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

by Beulah Marie Dix

Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned, with an access of energy, was tumbling the goods ashore, and they must together drag them up to the Elder's house. Just at present that was home to Miles, because his mother and Dolly lived there, and he sometimes ate with them, though, as an additional mark of manhood,—so he esteemed it,—he spent his nights at the Common House.

It really came about because his friends could not shelter him. Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the last spare bed at the Elder's house; the cottage higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale had labored, and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had now one bunk, was filled with men whose houses were building; while Master Hopkins, however well he might mean by his friend's son, had not a roof to cover his own family. So Miles slept with Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at night the beds were placed so thick one need not step on the floor in passing from the fire to his sleeping place.

On Sunday all was changed, however, for then the Common House became a meeting-house. They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the floor, as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his second Saturday on the mainland, they pressed him into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the Elder taught his little company, and prayed with them there,—a sorry little company indeed, of whom fair half lay sick within the cheerless cabins, or dead beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.

The thought of his own dead father made Miles listen attentively that day; and, when he walked staidly up to the Elder's house before twilight, he took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber, where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's black-letter Bible. He was a painful reader, but he felt it was the fit thing for him to do in filling his father's place, so, with the great book on his knees, he sat on the floor, beneath the little window that let in the light sparsely through its oiled paper, and Dolly sat by him, with her head on his shoulder. He was much elated at finding her so quiet and attentive, but, when he paused to recover breath at the end of a very tough sentence about the Perizzites, he perceived the little girl was fast asleep.

Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible in his lap and his stiffening arm round his sister till, when it had grown darker, his mother came to seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother that night, but afterward it was something to remember keenly, though with an under-pang of sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark and had felt her hand rest on his head.

Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a dull twilight that, closing in early, drove Miles into the house, where he played at Even-and-Odd with the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly, because the Elder was writing at the table. Elder Brewster was always kindly-spoken, but the fact that he knew such a deal about the next world, and what would befall you if you were not good, put Miles in great awe of him.

When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling more like himself, raised his voice, and even let the trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid the table. But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the evening, the Elder returned from the house where the sick lay. A word or two passed between the older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress Rose Standish had died that evening.

Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it did not stir Miles so deeply. Indeed, he did not come to feel a hearty grief till next morning, when, as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage, he saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging up to the woods through the sleet and rain. The weather was too bitter for work, and the axe which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere pretext. All through the day it made him shiver to think of the solitary man, lingering in the cold among the pines; he wondered if even to himself the Captain would make pretense of working, or if he would sit idle among the wet logs.

But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going and coming and working among the rest, just as before, though maybe a bit more silent. For the hale ones who could labor were few; the work must be done; and, where so many were falling, there was small space to grieve for a single life.

Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the sight of the sorry little companies that twice and even thrice a week trudged with the body of a friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor. His own life went on methodically; he worked, and even played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and some days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.