History of the United States in Words of One Syllable

by Helen Wall Pierson

The dress in those days was not the same as it is now. The men wore small clothes, which came to the knee like a small boy's in these times, and they had stiff ruffs round their necks and caps of rich stuff on their heads. The young men wore fine belts, and great high boots which were made with a roll at the top. The girls wore silk hoods in the streets, and stiff rich gowns, with long waists, and lace caps on feast-days. But folks could not wear gay clothes if the law did not think they had means to spend for such fine things.

They had some queer laws in those days. Those who had done wrong had to stand in the stocks, which held them by the feet and neck, so they could not get away, or they had to mount stools in church. If a man had a wife who had the name of a bad scold, a cleft stick was put on her tongue, or she was made to take a cold dip in a stream. I dare say you think those were hard laws, and you are glad to live in these days. But that was a race who had the fear of God in their hearts; their aim was to do just right and to rule the land in the best way.

CHAPTER III.
THE RED MEN AND THEIR WARS.

At first, before they had time to plant the fields, the men could but hunt and fish for food; but as years went by, they had farms, and made glass and things for trade; they wove cloth of wool, and some from a plant that grows in the south, of which you may know the name. It is white and soft.

They had not much coin, and so they had to do the best they could with skins and corn, or what they could get for trade. The first mint to make coin was set up in Mass-a-chu-setts in 1652. This coin had a pine tree on one side, and the name of the State. One side had a date and N. E. for New Eng-land. All this coin was known as "pine-tree coin." In time the land at Plym-outh Bay and those near took one name, "Mass-a-chu-setts."

In the meanwhile the small band who had made homes in Vir-gin-ia had come to grief. They had been men of good birth in their own land, and did not know much of hard work. They had come in search of wealth. Great tales had been told of the gold here. It had been said one could pick up great lumps of gold, as large as a hen's egg, in the streams. They found that all this was not true, and that a man had to work hard to live. They grew sick, and death came in their midst to make things more sad; so that they lost more than half of their small band.

BUILD-ING IN VIR-GIN-IA.

JOHN SMITH.

One man, John Smith by name, did great things for them. He had been brave from his birth. He had been in wars oft, and once he built him a lodge of boughs in a forest and took his books with him, that he might learn the art of war. Once he went to fight the Turks. He is said to have been sold as a slave. It may be all these tales are not true; but it is true he taught his own friends in Vir-gin-ia how to live. He got them to build a fort and log huts for the cold times. He made friends as far as he could of the In-di-ans, so that he could get boat loads of food from them. He said that "he who would not work might not eat;" so no man could be a drone in the hive. Each one must learn to swing the axe in the woods or to hunt and to fish.