"Then it is time you did. It is not a very long story. I don't believe it will do you any harm to stay long enough to hear it. So here it is:
"Roger Williams was one of the noblest men who lived among the Puritans of long ago. He was a young minister. He had fine thoughts of his own. He did not need to have anyone else do his thinking for him.
"When he first came to America with his young wife he settled in Boston. He afterwards went to Salem. He preached in a little church there. He said so many good things that people liked to hear him.
"After a while the Puritans began to open their ears and their eyes, too. The leading men said:
"'This man does not think just as we do. He must be wrong.'
"They were very angry. You remember what I told you the other day about the Puritans?"
"They wished everyone else to believe just as they did," answered Joe.
"And were very strict and solemn," added Lucy.
"You must remember another thing, too. The leading men of the church made all the laws for the town. Roger Williams did not think this was right. He was a minister himself, yet he believed the church should have nothing to do with governing the town.
"Besides that, he thought, 'the King of England has no right to give the land in America to the people who come here. The Indians hold the land. It is theirs. They are the only ones who should sell it or give it away.'