man washing talking to another man"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"
"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"
Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off the doorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, where the sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for the chips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stacked against the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of water rested on a great block, and, most marvellous of all, over the tub, busily washing a mass of bed-linen, bent Captain Standish.
Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that made the Captain look up. "So you're well recovered, Miles?" he asked cheerily.
The boy nodded, and set himself down on the woodpile.
"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you will be sitting here," said Standish, and, shaking the water off his hands, came and wrapped the garment about Miles.
Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched the Captain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal of sober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them so vigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest and busy did heseem about the undignified task that, before he thought, Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?"
"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully, as he twisted a sheet so hard that a jet of water spurted over the front of his shirt, "not in the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it, and it must needs be done."
Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's how it is with living; somebody has to," he said at length.
"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish answered, with a quick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man's share of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavy thoughts."
Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called to mind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress Rose Standish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on the bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying once more to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began stoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have to take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."
Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes into his arms. "You're a true man already, Miles," he said. "At least, you're a manin the way you group your women-folk with your cattle."
After the Captain had gone behind the house to hang out his wash, Miles rested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and southward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. A brave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his mother had looked for him to do.
A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins came leisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had been touched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles had ever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think you could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"
"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkins was building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street from the Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to the latter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeing again the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and of talking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he got up to the house they would keep him there to supper, perhaps all night. So he answered Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily:"Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the hill."
"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall eat dinner with us this noontime."
"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed, but civilly.
"I'll take you to the house with me when I go back thither," the other pursued. "You understand, you are to dwell with me hereafter."
When Captain Standish returned from his drying ground, Stephen Hopkins had gone on down to the landing, and against the logs huddled a piteous-faced small boy, who at sight of him cried: "Captain Standish, Master Hopkins says I must live with him."
"Do you not wish to?" asked Standish, nonchalantly, and, tipping the water out of his tub, set himself down on the block where it had rested.
"I'd rather go anywhere else in Plymouth, unless 'twas to Goodwife Billington. Must I go to him, Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usual respectful demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps to the Captain, leaned against his knee. "I thought—maybe I should go with Dolly to Mistress Brewster," he said in a low voice.
Standish suddenly put one arm about him. "A pity it couldn't be so, Miles! But the Elder's house is full, and at Master Hopkins's there's halfa bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case, Master Hopkins was your father's kinsman."
"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles. "Or—or—I wish I could live with you."
Standish laughed outright, though when he spoke his voice was gentle: "I would take you, laddie, and be glad to, if things were—as I thought they would be. Rose had a liking for you." He stopped short, and Miles, looking up in some awe, noted that his eyes were fixed on the blue harbor, yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke again, his tone was quick and altered: "But as things have fallen out, John Alden and I are sleeping in an unfinished cabin and eating where we can find a bite. And a little young fellow like you would be better off in a household where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they have arranged it all for your best good."
Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of what the Captain had said about being a man and things that had to be done, and he meant to make a good showing before him. "I like Giles," he began slowly, "and I like Constance, and Ned Lister will be there too; I'll try to like Master Hopkins—if he'll let me bring Trug."
So he had put on quite a brave face by the time Master Hopkins came to fetch him to hisnew home. To him it was all so much a matter of course that he offered no explanations or commonplace cheering words to Miles; just bade him come, and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles, with his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging, loitered half-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins turned. "You're not yet as strong as you thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but kindly enough, and, lifting the boy in his arms, carried him up the hill.
Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily about Master Hopkins's neck, and wished he were anywhere else.
"'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,In Wakefield all on a green,In Wakefield all on a green,—'
THERE, there, Damaris! Hushaby, hushaby! Go to sleep, like a good lass."
Damaris gurgled at Miles with a provokingly wide-awake crow. "I never saw such a bad baby," sighed the little boy. "Do go to sleep, honey.
'In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder,—'"
"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who, standing at the rude table, was scouring the biggest kettle, "you have sung that half a score of times. Is there no other song you know?"
"It is no time for the child to sleep now," interrupted Mistress Hopkins. "I'll wrap her up, and, since 'tis so mild a morning, you may take her forth into the air."
"O dear!" thought Miles, "I'm a man, not a nurse." He never considered that it was any kindness on his new guardians' part when, instead ofputting him to heavy outdoor tasks, they set him to minding the baby and helping about the house. "Like a girl," Miles told himself, with an indignant sniff. It was not two weeks since he left the sick-house, and his legs were still a little uncertain, but he was sure he was fit to work again, or, at any rate, fit to run away and play with the other boys.
