ading lilac bushes.
She glanced at the two as they talked earnestly together and caught bits
of the conversation, but continued with her play. After an early tea
Jonathan and his mother wandered down by the river, while Roger Low, the
father, weary with a hard day's work, settled himself in his big chair
and soon dropped to sleep.

Little Mary had put her dolls to bed and, feeling much alone, snuggled
close to her sleeping father. Looking at the long locks as they hung from
his bent head, she recalled the afternoon's conversation.

"His hair is too long," she thought. "Jonathan says it is not right to
wear long hair."

Stepping to the shelf she took down the scissors and quickly gave a
delicious snip to her father's thick locks. Another snip-snap and more
hair fell. The sleeping man roused a little, but finding only his little
Mary playing about him, nodded off again. His head this time fell in a
more favorable position for Mary to continue the clipping, which she did
most thoroughly.

It was dark when her mother returned and passed her sleeping husband to
put Mary to bed.

Just what happened in that home the next day I cannot tell you, but Roger
Low appeared to the towns-people with closely cut hair, an astonishing
example, just as the proclamation of the magistrates was announced.

It read as follows:

[A]"For as much as the wearing of long hair, after the manner of ruffians
and barbarous Indians, has begun to invade New England, we, the
magistrates do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against
the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil, and unmanly,
whereby men do deform themselves and do corrupt good manners. We do,
therefore, earnestly entreat all elders of this jurisdiction to manifest
their zeal against it, that such as shall prove obstinate and will not
reform themselves, may have God and man to witness against them."

[Footnote A: Adams, Annals of Portsmouth. Page 34.]

CYNTHIA'S BEAR

"Yes, we have given up the name of Strawberry Bank," exclaimed Richard
Chadborn, as he settled back before the bright firelight on a sharp
October evening in 1653. His brother Samuel had just returned from his
clearing in Rhode Island, and was eager to know all that had happened in
the years of absence.

"The townsmen petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts," Richard
continued, "to change the name to Portsmouth, 'it being the river's mouth
and good as any in the land'."