But his prettiest feat was to kiss his mistress by putting his little beak to her lips, when she would say in a caressing tone, "Kiss me, pretty Cherry." After playing with the canary for a little while, Dulcibel sighed and put him back in his cage, hearing a knock at the front door of the cottage.

And she had just turned from the cage to take a seat, when the door opened and two persons entered.
"I am glad to see you, friends," she said calmly, inviting them to be seated.
It was Joseph Putnam, accompanied by his friend and visitor, Ellis Raymond, the young man of whom Dulcibel had spoken to Jethro Sands.
Joseph Putnam was one of that somewhat distinguished family from whom came the Putnams of Revolutionary fame; Major-General Israel Putnam, the wolf-slayer, being one of his younger children.

He, the father I mean, was a man of fine, athletic frame, not only of body but of mind.

He was one of the very few in Salem village who despised the whole witch-delusion from the beginning.

He did not disbelieve in the existence of witches--or that the devil was tormenting the "afflicted children"-- but that faith should be put in their wild stories was quite another matter.
Of his companion, Master Ellis Raymond, I find no other certain account anywhere than in my Quaker friend's manuscript.