He always kept his musket in order, and was fond of hunting. On a time, they say, he was out of provisions. There came along two wild geese. He takes gun and cries, "If it please God I kill both, I will send the fattest to the poorest person in this pariah." He shot, and killed both; ordered them plucked, and then sent the fattest to a poor widow, leaving the other, which was a very poor one, at home,—to the great mortification of his lady. But his maxim was, Perform unto the Lord thy vow.
But the best story I have heard yet was his doctrine in a sermon from this text: "Lord, what shall we do?" The doctrine was that when a person or people are in a state of perplexity, and know not what to do, they ought never to do they know not what. This is applicable to the times.
He brought his people into a remarkable submission and subjection to their spiritual rulers, which continues to this day. Their present parson does and says what he pleases, is a great Tory, and as odd as Moody.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Thirteen days before, the writer had been chosen with four others, J. Bowdoin, W. Cushing, Samuel Adams, and R. T. Paine, to go to Philadelphia, for the purpose of meeting delegates of other colonies for consultation.
[20] Samuel Moody, born in 1675, graduated at Cambridge in 1697, and died in 1747; one of a class peculiar to colonial times, the like of whom are no longer to be found in the rural districts.
4. John Adams.
York, 1 July, 1774.
I am so idle that I have not an easy moment without my pen in my hand. My time might have been improved to some purpose in mowing grass, raking hay, or hoeing corn, weeding carrots, picking or shelling pease. Much better should I have been employed in schooling my children, in teaching them to write, cipher, Latin, French, English, and Greek.