Bayes.)

PILGRIM EXILES

The Pilgrims had learned how to manage farm lands, and how to support their families in a large city. Now they had to lead a new and quite different life in a wild, strange land. It was well for them, indeed, that among their Indian neighbors there were some who were willing to be their friends. These friendly red men understood life in the wilds, and showed the white people how to make snow-shoes, moccasins, canoes, and other useful articles. From the Indians the white men also learned how to catch eels and how to trap animals. When planting time came, it was a friendly Indian named Squanto who showed them how to plant their maize and tend it so as to get good crops.

Their peas and some of their other crops did not do so very well the first season; but in the autumn it was found that there was a fine harvest of maize. This filled their hearts with joy.

While living in Holland the Pilgrims had seen the Dutch keep a Thanksgiving day every autumn. The people of Plymouth thought that after their crops had been gathered and their hard work was finished for the season, it would be a good thing for them to have a time of joy and thanksgiving. So Governor Bradford sent out a company of men to shoot wild turkeys and other game, and the women set to work to cook all sorts of good things, so that they might feast and frolic for a week. He sent an invitation to the Indian neighbors to enjoy the fun with them.

Wishing to show their good will, and to help with the Thanksgiving feast, the Indian guests went into the woods and killed for the table five deer and much other game. As the Pilgrims had not yet become skilled enough hunters to get much large game, they were very grateful for this present from their friends.

About ninety Indians came with their chief. They stayed for three days. The time was passed in wrestling, shooting at marks, and in other sports. By the time the party was over there was a better feeling between the reds and the whites, and it seemed that they might afterward live in peace.

By the end of a year the people had built seven houses for homes, and four other buildings for the use of all. But their worries and sufferings were by no means ended. Other ships came from England with many people but no food. The Pilgrims could not raise enough grain to make bread for all.

There were plenty of fish, clams, oysters, and lobsters in the sea; and wild grapes, plums, and berries in the woods. Yet during the next two years the people of Plymouth sometimes could scarcely keep from starving. For four months, at one time, they lived almost entirely upon sea food. Only once in a while could they find some nuts or shoot some game in the woods.

During those trying days all that the Pilgrims had learned in Holland helped them a great deal. When they reached this country, before they could do anything else, they needed to make tool handles and get their tools ready for work.

The ship was small and crowded, and so it was not possible to bring all the furniture and the hundreds of articles, both little and large, which they would really need. They had to make not only their houses, but all these other things as quickly as possible. There were no mills, no stores, no shops; they could not run down town to get every little thing needed.

Finally their clothes began to wear out. What could they do? In Holland they had learned from the Dutch women to raise flax and spin it into beautiful even threads, and later to weave these threads into good linen cloth. (The Spinner. Maes.) So now the Pilgrims raised flax and sheep, and in the winter time, when there was not much other work to do, the women busied themselves spinning flax and wool into thread and yarn, which they dyed themselves. This thread and yarn they wove into cloth and knit up into warm stockings and mittens.

PRISCILLA SPINNING

(3298. Priscilla Spinning. Barse.) In this picture we see a Puritan maiden sitting near the cozy fireplace, spinning with a spinning wheel which she runs with her foot. She has her Bible in her lap, probably so that she may once in a while read a verse or two to be thinking about as she works.

Thus we might talk on and on, without being able to tell all about the Pilgrim forefathers and foremothers and what we owe them. Stories and poems have been written about them, and artists of many countries have painted us beautiful pictures of them. We can not look over the books in any good library without finding much about the brave and upright, God-loving Pilgrims. We can not go into any of the large galleries where hang rows and rows of fine paintings, and not see pictures of Pilgrim scenes. As you grow older you will hear more and more of them.

Some day you may be able to go to Plymouth, the very town which these brave people began to build almost three hundred years ago. There you will have pointed out to you the very Plymouth Rock on which they landed; perhaps you will visit Burial Hill, where sleep their noble dead; you will see the first street laid out, the spot where the first house was built, and the monument erected to the Pilgrims’ memory. The townspeople will take pride in telling you how long it took to build the marble giant, and how much money it cost.

They will direct you to Pilgrim Hall, which is filled with things which were once used by the Pilgrims, or have something to do with them. Here you may see among other things a chest and a chair which once belonged to Elder Brewster, whose black-gowned figure we see in so many pictures, Governor Carver’s chair, a dinner pot, and the sword of Miles Standish. Here, too, hang a number of the Pilgrim pictures, which our country wishes to keep forever, if possible.

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS