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.