arious sums, if
paid over to Mr. Allen before the twenty-one years had expired, would
make a proportionate part of the farm at Mr. Nurse's disposal.

The low rent and the industrious, frugal habits of Mr. Nurse and his
family, added to the fact that not a dollar was required to be paid down
at first, led to the making of such good improvements that before half
the time had elapsed a value was created large enough to pay the whole
four hundred pounds to Mr. Allen. When Mr. Nurse thus became owner of
this estate he gave to his children, who had already good homes within
its boundaries, the larger half of the farm, while he reserved for
himself the homestead and the rest of the land. By the deeds he gave
them, they were required to maintain a roadway to connect with the old
homestead and with the homes of each other.

While the different members of the Nurse family were thus working hard
for the money to buy the place there was hanging over its owner the
shadow of litigation for its possession. But this was Mr. Allen's
affair, not theirs, so they went on their way in peace. Indeed, it has
been thought that their steady success in life was one cause of their
future trouble. They became objects of envy to those restless ones less
favored. And so, when the opportunity came to merely whisper a name for
the "afflicted girls" to take up, Rebecca Nurse's fate was in the hands
of an enemy. A striking example of the innocent suffering for the
guilty. Does not vicarious suffering seem to be an important factor in
the development of the race? Two years after, this faithful wife and
mother had been led from her peaceful home to suffer the agonies of
prisons, trials, and hanging. When the children had all married, the
father gave up the homestead to his son Samuel, and divided his
remaining property among his sons and daughters. He died soon after,
in 1695. He was a kind, true father, whose requests after death were
heeded. This homestead was in the Nurse name as late as 1784, when it
was owned by a great-grandson of Rebecca. He sold it to Phineas Putnam,
a descendant of old Nathaniel Putnam, who, in the hour of need, wrote
the paper for the forty signatures above mentioned. The estate descended
to the great-grandson of Phineas, Orin Putnam, who, in 1836, married the
daughter of Allen Nurse. And thus a direct descendant of Rebecca Nurse
was again placed to preside over the ancestral farm, and to their
descendants it belongs to-day.