ildren to the grave too
often--to rest with them. Cotton Mather, married twice, was father of
fifteen children; the two wives of Benjamin Franklin's father bore
seventeen; Roger Clap of Dorchester, Massachusetts, "begat" fourteen
children by one wife; William Phipps, a governor of Massachusetts, had
twenty-five brothers and sisters all by one mother. Catherine Schuyler,
a woman of superior intellect, gave birth to fourteen children. Judge
Sewall piously tells us in his _Diary_: "Jan. 6, 1701. This is the
Thirteenth child that I have offered up to God in Baptisme; my wife
having borne me Seven Sons and Seven Daughters." One of the children had
been born dead, and therefore had not received baptism. Ben Franklin
often boasted of the strong constitution of his mother and of the fact
that she nursed all of her own ten babes; but he does not tell us of the
constitution of the children or of the ages to which they lived. Five of
Sewall's children died in infancy, and only four lived beyond the age of
thirty. It seems never to have occurred to the pious colonial fathers
that it would be better to rear five to maturity and bury none, than to
rear five and bury five. The strain on the womanhood of the period
cannot be doubted; innumerable men were married twice or three times and
no small number four times.

Industry was the law of the day, and every child soon became a producer.
The burdens placed upon children naturally lightened as the colonies
progressed; but as late as 1775, if we may judge by the following
record, not many moments of childhood were wasted. This is an account of
her day's work jotted down by a young girl in that year: "Fix'd gown for
Prude,--Mend Mother's Riding-hood, Spun short thread,--Fix'd two gowns
for Welsh's girls,--Carded tow,--Spun linen,--Worked on
Cheese-basket,--Hatchel'd flax with Hannah, we did 51 lbs.
apiece,--Pleated and ironed,--Read a Sermon of Dodridge's,--Spooled a
piece--Milked the Cows,--Spun linen, did 50 knots,--Made a Broom of
Guinea wheat straw,--Spun thread to whiten,--Set a Red dye,--Had two
Scholars from Mrs. Taylor's,--I carded two pounds of whole wool and felt
Nationaly,--Spun harness twine,--Scoured the pewter,--Ague in my
face,--Ellen was spark'd last night,--spun thread to whiten--Went to Mr.
Otis's and made them a swinging visit--Israel said I might ride his jade
[horse]--Prude stayed at home and learned Eve's Dream by heart."[89]

_VII. Indian Attacks_

The children