Mary of Plymouth: A Story of the Pilgrim Settlement

You may see that if I follow these rules carefully, I shall not bring shame upon my mother. It is only when the large wooden bowl, which is called the voider, is placed on the table that I am most awkward, and mother insisted on my learning this poem, which contains many wholesome rules for behavior:

"When the meat is taken quite away,
And voiders in your presence laid,
Put you your trencher in the same
And all the crumbs which you have made.
Take you with your napkin and knife,
The crumbs that are before thee;
In the voider a napkin leave,
For it is a courtesy."

WHEN THE PILGRIM GOES ABROAD

If there be a desire to travel, we must either walk, or sail in boats, and one may not go far on foot in either direction along the coast, without coming upon streams or brooks over which has been felled a tree to serve as bridge. Now father thinks a bridge of that kind is all that may be necessary, because of his footing being so sure; but you know that women are more timid, and it is difficult to walk above the rushing streams on so slight a support as a round log.

Because of having made our plantation near to a deserted Indian village, there were paths through the woods in every direction, and these we used whenever making an excursion in search of bayberry plums, or herbs of any kind.

The Indians, after Squanto had made us friendly with the great chief Massasoit, were ready to sell us boats, and queer sorts of ships would they seem in your eyes. One kind is made of the bark taken from the birch tree in great sheets, sewn together with sinews of deer, and besmeared with fat from the pitch pine.

I have seen one that would carry with safety four people, so light that I myself could lift it, but no man may use one of these bark vessels without first having been taught how to sail it, for they are so like a feather on the water that the slightest movement oversets them.

For my part, I feel more secure in what our people call a dugout, which is made with much labor by the Indians, and is, as Captain Standish says in truth, "a most unwieldy ship."

MAKING A DUGOUT

The Indians hew down a huge pine tree, and when I say it is done without the use of axes, then you will wonder how the timber can be felled. Well, when one of the savages desires to build him a boat, he selects the tree from which it is to be made, and builds a little fire around the trunk close to the ground. As fast as the flames char the wood, he scrapes it away with a sharp rock, or a thick seashell, and thus keeps scraping the burning wood until the tree falls.

Then he cuts off ten or twelve feet in length by burning and scraping exactly as before, and this is the length of the boat he would build; but it is simply a solid log. Now he sets about building a fire along the top, charring the wood and scraping it away until, after what must surely be a wonderful amount of labor, he has hollowed out that huge log into a shell. The bark is then stripped from the outside, and the ends fashioned by burning until they are smooth, and the ship is completed.

GOVERNOR CARVER'S DEATH

It was in April, when, because the weather had grown so warm it seemed much as if we had been restored to the favor of God, that a great calamity came upon us of Plymouth, and my father says it is impossible for us to understand how sore a stroke it was to our people who count on making a home in this new world.

Governor Carver had hoped to make such a garden as should be a model for all in the village, and to that end he worked exceedingly hard, so father says. He was planting and hoeing from early light until it was no longer possible to see what he was about because of the coming of night. Already many of the plants, concerning which Samoset and Squanto had told us, were showing through the ground, until, as Captain Standish said, "all the others should take pattern by him that we might not taste again of the bitterness of famine."

The day had been very warm, and the governor was working exceeding hard, when suddenly he complained of a pain in his head. He strove in vain to continue the labor; but Mistress Carver insisted that he come into the house and lie down on a bear skin, which Captain Standish had made into a bed-cover, and this he did.

Master Bradford and my father were summoned in the hope that it might be possible to give him some relief; but they could do no more than pray for his recovery, and even while they were pleading most fervently with God, the poor man lost all knowledge of himself, nor did he speak again.

During three days every one prayed; no trees were hewn lest the noise disturb him, and all the women in the village gathered in or around the house that they might be ready in case their services were needed. It was as if we were having three Sabbaths at once. Then he died, without having come to know that he was ill, and we were more heartsick and lonely even than when the Mayflower sailed away.

It seemed to me as if then was the time, when our hearts were so sore, that our people ought to have poured out their souls in prayer over the lifeless body of him who had been so good a friend to us all; but that was forbidden. Therefore Governor Carver was laid in the grave without a word or sound, other than the sobs of the women and children, who mourned so sorely.

Those who had muskets discharged them as a parting salute to him who had been our governor, and we walked sorrowfully and in silence away, little dreaming that within three short weeks Mistress Carver would be buried near her husband's last resting place in this world.

WILLIAM BRADFORD CHOSEN GOVERNOR

Two days after we had said farewell to Master Carver, Master William Bradford was chosen governor; but because he was yet stricken with the sickness, Master Isaac Allerton was named as his assistant.

