name on.an obscure gravestone. But what brave-hearted
mother would not count it well worth
while to leave, for the coming years, the impress
she left upon her many children; one of them alone
destined to carry to coming generations of Americans
the assurance that such a son could only
have been borne by one of the noblest of mothers.
Dying at the age of forty,--April 21, 1767,--after
a married life of twenty-one years, she had
performed all the duties then expected from the
mistress of a farmer's household in a section where
the principal help that could be secured in any
time of need came from the voluntary kindnesses
of neighbors; for, like one large family, they felt
it necessary to "lend a hand" whenever any one
of their number was in need. Mrs. Hale had
been the mother of twelve children when she died.
Two of her children, named David and Jonathan,
were twins. One of the twins, Jonathan, died
when only a week old. David lived to be graduated
from Yale and to become a minister at Lisbon,
Connecticut. A little daughter, Susanna, lived
but a month, but ten of Mrs. Male's twelve children
grew to maturity.

Nathan, the sixth child, born June 6, 1755,
was the first of the ten to die, leaving to his surviving
brothers and sisters a memory that in later

[[6]]

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v?