But he took the baby now and walked forth meekly, because he lived in some dread of Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins. She was a thin-lipped, energetic young woman, who mended Miles's clothes scrupulously, and, with equal conscientiousness, boxed his ears whenever he tracked dirt on her clean floors. Her sharp tongue, though, he feared more than her hands, for Mistress Hopkins scolded at everything and everybody; indeed, the only members of the household whom her words never troubled were Oceanus, who was so young he just blinked his eyes when she talked, and Master Hopkins, on whom people's fretting had as much effect as it would have had upon the great rock at the landing place.
After all, Miles was rather glad to get out into the air, away from the living room, where Mistress Hopkins was already chiding Constance. The morning was fair and warm, with no wind stirring, and the harbor sparkled invitingly, so, shouldering the unwelcome Damaris, he started happily to the shore.
But his contentment speedily had an end, for, not halfway to the landing, he was overtaken by Francis Billington, Jack Cooke, and Joe Rogers, who at once addressed him in disrespectful wise. "Ho, Miles, that's brave work, tending a baby," jeered Francis.
"You meddle with your own matters," Miles replied sulkily.
"Come with us, Miles," Jack put in pacifically. "We're going along shore to the first brook—"
"We do not want a baby with us," Joe interrupted.
"Youmight stay with me, Jack," Miles pleaded, as the others turned away.
Jack, a freckled little fellow with merry eyes, dug the heel of his shoe into the dirt. "The other lads will be having sport," he said half-heartedly.
"Then go with them," cried Miles. "Only you were very fain to play with me on shipboard."
Even this last thrust failed; Jack ran after the others down the hill, and Miles, feeling cross and ill-treated, was left to himself.
'Twould look too much as if he were following his ungracious friends if he went on to the landing, so he turned back to Elder Brewster's house. There Priscilla Mullins, a girl orphaned by the winter's sickness, who, because she was eighteen, was classed by Miles as a woman, was sweeping the doorstone witha broom of birch twigs. She paused in the labor teasingly to throw him a kiss, and tell him his busy sister and the lads were cooking by the brookside.
Sure enough, in the level space between the base of the bluff on which the cottage stood and the cove, Miles found Dolly, and Dolly's poppet Priscilla, and Love, and Wrestling, and Solomon, and Trug, who was not admitted to Mistress Hopkins's house because his great paws dirtied her floor,—all busied in making delectable pies of mud.
But when Miles joined them, Love withdrew from the mud-pie game, and wished to play at holding a council, such as his father and all the men were holding that morning in the Common House to regulate the military affairs of the colony. Dolly insisted that she should be allowed to come to the council too, for all Love urged that women never were invited thither, and the argument was growing bitter, when an unwonted tumult in the village street drew Miles's attention. A confused sort of calling and shrill shouting it seemed, that made his heart quicken between curiosity and alarm; so, snatching up Damaris, he scaled the bluff, while the rest of the children scrambled close behind him.
On the doorstone Mistress Brewster and Priscilla were gazing in silent wonder toward the street, and, looking thither too, Miles saw a man stalk past to the landing, very deliberately, as if he knew theplace and held he had the right to come there. It was no one of the settlers, though, but a great, half-naked fellow with a coppery face—an Indian.
Dolly and Wrestling clutched Mistress Brewster's skirts, the little boy fairly crying, and Miles himself, it must be owned, held Damaris fast and drew a step nearer the doorstone. But next moment he noted the Indian carried for weapons only a bow and two arrows, with which he could not kill all the settlement, and, moreover, at his heels tagged venturously Giles Hopkins and several of the other boys, and even Goodwife Billington, very clamorous, and the Governor's serving maid.
So Miles, not to be outdone by a petticoat, swaggered into the roadway and joined himself to the little group of curious folk, who, always ready to flee if he should turn on them, followed close at the savage's heels, down the steep hill, past Peter Browne's cottage, even to the door of the Common House.
The noise in the street had already disturbed the men at their conference, and they came flocking forth at the door, the Governor, the Elder, and the Captain, with a score of other stout fighters crowding behind them. But the Indian, never a whit abashed, strode boldly up to them, would even have pressed into the house, had not their ranks barred his passage. Nothing chilled, he halted, and,stretching forth his hands, spoke in a guttural tone: "Welcome."
"Do Indians talk English?" Miles whispered to Giles, who stood beside him. "Hush, hush, Damaris! The black man won't hurt you."
But Damaris, quite unconvinced, clutched Miles tightly round the neck and went on crying lustily, till at last Goodwife Billington seized him by the collar. "Thou good-for-naught lad!" she scolded. "Wilt thou kill the poor babe? Take her back to the house, thou runagate! Ay, ay, let her scream herself ill, so thou mayest gape and gaze. I would I had the up-bringing of thee!"
Some people besides himself liked to gape and gaze, Miles thought, but, without reply, he gathered the wailing Damaris into his arms and trudged slowly up the hill. There, by the Governor's house, it chanced he met with Francis and Jack and Joe, who, scenting something unusual in the village, had hastened back through the fields. "What is it has happened, Miles?" cried Joe.
Miles, glancing over his shoulder, saw with unkind satisfaction that the men had taken the savage into the Common House, out of sight. "'Twas naught," he said airily. "Just a great Indian came into town."
"Did you see him?" urged Francis. "Tell us about it."
"Humph! You've no wish to talk to me when I'm tending a baby," sniffed Miles, and trudged on to Master Hopkins's house, so elate at his triumph that he forgot to be angry with Damaris for dragging him away from the sport.
At the noon meal, indeed, he heard all and more than he could have learned, had he lingered about the door of the Common House, for Ned Lister was bubbling over with talk of the Indian. As Master Hopkins had stayed at the Common House and Dotey had none of his fellow-servant's faculty for gathering news, he proved the only tale-monger of the household; so the whole family harked to him respectfully, and even Mistress Hopkins forgot her usual sarcasms on his galloping tongue.
"This is not a savage from these parts," Ned explained; "he comes from the eastward, from Monhegan, whither the ships out of England go to fish. He has been on shipboard there and so has got a smattering of the English tongue. One Captain Dermer brought him to Cape Cod, and he has been in these parts now some eight months. And he told us a deal of the nations hereabout. This open place where we have settled is called Patuxet. It was a village of the savages once, but three or four years back came a great plague, and all the people died, so now we are undisputed masters of the soil. Next unto us dwell the Massasoits, a tribe of somesixty fighting men; and to the southeast, those savages whom our men gave a brush to on their explorations in December, are the Nausets, near a hundred strong."
Ned paused to secure himself another slice of cold mallard; then started on a new train: "You should 'a' seen the Indian fellow eat. He asked for beer, but we gave him strong water, and biscuit and butter and cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard thereto, and he liked all very well, and ate right heartily."
"He is not the only idler who looks for a full meal," said Mistress Hopkins scathingly. "Where have they put the vile creature now?"
"Vile creature, mistress?" Ned repeated. "Sure, he says that in his own country he is a great lord of land, a Sagamore—"
"I would he were back in his own country," Mistress Hopkins answered sharply. "The murderous wretch! I shall not draw a breath in peace till he be hence. Here, Ned, 'tis little enough work you'll do if you go forth, do you stay this afternoon in the house to protect us."
There was an instant of disappointed silence on Lister's part, then, "'Tis you she means, Ned Dotey," he cried, and, without staying to take his cap, bolted out at the door.
Nor was this the only desertion which MistressHopkins suffered; for, at their first opportunity, Dotey and Giles also slipped away, and Miles stayed behind only because he was so little that the mistress shook him when he attempted to follow. But speedily he had a bright thought, and asked Mistress Hopkins if perhaps, since she was afraid of the Indian, she would not like him to fetch Trug to the house to guard them.
Thus Miles was allowed, at last, to bring his dog home, and so grateful was he, that he remained patiently tending Damaris all the long afternoon. He found a certain enjoyment in his position, however; he was sole man in the cottage, and he wondered, should other Indians follow this first one, if Mistress Hopkins wouldn't let him take one of the muskets and fight for her. When it came dark at last, he knowingly inspected the fastenings of the door, and told Constance not to be afraid; he and Trug could defend them.
Poor Constance needed more comfort than that, for she was in a sorry fright. Her hands shook as she laid the table, and, when a step sounded crisply in the dooryard, she gave a nervous cry and dropped the pile of trenchers. It was only Ned Lister, however, who stamped in, bareheaded and whistling cheerfully.
"You have come back, then, since 'tis suppertime?" Mistress Hopkins greeted him sarcastically.
"Nay, I'm not hungry," Ned answered, as he sauntered over to the fire where Miles sat with Damaris, "'tis that the master sent me ahead to bid you make ready the guest chamber and the bed of state. Our Indian lord there, the Sagamore Samoset, is to lodge here to-night."
For a moment Mistress Hopkins looked at the speaker in dumb amazement. "If Master Hopkins does not punish you roundly for such a lie, Edward Lister," she said at last, deliberately, "it will not be for want of my urging him."
"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.
"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous wail, "I know we'll all be slain ere daybreak. O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom, when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry, Constance," he urged; "there's no need to fear. Captain Standish and some of the others are coming hither to spend the night and keep watch. You'll be safe enough."
But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into the chamber, whither Mistress Hopkins, snatching up Damaris, followed her; so, for some moments, Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer, as it liked them best. But, so soon as Master Hopkins's deliberate step sounded on the doorstone, Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as heentered the living room, confronted him: "Is that savage to be lodged here to-night, Stephen? Among us, where my children are?"
