Page:The adventures of Ann; stories of colonial times.djvu/77

Rh my Heirs or assignes, may not receive Damage by any Creature Coming through's:d House into my Land adjoining. In Witness Whereof, I the'sd Seth Towner have hereunto set my Hand & Seal the first Day of November One Thous. and Seven Hundred Sixty & four: in the fifth year of his Majesty's Reign George the third King etc.

Signed Sealed and Del:d


 * presence of

."

Ann's two uncles by adoption, and Thomas Penniman of Stoughton, were well pleased to get this permission to erect a stable, or Horse-House, as they put it then, to shelter their horses during divine worship. The want of one had long been a sore inconvenience to them. The few stables already erected around the meeting-house, could not accommodate half of the horses congregated there on a Puritan Sabbath, and every barn, for a quarter of a mile about, was put into requisition on severe days. After the women had dismounted from their pillions at the meeting-house door, the men-folks patiently rode the horses to some place of shelter, and then trudged back through the snowdrifts, wrestling with the icy wind.

So this new "Horse-House" was a great benefit