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twg_000012925300 | peas for sale, but seeing the bitter need of the colonists the shipmaster raised the price to per hogshead, and although they had the money, the Fathers refused to submit to the extortion, and the peas sailed southward. It is but forty miles from Plymouth to Boston Harbor, where about a hundred and fifty years later the women signed a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925301 | declaration that they would forego the use of tea rather than submit to extortion, and their fathers and husbands and lovers flung a goodly cargo into the sea. But a stout spirit although it keeps a man up puts no flesh on his bones, and soon it became a piteous sight to stand in the Town Square and mark the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925302 | faces and figures of those who passed by. Strong men staggered from weakness as they walked, women glided along like mournful white wraiths, even the little children in their quaint garb looked worn and emaciated. Standish, who relying upon his iron constitution and long training in a soldier's endurance, had regularly divided his rations with some woman or child, had | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925303 | grown so gaunt and worn that he might well have posed as The Skeleton in Armor, when he held his monthly muster, and Mistress Brewster, although some private provision was made for her, wasted away piteously. "Where is the ship spoken by the master of the Plantation?" was the daily cry, and daily Hobomok climbed the great tulip-tree on the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925304 | crest of Watson's Hill and swept the horizon line with eyes keener than any white man's. "The Lord abaseth us for our sins," declared the elder. "Call a solemn assembly, proclaim a fast, let us entreat our God to have mercy, and our Lord to pardon. Who can tell but He yet may turn and have compassion, and spare the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925305 | remnant of His people. Even as a servant looketh to the hand of his master even so let us wait upon our God, beseeching that He spare, that He pardon, that He restore us, who for our sins are appointed to die." So spake the elder after the evening prayers of a day even more exhausting than its predecessors, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925306 | Myles Standish, leaning against the wall for very weakness, muttered,-- "Nay, what sin have these women and children wrought? What odds between a God like that and the Shietan of the salvages? Nay, Elder, thou hast not bettered the faith my mother lived and died by." But the fast was appointed for the next day, which fell on a Thursday, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925307 | and as the sun sprang up with even an added blaze of pitiless heat, he saw a mournful procession winding up the hill to the Fort, now so completed as to offer a large lower room for purposes of devotion or of refuge, while the ordnance mounted on the roof gained a wider range, and presented a more formidable aspect. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925308 | At the head walked Elder Brewster, but the shadowy form of Mary his wife reclined in the old chair set beside the window, whence she could watch the procession she was unable to join except in spirit. Then came the Governor and the Captain, Allerton and Winslow, Warren and Fuller, Hopkins and Howland, Alden and Browne, and the rest of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925309 | the glorious band, the least of whom has his name written in the Libro d'Oro of the men posterity delighteth to honor. After the men came the women, meek and gentle, yet strong and courageous, and the children, poor little heroes and heroines, involuntary martyrs like the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. "Get thee to the roof, Hobomok," ordered the captain, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925310 | "and say the prayers the elder hath so painfully taught thee; but mind me, lad, keep thine eyes upon the horizon and watch for the answer, whether it be a sail, or whether it be a rain cloud. Shalt play the part of Elijah's servant, and the elder is the very moral of the stern old prophet." No morsel of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925311 | food, no drop of drink, had passed the lips of that wan company since the pittance of the night before, and yet for nine long hours of that fearful day, the air so heated that it hardly fed the lungs, and the sun blazing so pitilessly upon the log structure that a faint odor of parching wood mingled with the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925312 | torrid air within the Fort, yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited aloud the deep abasement of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of an offended God. In the intervals others spoke; Doctor Fuller, himself a deacon in the church, and Bradford, whose petition less abject than | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925313 | that of the elder, called confidently for help, upon Him who twice fed a starving multitude, who promised that no petition in His name should go unanswered, who hungering in the wilderness knew the extremity of famine, who cried aloud, I Thirst, who has promised to be with His own in all time till Time shall be no more. Standish, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925314 | like the statue of a sentinel in bronze, stood at the door leaning upon his snaphance, listening intently to all, and breathing a deep-throated Amen to the governor's prayer. Noon blazed overhead, and Priscilla, ah, poor white, attenuate Priscilla, crept down the hill to the elder's house, and gathering a handful of fire-wood warmed some broth made from a rabbit | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925315 | snared by Alden the day before, and silently brought a cup to the mother, who drank it with the tears brimming over her patient, faded eyes. "I am not worthy to fast with the rest of you. I am an unprofitable servant," whispered she handing back the cup and covering her face. "Oh, mother, mother, do not break my heart," | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925316 | cried the girl, whom the smell of food had turned sick and faint. "It is not so, dear saint. The Lord will not have thee fast because He knows thou art already perfected"-- "Hush, hush, my child; thy words are both wild and wicked. Get thee back to the House of Prayer, and beg our God to forgive thy sin | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925317 | of presumption. Fare thee well--nay, one moment,--doth,--doth the elder look sadly spent?