"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master of the house replied unruffled. "He is set to stay among us for the night, and the tide is out so we may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge him in the little closet next our chamber."
"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress Hopkins, with her thin lips set.
"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed within the closet," Master Hopkins went on unheedingly.
With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in unusual haste, and Miles, taking a candle, followed after into the closet, a tiny room with one black window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead and a rolled-up mattress, which Ned began leisurely to spread out. "What think you, Miles?" he whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him. "It's good there is one person in the house whom the dame cannot rattle off as she list, eh?"
Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on the least details of the commonplace room which now had a fearful interest from the guest it was to shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled the place with such awesome fancies that he could not help going out from it very hastily ahead ofLister, who grumbled a little that Miles was so speedy to be off with the candle.
Once in the bright living room, however, he became very brave indeed, and wondered to Giles Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come. His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad showed him a dirk knife he had placed under his doublet. "For there's no being sure with these treacherous savages," Giles said seriously.
But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys found that the Hopkins household would be well guarded, for with him were not only Master Hopkins and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain Standish. The very sight of the latter reassured Miles, so down he sat on the floor by the hearth, with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied the Indian, bristled the hair on his back and uttered a throaty growl.
Mistress Hopkins and Constance and the two babies kept within the south chamber; but the men by themselves were enough to fill the living room. There were but two stools, besides the form on the hearth and a chest against the wall, so long-legged Giles must curl himself up on the floor by Miles, while Ned Lister set himself upon the table. They bade the Indian be seated on the form by the fire, right over against Miles, who, be sure, stared at him with eyes wide open.
The Sagamore Samoset, he saw, was a tall, straight man, of complexion like an English gypsy, smooth-faced, with coarse black hair that fell to his shoulders behind, but was cut before. Since his coming into the settlement, his English hosts had put upon him a horseman's coat, which he wore with much pride and dignity; indeed, all his gestures and carriage were not only decent, but of a certain stateliness. "Why, he is somewhat like other men," Miles whispered softly to Giles, but Trug grumbled in his throat.
Only one candle was burning in the room, but the firelight cast a flickering brightness on the faces of the men. Captain Standish and Lister and the Indian had lighted pipes of tobacco, and the air was so heavy with the smell of the smoke that Miles half drowsed, but through his drooping eyelids he watched his English comrades, and watched the Indian. Captain Standish was sitting adventurously right on the form beside the Sagamore, and now and again they spoke together. Miles noted that in the Indian's speech came strange words, which the Captain seemed to try to understand, and once or twice the Captain even sought to make use of them himself.
Miles wondered at this, and then his only wonderment was as to whether he had been asleep. The logs on the hearth had broken into red embers;the men had risen up; and, rubbing the heaviness from his eyes, Miles saw Master Hopkins and the Captain usher their Indian guest into the little closet room.
Straightway a certain tension in the company seemed to slacken; Giles rose stiffly from the floor, and Trug put down his head upon his paws, though he still kept one bright, half-opened eye fixed on the door through which the Indian had gone. With a great creaking of the trestles, Ned Lister dismounted from the table. "If he come to kill us," he said in a low tone to Alden, "do you run in and call me so I can have a share in the scuffle." Then, stretching himself mightily, he disappeared into the north bedroom, where the serving men and the boys of the household slept.
"Since you have two others to keep watch with you, Master Hopkins," spoke the Captain, as he took down his hat from the wall, "I'll go walk a turn about the hill. I'll be back ere the half-hour is up."
He had put his hand to the latch, when Miles, on the impulse, sprang to his feet and ran to him. "May I come too, sir?" he whispered.
"You, Miles? Why, you were better in bed. Nay, come if you like."
Out of doors the air was crispy and silent, and pleasant smelling after the smoky atmosphere of thecrowded room. Overhead the stars were dense and bright, but below, the lonely little settlement lay in darkness, with never a spark of a candle showing. "How late is it, Captain Standish?" Miles asked, in a hushed voice.
"I should say it was near on to midnight," the other replied, stepping along so briskly that Miles's breath for talking was lost in the effort to keep pace with him.
Up and up they toiled; past Goodman Billington's cottage; past the black cabin where Alden and the Captain lived; and then by the well-trodden path up the sheer hillside, till the planking of the broad platform sounded hollow beneath their feet, and they stood among the guns. The spark in the Captain's pipe gleamed red in the darkness, but Miles could not see the Captain's features; he perceived only that he turned his face from quarter to quarter, and remained longest gazing into the black west, where the ridge of hills ran jagged against the starry sky.
He watched the Captain's movements, but he did not venture to speak till Standish himself broke out: "Well, there'll come no bands to frighten us this night, I take it. We can march home, Miles. We've a fair starlight to make the march under," he added, and, as they stepped from the platform to the yielding turf, lingered an instant to gaze skyward.
