A STRANGER IN PILGRIM-LAND, AND WHAT HE SAW.
The town of the Pilgrims—how often, in my far-off Western home, have I read its story, and the story of the stout-hearted who sailed across the sea to this very spot, then a wilderness, two hundred and fifty years ago!
And I have come at last to visit the town of my dreams; have actually set my foot upon its “holy ground.” This hill, planted thick with graves, is the ancient “Burial Hill.” Sitting among its mossy headstones, I look far across the bay to the cliffs of Cape Cod, where, before landing here, some of “The Mayflower’s” crew went ashore to get firewood. Just below me lies the town, sloping to the sea. Vessels sail in and out, and little boats skim over the water like white-winged birds. How can they skim so lightly over the hallowed waters of Plymouth Bay! Far less swiftly sped that “first boat,” laden with passengers from “The Mayflower.”
Two hundred and fifty years ago!—let me use for a while, not my real eyes, but my other pair, the eyes of my mind, my “dream eyes,” and see, or make believe that I see, this place just as it looked then.
And now I will suppose the town has vanished. No streets, no houses, no sail upon the sea. Stillness reigns over the land and over the dark waters of the bay.
A ship enters the harbor. Why should a ship come sailing to these desolate shores? A hundred and one passengers are on board. They have come three thousand miles, have been tossed upon the ocean one hundred days and nights; and now they find no friends to welcome them. Not a house, nor a single white person, in all this vast wilderness. What will they do—these men, women, and children—in so dreary a place? Can they keep from freezing in this bitter cold?
A boat puts off from the ship. Row, row, row. Nearer and nearer it comes. But how will they land? Will the sailors jump out, and pull her up high and dry? Ah! to be sure, there is a Rock, and the only one to be seen along the shore. They steer for that. And now I see Elder Brewster, their first minister, and Gov. Carver, their first governor, and Capt. Miles Standish, their first soldier, and Mary Chilton, the first woman who stepped upon the Rock. Now the boat goes back,—back for another load.
Where can all these people live? Out of doors this wintry weather? Let me see what they will do.
They cut down trees to build houses. First a “common house” is built; then the one hundred and one people are divided into nineteen families, and begin to construct nineteen log-huts, each family working upon its own. These are set in two rows, and are placed near together, on account of the Indians. The two rows form a street, which runs from a cliff by the water’s edge part way up this hill.
Now the goods are being brought ashore,—bales, boxes, farming-tools. And there is a cradle. They will need that to rock little Peregrine White in. A baby has been born on the passage, whom they named “Peregrine,” because he was born during their peregrinations, or travels.
More goods are landed, such as beds, bedding, dinner-pots, dishes, pewter platters, spinning-wheels; and the nineteen families go to house-keeping, and begin New England.
What will they eat, I wonder. Why, some catch fish; some dig clams; others hunt. There comes a hunting-party, which brings, among other game, an eagle. Will they really eat it?—eat the “American eagle”! Yes, they do, and declare that it tastes “very much like a sheep.” But it was not the “American eagle” then.
Soon to these nineteen families come sickness and death. In December, six people die; in January, eight; in February, seventeen; in March, thirteen. Scarcely half remain. They bury their dead with bitter tears, but raise no stones above them. A crop of corn is sown over the graves, that the Indians may not know how few are left alive.
And, now that spring has come, “The Mayflower” must go back to England. Will none return by this only chance? Is there not even one feeble woman who would rather go home and live an easy life? No. For freedom’s sake they came, and for freedom’s sake they will remain. Not one goes back in “The Mayflower.”
They climb the hill, this very hill, and watch her as she sails away,—this very hill! I see them standing around me; see their pale faces; see eyes, dim with tears, following each turn of the ship. Now she is but a speck: now she is gone, and they are left alone. Behind them stretches the wilderness, away, and away, and away, across the continent; before them, three thousand miles of ocean. Slowly and sadly they descend the hill to that cluster of huts, and the life of toil goes on.
