Mary of Plymouth: A Story of the Pilgrim Settlement - Otis James

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with us this village of ours might have been destroyed more than once, and, perhaps, those of our people whose lives God had spared would have gone back to Holland or England, ceasing to strive for a foothold in this new world which is so desolate when covered with snow and ice.

      A most kindly-hearted man is Captain Standish, and yet there are times when he has but slight control over his temper. Like a flash of powder when a spark falls upon it, he flares up with many a harsh word, and woe betide those against whom he has just cause for anger.

      After coming to know him for one who strove not to control his tongue in moments of wrath, the Indians gave him the name of "Little pot that soon boils over," which means that his anger can be aroused quickly. He is not small, neither is he as tall as my father or Elder Brewster; but the savages spoke of him as "little," measuring him, I suppose, with many others of our people.

      We had not been long in Plymouth, however, before the Indians understood what a valiant soldier he is, and then they began to call him "Strong Sword."

      THE SICK PEOPLE

      It was yet very cold while our fathers were putting up the houses, and the sickness increased, so that at one time before the women and children could go on shore, nearly one half of our company were unable to sit up. All the while the food was very bad, save when more baskets of Indian corn were found.

      One evening, when father had come on board the vessel after working very hard on our house, I heard him say to mother that we must try to be cheerful, praying to God that the sickness which was upon our people so sorely would pass us by until we could build the home, plant a garden, and raise food from the earth.

      Sarah and I often asked each other when we were alone, whether the good Lord, whom we strove to serve diligently, would allow us to starve to death in this strange land where we had hoped to be so very near Him; for, indeed, as the days passed and the food we had brought with us from England became more nearly unfit to eat, it was as if death stood close at hand.

      THE NEW HOME

      It seemed like a very long while before the houses were ready so that we who were well could go on shore to live. I must tell you what our home is like. In Scrooby, when one builds a house, he has the trees sawed into timbers and boards at a mill; but in this new land we had no mills. When a man in England wants to make a chimney, he buys bricks and mortar; but here, as father said, we had plenty of clay and lime, yet could not put them to proper use until tools were brought across the sea with which to work such material into needed form.

      There was plenty of granite and other rock out of which to make cellars and walls; but no one could cut it, and even though it was already shaped, we had no horses with which to haul it. Think for a moment what it must mean not to have cows, sheep, oxen, horses or chickens, and we had none of these for three or four years.

      My father built the house we are now living in, almost alone, having but little help from the other men when he had to raise the heavy timbers. First, after clearing away the snow, he dug a hole in the frozen ground, two or three feet deep, making it of the same shape as he had planned the house. Then, having cut down trees for timbers, he stood them upright all around the inside of this hole, leaving here a place for a door, and there another for a window, until the sides and ends of the building were made.

      On the inside he filled the hole again with the earth he had taken out at the beginning, pounding it down solid to form a floor, and at the same time to help make the logs more secure in an upright position. Where the floor of earth does not hold the timbers firmly enough, what are called puncheons are fastened to the outside just beneath the roof.

      Puncheons are logs that have been split and trimmed with axes until they are something like planks, and you will see very many in our village of Plymouth. Hard work it is indeed to make these puncheon planks; but they were needed to fasten crosswise on the sides and ends of our house, in order to hold the logs more firmly in place.

      Across the top of the house, slanting them so much that the water would run off, father placed a layer of logs to make the roof.

      Three puncheons were put across the inside of the roof, being fastened with pegs of wood, for the few nails we have among us are of too much value to be used in house building.

      That the roof might prevent the water from running into the house, father stripped bark from hemlock trees, and placed it over the logs two or three layers deep, fastening the whole down with poles cut from young trees.

      MASTER WHITE AND THE WOLF

      Of course, when this home was first built, there were many cracks between the logs on the sides and ends; but these mother and I stuffed full of moss and clay, while father was cutting wood for the fire, until the wind no longer finds free entrance, and we are not like to be in the same plight as was Master White, less than two months after we came ashore to live.

      He would not spend the time to fill up the cracks, as we had done, and one night while he lay in bed, a hungry wolf thrust his paw through and scratched the poor man's head so severely that the blood ran freely. Sarah thinks he must have awakened very quickly just then.

      THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE

      We have a partition inside our house, thus dividing the lower part into two rooms. It is made of clay, with which has been mixed beach grass. Mother and I made a white liquid of powdered clam shells and water, with which we painted it until one would think it the same kind of wall you have in Scrooby. With pieces of logs we children helped to pound the earth inside until the floor was smooth and firm; but father promised that at some later time we should have a floor of puncheons, as indeed we have now, and very nice and comfortable it is.

      I wish you might see it after mother and I have covered it well with clean white sand from the seashore, and marked it in pretty patterns of vines and leaves: but this last we do only when making the house ready for meeting, or for some great feast.

      At the windows are shutters made of puncheons, as is also the door, and both are hung with straps of leather in the stead of real hinges.

      Perhaps you may think that with only a puncheon shutter at the window, we must perforce sit in darkness when it storms, or in cold weather admit too much frost in order to have light. But let me tell you that our windows are closed quite as well as yours, though not so nicely. We brought from home some stout paper, and this, plentifully oiled, we nailed across the window space. Of course we cannot look out to see anything; but the light finds its way through readily.

      A CHIMNEY WITHOUT BRICKS

      I had almost forgotten to tell you how father built a chimney without either bricks or mortar, for of course we had none of those things when we first made our village.

      Our chimney is of logs plastered plentifully with clay, and fastened to the outside of the building, with a hole cut through the side of the house that the fireplace may be joined to it.

      The fireplace itself is built of clay, made into walls as one would lay up bricks, and held firmly together by being mixed with dried beach grass.

      It looks somewhat like a large, square box, open in front, and with sides and ends at least two feet thick. It is so large that Sarah and I might stand inside, if so be the heat from the fire was not too great, and look straight out through it at the sky.

      Father drags in, as if he were a horse, logs which are much larger around than is my body, and mother, or one of the neighbors, helps him roll them into the big fireplace where, once aflame, they burn from one morning until another.

      BUILDING THE FIRE

      The greatest trouble we have, or did have during our first winter here, was in holding the fire, for the wood, having just been cut in the forest, is green, and the fire very like to desert it unless we keep close watch. Neither mother nor I can strike a spark with flint and steel as ably as can many women in the village; therefore, when, as happened four or five times, we lost our fire, one of us took a strip of green bark, or a shovel, and borrowed from whosoever of our neighbors had the brightest blaze, enough of coals to set our own hearth warm again.

      Some of the housewives who are more skilled in the use

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