"Which is it that is the North Star, sir?" Miles hesitated.
"Why, that one yonder, lad. You know it well."
"I knew 'twas the North Star in England. I knew not if 'twere the same here. It is such a long ways from home."
"It's the same sky, Miles, and the same Heaven, I take it, that we had over us in England."
Miles threw back his head and once more stared up into the sky, that was so vast it made him shrink and feel smaller even than before. He sighed a little, he scarcely knew why, and put his hand on the Captain's sleeve. Standish took Miles's hand in his, and so kept hold on him as they came down from the hill, and in that pressure was something so comforting that Miles was sorry when they reached the door of Master Hopkins's house.
Within was heavy air, and a dull fire, and sleepy faces; Giles had gone to lie down on his bed, and it did not need the Captain's bidding to send Miles blinking after. Once, in the darkness, he was wakened by hearing Lister protest inarticulately that he would rather have his throat cut in his sleep ten times over than rise and watch; and once Miles guessed hazily that some one was shaking him, and he tried to say he was getting up, and in the midst dropped back on his pillow.
At the last the dazzle of warm sunlight on his face, and the rattle, rattle of trenchers, brought him staggering and blinking to his feet. Oh, yes, he remembered; the Sagamore Samoset had been there last night; but he was not afraid of him, especially since 'twas daylight; indeed, he wanted to see him again, so out he rushed into the living room.
"Well, sleepyhead!" Constance laughed at him, and Mistress Hopkins was beginning to scold him because he had not awakened, for all her efforts, till mid-morning, when Ned Lister sauntered in. "His Lordship the Indian is safe departed, Constance," he said consolingly, as he made a slow business of getting an axe from the chimney corner. "They gave him a knife and a bracelet and a ring, and he is gone away content."
"A good riddance, too!" snapped Mistress Hopkins. "And now do you, Edward Lister, fetch two buckets of water and wash out the place where the creature lodged. To bring such heathen under a Christian roof! I hope I never set eyes on another of the coppery wretches again."
Ned shrugged his shoulders and said nothing till his mistress was quite done; then he added meekly: "I misremembered; he said he was coming back again in a night or two, and next time he is going to bring with him a goodly number from the tribe of the Massasoits."
SAMOSET proved as good as his word. The very next morning, for all it was Sunday, back he came, and with him five other tall Indians, who were even more wonderful fellows than he, for they were clad in skins of deer or of wildcat, and had dressed their hair with feathers, and painted their faces in black streaks. To divert their English hosts, they sang and danced, which Master Hopkins called a violation of the sanctity of the day, but Miles privately thought most edifying.
He was even better pleased when that night, at the departure of his comrades, Samoset was ill or feigned to be, so, spite of Mistress Hopkins, he must be sheltered in her husband's house. Thus for three days Miles dwelt under the same roof with a live Indian, and ate at the same board, till he came to have not the least tremor at sight of a copper-colored face. Indeed, he neglected every task he was set, to dog the Indian guest about the street and make shy efforts at talk with him, and he was heartily grieved when at last, on Wednesday, Samoset went away into the forest.
"No doubt he'll come again, the mistress always makes him so welcome," Ned Lister consoled Miles, "and each time he goes, for his further encouragement, they give him a present. This morning they gave him a hat and shoes and stockings, and a shirt and a loin cloth. I take it, 'tis because I am what Master Hopkins calls a son of Belial that it makes me to laugh, when I think of Sagamore Samoset in an English headpiece with a flapping brim."
"I'm mighty sorry he went," sighed Miles, uncomforted. "I was learning the Indian words, so I could talk to him presently, like Captain Standish. 'Cossaquot,' that meansbow; and 'et chossucke' isa knife; and 'petuckquanocke' isbread; and—"
Ned yawned suggestively, and fell to work again. He and Miles that afternoon were busied in the spaded garden patch at the north end of the dooryard, where they were pressing the seeds into the soft earth. The sun was hot, and, as Miles worked, he smeared his warm face with his fingers, till Ned assured him he was all streaked brown, like an Indian.
But though it was hot and dirty labor, it was far manlier than to be ever dandling a baby; so Miles toiled on earnestly, spite of Ned's indolent example, and did not pause even to stretch his cramped legsor straighten his aching back till mid-afternoon. Then he started up at a noise of people hurrying through the street, the sound of a quick footstep, the rattle of the house-door.
"'Tis Master Hopkins has taken his musket and gone forth," spoke Ned, who was lounging farther down the garden. "Somewhat's afoot." Away he went to look into the matter, and Miles ran stiffly after.
