It seems, from what I learned, that a portion of the provisions brought from England were spoiled during the voyage, and also, that many of our people had taken with them no more than enough to sustain life for a month or two, believing that in this New World food of all kinds would be found in abundance.
Then again, many had bartered provisions, which they should have kept for the winter use, with the Indians in exchange for beaver skins, thinking thereby to make much money. So general had this traffic become, that early in September the Governor gave strict orders against it, and it was also ordered that no person in the town be allowed to carry out therefrom anything eatable.
But yet the store of food grew smaller and smaller, for there were many mouths to feed, and it seemed as if we children were more often hungry because of knowing that there was little to be had.
Susan reminded me of what she was pleased to call the "omen," when it was as if the first of our duties in the New World had been to bury two members of the company, and as the days wore on I began really to believe it a sin to harbor such thoughts.
As it had been in Charlestown, so did it come to be here in Boston, when the rains of autumn set in.
Many of the dwellings had not been built with due regard to sheltering those who were to live therein, and because of the dampness—although mother says it was owing quite as well to the homesickness and gloom which came upon us when the leaves in the forest turned brown, and yellow, and golden in token of the dying year—the people sickened.
However it was, much of sickness prevailed among us in Boston, until the time came when my father and mother, to both of whom God had allowed good health, were absent from home day after day, nursing those of our neighbors who were unable to aid themselves.
THE SAILING OF THE "LYON"
It seemed at this time as if the Lord had set His face against the rearing of a nation in this new land, which he had given to the brown men for their homes, and Susan and I were not the only ones who came to believe we were offending Him in some way by thus having come here.