“Her mistress, the squaw, kept her a Twelve-month with her, in a Squalid Wigwam:  Where, in the following Winter, she fell sick of a Feavour; but in the very height and heat of her Paroxysms, her Mistress would compel her sometimes to Spend a Winters-night, which is there a very bitter one, abroad in all the bitter Frost and Snow of the Climate.  She recovered; but Four Indians died of the Feavour, and at length her Mistress also....  She was made to pass the River on the Ice, when every step she took, she might have struck through it if she pleased.”

“...At last, there came to the fight of her a Priest from Quebeck who had known her in her former Captivity at Naridgowock....  He made the Indians sell her to a French Family.... where tho’ she wrought hard, she Lived more comfortably and contented....  She was finally allowed to return to her husband."[90]

The account of Mary Rowlandson’s captivity, long known to every New England family, and perhaps secretly read by many a boy in lieu of the present Wild West series, may serve as another vivid example of the dangers and sufferings faced by every woman who took unto herself a husband and went forth from the coast settlements to found a new home in the wilderness.  The narrative, as written by Mrs. Rowlandson herself, tells of the attack by the Indians, the massacre of her relations, and the capture of herself and her babe: 

“There remained nothing to me but one poor, wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death, that it was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to revive it....  But now (the next morning) I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness, I knew not whither.  It is not my tongue or pen can express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit, that I had at this departure; but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along and bearing up my spirit that it did not quite fail.”

“One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse, it went moaning all along:  ‘I shall die, I shall die.’  I went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed.  At length I took it off the horse and carried it in my arms, till my strength failed and I fell down with it.  Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded child in my lap, and there being no furniture on the horse’s back, as we were going down a steep hill we both fell over the horse’s head, at which they, like inhuman creatures, laughed and rejoiced to see it, though I thought we should there have ended our days, overcome with so many difficulties.”

They went farther and farther into the wilderness, and a few days after leaving her home, her son Joseph joined her, having been captured by another band of Indians.  She tells how, having her Bible with her, she and her son found it a continual help, reading it and praying.