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Historic Girlhoods Volume 1

<h2> VIII Priscilla Alden The Girl of Plymouth: About 1604—after 1680 </h2> Two girls stood on the deck of the Mayflower, hand clasped in hand, their eyes fixed on a narrow strip of grayish shore beyond the waste of tossing ocean. About them stood others, men and women and a few children, all looking in the same direction, wonder and satisfaction and a certain awe in their faces. They had been at sea for nearly thirteen weeks, and during most of that time their little ship had been buffeted by constant storms. "Mary dear," said one of the girls to the other, "can you really believe that yonder low line is land?" "I doubted if it could be when John first pointed it out to me," answered the other, "but now I'm sure of it. I can almost see the breakers on the shore. Do you know, Priscilla, that that's where you and I are to live and that we may never see England again?" Her hand tightened on her friend's and her dark eyes turned towards her. "Our home!" murmured Priscilla softly. "It looks bleak enough from here. I hope we find it pleasant country inland." All over the Mayflower men and women were pointing out the shore to one another and calling it their home. They had come from England to find a land where they might worship God in their own way, and had sailed over the wide and stormy Western sea to found a new colony in this new and almost unknown land. Columbus had had great faith when he held his course to the west in spite of the protests of all his men, but these simple Pilgrims had no less faith when they started out to make a new home in an unexplored continent where other settlers had already met with famine, pestilence, and savage redmen. They were a brave, deeply religious people, ready to stand the hardships that lay in wait for them, confident that God was with them and that they were doing what was right for them to do. This was the spirit that had given them courage to face many difficulties, for already they had met with troubles that would have daunted less determined people. They had had two ships when they had sailed from Southampton on the fifth of August, 1620, but at the very outset the smaller vessel, the Speedwell, had sprung a leak, and had to put back to port. A second time the two ships had started, but again the Speedwell proved unseaworthy, and they had returned to Plymouth. This time there were disputes among the officers and some of the men had left, but the Mayflower had sailed at last on September sixth with one hundred and two on board. Then they had met with bad weather, so that instead of reaching the new world in the autumn as they had planned, it was already November before they sighted the shore of America. It took brave, persevering spirits to face the odds that stood in front of them. Presently a young man came up to the two girls. "We're farther north than we thought to land," said he. "The Dutch settlements lie to the south. But they've decided to try this place now we're here, and by night some may set foot on shore." "Do you think we can go in the first boat, John?" asked Mary Chilton eagerly. John Alden shook his head. "Only a few of the men are to land with Miles Standish. They're to explore and come back to report. There may be Indians settled about here." "I wish I were a man," sighed Mary. "There'll be plenty for girls to do once we're ashore," answered John. "We've waited a month," put in Priscilla. "I guess we can wait a few days more to land." John Alden moved away to examine his matchlock gun for the hundredth time, and the two girls, who were close friends, tried to wait as patiently as they could while the Mayflower drew in towards shore. They went down to the cabin for their simple dinner and then returned on deck. Now the land stretched before them in a clear line, a low, barren shore that looked of little promise. The chill November day made the country seem most inhospitable, and many on board were already homesick for the green fields and flowering meadows of England. Mary Chilton and Priscilla Mullins moved about among the women and children, cheering them with their own hopefulness. By nightfall the Mayflower had rounded a point of the coast and come into a small land-locked harbor, where it seemed as if a thousand vessels might find safe anchorage. Here the shores appeared more promising, and many eager eyes strained through the dusk to see what the site of their future home might be like. It was too dark to send explorers ashore, so the Mayflower dropped anchor, and the Pilgrims prepared to go to bed. Before they slept they gathered in the cabin and with bent heads listened to John Carver give thanks to God that they had been brought safely across the sea and in sight of their promised land. Next day Priscilla and Mary watched Captain Miles Standish and a score of men lower the shallop and set out towards shore. John Alden smiled up at the girls as they hung over the rail, and they waved their kerchiefs to him and to the ruddy-faced Captain Standish who stood up in the bow to direct the shallop's course. Then they had to wait as patiently as they could to learn what the explorers might report. Standish's party spent two days exploring the land about the harbor, which formed the tip of