And now I will use my real eyes, and go down to view the town,—a quaint old town, with narrow, crooked streets, yet quite a populous old town, numbering its seven or eight thousand. The Indians used to hold their feasts upon that hill at the right; and clam-shells are still to be found buried in the soil upon its western side. At the foot of this hill runs Town Brook, where Gov. Carver made a treaty with the Indian chief Massasoit. Massasoit came down the hill with a train of sixty Indians, but crossed the brook with only twenty. They were nearly naked, painted, oiled, and adorned with beads, feathers, and fox-tails. Capt. Miles Standish with a few of his men marched them into a hut, where were placed “a green rug, and some cushions which served as thrones.” The governor then marched in to the music of drums and trumpets. He kissed Massasoit, and Massasoit kissed him. The Indians “marvelled much at the trumpet.”
Now I walk down into that street which was first laid out, and divided into lots for the nineteen families. It is a short street, leading to the sea; and on the right, at the lower end, may be seen the site of the first house. On the left is the hill upon which the Pilgrims made that early graveyard, planting it over with corn. It was then a cliff overhanging the sea: now a street runs along at its foot, on the outer side of which are wharves and storehouses. I am glad that these last are by no means in good repair; glad that, standing near the Rock, they have the grace to look old and gray and weather-beaten.
Farther and farther on I go. Soon shall my longing eyes behold that sacred Rock “where first they trod.” Ah, how many times have I fancied myself sitting upon its top, gazing off with my other pair—my dream eyes—at “The Mayflower,” watching the coming of the crowded boat, almost reaching out my hand to the fair Mary Chilton!
But where is it? I must be near the spot; but where is the Rock? Here comes a boy. “My young friend, can you show me the way to the Rock?” Boy points to a lofty stone canopy. “Is it possible?” I exclaim: “all that hewn out of Forefathers’ Rock?” Boy smiles, takes me under the canopy, and points to a square hole cut in the platform. “There ’tis: Forefathers’ Rock’s ’most all underground.” I look down at the enclosed rocky surface, less than two feet square; then with a sigh stagger against the nearest granite column. “Sick?” boy asks. “Oh, no! only a fall—down from a rock. The one in my mind was so high!”—“’Nother piece of it out at Pilgrim Hall,” boy remarks.
I inquire my way to that Pilgrim Hall. Here it is; and here, right in front, lies the precious fragment, surrounded by an iron fence, and marked in great black letters “1620.”
Now I am going into the hall to see the Pilgrim relics, some of which were brought over in “The Mayflower.”
On the wall of the ante-room hangs Lora Standish’s sampler, wrought in silks of divers colors, bright enough two hundred and fifty years ago, no doubt, though, alas! all faded now. Using again my dream eyes, I behold the fair young girl, intent on learning “marking-stitch,” bending over the canvas, counting the threads, winding bright silks; her cheeks as bright as they. Little thinks she how many shall come centuries after to view her work. Underneath the alphabet are stitched these lines, which with my real eyes I read:—
“Lora Standish is my name.
Lord, guide my hart, that I may doe thy will;
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill
As may conduce to virtue void of shame;
And I will give the glory to thy name.”
In this same ante-room I find the two famous old arm-chairs that came over in “The Mayflower,” one of which belonged to Elder Brewster, and the other to Gov. Carver.
This ante-room on the right contains an ancient spinning-wheel, also some bones and a kettle dug from an Indian grave. The kettle was found placed over the Indian’s head. Here, too, are many very old books.
Now I enter the large hall, sit for half an hour before an immense painting,—of the Landing,—and am shown two large cases with glass doors. In one of these is a great round-bottomed iron dinner-pot, once belonging to Miles Standish. The handle, which has a hinge in its centre, lies inside. Using my other pair, my dream eyes, I see this big pot hanging over a big blazing fire, pretty Lora tending it; while the gallant captain stands near, polishing his sword. To guess what is cooking in the pot I get this hint from an old ballad of those times:—
“For pottage and puddings and custards and pies
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies.
We have pumpkin at morning, and pumpkin at noon:
If it was not for pumpkin, we should be undoon.”
And as for what they drank with their dinner,—
“If barley be wanting to make into malt,
We must be contented, and think it no fault;
For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.”
The captain was polishing his sword, I said; and here it lies inside. Need enough it has of polish now! And here is one of his great pewter plates. Poor Lora Standish, with a pile of those to wash and to wipe and to scour!
