The Second Christmas Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  There had been stormy and windy weather, but now dawned on the earth one of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving bay were a downward sky—a magical underworld, wherein the crimson oaks, and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow sassafras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as soft winds swayed the glassy floor of waters.

  In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the shore; and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides into the harbor.

  A little craft is she—not larger than the fishing-smacks that ply their course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men, women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe shelter and hopeful harbor.

  That small, unknown ship was the Mayflower; those men and women who crowded her decks were that little handful of God’s own wheat which had been flailed by adversity, tossed and winnowed till every husk of earthly selfishness and self-will had been beaten away from them and left only pure seed, fit for the planting of a new world. It was old Master Cotton Mather who said of them, “The Lord sifted three countries to find seed wherewith to plant America.”

  Hark now to the hearty cry of the sailors, as with a plash and a cheer the anchor goes down, just in the deep water inside of Long Point; and then, says their journal, “being now passed the vast ocean and sea of troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings as to seek out a place for habitation, they fell down on their knees and blessed the Lord, the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all perils and miseries thereof.”

  Let us draw nigh and mingle with this singular act of worship. Elder Brewster, with his well-worn Geneva Bible in hand, leads the thanksgiving in words which, though thousands of years old, seem as if written for the occasion of that hour:

  “Praise the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Let them which have been redeemed of the Lord show how he delivereth them from the hand of the oppressor, And gathered them out of the lands: from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south, when they wandered in deserts and wildernesses out of the way and found no city to dwell in. Both hungry and thirsty, their soul failed in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their troubles, and he delivered them in their distresses. And led them forth by the right way, that they might go unto a city of habitation. They that go down to the sea and occupy by the great waters: they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, and it lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, and descend to the deep: so that their soul melteth for trouble. They are tossed to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their cunning is gone. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He turneth the storm to a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. When they are quieted they are glad, and he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.”

  As yet, the treasures of sacred song which are the liturgy of modern Christians had not arisen in the church. There was no Watts, and no Wesley, in the days of the Pilgrims; they brought with them in each family, as the most precious of household possessions, a thick volume containing, first, the Book of Common Prayer, with the Psalter appointed to be read in churches; second, the whole Bible in the Geneva translation, which was the basis on which our present English translation was made; and, third, the Psalms of David, in meter, by Sternhold and Hopkins, with the music notes of the tunes, adapted to singing. Therefore it was that our little band were able to lift up their voices together in song and that the noble tones of Old Hundred for the first time floated over the silent bay and mingled with the sound of winds and waters, consecrating our American shores.

  “All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice: Him serve with fear, His praise forthtell; Come ye before Him and rejoice.

  “The Lord, ye know, is God indeed; Without our aid He did us make; We are His flock, He doth us feed, And for his sheep He doth us take.

  “O enter then His gates with praise, Approach with joy His courts unto: Praise, laud, and bless His name always, For it is seemly so to do.

  “For why? The Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sure; His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure.”

  This grand hymn rose and swelled and vibrated in the still November air; while in between the pauses came the warble of birds, the scream of the jay, the hoarse call of hawk and eagle, going on with their forest ways all unmindful of the new era which had been ushered in with those solemn sounds.

  CHAPTER II. THE FIRST DAY ON SHORE.

  The sound of prayer and psalm-singing died away on the shore, and the little band, rising from their knees, saluted each other in that genial humor which always possesses a ship’s company when they have weathered the ocean and come to land together.

  “Well, Master Jones, here we’ are,” said Elder Brewster cheerily to the ship-master.

  “Aye, aye, sir, here we be sure enough; but I’ve had many a shrewd doubt of this upshot. I tell you, sirs, when that beam amidships sprung and cracked Master Coppin here said we must give over—hands couldn’t bring her through. Thou rememberest, Master Coppin?”

  “That I do,” replied Master Coppin, the first mate, a stocky, cheery sailor, with a face red and shining as a glazed bun. “I said then that praying might save her, perhaps, but nothing else would.”

  “Praying wouldn’t have saved her,” said Master Brown, the carpenter, “if I had not put in that screw and worked the beam to her place again.”

  “Aye, aye, Master Carpenter,” said Elder Brewster, “the Lord hath abundance of the needful ever to his hand. When He wills to answer prayer, there will be found both carpenter and screws in their season, I trow.”

  “Well, Deb,” said Master Coppin, pinching the ear of a great mastiff bitch who sat by him, “what sayest thou? Give us thy mind on it, old girl; say, wilt thou go deer-hunting with us yonder?”

  The dog, who was full of the excitement of all around, wagged her tail and gave three tremendous barks, whereat a little spaniel with curly ears, that stood by Rose Standish, barked aloud.

  “Well done!” said Captain Miles Standish. “Why, here is a salute of ordnance! Old Deb is in the spirit of the thing and opens out like a cannon. The old girl is spoiling for a chase in those woods.”