what we now call Cape Cod. They found that the land was fertile, as was shown by the fact that the Indians had cleared much of the ground for planting and had left a magazine of corn. They caught a distant glimpse of a few Indians, but the latter fled as soon as they saw Captain Standish's men. When the explorers returned to the Mayflower and made their report the leaders of the Pilgrims were in two minds as to whether to settle on this shore or to seek another site farther to the west. Those who wanted to settle here spoke of the good harbor for ships, the fact that the Indians had already tilled the soil, and the chances that they might find good whale fishing off the coast. They added that they were tired with the long sea voyage and unfit to go further, and that with winter almost at hand exploration would be very difficult. But the others objected that it would be unwise to settle permanently without having looked a little farther to the west, and the larger number of the leaders agreed with this view. Therefore on the next day the shallop was sent out again with eighteen men on board to explore more of the coast. Eight men stayed on the shallop while the rest landed and went along the shore. Their journey lasted three days, and on the third morning the land party had just started to eat breakfast by their camp-fire when suddenly they heard a series of wild war-cries, and a shower of arrows struck all about them. At the same time Indians in ambush on the beach sent their arrows at the men in the small boat. Captain Standish and his men seized their muskets and in a moment more the Indians were flying before the fire that leaped from the muzzles. Not one of the Pilgrims was wounded, and soon they were on their way along the shore again, this time more careful to keep a watch for the hidden redmen. Presently they embarked in the shallop and sailed across the bay, reaching a place nearly opposite the point of Cape Cod. Here they found fertile land, a good supply of water, and a protected harbor. It seemed the ideal spot for which they had been looking, and they decided to make their new home here. The Indian name of this place, Accomac, had already been changed to Plymouth, which it happened was also the name of the English seaport from which the Pilgrims had finally set sail. The people on board the Mayflower eagerly hailed the returning explorers. They were growing impatient at being kept on the ship when the land stretched invitingly before them. Priscilla and Mary, with the rest, heard Captain Standish tell of the place he had discovered, and shortly afterward they themselves saw it from the vessel's deck. Now all was excitement. The different families made ready to leave the ship which had been their home for nearly seven weeks and set up their household goods on shore. In the first boat load went Priscilla and Mary Chilton, and Mary was the first woman to set foot on Plymouth soil. The two girls looked about them, at the long beach, the cleared corn land, and the high hill beyond with its commanding view over the wide bay. Priscilla turned to her father. "How strange that this should be our home!" said she. "And yet I feel almost a love for it already." "I pray you may, my daughter," he answered, "for it is like to be the only home any of us are henceforth to know." If it had taken courage to face the perils of the sea it took scarcely less to face those of the new land. It was already December and growing more and more cold with each day. Their store of provisions was almost gone, and there could be no harvest here until spring. Some of the women and children were sick, and none knew how the Indians might look upon their coming. But the little band of Pilgrims set to work with stout hearts, determined to carry out the purpose on which they had started. They chose John Carver Governor and Miles Standish Captain of their troops, and set to work to build log houses for the winter's shelter. Priscilla was strong and she helped her father in his work during that long hard winter. There was plenty for all to do, but many had not the strength to accomplish what was needed. There was a great deal of illness and very little good food. The weather made it almost impossible for the men to hunt or to find wild fruits, and they had neglected to bring fishing-tackle with them. Their provisions were eked out with shellfish, but it was hard to gather these in the cold water. Other colonies in the new world had already been forced to give up their homes in fear of starvation, but this band held on, although half their number died, and at one time there were only seven who were not sick. Fortunately the Indians gave them little trouble. One day one of them walked into the village and spent the night there, showing friendliness, although Captain Standish watched him closely, having little faith in his pretensions. A day or two later he returned bringing five others, and then there came another named Tis quantum, who had once been taken as a prisoner to London, and who understood something of the strange white people and their ways. With his aid a treaty was made with Massasoit, the chief of the Indians in that part of the country, and each side agreed to live in harmony and concord with the other. Many of the Indians already had a superstitious