In some of the colonies at least, the people must have led a rather somber life, with little pleasure, much hard work, and much discomfort; but they fairly reveled in flags. The Indians in their warfare preferred to hide behind trees rather than to flourish banners, and the white men soon learned to follow their example. Nevertheless, it always seemed to the minds of the colonists a little irregular and out of place not to carry a flag of some sort when they were setting out on an expedition. Probably we do not know one in twenty of all the designs for banners that entered the fertile minds of these colonists, but they were so numerous that if they had all been displayed at the same time, they would have almost hidden the settlements. Not all colonists were as afraid of a cross as were the good folk of Salem. In Newbury, Massachusetts, a certain company of foot rejoiced in a flag of vivid green. In the upper corner next the staff was a square of white containing a red cross. The kindly councilor, who had ordered the flag to be made in England "with all convenient speed," evidently had some sense of humor, for he wrote at the end of his letter to the company, "The number of bullets to be put into your colors for distinction may be left out at present without damage in the making of them." Another flag, belonging to a company of Massachusetts cavalry, seems to have been something quite out of the common, for it was of damask and silk and adorned with silver fringe. A real artist must have used his brush upon it, for the bill read, "For painting in oyle on both sides a Cornett on rich crimson damask, with a hand and sword and invelloped with a scarfe about the arms of gold, black and silver"; and for all that gorgeousness, generously painted "on both sides," the charge was the moderate one of £5 2_s._ 6_d._ This was made for what was known as the "Three County Troop," composed of cavalry from Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk Counties in Massachusetts, and was probably used in King Philip's War.