Out in the street the men and boys, and even one or two girls, were hastening toward the bluff above the spring. As they went, a confused talking spread among them, from which Miles learned that yonder, on the great wooded hill across the brook, Indians had been seen,—Indians who brandished their bows and whetted their arrows in defiance. Captain Standish and Master Hopkins and two men from theMayflowerhad gone down to cross the brook and parley with them. Look, yonder they went now!
From where the company had halted, high up beyond Goodman Cooke's cottage, Miles could see the bright river and the hill opposite, thick with unleaved woods. Up its base wound slowly the little band of Englishmen, now half-screened, now wholly visible; but Miles looked from them, higher up the slope, where the bare branches were agitated, as if something moved among them. "'Tis thesavages!" said one; but, strain his eyes as he would, Miles saw through the bushes only the sad-colored English doublets.
Yet, with an anxiety he scarcely comprehended, the men lingered on the bluff, watching and discussing in grave tones, till the Captain and his followers came toilsomely up the path from the spring. They had seen naught; the savages had not suffered them draw nigh them, Captain Standish explained, so briefly that he seemed curt, while his puckered brows still were bent on the slope whence the Indians had sent their defiance.
Slowly the little group of curious and troubled people scattered, some of the weightier ones to speak with the Governor and the Captain, others to simpler tasks. Miles went back to his garden, but the sunlight had now left that corner of the yard. The great hill, where stood the guns, looked black against the sky, and there seemed in all out-of-doors a menace that made him glad at dusk to get within the house. Throughout supper the men kept from speaking of the savages with an elaborateness that made their silence the more suspicious, and the unspoken anxiety wrought on Miles till at bedtime he smuggled Trug into the chamber and made the dog lie near him.
Next morning, in the clear sunlight, Miles's courage revived mightily, but his elders still lookedsober. None the less, whether Indians threatened or no, the work of the colony must be done: all the morning men and boys trudged about their tasks, though none went far afield; and after the noon meal the men gathered once more at the Common House, to consider the public business which the first coming of Samoset had broken off.
Oceanus was ailing that afternoon and needed his mother, so Miles had to mind Damaris for a dreary hour. As he sat with her upon the doorstone, he spied a noiseless little group of some five Indians passing down the street, and, alert at once, he begged leave to run see what might happen; but Mistress Hopkins, all a-tremble herself, forbade him venture out while those bloodthirsty wretches were abroad, and even made him come in and shut the door fast.
But speedily there sounded a rattling knock to which the mistress must open, and in came the men of the household, so hurriedly that straightway the living room was in confusion. For the great Sagamore Massasoit, with his brother Quadequina and sixty warriors, was at hand, just across the brook. One of the Indians, Squanto, who could speak English, had gone back to bid him enter the settlement, and the men of the colony must get under arms to receive him; perhaps even to defend themselves, Master Hopkins let a word fall.
There followed a great throwing-on of buff-jackets and buckling of sword-belts, while Giles, newly appointed drummer to the colony, rattled over the pots and kettles in a meaningless search for his drumsticks, which some one had surely moved from the place where he left them. Oceanus wailed, Damaris, indignant at being neglected, screamed aloud, Trug barked, and Mistress Hopkins scolded, but somehow, in the midst of the hurly-burly, the three men equipped themselves and tramped away; and right at their heels went Giles, with the drumsticks which Constance had found.
But the door closed behind them and shut Miles, a soldier in name only, in with the women and children for another tedious hour. Damaris found little rest in his arms those minutes, while he ran from the western window, whence he could see a bit of the street and the path to the spring, to the eastern window, whence, far down the street, he beheld the men gathered in martial line, all in armor, which glimmered bravely in the afternoon sun.
He was still gazing down the street when Constance, who had ventured to the other window, called to him in a terrified voice: "Miles! Oh, Miles! Come hither. 'Tis Indians indeed. Hundreds of them!"
With no wish to see further, the girl drew awayfrom the western window, and Miles thrust eagerly into her place. Yes, there were Indians indeed, swarms of them, it seemed at first sight, so he flinched back a little from the casement. For they were filing past the house, and that brought them so near that Miles could see even the grotesque figures in which their faces were painted. But soon he perceived English musketeers marshalling them, and he saw, too, that the savages were unarmed. Their mission must be peaceful, he judged; so, eager and unafraid, he stared at them, and was sorry when the last one disappeared down the street.
Just then, as he turned from the window, sounded the tap, tap of a drum. "It is the Governor and the rest of the men with drum and trumpet marching up the street," spoke Constance from the eastern casement. "They have led the savages into the unfinished cottage by the Common House, and now they are going in to them."
Miles, at her side, squirmed with impatience. "There's Jack yonder beneath the cottage window," he exclaimed, "and Francis and Joe. And there's such a deal to see. And I'm sure they are all good, harmless Indians." He gave a glance toward the bedroom, where he could hear Mistress Hopkins lulling Oceanus, then whispered Constance: "Won't you mind Damaris? I'll tell you all about it when I come back."
