Here they were, transplanted from their comfortable homes in the beginning of a long and very severe winter; but, well divided by the river from all suspicion of doing violence, they fared better than the praying Indians of the new town of Wamesit.

A barn full of hay and corn had been burnt, and fourteen men of Chelmsford, the next settlement, concluding it had been done by the Wamesit Red-skins, went thither, called them out of their wigwams, and then fired at them, killing a lad and five women and children.

After all, the fire had been caused by some skulking heathen Indians; but though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, the jury would not find them guilty.

The Wamesit Indians fled into the forest, and sent a piteous letter:--"We are not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry that the English have driven us from our praying to God and from our teacher.

We did begin to understand praying to God a _little_." They were invited back, but were afraid to come till cold and hunger drove them to their old abode, and then the indefatigable Eliot and Gookin visited them, and did all in their power to bring about a better feeling towards them in Chelmsford.
This whole autumn and winter--a terribly severe one--seems to have been spent by these good men in trying to heal the strifes between the English and the Indians.