Thirteenth Remove Part 3

Edited by Chovi Thach
Weetamoo and Mary Rowlandson - painting by Dave Kobrenski
Source: Original artwork by Dave Kobrenski. 

That night they bade me go out of the wigwam again. My mistress’s papoose1 was sick, and it died that night, and there was one benefit in it—that there was more room. I went to a wigwam, and they bade me come in, and gave me a skin2 to lie upon, and a mess of venison and ground nuts, which was a choice dish among them. On the morrow they buried the papoose, and afterward, both morning and evening, there came a company to mourn and howl with her; though I confess I could not much condole with them. Many sorrowful days I had in this place, often getting alone. “Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove, mine eyes ail with looking upward. Oh, Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me” (Isaiah 38.14). I could tell the Lord, as Hezekiah, “Remember now O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth” (2 Kings 20:3). Now had I time to examine all my ways: my conscience did not accuse me of unrighteousness toward one or other; yet I saw how in my walk with God, I had been a careless creature. As David said, “Against thee, thee only have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4): and I might say with the poor publican, “God be merciful unto me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). On the Sabbath3 days, I could look upon the sun and think how people were going to the house of God, to have their souls refreshed; and then home, and their bodies also; but I was destitute of both; and might say as the poor prodigal4, “He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him” (Luke 15.16). For I must say with him, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight” (Luke 15:21). I remembered how on the night before and after the Sabbath, when my family was about me, and relations and neighbors with us, we could pray and sing, and then refresh our bodies with the good creatures of God; and then have a comfortable bed to lie down on; but instead of all this, I had only a little swill for the body and then, like a swine, must lie down on the ground. I cannot express to man the sorrow that lay upon my spirit; the Lord knows it. Yet that comfortable Scripture would often come to mind, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee” (Isaiah 54:7).

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to Project Gutenberg and archive.org for providing the digitized versions of Rowlandson’s text free of charge. Without their generosity, this project would not be possible.

  1. A Native American child; Native American word for a baby bag (sling). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papoose. ↩

  2. Animal skin rug. ↩

  3. A day of religious abstinence; practised on Sundays by Christians. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath#:~:text=In%20Abrahamic%20religions%2C%20the%20Sabbath,as%20God%20rested%20from%20creation. ↩

  4. Wreckless spending on a lavish scale. Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prodigal. ↩