"I see not why you wish to go forth at such a time, but I'll do 't for you. Run quick, ere stepmother stop you," answered kind-hearted Constance; and away sped Miles.
Still, he was too late to share in the main excitement, for when he came into the yard of the unfinished house, he found the door fast shut and all the great folk, white or copper-colored, gone within. Only two musketeers remained outside to keep watch, and Edward Dotey, who was one of them, proved so unsympathetic as to cuff Francis Billington when he tried to get a peep in at the window. Much discouraged, for where saucy Francis failed to go there was no hope for the others, the small boys of the colony gathered in a patient little group in the dooryard to talk of these great happenings.
"Master Winslow has gone out amongst the Indians," said Jack, "and they're holding him as hostage for their old King. 'Twas right valiant of him—"
"Pooh! The Captain would 'a' gone just as quick," Miles retorted jealously. "There's naught to be afraid of, anyway. I would I were Giles Hopkins, and stood there in the house with the savages."
"My father is in there too," spoke little Love Brewster, who had attached himself to Miles, "but he is so good I do not think even an Indian wouldhurt him. But there were very many of them, and if my mother had come close to see, I am sure she would have been afraid. Perhaps I were best go home and tell her there's no need to fear. You come with me, pray you, Miles."
Young Rigdale had no wish to take his eyes from the door of the house, but plainly the little boy was fearful enough to want his company up the street, so he went with him, and at the Elder's cottage stayed a moment to reassure the women grandly.
Dolly had no interest in Indians, since she found in the case of Samoset that they did not carry about with them a store of pretty baskets, such as the one her father had brought her; but Priscilla Mullins was eager to know everything, and questioned Miles and listened to him most flatteringly, till he offered: "If you wish to go forth and view the Indians, Priscilla, I'll go and take care of you."
Whereat young Mistress Mullins laughed, and, slipping her hand under his chin, kissed him for his courtesy, "like a baby."
Red and indignant, Miles flung out of the house; then forgot the insult, as he saw Giles, with a platter in his hand, hurrying up the street from Governor Carver's cottage. "What are you doing there?" he called, running to intercept the elder lad.
"Fresh meat," panted Giles. "The Governorwished it for the King. I had this bit of a goose from Mistress Carver, and now I've remembered a mallard I saw stepmother set to boil."
It took him very few minutes to hurry into his father's house, and out again with a second larger platter balanced in one hand, but, short as the space was, Miles had laid a plan. Stepping up to Giles, he took from him Mistress Carver's dish of meat. "Let me aid you," he proffered innocently.
"So that's what you're scheming," laughed Giles; but he let Miles, under that pretext, come at his side down the street, past the little group of envious boys, up the doorstone of the unfinished cottage, and so into the very council chamber.
The room was close and hazy with smoke from the pipes of tobacco that the King and the chief of the English puffed at, but, spite of the dimness, Miles speedily made out the shapes of the Indians. Black, red, yellow, and white, their faces were partly or wholly smeared with paint, and, through the wavering smoke-wreaths, their look was so grim that for an instant he hesitated on the threshold.
But Giles went on, so he followed, across the room, between what seemed endless rows of Indians in hairy skins who stood or squatted on the floor, up to the table, where sat a tall, stalwart savage. Imitating Giles, Miles set down his dish of meat before him, and, with an agitated bow, drew back tothe wall, where he wedged himself in between Lister and young Hopkins. "That's the King, yonder at table," the latter whispered him softly.
He did not look at all as Miles thought a king should look, that savage at the table. He wore a scant covering of skins,—a dress like that of his followers, save that the King had also about his neck a great chain of white bone beads. His face was painted a dark red; and face and head alike were oiled so he looked greasy; he fed untidily with his fingers, and sometimes, when he would give a morsel to one of his followers, rent the meat with his hands.
But, for all he seemed so busy with feeding, his quick eyes were darting about the smoky room,—now resting on the Governor, who sat at table near him; now on the English musketeers who lined the walls,—and, to Miles's thinking, the King looked on them timorously; now on his own followers, who crowded silently about him. One of the Indians, squatting on the floor, held in his hands the English trumpet, on which he tried to blow, and, for a moment, the King paused to hark with a child's wonder to his efforts, then once more began tearing Mistress Hopkins's mallard.
