then boil them and drink up the liquor, and then beat the
great ends of them in a mortar and so eat them." After
some weeks of starvation Mrs. Rowlandson herself was fain
to partake of such viands. One day, having made a cap for
one of Philip's boys, she was invited to dine with the great
sachem. "I went," she says, "and he gave me a pancake
about as big as two fingers. It was made of parched
wheat, beaten, and fried in bear's grease ; but I thought I
never tasted pleasanter meat in my life." Early in May she
was redeemed for ;^20, and went to find her husband in



262 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND

Boston, where the Old South Church society hired a house
for them.
Such was the experience of a captive whose treatment
was, according to Indian notions, hospitable. There were
few who came off so well. Almost every week while she
was led hither and thither by the savages, Mrs. Rowlandson
heard ghastly tales of fire and slaughter. It was a busy
winter and spring for these Nipmucks. Before February
was over, their exploit at Lancaster was followed by a
shocking massacre at Medfield. They sacked and destroyed
the towns of Worcester, Marlborough, Mendon, and Groton,
and even burned some houses in Weymouth, within a dozen
miles of Boston. Murderous attacks were made upon Sud-
bury, Chelmsford, Springfield, Hatfield, Hadley, North-
ampton, Wrentham, Andover, Bridgewater, Scituate, and
Middleborough. On the i8th of April Captain Samuel
Virtual Wadsworth, with 70 men, was drawn into an
extermina- ambush near Sudbury, surrounded by 500* Nip-
indians, mucks, and killed with 50 of his men ; six unfor-

Fcbru.3,rv

August, tunate captives were burned alive over slow fires.