fear of the men from across the sea, not only on account of their wonderful "fire-tubes" but for another reason. Some Indians had a few years before captured a French trading-ship, and killed all the crew but five, whom they kept as prisoners. One of these had warned the redmen that the God of the white people would not let these wrongs go without some punishment, and very soon afterward pestilence had broken out on the coast and killed many of the Indians who lived there. Those who survived recalled the Frenchman's words and believed that pestilence was a weapon like the "fire-tube" which the white men kept in their camps to use against their enemies. Therefore they were very careful how they treated these new arrivals who had settled at Accomac. But if the winter was hard and starvation stared them in the face and sickness was rife in Plymouth the Pilgrims worked on, confident that they were doing the will of God. This was the spirit of young as well as of old, and the thought that must often have cheered Priscilla as she looked from the door of the rude log-cabin over leagues of snow to a lowering sky. But there were bright hours even in that first winter. Sometimes Captain Standish or John Alden or others of the men would bring logs of red cedar from the near-by forest to the Mullins cottage and pile them on the hearth. Then they would have a great fire and all the family would gather round it, and neighbors, seeing the smoke, would come through the path cut in the deep snow to the Mullins door and join in the warmth and the stories at the hearth. Many a day Priscilla and Mary spent at the spinning-wheel, talking of old play-mates in England while their feet kept the wheels going and the carded wool piled up about them on the floor. At other times, when the weather was clearer, they would go down to the beach and walk its length until they came to a great rock. There they would sit and talk of what they would do when summer came and the sea should be calm and the woods full of wild flowers. Sometimes they would sing, for both girls had good voices, sending the words of the old hymns of the Pilgrims far out across the breakers. Slowly the winter passed and Priscilla had her first taste of spring in New England. Hope sprang up fresh in the hearts of these Pilgrims as they saw the snows melt and the days grow longer. They began to build bigger and stronger houses and to prepare the fields for crops. Whenever they could be spared from home Priscilla and Mary and the few other girls in the village went out to the woods. There the trees were putting forth their buds, and one day they came upon a fragrant rose-colored flower which they had never seen before and which they named the Mayflower. Soon the woods were full of them, and the girls gathered armfuls to take back to their log homes. Beyond the circle of green woods they found many ponds and on their banks another white and red flower called the azalea, and in the water were wide lily pads and still farther beyond bushes of the soft snowy pink-hued laurel. In the evenings they would climb to the hill back of Plymouth and, seated there, look over the tiny gathering of houses to the open bay where the light high up in the rigging of the Mayflower shone like a planet low down in the sky. There they would talk of England, and of how by this time the hawthorne must be in bloom and the hedgerows all in blossom and the small stone churches mantled in ivy and the lark singing as he soared above the tower. But although they talked much about England, they were already very fond of their new home, and when they heard that the Mayflower was to sail back to England they did not say that they would like to sail on her. The Mayflower left in the early spring and at nearly the same time John Carver, the first Governor, died. The settlers chose William Bradford Governor in his place. Building and farming was now progressing rapidly and the town began to take definite shape. It stood on rising ground only a short distance from the beach. Two streets crossed one another and where they met stood the Governor's house with an open common in front of it. Four cannon were placed in the common, one pointing down each of the four streets. A little above the town they built a big house, which was used as a church, as a public storehouse for provisions, and also as a fort. Here were more cannon, and here the settlers gathered with their matchlocks whenever there was an alarm of Indians. The settlers' dwelling-houses were simply big log huts, each standing in its own enclosed piece of ground. Round the whole settlement ran a heavy palisade, open in front towards the ocean, but guarded on the other three sides by gates. Beyond the palisade lay the farming land, divided into many small patches of corn fields. The whole village was like one big family, all equally concerned in the common lot. The men of Plymouth were more fortunate in their dealings with the Indians than those of Virginia had been. At the very start they had won Massasoit, chief of the Pokanokets, to their side, and now they had a chance to strengthen that tie. Word came to Governor Bradford that the Indian chief was very ill and that his native doctors could do nothing for him. The Governor sent Edward Winslow to the chief, and he, knowing