The Indians also steep the corn in hot water twelve hours before pounding it into a kind of coarse meal, when they make it into a pudding much as you would in Scrooby; but mother likes not the taste after it has been thus cooked before being pounded, thinking much of the fine flavor has been taken from it.
Sometimes we make a sweet pudding by mixing it with molasses and boiling it in a bag. It will keep thus for many days, and I once heard Captain Standish say that there were as many sweet puddings made in Plymouth every day as there were housewives.
Next fall we shall have bread made of barley and Indian corn meal, so father says, and I am hoping most fervently that he may not be mistaken, for both Sarah and I are heartily tired of nookick, and of sweet pudding, which is not very sweet because we have need to guard carefully our small store of molasses.
We girls often promise ourselves a great feast when a vessel comes out from England bringing butter, for we have had none that could be eaten since the first two weeks of the voyage in the Mayflower.
Squanto often tells us of a kind of vegetable, or fruit, I am not certain which, that grows in this country, and is called a pumpkin. It must be very fine, if one may judge by his praise of it, and we are looking forward to the time when it shall be possible to know for ourselves.
THE WEDDING
And now I am to tell you of a marriage in Plymouth which deeply concerned Sarah and me. You may be certain that we made great account of it, although Master Bradford warned us against setting our hearts on the wicked customs of England.
I had hoped Elder Brewster would marry the couple, for Sarah and I were deeply interested in them, having seen much of the love-making while we were on board the Mayflower.
