Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/287

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ANNE BRADSTREET.
271

Hooker with this speech: I am not willing to keep such an occasion of provocation by me. And soon after he wrote to the deputy (who had before desired to buy a fat hog or two of him, being somewhat short of provisions) to desire him to send for one, (which he would have sent him, if he had known when his occasion had been to have made use of it), and to accept it as a testimony of his good will; and lest he should make any scruple of it, he made Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hooker, (who both sojourned in his house) partakers with him. Upon this the deputy returned this answer: 'Your overcoming yourself hath overcome me. Mr. Haynes, Mr. Hooker, and myself, do most kindly accept your good will, but we desire, without offence, to refuse your offer, and that I may only trade with you for two hogs;' and so very lovingly concluded."

There was no word, however, of yielding the disputed point, which was settled for him a few days later. "The court being two days after, ordered, that Newtown should do their work as others had done, and then Salem, &c., should pay for three days at eighteen pence a man."

The records of that time hold instance after instance of the old man's obstinacy and Winthrop's gentle and most patient consideration. To Anne, however, who came in contact only with his milder side, it was an irreparable loss, and she never spoke of him save with grateful and tender remembrance, her elegy on his death, though conventional as the time made her, being full of the sorrow time soothed but never destroyed.