History of the United States in Words of One Syllable

by Helen Wall Pierson

But those who were brave enough to come and live in this new land, had a hard life at first. There were no snug farms as now, with fields of green corn and wheat. At times the poor men could not get much to eat, and one wrote home: "The crumbs that fall from your meals would be sweet to me. When I can get a cup of meal and boil It with a pinch of salt, I give thanks as for a great feast. The In-di-ans at times bring corn and trade it for clothes or knives. One day they gave me a peck of corn for a small dog. It would be a strange thing to see a piece of roast beef or veal here."

PIL-GRIMS ON THEIR WAY TO CHURCH.

It will not seem strange, then, that, in such hard times, death came to these small bands and took some away. But those who were left kept up brave hearts, and would not go back to their old homes; and though all were so poor, there was not a case of theft in four years. They grew to like the land, and one said, "A sup of New Eng-land air is worth more than a draught of Old Eng-land ale."

For one of the first bands of men who came here, made their homes in a place to which they gave the name of New Eng-land, after their old home. As time went on each place grew to be a town, and soon had a church and a school of its own. If we had gone in one of those towns on the Lord's day, we would have seen some strange sights. As the clocks struck nine, there would come out a man who would beat a drum or blow a conch shell, or ring a bell to call all the folks to church. As we drew near to this church, we would have seen that it was built of logs, with a small flag to wave on it. There would be a fence of stakes round it, and a man with a gun on guard near it. Those who went in left all their guns in his care.

If you look at this church you will see that it has no glass panes like ours, but small and dull and thick ones set in lead. It is the style now to like that old thick glass, and to use it once more. You might see on the front of this church, near the door, the heads of wolves that had been slain in the hunt in the past year.

In this church the old men sat on one side, and the young men were not with them. They had their own place. So, too, the boys did not sit by the girls. Most of the boys sat on the stairs, and there was a man there as a sort of guard to see that they did not talk. He had a long rod or wand in his hand, with a hare's foot on one end, and a hare's tail on the other. He would let no one go to sleep. If he saw a girl nod, he would touch her on the face with the soft brush of the hare's tail; but if it were a boy who was caught in a nap, he got a sharp rap from the hare's foot. So you see in those times one could not make such a snug nest in the pew and take a long sleep as one does now; and they had to stay three or four hours in church. It must have been hard for small folks not to nod at times.

When they sung, it was out of a book by the name of "The Bay Psalm Book," and they did not know more than ten tunes. In those days no one could stay from church but for a good cause, or else they had to pay a fine. And if a man staid from church a month, he was put in the stocks, or in a cage of wood, where all could see him and laugh and jeer at him.

You do not know what stocks are in these times, but if you had stood in a New Eng-land town then, you would have seen a strange thing made of wood, by the road near the church. This queer frame of wood would hold a man fast so that he could not move, and you may think a day in the stocks would be hard to bear, and would make one's bones ache.

A house in such a town, in those days, was all built on the ground floor; so there were no stairs. It was made of earth or logs, and had a steep roof of thatch. The place for the fire was built of rough stones. It was large enough to burn logs four feet long, and had so much room in it that a man and his wife and boys and girls could sit in it and look up at the sky.