Many, many other men and women had come over from England, so that now, instead of thinking of a few people living in their huts at Plymouth, you must think of little towns all along the coast, having residences, stores, churches, and schools, all of which were quite fair buildings for the times.

The Old South Church, the Old North Church and King's Chapel, which stand now in Boston, were built in these early times.

The new-comers, the Quakers, were strange in their looks and in their manners, it is true; but so were the Puritans as to that matter. Then, too, in their enthusiasm they often forgot the rights of the Puritans in whose towns they were living.

And so it came about that the Puritans had these Quakers whipped in the streets; they cut off their ears and their noses; they put cleft sticks upon their tongues to keep them from speaking; and they punished them in many other ways.

Until within a few years, there stood on the beautiful Common in Boston an elm tree, to whose boughs the Puritans hanged a woman named Mary Dyer, not so much because she was a Quaker and preached the Quaker but because she insisted on preaching on the streets and in direct defiance of the laws of Boston.

And surely, we have to admit that the Puritans thought they had a right to enforce their own laws: only of course punishments were very severe; still we must remember they would have used these same punishments on their own people had they broken the same laws.

The one thing that exasperated the Puritans with the Quakers above all other things, was the fact that the Quakers allowed the women to preach and pray as they liked. "A preaching woman," said the Puritans, "is a disgrace to religion! Away with such!"

You can imagine, therefore, how annoyed the Puritans were with Mary Dyer when she insisted on preaching.

For a time Mary Dyer lived quietly in Rhode Island; but when she heard of the cruel treatment of the Quakers in Boston, she was determined to go to their aid. Twice was she driven from the town, and threatened with hanging if she came again.

But Mary Dyer was fearless; her one thought was that her friends, the Quakers, were in prison, many of them dying of fever and hunger. A third time she entered the town. She was at once seized, brought before the judge, and condemned to be hanged. Many friends begged that she might be spared, but the judge would not yield.

On the 27th of October, 1659, Boston Common was to witness the hanging of a woman. The streets were thronged with people, all anxious to get even one glance at the unhappy Quakeress. By her side walked two young men, also Quakers, who were to be hanged with her.

It was one of these who first ascended the fatal ladder. As he was speaking of his faith, and his willingness to die, someone in the crowd called out: "Hold thy tongue! Art thou going to die with a lie in thy mouth?"

Soon the other young man was led forth. As the rope was being fastened he cried, "Know all ye, that we die not for wrong doing, but for conscience' sake!"

And then the judge called, "Mary Dyer!"

Her two friends were hanging dead before her eyes. Fearlessly she mounted the scaffold, and quietly allowed the hangman to fasten the blindfold and the rope. All was ready. The great crowd stood breathless.

The hangman raised his hand to give the signal, when there was heard a cry from the distance, "Stop! stop! she is reprieved! The Governor has reprieved her!"

Shouts of joy rang through the Common, mingled with hisses from those who had longed to see her hanged. She was taken back to the prison, where she was received by her brave son, who looked upon her as one brought back from death. He it was who had besought the Governor to save his mother, and at last won from him her reprieve.

Joyfully, the son carried away the mother to their home in Rhode Island. I wish I could tell you that the good woman lived out her days there with her brave boy, happy and free. But it was not so. Before many months had passed, again she was seized with the idea that it was her duty to go again to Boston and speak for her people.

Nothing could keep her from it; even the prayers and tears of her son, who loved her so, could not prevail upon her to give up the dangerous journey.

Hardly was she within the limits of the city before she was seized upon by the officers and again carried before the judge.

The judge, exasperated with her foolhardiness, as he called it, offered her, once more, her choice between hanging and promising to leave the colony forever. She would not accept the chance to escape, and was sentenced to be hanged on the morrow at nine o'clock.

Half wild with grief, Mary's husband begged the judge to save her once more; but the judge, saying that she had made her own fate, would not change her sentence.

At the appointed hour, the officer led her forth from the prison to the Common, and there, before the eyes of a great number of people, she was hanged, declaring, with her last breath, that she was giving her life, not for any wrong act of hers, but for her religion's sake.