Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/358

342 to-day, and that a poem might have grown out of it, had daily life been thought worthy of a poem.

"This witnesseth, that wee heard goodm Sutton say, there was noe horses in his yard that night in wch Mr Bradstreetes mare was killed, & afterwards that there was none that he knew of; but being told by Mr Bradstreete that hee thought hee could p've hee drave out some, then hee sd, yes, now I remembr there was 3 or 4.

"Further, wee testifie the sd. Sutton sd. att yt tyme there was noe dogg there, but his wch was a puppy, & Mr Danes that would not byte.

Law was resorted to in even small disagreements with a haste and frequency excellent for the profession employed, but going far to intensify the litigious spirit of the day, and tolerant as Simon Bradstreet was in all large matters, his name occurs with unpleasant frequency in these petty village suits. This suit with goodman Sutton was but one of many, almost all of which arose from the trespasses of animals. Fences were few, and though they were viewed at intervals by the "perambulators" and decided to be "very sufficient against all orderly