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,