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

by Beulah Marie Dix

BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was sheepish and awkward under open petting. He soon slipped away from his mother and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his time with Jack Cooke, who, during the day, while his father worked on shore, was glad of company. The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard to play satisfactorily, for many of the passengers had gone ashore; but it must be quiet playing, for, of those who still remained in their cabins not a few were ill.

Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring for the sick ones, and, at her bidding, Miles ran many an errand, to fetch water from the casks on deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley. But their joint labor soon ended, for, a few days after the boy's return to the ship, came a message from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with the fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a many lay sick ashore, and the Goodwife could aid them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster, who, with her family, had gone to the settlement, had offered to shelter her, and he prayed her come.

Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her cloak about her, and set out in the shallop. Miles, standing by the bulwark, watched her go, but only for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the railings were white and smooth to the touch, and he found it of more absorbing interest to poke off strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side. By the time he looked again to the shallop, it was so near shore he could no longer make out his mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he went back to Dolly in the cabin.

At first he found it manly and grown up to be left in charge, for so he esteemed his position. The cut in his hand was healing well, and he felt he would have been working ashore, if it were not that some one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard and care for Dolly and Solomon. He ordered his sister about in a paternal manner; he rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her small, snub nose on the frosty deck without wrapping herself up well; and he even insisted on her going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in the glory of manhood, waited in the great cabin to hear what news those who came from the shore would bring.

But Dolly took her turn when it came to their daily meals, for she had certain deft, housewifely ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate, and he was ashamed even of trying to better himself, after he heard the little woman speak like her mother of "men and boys that set a body's kitchen in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,—'twas all he was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would herself do the stirring and tasting; and though, among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned, yet they always contrived to eat it.

The four of them—Miles, Dolly, Jack, and Solomon—ate their food together in the Rigdales' cabin: most times it was only broth, or perhaps salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale, before she went away, had laid out for them; but once Goodman Cooke brought them from the shore a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but one drumstick, and each felt he should have it,—Jack because he had been ill, and Dolly because she was a girl, and Miles because he was the eldest. Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest and rubbed his head against Dolly's knee. They ended by eating the drumstick together, each a bite, turn and turn about, and what they could not get from the bone was left to Solomon, who dragged his ration beneath the bunk, and, with eyes big and fiery, growled at them.

The children remembered that supper, not only because of the cold goose, but because it was the last they ate together, for next morning Goodman Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his friend's small preparations enviously, and Dolly, who had come also to stand in the doorway of the Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think I'd best go too, and see father and mother."

"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman Cooke explained. "So soon as there is place, they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he went on; "you've no need to worry yourself."

"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered, in some surprise.

After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so pleasant. Dolly began to fret for her mother and scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew cross; and the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving out altogether, left them with nothing to eat but dry biscuit. With this woful tale of starvation, Dolly betook herself at last to Constance Hopkins in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one should make known their unhappy state, yet ashamed to do so himself, lagged on behind.