bear and behave herself, During the full term
afores:d Commencing from the third day of November Anno Dom: One
Thousand, Seven Hundred fifty and three. And the s:d Master for
himself, wife, and Heir's, Doth Covenant Promise Grant and Agree unto
and with the s:d apprentice and the s:d Margaret Burjust, in manner
and form following. That is to say, That they will teach the s:d
apprentice or Cause her to be taught in the Art of good housewifery,
and also to read and write well. And will find and provide for and
give unto s:d apprentice good and sufficient Meat Drink washing and
lodging both in Sickness and in health, and at the Expiration of S:d
term to Dismiss s:d apprentice with two Good Suits of Apparrel both
of woolen and linnin for all parts of her body (viz) One for
Lord-days and one for working days Suitable to her Quality. In
Testimony whereof I Samuel Wales and Margaret Burjust Have
Interchangably Sett their hands and Seals this Third day November
Anno Dom: 1753, and in the twenty Seventh year of the Reign of our
Soveraig'n Lord George the Second of great Britain the King.
Signed Sealed & Delivered.
In presence of
Sam Vaughan Margaret Burgis
Mary Vaughan her X mark."

This quaint document was carefully locked up, with some old deeds and
other valuable papers, in his desk, by the "s:d Samuel Wales," one
hundred and thirty years ago. The desk was a rude, unpainted pine
affair, and it reared itself on its four stilt-like legs in a corner
of his kitchen, in his house in the South Precinct of Braintree. The
sharp eyes of the little "s:d apprentice" had noted it oftener and
more enviously than any other article of furniture in the house. On
the night of her arrival, after her journey of fourteen miles from
Boston, over a rough bridle-road, on a jolting horse, clinging
tremblingly to her new "Master," she peered through her little red
fingers at the desk swallowing up those precious papers which Samuel
Wales drew from his pocket with an important air. She was hardly five
years old, but she was an acute child; and she watched her master
draw forth the papers, show them to his wife, Polly, and lock them up
in the desk, with the full understanding that they had something to
do with her coming to this strange place; and, already, a shadowy
purpose began to form itself in her mind.

She sat on a cunning little wooden stool, close to the fireplace, and
kept her small chapped hands pe