During her husband's absence, poor Lady Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir from the great chair.

Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency, he doubtless addressed her with words of comfort.

"Cheer up, my good lady!" he would say.

"In a little time, you will love this rude life of the wilderness as I do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute as iron, and he could not understand why a woman's heart should not be of iron too.
Still, however, he spoke kindly to the lady, and then hastened forth to till his corn-field and set out fruit trees, or to bargain with the Indians for furs, or perchance to oversee the building of a fort.

Also being a magistrate, he had often to punish some idler or evil-doer, by ordering him to be set in the stocks or scourged at the whipping-post.
Often, too, as was the custom of the times, he and Mr.Higginson, the minister of Salem, held long religious talks together.