  “Father, may I go ashore? I want to see the country,” said Wrestling Brewster, a bright, sturdy boy, creeping up to Elder Brewster and touching his father’s elbow.

  Thereat there was a crying to the different mothers of girls and boys tired of being cooped up—“Oh, mother, mother, ask that we may all go ashore.”

  “For my part,” said old Margery the serving-maid to Elder Brewster, “I want to go ashore to wash and be decent, for there isn’t a soul of us hath anything fit for Christians. There be springs of water, I trow.”

  “Never doubt it, my woman,” said Elder Brewster; “but all things in their order. How say you, Mr. Carver? You are our governor. What order shall we take?”

  “We must have up the shallop,” said Carver, “and send a picked company to see what entertainment there may be for us on shore.”

  “And I counsel that all go well armed,” quoth Captain Miles Standish, “for these men of the forest are sharper than a thorn-hedge. What! what!” he said, looking over to the eager group of girls and boys, “ye would go ashore, would ye? Why, the lions and bears will make one mouthful of ye.”

  “I’m not afraid of lions,” said young Wrestling Brewster in an aside to little Love Winslow, a golden-haired, pale-cheeked child, of a tender and spiritual beauty of face. “I’d like to meet a lion,” he added, “and serve
him as Samson did. I’d get honey out of him, I promise.”

  “Oh, there you are, young Master Boastful!” said old Margery. “Mind the old saying, ‘Brag is a good dog, but holdfast is better.’”

  “Dear husband,” said Rose Standish, “wilt thou go ashore in this company?”

  “Why, aye, sweetheart, what else am I come for—and who should go if not I?”

  “Thou art so very venturesome, Miles.”

  “Even so, my Rose of the wilderness. Why else am I come on this quest? Not being good enough to be in your church nor one of the saints, I come for an arm of flesh to them, and so, here goes on my armor.”

  And as he spoke, he buried his frank, good-natured countenance in an iron headpiece, and Rose hastened to help him adjust his corselet.

  The clang of armor, the bustle and motion of men and children, the barking of dogs, and the cheery Heave-o! of the sailors marked the setting off of the party which comprised some of the gravest, and wisest, as well as the youngest and most able-bodied of the ship’s’ company. The impatient children ran in a group and clustered on the side of the ship to see them go. Old Deb, with her two half-grown pups, barked and yelped after her master in the boat, running up and down the vessel’s deck with piteous cries of impatience.

  “Come hither, dear old Deb,” said little Love Winslow, running up and throwing her arms round the dog’s rough neck; “thou must not take on so; thy master will be back again; so be a good dog now, and lie down.”

  And the great rough mastiff quieted down under her caresses, and sitting down by her she patted and played with her, with her little thin hands.

  “See the darling,” said Rose Standish, “what away that baby hath! In all the roughness and the terrors of the sea she hath been like a little sunbeam to us—yet she is so frail!”

  “She hath been marked in the womb by the troubles her mother bore,” said old Margery, shaking her head. “She never had the ways of other babies, but hath ever that wistful look—and her eyes are brighter than they should be. Mistress Winslow will never raise that child—now mark me!”

  “Take care!” said Rose, “let not her mother hear you.”

  “Why, look at her beside of Wrestling Brewster, or Faith Carver. They are flesh and blood, and she looks as if she had been made out of sunshine. ’tis a sweet babe as ever was; but fitter for the kingdom of heaven than our rough life—deary me! a hard time we have had of it. I suppose it’s all best, but I don’t know.”

  “Oh, never talk that way, Margery,” said Rose Standish; “we must all keep up heart, our own and one another’s.”

  “Ah, well a day—I suppose so, but then I look at my good Master Brewster and remember how, when I was a girl, he was at our good Queen Elizabeth’s court, ruffling it with the best, and everybody said that there wasn’t a young man that had good fortune to equal his. Why, Master Davidson, the Queen’s Secretary of State, thought all the world of him; and when he went to Holland on the Queen’s business, he must take him along; and when he took the keys of the cities there, it was my master that he trusted them to, who used to sleep with them under his pillow. I remember when he came home to the Queen’s court, wearing the great gold chain that the States had given him. Ah me! I little thought he would ever come to a poor man’s coat, then!”

  “Well, good Margery,” said Rose, “it isn’t the coat, but the heart under it—that’s the thing. Thou hast more cause of pride in thy master’s poverty than in his riches.”

  “Maybe so—I don’t know,” said Margery, “but he hath had many a sore trouble in worldly things—driven and hunted from place to place in England, clapt into prison, and all he had eaten up with fines and charges and costs.”

  “All that is because he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” said Rose; “he shall have his reward by and by.”

  “Well, there be good men and godly in Old England that get to heaven in better coats and with easy carriages and fine houses and servants, and I would my master had been of such. But if he must come to the wilderness I will come with him. Gracious me! what noise is that?” she exclaimed, as a sudden report of firearms from below struck her ear. “I do believe there is that Frank Billington at the gunpowder; that boy will never leave, I do believe, till he hath blown up the ship’s company.”