When nothing but bones was left of the bird, Giles slipped the platters from the table, and now the serious work of the conference seemed to begin.Up from the floor behind the table, where they had sat, rose two savages, who should interpret between Massasoit and the Governor; the one was a stranger, probably that Squanto whom Master Hopkins had mentioned; the other, Miles's old acquaintance, Samoset. A transformed Samoset, however, with an English felt hat low on his brows and an English shirt worn over his meagre native garments after the manner of a carter's frock. Ned Lister, standing rigid and soldierly against the wall, took Miles a sudden dig in the ribs, and winked at him with a "Didn't I tell you as much" expression.
Miles, on his good behavior, neither looked at him nor smiled, but fixed his gaze on the men about the table. The sun had now shifted down the sky, so a great bar of light thrust in at the western window. The yellow brightness flecked across Elder Brewster's grizzled head, made Governor Carver's stiff ruff even more dazzlingly white, and gleamed back again from Captain Standish's steel corselet. It rested, too, on the papers which Master William Bradford had laid on the table before him, but Master Bradford's grave face, as he bent forward to write what the Governor bade, was in shadow. The features of Massasoit, too, were dark to see, but here and there, as the sunlight, bursting through the smoke, wavered across theroom, the painted face or coppery bare shoulders of one of his followers stood out.
The two interpreters jerked out the gutturals of their outlandish tongue, to which the King grunted assent, or now and again the Governor spoke a measured word. But outside the window a bird was singing in a high, purling strain; and Miles wondered if it were a fat, red-breasted bird, and thought more on its song and on the motes that swam in the sunlight, than on what the Governor was saying.
After all, he was glad when the conference broke up. He was tired of standing stiffly, and the air of the room was heavy; and the Indians, when they neither ate nor played with trumpets, but just sat stolid, were a bit stupid. He scuffed softly but impatiently at the rear of the train, as the company filed forth; the Governor and the King, side by side, went first, and then, all in some semblance of order, the Indian warriors and the English leaders and soldiery.
Outside, a guard of honor formed about the Governor and his guest, and gave them fitting escort to the brook; but Miles remained behind and roused the envy of his mates, with an account of what he had seen, till, in fickle fashion, they forsook him at the coming of a second guest, Quadequina, the brother of Massasoit, who, in histurn, would have a taste of English hospitality. He could not, however, compare in dignity and importance with Massasoit; he was just a tall, comely young savage, who liked English biscuit and strong waters, but liked the English muskets so little that his hosts good-naturedly laid them aside. Massasoit was not cowardly like that, Miles assured his comrades; Massasoit was every inch a king, and it was a mighty honor to have been in the same room with him.
Quadequina had been but a short time gone, and the long shadows were filling the river valley with a grayness, when back across the brook, quite unruffled by his long detention, came Master Edward Winslow. His fellow-colonists might be glad to see him, and he to return unscathed to them, but he carried it laughingly. He was all sound, save that he was uncommon hungry,—Miles, following admiringly, caught a scrap of his speech to Captain Standish,—the Indians had tried to buy the armor off his back and the sword from his side, and he knew not but he might have sold them for a mess of pottage, only he saw no such savory viand among the savages, nor anything, indeed, but groundnuts.
Now that Master Winslow was returned, the colonists released the Indians whom they had held as hostages for him, and sent them away. Save only Samoset and Squanto, no Indians were sufferedto remain in the settlement, but the rumor went that King Massasoit and all his people had encamped for the night on the wooded hill across the brook, so a strict watch was set.
"Do you think there will be fighting yet?" Miles questioned Giles, as they walked home to supper. "Quadequina was afeard of our muskets. I take it, we could beat those Indians."
"To be sure, there'll be no fighting," answered Giles, as he tucked his drum under one arm in a professional way. "We've struck a truce with the savages."
Later, at supper, Miles heard it all explained. This was a dolorous meal, for the meat had been devoured by his Majesty, Massasoit, and Mistress Hopkins was ill-tempered and rated Miles for running away that afternoon, and, to add to her discomfort, Samoset came blandly to sup with his old entertainers. "This has been an ill day such as I wish never to see the like of again," fretted the poor woman.
"It is a happy day for our colony," said Master Hopkins gravely. "Do you not realize, Elizabeth, that we have this afternoon made a peace with our heathen neighbors that, by the will of Heaven, shall prove lasting? King Massasoit has covenanted that none of his people shall do us harm as we go abroad; and, if he be attacked, we shall aid in hisdefense, or if other tribe of savages assail us, he shall do us the like service. Yea, the hand of Providence has been with us this day. Yesternight it was all menace; but to-night we can hope for peace."
Miles, in his place at table, looked at Samoset, very solemn in his funny shirt and hat, and, blinking sleepily at the candle, took little concern for the earnestness of Master Hopkins's words. He scarcely realized that this was almost the second founding day of New Plymouth; but he did know that he had stood within arm's reach of King Massasoit, an exploit of which no other boy in the colony could boast; and, when he went to bed, he dreamed all night of red and blue and green Indians.