were well to
follow the native customs in these matters at least for the first. I
would that I could get a-field and do my share of the work."

"Thou 'rt as well off here. 'T is woundy hot on that hill-side. I've
known July cooler than this April."

"And still my rheumatism hugs the fire," said Bradford taking up the
tongs and readjusting the scattered logs, while bustling Dame Hopkins
hung her dinner-pot upon the crane in the farthest corner, and began a
clatter of tongue before which her husband fled apace.

That night when the men came home from the field all spoke of the
unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those
periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our
spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough
above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell
down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the
"embattled farmers" of Concord and Lexington. But the next morning rose
even sultrier and more debilitating, and Mistress Katharine Carver
following her husband to the door laid a hand upon his shoulder
saying,--

"Go not a-field to-day, John. It is even more cruelly hot than
yesterday, and thou art overborne with toil already. Stay with me, I
pray thee."

"Nay, Kate, I were indeed unfit for the leader of the brethren could I
send them forth to labor that I counted too heavy for myself. Let me go,
sweetheart, and if thou wilt, say a prayer that I faint not by the way."

"That will I truly, and yet"--

The rest died on her lips for he was gone, yet for a few minutes longer
she stood watching the tall figure as it disappeared up the hill path
and listening to the murmur of a spinning-wheel in Elder Brewster's
house, fitfully accompanied by a blithe tune lilted now and again by the
spinner.

"Priscilla is early at her work," thought the dame. "I would I might
sing and spin like that!" and with a little sigh she leaned her head
against the door-post and closed her eyes; a sweet, pale face, colorless
and pure as an Easter lily, and eyes whose blueness seemed to show
through the weary lids with their deep golden fringe. A fair woman, a
lovely woman, delicately bred, for her father was one of those English
bishops whose authority her husband and his friends so resolutely
denied, and both she and her sister, Pastor Robinson's wife, had "lain
in the lilies and fed on the roses of life" until love led t