I have no doubt that Hannah will be surprised at knowing that "little Willie Bradford," as I have heard the old women call him, has become our governor. When a boy, he lived in Scrooby, and came, rather from curiosity than a desire for the truth, among our people, who were called Separatists, or Non-Conformists, because they would not conform, or agree, to King James' orders regarding their religion.

William Bradford came to believe, after attending the meetings in Elder Brewster's house, that ours was the true religion, and when our people made up their minds to go into Holland where they might be allowed to worship God as they chose, Master Bradford went with them. There he learned the trade of a weaver of cloth; but later he apprenticed himself to a printer.

Now he is become the foremost man of all our company, because of being the governor, and of a truth has he been a very present help to us in our time of trouble.

FARMING IN PLYMOUTH

I wish you might have seen how different to that which is the custom in Scrooby, was our farming done on the first season after we came ashore from the Mayflower. Because of having no working cattle with which to plough, the men were forced to dig up the ground with spades, and weary labor it was. Those of our people who were well enough to remain in the field, planted nearly twenty-six acres, six of which were sown with barley and peas, while the remainder was given over to Indian corn.

Squanto showed us how this last should be done, and, strange as it may seem to you in England, he used fish with which to enrich the land, putting three small ones in each hill.

You must know that all of us children, and the women, work at the planting of this corn, for it is the only kind of food to be had which can be kept throughout the year without danger of being spoiled, and when one grows weary with the task, it is only needed to bring to mind our hunger when we first came ashore.

Perhaps you may wonder where we got so much of the corn for seed. It has all come from the Indians in one way or another. Some of it Squanto brought from Massasoit's people; but a goodly portion has been found on the graves, of which there are very many near our village.

As to planting barley and peas, Squanto knew nothing; therefore the work was done somewhat as it would have been done at home, except that the land was encumbered with rocks and trees, and we were much perplexed by lack of tools.

The seed was finally put into the ground, but even when the task had been performed to the best of our ability, it was an odd looking farm to those who had seen the fair fields of England. Large rocks stood here and there, while many stumps of trees yet remained, for our fathers had not been able to clear the land entirely. We shall have much work at harvest, in gathering the crops from amid all these unsightly things.

WAYS OF COOKING INDIAN CORN

I must tell you of a way to cook this Indian corn which Squanto showed to Captain Standish, and now we have it in all the houses, when we are so fortunate as to have a supply of the wheat in our possession.

It is poured into the hot ashes of the fireplace, and allowed to remain there until every single wheat kernel has been roasted brown. Then it is sifted out of the ashes, beaten into a powder like meal, and mixed with snow in the winter, or water in the summer. Three spoonfuls a day is enough for a man who is on the march, or at work, so Captain Standish says, and we children are given only two thirds as much.

Mother says it is especially of value because little labor is needed to prepare it; but neither Sarah nor I take kindly to the powder.

The Indians also steep the corn in hot water twelve hours before pounding it into a kind of coarse meal, when they make it into a pudding much as you would in Scrooby; but mother likes not the taste after it has been thus cooked before being pounded, thinking much of the fine flavor has been taken from it.

Sometimes we make a sweet pudding by mixing it with molasses and boiling it in a bag. It will keep thus for many days, and I once heard Captain Standish say that there were as many sweet puddings made in Plymouth every day as there were housewives.

Next fall we shall have bread made of barley and Indian corn meal, so father says, and I am hoping most fervently that he may not be mistaken, for both Sarah and I are heartily tired of nookick, and of sweet pudding, which is not very sweet because we have need to guard carefully our small store of molasses.

We girls often promise ourselves a great feast when a vessel comes out from England bringing butter, for we have had none that could be eaten since the first two weeks of the voyage in the Mayflower.

Squanto often tells us of a kind of vegetable, or fruit, I am not certain which, that grows in this country, and is called a pumpkin. It must be very fine, if one may judge by his praise of it, and we are looking forward to the time when it shall be possible to know for ourselves.

THE WEDDING

And now I am to tell you of a marriage in Plymouth which deeply concerned Sarah and me. You may be certain that we made great account of it, although Master Bradford warned us against setting our hearts on the wicked customs of England.

I had hoped Elder Brewster would marry the couple, for Sarah and I were deeply interested in them, having seen much of the love-making while we were on board the Mayflower.

If the bride and groom had been in England, it would have been a time of feasting; but our people here shun such show, therefore did we lose much of merrymaking.

Although the bride and groom went to Elder Brewster's house, which has served us as a place for religious meetings, it was Governor Bradford who listened to their vows and declared them to be man and wife, and in less than half an hour the newly-made husband was working in the field, while the wife was making sugar.

MAKING MAPLE SUGAR