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

by Beulah Marie Dix

Now the first novelty had worn off, the warriors limited themselves to staring at their visitors as they sauntered through the camp, but the squaws and children still wished to press close, and feel their clothes and touch their hands. However, no one meant to harm him, Miles decided, though he only half realized how awe of their white faces and strange garments and of their great, ugly dog was protecting him and his sister; and, having once concluded he was to be left unhurt, he took pleasure in being a centre of interest; it was his first experience of this sort in all his much-snubbed life.

So, though Dolly would scarce look on the dark people about them, Miles sought presently to talk to them, just as he tried to talk to the Indians who came to Plymouth. So well did he impress it upon them that he wanted his breakfast, that one of the squaws, who had bright eyes, though her face was very dirty, led the children into her wigwam, where she brought them food,—roasted crab fish and bread. Miles thanked her and ate, and bade Trug and Dolly eat too, while the little Indians and the squaws, squatting in the sand about the wigwam door, watched as if they had never before seen two hungry children.

Presently, as he wished to divide a morsel with Dolly, Miles drew out his whittle, whereat the onlookers crowded closer to gaze. Miles showed them his knife, though he took care not to let it go out of his hands, and he exhibited the other treasures he carried in his breeches pockets,—several nails, a button or two, some beads, and an English farthing piece. Indians always looked for presents, he knew, so, before he went out of the wigwam, he gave a button to the squaw who had fed him.

With his Indian followers eying him the more admiringly, he now went journeying through the warm sand, past the dingy bark houses, to the farther verge of the camp, where, beyond a lusty patch of rank weeds, the corn-field of the savages shimmered in the heat. The tillage of the Indians seemed to him of an untidy sort; they had cleared away the trees with fire, never troubling to dig up the roots, so blackened stumps dotted the field, and here and there lay the greater bulk of a charred and fallen trunk. In between, the green corn straggled up, and several squaws were tending it with hoes made of great clam-shells. They cast aside their tools to stare on Miles and Dolly, but Miles stared in return only a short space; he had seen corn-fields before.

"Only to think, Dolly," he burst out, as he turned his back on the hoers, "there's no one to bid me weed or fetch water or aught else that displeases me. After all, 'tis a merry life the Indians lead; I'm willing to dwell here with them."

"I do not wish to be a dirty Indian," Dolly answered decidedly, but in a whisper, as if she thought these attentive people must be able to understand her words. "Do you not think the men from Plymouth will come to seek us soon and take us home?"

"I do not want them to come," Miles replied calmly. "Maybe they would hang me for that Ned fought in the duel, and surely they would beat me for running away. I shall have to stay here always," he added cheerfully.

At this Dolly's lips quivered, but Miles, intent now on an Indian lad with a little bow in his hand, who had just come near, gave his sister no heed. "I'm minded to ask that boy to let me play with his bow," he spoke out, as they arrived once more within the lee of Chief Canacum's wigwam. "You sit here, and Trug shall watch you."

A protest or two from Dolly, after the unreasonable fashion of women-folk, but Miles, leaving her seated on the sand, walked away to the coppery lad he had singled out. For a time the two boys stared at each other gravely, then Miles, smiling affably, touched the bow, saying, "Cossaquot? Nenmia," till presently the other yielded it into his hands.