far more of medicine than the Indians did, was able to cure Massasoit in a short time. The chief was very grateful and vowed that if ever the men of Plymouth should need his aid he would come instantly with all his braves to help them. But other chiefs were not so friendly, and soon after Canonicus, chief of the Narragansetts, a tribe that was always warring with the Pokanokets, took offense at the alliance between his enemies and the white men. He sent a messenger to Governor Bradford, carrying a bundle of arrows wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin. An Indian who happened to be in Plymouth told the Governor that the message meant hostility on the part of the Narragansetts. The Governor threw away the bundle of arrows and sent the skin back filled with powder and balls. This threat from the settlers frightened Canonicus and he would not take the war-path against them. Realizing that they were not to be dismayed, he sent other messengers to treat with them, and arranged to trade with them in corn and furs. So far Priscilla's life had been much like that of the other girls of Plymouth, patient, enduring, brave, but with few adventures except such as fell to the whole colony of Pilgrims. Now her life became more dramatic. The valiant, vigilant captain of the colony, Miles Standish, wanted her to be his wife. Miles Standish was not by nature like the men who had crossed the sea with him to find a home. He was a soldier first and foremost, a man who had quarreled with his family in England and gone forth to seek his fortune with his sword. He had been in many battles, he had married, and at last, hearing of the Pilgrims' plans to sail for America he had decided to throw in his lot with theirs. They had made him their captain and he had proved himself a good one, and he had become one of the leading men, and one of the most popular in Plymouth. But the weather was too severe for his fair English wife Rose, and she had died soon after they landed. A year later he found that he had lost his adventurous soldier's heart to the pretty Priscilla Mullins. Captain Standish knew that he was readier with sword and musket than with the words to win a young girl's love. He was much perplexed as to what he should do until he thought of his friend John Alden, who was quick of wit, and ready of tongue and pen, and who had before now written many a letter for the Captain. So he went to John Alden and begged him in the name of their friendship to call upon Mr. Mullins and ask him if he would give his daughter's hand to the Captain, and if he agreed then to plead his cause with Priscilla. John and Priscilla had been brought up together and were close friends, and when the Captain made his request of John the youth discovered that he himself was in love with Priscilla. But he felt in honor bound to do what the Captain asked of him, and so, with a heavy heart he went to the Mullins house. Priscilla's father listened while John asked if Miles Standish might have his consent to marry his daughter, and at the end willingly agreed. Then John went to the room where the girl sat at her spinning-wheel, and even as he entered his foot faltered and he turned very pale. With his eyes bent on the floor and his voice hesitating he told her that he came from Captain Standish to ask if she would marry him. Priscilla was astonished; the Captain was older than she and had been so busy that she had seen little of him. John Alden had been her comrade and she cared more for him than she had ever dared admit to herself. He looked so pale and distressed as he stood there before her that she wondered what might be the cause. Then the reason flashed upon her. With downcast eyes and a voice that was only a whisper she spoke to him. "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" was what he heard her say. John wondered if he could have understood aright. Then she looked up at him and he knew that it was him she loved and that she had no room for Standish in her heart. So, still trembling, he asked her to marry him instead of Standish, and she said she would. But even in his joy John feared that he had proved a traitor to his friend. Dark days followed for the lovers. John had to give his message to the Captain, and it was no easy telling. For days he carried with him the feeling of treachery, and he spent many nights walking on the shore, distrustful of himself and of the love that had come to him in such fashion. Priscilla was scarcely happier, for the same thought was with her, and she knew it was she who had put the words into John Alden's mouth. Then came news that Captain Standish had been sent on an expedition against the Indians, and both Priscilla and John feared that in a moment of rashness over his disappointment he might expose himself recklessly in battle, and so the colony lose its best guardian and captain. <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG width-obs="500" height-obs="306" src="images/005.jpg" alt="John Alden and Priscilla"> <div class="image"> John Alden and Priscilla By Boughton </div> </div> But Miles Standish was no coward and he set out on his expedition determined to fight when he must but not to run into needless dangers. A three days' march brought him to the Indian encampment, but it seemed as peaceful