Once Upon a Time in Delaware

by Katharine Pyle

The natives watched with wonder the strange work of these colonists, and the square houses with doors and windows which they made, and which were so different from the round wigwams woven of boughs and barks.

Beside separate cabins the settlers built themselves a general house to serve as defense in time of need. They called it Fort Uplandt; but DeVries placed such extraordinary confidence in the Indians that the so-called fort was only a house, larger and stronger than the cabins, and surrounded by a high fence.

So diligently did the settlers go about their work that by the middle of the summer they were quite well established.

DeVries was anxious to go back to Holland and bring out more settlers, so he appointed Giles Hosset[2] Director of the colony and then made his preparations to sail.

It was with heavy hearts that the little band of colonists saw the ship that had brought them from home spread its wings and sail away.

They watched it until it was only a speck in the distance, until even the speck had disappeared. Then they turned again to their work with a new feeling of loneliness. They were so few in that great land of savages.

They had provisions enough, brought from home to last them a year and there was some comfort in the fact that the yacht Walrus was left behind. She was anchored just off shore in the river, and from there she could keep guard over the little colony like a mother bird guarding her nest. If danger arose, the settlers could retreat to her. But what danger was there to fear when the Indians seemed so peaceable and friendly?

For some months after DeVries left them, all went well; and then trouble arose. The trouble was over a very little thing, no more nor less than a little square of tin.

One of the first things the colonists had done after settling their farms, was to erect a pillar, and place on it a piece of tin carved with the arms of the United Provinces, as Holland was called. Those arms, set high above the village, were to them a constant reminder of their old home across the sea; and often, as they went to and fro about their work, their homesick eyes would turn to it for comfort.

But one morning when the colonists arose to go to their daily toil, the piece of tin was missing. Evidently, someone had wrenched it from its place in the night.