Whose spoon? “Elder Brewster’s,” the label says,—a dark iron spoon with a rounded bowl (a bit nipped off the edge) and a short handle. A spoon suggests “chowder;” and no doubt this one often carried that delicious food to the lips of the elder: for what says the ballad?—
“If we’ve a mind for a delicate dish,
We go to the clam-bank, and there we catch fish.”
And, speaking of spoons, they used stout forks in those days. Here is one a foot long, with a short handle, and two prongs very wide apart,—certainly not made to eat peas with!
That inlaid cabinet on the upper shelf must have been a pretty thing in its day. It belonged to Peregrine White, and came to him, so the label says, from his mother,—just as likely as not a present to her from Mr. White in their courting-days, and used to keep his love-letters in: who knows? With my other pair I can see the rosy English girl sitting alone by her cabinet. Its little drawers of letters are open, and with a smile and a blush she reads over the old ones while awaiting the new. I wonder if any fortune-teller ever told her that she would sail over the seas to dwell in a wilderness, and that she would be the first New-England mother,—the first bride too; for, after Mr. White’s death, she married Mr. Edward Winslow, the third governor; and their wedding was the first one in the colony. Yonder, among other portraits, hangs that of Mr. Winslow. On the top of this relic-case is a flaxen wig worn by one of the Winslow family, and underneath it is Mr. White’s ivory-headed cane.
What is this sealed up in a bottle? Apple-preserve, made from the apples of a tree which Peregrine White planted. Think of apple-preserve keeping so long!
On one of these shelves inside I see dingy old Bibles; also the spectacles with which they were read, looking as if they could almost see without any eyes behind them. There is an ancient Dutch Bible, with brass studs and clasps, and an English one, open at the titlepage, “Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, printer to the King’s most excellent Majestie.”
And—is it possible? can this really be? yes, there it is in black and white—John Alden’s Bible! O John! you young rogue, I’ve read in a poem what you did!—made love to Priscilla Mullins, when Capt. Miles Standish was going to ask her to be his second wife, and sent you to do the errand for him. Naughty, naughty youth! But Priscilla knew pretty well the feelings of your heart, John, and knew very well the feelings of her own, or she would never have dared to ask that question, so famous in story, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” Mr. Longfellow has told us all about your wedding; and how, when taking home the bride,
“Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
Brought out his snow-white steer, obeying the hand of his master,
Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in his nostrils,
Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
She should not walk, he said, through the dust and the heat of the noonday.”
Little Mehitable Winslow’s shoes may also be seen here,—stiff, clumsy, black, cunning, peaked things they are, with their turned-up toes; likewise old pocket-books, dishes, a spur, a gourd-shell, a lock taken from the house of Miles Standish, and various articles besides.
Cross over now to the other case. What little ship is that on top? Ah! a model of “The Mayflower.” I am glad to see a model of “The Mayflower.” By no means a clipper ship was she.
INDIAN DOLL.
This case contains mostly Indian relics, such as tomahawks, kettles, mortars, pestles, axes, all made of stone; also a string of “wampum,” or Indian money, which is simply shells, polished and rounded. And here, of all things in the world! is an Indian doll, made of—I don’t know what; perhaps hardened clay. It is a clumsy-looking thing for a toy. I see plenty of Indian arrows, and up there on the highest shelf a sort of helmet labelled King Philip’s cap. The genuineness of this relic is doubted. King Philip was a famous Indian warrior, who gave the whites a deal of trouble, until at last Col. Church caught him in a swamp. Col. Church was a mighty man to catch Indians. He used to complain, though, that they sometimes slipped out of his hands, because, on account of their going nearly naked, “there was nothing to hold on by but their hair.” King Philip was caught at last, though, by this valiant Col. Church; and, if anybody doesn’t believe it, why here is his own pocket-book, marked “Col. Benjamin Church;” and here is the very gun-barrel of his gun.
Now one last look, and then for a walk to find those “sweet springs of water” and “little running brooks” on account of which the Pilgrims settled in this spot. Good-by, precious relics! and good-by, you old arm-chairs wherein sat those men of blessed memory!
“Their greeting very soft,
Good-morrow very kind:
How sweet it sounded oft,
Before we were refined!
Humility their care,
Their failings very few.
My heart, how kind their manners were
When this old chair was new!”