This page needs to be proofread.
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/150}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
CHAPTER IX.
GOODY REBECCA NURSE.
"Daring to shake, with rude, irreverent hands,
From Life's frail glass the last slow-ebbing sands."
Among the best known, most influential,
and widely respected
of all the families of Salem village
was the large family of
Francis Nurse.
"Goodman," or "Grandfather," or "Landlord Nurse," which were the several titles of respect usually accorded to him, as the honored head and patriarch of his numerous family of children and grandchildren, was then about seventy-six years of age.
He appears to have been a man of great and acknowledged respectability; a person of much energy and stability of character, and his judgment was much relied upon by his neighbors; he being frequently appoint-
