"Nay, then, child, I'll rest a minute, since I have such willing hands to wait on me, and well I know thou art the most delicate cook among us. Dame Carver will be the gainer."
And leaning her head against the back of the chair, poor, weary Mistress Brewster closed her eyes, and even dozed, while the three girls busily carried on their tasks, with low-voiced murmurs of talk that rather soothed than disturbed the sleeper.
The first plan, of dividing the settlers into nineteen families and building a house for each, had been abandoned before more than two or three of the houses were begun, and now that the prostrating sickness interrupting their plans was past, and the survivors counted, it was found that sadly few dwellings were needed to contain them, so that at present all were divided among four or five houses, although as the men gained strength for labor each wrought upon his future home in all the time to be spared from the common needs.
The house where we have found Priscilla was that of Elder Brewster, situated on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway, as the Pilgrims called the path crossing The Street at right angles, and leading down to the brook, although to-day we should say that the elder's house stood on the corner of Leyden and Market streets; like all others built at this time, it was a low structure covered in with planks hewn from the forest trees, and roofed with thatch. At each side of the entrance door lay a tolerably large room, that on the right hand, nearest to the brook, used as kitchen, dining, and general living room, while the other was the family sleeping room, and also used as a withdrawing room, where the elder held counsel with the governor, or other friends, and studied his exhortation for the coming Sunday; here, also, Mistress Brewster led her boys, or the maidens she guided, for reproof, counsel, or tender comforting. At the back of this room, partitioned by a curtain, was a nook, where Wrestling, a delicate child of six, and Love, his sturdier brother, two years older, nestled like kittens in a little cot. Above in the loft, reached by a ladder-like staircase, was a comfortable room appropriated to Mary Chilton, Priscilla Molines, and Elizabeth Tilley, all orphaned within three months, and at once adopted by the Elder's wife as her especial charge.
In the next house, on a lot of land appropriated at first to John Goodman and some others, the governor had taken up his abode with his delicate wife, her maid Lois, Desire Minter their ward, and several children whom she cared for. John Howland, the governor's secretary and right-hand man, also lived here, and, like the manly man he was, hesitated not to give help wherever it was needed.
Owing to Mrs. Carver's very delicate health, it had been arranged that this family should share the table at Elder Brewster's, where the young girls just mentioned were ready and glad to take charge of the household labors, leaving their elders free for other matters.
In another house, placed in charge of Stephen Hopkins and his bustling wife, nearly all the unmarried men were gathered, and made a hearty and soberly jocund family. The third house, headed by Isaac Allerton and his daughters, was the home of Bradford, Winslow, Mistress Susannah White, with her children, Resolved and Peregrine, and her brother, Doctor Fuller, with their little nephew, Samuel Fuller, whose father and mother both lay on Cole's Hill.
In the Common house, under charge of Master Warren, with the Billingtons as officials, were gathered the rest of the company except Standish, who slept in his own house on the hill, but had his place at Elder Brewster's table when he chose to take it.
Hither he now came, silent and grave as was his wont since Rose died, but ever ready to give his aid and sympathy, whether in handicraft or counsel, to the governor, the elder, or the women struggling with unwonted labors. Of lamentation there was none, and since the day the soldier stood beside that open grave and watched the mould piled upon the coffin his own hands had fashioned no man, not even the elder, had heard his wife's name, or any allusion to his loss, pass his lips; yet those who knew him best marked well the line that had deepened between his brows, the still endurance of his eyes, and the sadness underlying every intonation of his voice; and those who knew him not, and had in their shallower natures no chord to vibrate in sympathy with this grand patience, comprehended it not, and seeing him thus ready and helpful, not evading such pleasant talk as lightened the toil of his comrades, not preoccupied or gloomy, these thought the light wound was already healed, and more than one beside Desire Minter speculated upon his second choice.
Listening to the governor's report of Browne's discovery, Standish nodded, as not surprised, and said,—