"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 cornfield 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.

Thus John Endicott was a man of multifarious business, and had no time to look back regretfully to his native land.

He felt himself fit for the New World and for the work that he had to do, and set himself resolutely to accomplish it.
What a contrast, my dear children, between this bold, rough, active man, and the gentle Lady Arbella, who was fading away, like a pale English flower, in the shadow of the forest! And now the great chair was often empty, because Lady Arbella grew too weak to arise from bed.
Meantime, her husband had pitched upon a spot for their new home.

He returned from Boston to Salem, travelling through the woods on foot, and leaning on his pilgrim's staff.