  In fact, it appeared that young master Frank, impatient of the absence of his father, had toled Wrestling Brewster and two other of the boys down into the cabin to show them his skill in managing his father’s fowling-piece, had burst the gun, scattering the pieces about the cabin.

  Margery soon appeared, dragging the culprit after her. “Look here now, Master Malapert, see what you’ll get when your father comes home! Lord a mercy! here was half a keg of powder standing open! Enough to have blown us all up! Here, Master Clarke, Master Clarke, come and keep this boy with you till his father come back, or we be all sent sky high before we know.”

  * * * *

  At even tide the boat came back laden to the water’s edge with the first gettings and givings from the new soil of America. There is a richness and sweetness gleaming through the brief records of these men in their journals, which shows how the new land was seen through a fond and tender medium, half poetic; and its new products lend a savor to them of somewhat foreign and rare.

  Of this day’s expedition the record is thus:

  “That day, so soon as we could, we set ashore some fifteen or sixteen men well armed, with some to fetch wood, for we had none left; as also to see what the land was and what inhabitants they could meet with. They found it to be a small neck of land on this side where we lay in the bay, and on the further side the sea, the ground or earth, sand-hills, much like the downs in Holland, but much better; the crust of the earth a spit’s depth of excellent black earth; all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, birch, holly, vines, some ash and walnut; the wood for the most part open and without underwood, fit either to walk or to ride in. At night our people returned and found not any people or inhabitants, and laded their boat with juniper, which smelled very sweet and strong, and of which we burned for the most part while we were there.”

  “See there,” said little Love Winslow, “what fine red berries Captain Miles Standish hath brought.”

  “Yea, my little maid, there is a brave lot of holly berries for thee to dress the cabin withal. We shall not want for Christmas greens here, though the houses and churches are yet to come.”

  “Yea, Brother Miles,” said Elder Brewster, “the trees of the Lord are full of sap in this land, even the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted. It hath the look to me of a land which the Lord our God hath blessed.”

  “There is a most excellent depth of black, rich earth,” said Carver, “and a great tangle of grapevines, whereon the leaves in many places yet hung, and we picked up stores of walnuts under a tree—not so big as our English ones—but sweet and well-flavored.”

  “Know ye, brethren, what in this land smelleth sweetest to me?” said Elder Brewster. “It is the smell of liberty. The soil is free—no man hath claim thereon. In Old England a poor man may starve right on his mother’s bosom; there may be stores of fish in the river, and bird and fowl flying, and deer running by, and yet though a man’s children be crying for bread, an’ he catch a fish or snare a bird, he shall be snatched up and hanged. This is a sore evil in Old England; but we will make a country here for the poor to dwell in, where the wild fruits and fish and fowl shall be the inheritance of whosoever will have them; and every man shall have his portion of our good mother earth, with no lords and no bishops to harry and distrain, and worry with taxes and tythes.”

  “Amen, brother!” said Miles Standish, “and thereto I give my best endeavors with sword and buckler.”

  CHAPTER III. CHRISTMAS TIDE IN PLYMOUTH HARBOR

  For the rest of that month of November the Mayflower lay at anchor in Cape Cod harbor, and formed a floating home for the women and children, w
hile the men were out exploring the country, with a careful and steady shrewdness and good sense, to determine where should be the site of the future colony. The record of their adventures is given in their journals with that sweet homeliness of phrase which hangs about the Old English of that period like the smell of rosemary in an ancient cabinet.

  We are told of a sort of picnic day, when “our women went on shore to wash and all to refresh themselves;” and fancy the times there must have been among the little company, while the mothers sorted and washed and dried the linen, and the children, under the keeping of the old mastiffs and with many cautions against the wolves and wild cubs, once more had liberty to play in the green wood. For it appears in these journals how, in one case, the little spaniel of John Goodman was chased by two wolves, and was fain to take refuge between his master’s legs for shelter. Goodman “had nothing in hand,” says the journal, “but took up a stick and threw at one of them and hit him, and they presently ran away, but came again. He got a pale-board in his hand, but they both sat on their tails a good while, grinning at him, and then went their way and left him.”

  Such little touches show what the care of families must have been in the woodland picnics, and why the ship was, on the whole, the safest refuge for the women and children.

  We are told, moreover, how the party who had struck off into the wilderness, “having marched through boughs and bushes and under hills and valleys which tore our very armor in pieces, yet could meet with no inhabitants nor find any fresh water which we greatly stood in need of, for we brought neither beer nor water with us, and our victual was only biscuit and Holland cheese, and a little bottle of aqua vitae. So we were sore athirst. About ten o’clock we came into a deep valley full of brush, sweet gaile and long grass, through which we found little paths or tracks; and we saw there a deer and found springs of water, of which we were heartily glad, and sat us down and drunk our first New England water with as much delight as we ever drunk drink in all our lives.”