right down and moaned and groaned. 'Oh!' says he, I'd rather heard that they were at peace with the Lord.' And then he'd wring his hands: 'What shall I do? What shall I do?'