Part 11 (2/2)
”North Andover is a very beautiful piece of ground Its surface is elegantly undulating, and its soil in an ee and of the first quality The groves, charly interspersed, are tall and thrifty The landscape, everywhere varied, neat and cheerful, is also everywhere rich
”The Parish is a e The houses are generally good, soe and well-built and indicate a fertile and well-cultivated soil
”Upon the whole, Andover is one of the best far towns in Eastern Massachusetts”
Andover roads were of incredible crookedness, though the Rev
Tined to accommodate individuals, and laid out from house to house,” and thus the traveller found himself quite as often landed in a farm-yard, as at the point aiotten path-ways--
”Old roads winding, as old roads will, Soh the inhabitant is sure of his ground, the stranger will swear that there is not a street, called, or deserving to be called, straight, in all its borders But this was of even less consequence then than now The New England wo as the church stood within easy distance, de more One walk of Anne Bradstreets' is recorded in a poem, and it is perhaps because it was her first, that itout, as we shall presently see, some of the most natural and melodious verse which her serious and didactic Muse ever allowed her, and being still a faithful picture of the landscape it describes But up to the beginning of the Andover life, Nature had had s fa cares of a new settlement, and the Puritan belief that ”women folk were best indoors,” shut her off fro to the present day She had her recreations as well as her cares, and we need now to discover just what sort of life she and the Puritan sisterhood in general led in the first years, whose ”new manners and customs,” so disturbed her conservative spirit
CHAPTER X
VILLAGE LIFE IN 1650
Of the eight children that careat house” at Andover,his appearance in 1652, when life had settled into the routine that thereafter knew little change, save in the one disastrous experience of 1666 This son, John, who like all the rest, lived to marry and leave behind him a plenteous family of children, was a baby of one year old, when the first son, Sae, taking high honor in his class, and presently settling as a physician in Boston, sufficiently near to be called upon in any eer brothers, each of whoraduate Samuel probably had no share in the removal, but Dorothy and Sarah, Sih to rejoice in the upheaval, and regard the whole episode as a prolonged picnic made for their especial benefit Sira to the Puritan standard, an accountable being fro could by no means be allowed, and who undoubtedly had a careful eye to the s and sew a seam, and read her chapter in the Bible with the best Dorothy and Sarah could take even ht and ten did not hinder surreptitious tuh many a once forbidden corner of the Ipswich ho house that received theress of the new And one or another must often have ridden before the father, who loved them with more demonstration than the Puritan habit allowed, and who in his frequent rides to the new mill built on the Cochichewick in 1644, found a petitioner always urging to be taken, too The building of the ht always of public interests before his own, though in this case the tere nearly identical, a saw and grist- one of the first necessities of any new settlement, and of equal profit to owner and users
Anne Bradstreet was now a little over thirty, five children absorbingthe first six years at Andover When five had passed out into the world and horetfully, yet triuraphy, though the reference to her fifth child as a son, Mr Ellis regards as a slip of the pen:
”I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four cocks there were, and Hens the rest; I nurst them up with pain and care, Nor cost, nor labour did I spare, Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the Trees, and learn'd to sing; Chief of the Brood then took his flight To Regions far, and left me quite; My mournful chirps I after send, Till he return, or I do end; Leave not thy nest, thy Da aht, And with her ht; Southward they both their course did bend, And Seasons twain they there did spend; Till after blown by Southern gales, They Norward steer'd with filled Sayles
A prettier bird was no where seen, Along the beach a the treen
I have a third of colour white On who and true, Hath also bid her Dam adieu; And where Aurora first appears, She now hath percht, to spend her years; One to the Acade that learned crew; Aht chant above the rest, Striving for ht excell
My fifth, whose down is yet scarce gone Is 's increase in strength, On higher boughs he'l pearch at length
My other three, still with rown, then as the rest, Or here or there, they'l take their flight, As is ordain'd, so shall they light
If birds could weep, then would my tears Let others knohat are my fears Lest this my brood some harm should catch, And be surpriz'd for want of watch, Whilst pecking corn, and void of care They fish un'wares in Fowler's snare; Or whilst on trees they sit and sing, So; Or whilst allur'd with bell and glass, The net be spread, and caught, alas
Or least by Lireedy hawks be spoyl'd
O, would hts there sadly rest, Great was my pain when I you bred, Great wasdid I keep you soft and wars kept off all harm; My cares are more, and fears then ever, My throbs such now, as 'fore were never; Alas, norant; Oft tiht, Sore accidents on you ht
O, to your safety have an eye, So happy may you live and die; Mean while my dayes in tunes I'll spend, Till my weak layes with , And things that past, toand pleasant, as are you, But fore I will not once la, h take ht, Where old ones, instantly grow young, And there with Seraphi lasts to eternity; When each of you shall in your nest Ae, oft them tell, You had a Da, And nurst you up till you were strong, And 'fore she once would let you fly, She shew'd you joy and ood, and as ill, What would save life, and ould kill?
Thus gone, aive; Farewel, my birds, farewel, adieu, I happy am, if ith you
A B”
The Bradstreets and Woodbridges carried with them to Andover, ether, yet even for them the list was a very short one An inventory of the estate of Joseph Osgood, the most influential citizen after Mr
Bradstreet, shows that only bare necessities had gone with him