Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/345

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LETTERS OF PETER FONTAINE.
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named Francis, about three years old, and a girl of fourteen months, named Mary, He has several lots in the town of New Berne, and 640 acres of land near it, which supplies him with timber for his business. He brought with him sixty pistoles, to purchase his tools and other necessaries. His step-mother offered to be his security if he wanted more goods, than he had cash to pay for, but he refused it, and the merchant he dealt with told her his own credit was sufficient, if he wanted to take the value of £500.

He only asked of her to see his father's will, and they parted contented on both sides, he with the pleasure of having his brother with him, and she with that of getting rid of him. She gave John, however, a negro boy, which he carried with him.

Frank was, by means of her cruelty, cast off without a rag to cover him; and we see how God hath taken him up, and hath been to him a most tender and kind Father. He came very decently dressed, and my wife observed by the neatness of his clothes, and the good sewing of his linen, that his wife must be a good seamstress and ingenious woman. I need not repeat what I said in my former, that he is beloved and respected.

I sent your kind letter to my son soon after I received it. He lives threescore miles, in the woods back from the river. I can send a letter to you in as short a time as to him. No post travels that way, and I have not heard from him at all this two months. He is now out in the forest surveying, if well, and I do not expect to hear from him till April or May. His wife has brought him a fine son, named John. My wife was up to see them last August, and she says he is the greatest boy of his age she ever saw. He was