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Show Page 136 dwelling. Poor John, for he is subject to orders from Richard and is usually chosen to do the digging. How distressing it must be to lay the dead in the bare, frozen earth wrapped only in linen, with no coffin to shelter their bodies. But with plague amongst us, haste is a necessity and no one is brought home handsomely. How glad I will be to smell the blossoms of spring and not the stench of death. ******************** March, 1621 The dying has ended and once again the sky is black with birds, this time flying northward. And now the fish that go to the salt water during the winter are entering the rivers. Daily the Indians bring us herring, shad, rockfish, trout. I shall be sixteen this month, so I deem it proper that my curves and flesh are returning to once again fill my gowns. Now indeed I shall have to let out the seams. ******************** |