Soldier Rigdale: How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish

by Beulah Marie Dix

Of necessity, Miles imitated the others by thrusting his hands into the kettle and laying hold on the great claw of a lobster; it was so hot it burned his fingers sharply, but, mindful that he was watched, he held it fast till he could lay it on the trampled sand at his side. His fingers smarted, and he dared not raise his eyes from the lobster, lest the tears of pain that were gathering in them be seen. Fumblingly he drew forth his whittle and was making a clumsy effort to dig the meat from the shell, when a dusky hand suddenly closed on his wrist, and the whittle was wrenched from his grasp.

For one nightmare-like instant the world seemed struck from under him; then Miles was aware of the reality of the smoky walls of the wigwam and of those grim-faced savages who sat round him. He stood up slowly, with his knees a-tremble, but he thrust out his hand bravely, and, in a stout voice, spoke to Chief Aspinet: "That whittle is mine. Give it back to me."

A moment he stood fronting the Chief and his warriors, then, with a sudden feeling that for sheer alarm he would presently burst out crying, he turned and walked slowly from the circle of the feasters. "I shall not eat of your food nor come into your house till you give back my whittle," he flung over his shoulder in a quavering voice.

With that he passed out at the doorway and set himself down cross-legged in the deep sand in the lee of the wigwam. The sun of early afternoon poured scorchingly upon him, and the sand, as he sifted it between his fingers, was warm. Out above the ocean he could see a great white gull that flashed in the strong light.

A little shadow from the wigwam fell upon him, and bit by bit broadened, while he stupidly watched the strip of dark advance across the white sand. It must be mid-afternoon, he reasoned out, when the warriors, crammed with food, sauntered from the wigwam, and several came leisurely to squat in the shade close by him.

Among them was Aspinet himself, Miles's whittle thrust defiantly in his leathern girdle, and the sight of that braced the boy's resolution in soldierly fashion; he must not seem afraid or willing to bear an affront from a savage, he knew. So, with a steady face, he addressed the Chief again, seeking this time to find the Indian words: "When your people come to us at Patuxet we do not rob them. And you were best not rob me, else Captain Standish will burn your wigwams."

For an instant the Chief puffed slowly at his tobacco pipe, and impassively eyed Miles's face; then he spoke, with some broken words of English and his native words so slowly uttered that Miles could half comprehend the import of his speech: "We do not fear the coat-men. Thus did we to them. There was a ship broken by a storm. They saved most of their goods and hid it in the ground. We made them tell us where it was. Then we made them our servants. They wept much when we parted them. We gave them such meat as our dogs eat. We took away their clothes. They lived but a little while."

Miles's eyes were wide and his lips parted with frank horror; only for a moment, then he recalled the hint of such a happening that had drifted to Plymouth, and the very reiteration of the story made it a little less shocking. "That was a French ship, and they are a different race from us," he said slowly. "An Englishman would not 'a' wept for you. And I shall not." He drove his hands hard into the sand and blinked fast; the rough dirt hurt his burnt fingers, and he did not doubt the English folk, even the Captain, were so glad to be rid of him that they would leave him there forever, to the mercies of Chief Aspinet.

Squalid though the Indian wigwams were, he was faintly glad when the shadows had so lengthened on the land and so darkened the sky and sea that it was time to go to rest, for at least the blackness would screen his face from the peering eyes of his captors. It was to Aspinet's wigwam they led him, but the courage to refuse the Chief's dubious hospitality no longer endured in Miles; he would forgive their taking his knife, if they did not use him as they had used the luckless French sailors.