The girl said she had never heard of any discovery of the poisoners, if indeed there were such. She told us, moreover, that many of the best people in the tribe would have no part in the business, counting it sinful; and that the chief actors were much censured by the ministers, and so ashamed of it that they drove the Powahs out of the village, the women and boys chasing them and beating them with sticks and frozen snow, so that they had to take to the woods in a sorry plight.
We gave the girl some small trinkets, and a fair piece of cloth for an apron, whereat she was greatly pleased. We were all charmed with her good parts, sweetness of countenance, and discourse and ready wit, being satisfied thereby that Nature knoweth no difference between Europe and America in blood, birth, and bodies, as we read in Acts 17 that God hath made of one blood all mankind. I was specially minded of a saying of that ingenious but schismatic man, Mr. Roger Williams, in the little book which he put forth in England on the Indian tongue:—
"Boast not, proud English, of thy birth and blood,
Thy brother Indian is by birth as good;
Of one blood God made him and thee and all,
As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal.
"By nature wrath's his portion, thine, no more,
Till grace his soul and thine in Christ restore.
Make sure thy second birth, else thou shalt see
Heaven ope to Indians wild, but shut to thee!"
March 15.
One Master O'Shane, an Irish scholar, of whom my cousins here did learn the Latin tongue, coming in last evening, and finding Rebecca and I alone (uncle and aunt being on a visit to Mr. Atkinson's), was exceeding merry, entertaining us rarely with his stories and songs. Rebecca tells me he is a learned man, as I can well believe, but that he is too fond of strong drink for his good, having thereby lost the favor of many of the first families here, who did formerly employ him. There was one ballad, which he saith is of his own making, concerning the selling of the daughter of a great Irish lord as a slave in this land, which greatly pleased me; and on my asking for a copy of it, he brought it to me this morning, in a fair hand. I copy it in my Journal, as I know that Oliver, who is curious in such things, will like it.
KATHLEEN.
O NORAH, lay your basket down,
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.
There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.
But he was old, and she was young,
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.