as the town that he had left. Women were at work in the fields and about the tents, but there were no braves in sight. After a short détour he discovered them, their bodies covered with war paint, seated about a fire, handing a smoking pipe from one to another. One of them caught the glint of sun on the Captain's armor and spoke to the others, and then two rose and came towards Standish. They spoke peacefully, saying that they wanted to be friends with the white men, and would like to trade skins and corn for knives and muskets and the mysterious powder the white men used in their "fire-tubes." Standish offered them blankets but refused to give them arms or powder. Then their manner changed very quickly, and pointing to the knives at their belts they began to tell the white men what they would do to their settlement unless they would come to terms. In the meantime the wary Captain had noted how the other Indians had left the fire and were creeping up towards him on all sides, fixing arrows to their bowstrings as they came, but pretending that they were only going back to their tents. He waited, like a tiger ready to spring, while the chief worked himself up into a passion with his threats. Suddenly the chief drew his knife and raised it high, giving the war-cry. At the same instant Standish sprang forward, and before the Indian's knife could fall he had plunged his own into the redman's breast. The chief fell, and instantly a storm of arrows swept about Standish and his men and the braves leaped forward, crying their wild war-whoops. The white men turned back to back, and, leveling their muskets, sent a deadly fire at the advancing braves. The latter, always frightened at this mysterious sight and sound, turned and fled, leaving their chief, Wattawamat, dead in front of Standish. Then the Captain cut off the head of the Indian and carried it back with him to Plymouth, where it was stuck on a pike from the roof of the fort as a warning to other warring redmen. Such acts were part of the customs of those times, and the elders of Plymouth approved of the Captain's deed, but one elder, named John Robinson, who was the religious leader of them all, cried out as he passed the fort, "Oh, that he had converted some before he killed any!" If Miles Standish had flared up in anger when John Alden first told him the result of his suit of Priscilla that anger dropped as quickly as it rose. The Captain had many other matters to think about, what with the constant fear of attack from restless Indians, and he was away from Plymouth almost as much as he was there. So the lovers lost the feeling that they had not been fair to him, and let it be known through Plymouth that they were to marry. Meanwhile the Pilgrim village was prospering. Food was plentiful, for the first harvest had been good, and the hunters had brought in deer and the fishing-boats returned well-laden from the sea. Therefore the Governor ordered a day of thanksgiving late in the autumn, and when that day came the people went to the fortress-church on the hill and gave thanks to God that He had allowed them to endure and prosper in their new home. Later in the day they feasted, and never had Plymouth seen such a plentiful repast. Word of the feast had been sent to some of the neighboring Indians and ninety of them came and sat about the board with the white men. That was the beginning of our Thanksgiving Day. John Alden was busy building a new house for his bride. He could build better now than the settlers had been able to do when they faced that first winter. He chose his ground with care, and built a substantial home, covering the roof with rushes, and filling the latticed windows with panes of oiled paper, which let the light come through but not the wind or rain. He dug a well and planted an orchard at the rear of the house, and when the place was finished it was one of the finest in Plymouth. In the spring Priscilla and John were married, their wedding being one of the earliest in the colony, and Priscilla being the first of the girls who had sailed on the Mayflower to change her name. History does not tell us a great deal about this girl of the Pilgrims, but we do know how much courage and faith and constancy was required of the first settlers of New England. We picture Priscilla as the daughter of such people, devout, simple, and from force of the rude life about her growing more and more self-reliant from the day when Mary Chilton and she first set foot on Plymouth Rock. History does not tell us of Priscilla's wooing, but the romantic story has been so wonderfully put in poetry by Longfellow that when we hear Priscilla Alden mentioned we think first of all of "The Courtship of Miles Standish." It is a story which ought to be true, if it is not. We know that Captain Standish and John Alden were friends at a later time, for when the Captain married his second wife he built his house over on Duxbury Hill, near where John Alden's stood, and his son married the daughter of John and Priscilla. So the blunt, brave Captain did not die of a broken heart. Such is the story of this girl of the Pilgrims and of the brave days when the foundation stones of our land were being laid. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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