--he is not over strong--and Jonathan? Didst mark him and the boys? Wrestling is but puny." "They are all in such strength as can be looked for, mother dear, and will hold out as well as any." And Priscilla wanly smiled in the poor pinched face, adjusted the cushions | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925318 | and the foot-rest, and without so much as a drop of cold water for herself, wearily climbed the hill. The captain making room for her to pass looked with anxious sympathy into her face, but spake no word, and again the withering hours passed on, and the elder prayed in a husky and broken whisper, and his hearers muttered an | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925319 | Amen, hollow and mournful as the echo from an open tomb. Three o'clock, and Hobomok scrambled down from the roof, and stood in the open doorway. His master saw and went out to him. In a moment he came again, and passing between the banks of rude benches stood before the elder, who, pausing suddenly, fixed upon him a gaze | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925320 | of piteous inquiry, while a little movement among the hundred starving souls watching and praying heralded his news. "The answer has come, Elder," announced the soldier briefly. "A full rigged ship has just cleared Manomet headland, and a cloud black with rain is rolling up out of the Southwest." "Let us pray!" said the elder softly; and Standish bowed his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925321 | head with the rest as the holy man, his voice strong and fervent once more, poured out for himself and his people such gratitude as perhaps is only possible from those "appointed to die," and suddenly rescued by the hand of a merciful Father. A few moments later, as the procession wound down the hill, somewhat less formally than it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925322 | had gone up, the southern and western sky were black with clouds already veiling the sun, and within an hour a soft and tender rain began to fall, soaking quietly into the earth gaping all over with the wounds of drought, and reviving, as Bradford quaintly phrased it, both their drooping affections and their withered corn. "The white man's God | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925323 | is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok privately to Wanalancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the maize, and do more harm than good. Wanalancet better turn praying Indian like Hobomok." . THE BRIDES' | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925324 | SHIP. The rain proved as persistent as it was gentle, and under its influence the wind sighed itself asleep, leaving at sunset the ship espied by Hobomok becalmed outside Beach Point. Some of the Pilgrims would have rowed out to her, but Bradford knew from his own feelings how unfit they were for such heavy labor. "A little patience should | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925325 | not be hard for men who have patiently waited so long," said he smiling. "Let us all break our fast with thanksgiving." "One more cup of broth and a bit of the hare," said Priscilla gayly, as she set a little table beside her precious invalid. "And to-morrow I doubt not but I can offer you a posset of white | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925326 | flour and sugar and spice and all sorts of comfortable things. Whatever the ship may be 't is sure to have the making of a posset in her." "Oh Priscilla, dear maid, if it might be,--if I dared think of my two girls"-- The trembling voice gave way, and for a moment Priscilla could not speak. Then she cheerily said,-- | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925327 | "If not themselves there is sure to be news of them, and God is very good. Pr'ythee take the broth." "There then, good child. Now go to thine own supper. Mary is placing it upon the board." Dropping a light kiss upon the face lovingly upturned, Priscilla passed into the outer room where upon the great table standing to-day in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925328 | Pilgrim Hall rested a wooden bowl filled with boiled clams, and beside it a dish of coarse salt and a pewter flagon of water. Only this, no bread, no vegetable, no after course; but at the head of the table stood the elder, his worn face radiant with gratitude, as, uplifting his voice, he gave thanks to God for that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925329 | he and his might "suck of the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand." After midnight a breeze sprung up, but the master of the Anne cautiously waited for the full tide to float him over the many flats then as now obstructing Plymouth Harbor, and it was not until another sunrise that the travel-worn | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925330 | and over-crowded bark folded her patched sails and dropped her anchor not far from the old anchorage ground of the Mayflower. The governor no longer tried to restrain the enthusiasm of his townsmen; in fact, he himself helped to drag up the anchor of the pinnace and make her ready for a visit to the stranger. With him went Jonathan | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925331 | Brewster to see if perchance his sisters might be on board; and Doctor Fuller, and Robert Hicks, and Francis Cooke, and William Palmer, and Master Warren, albeit not fit even for so small an exertion, for every one of these men thought it possible that his wife might be aboard, nor was one of them disappointed, for the Anne, might | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925332 | well have dropped her anchor to the tune of "Sweethearts and Wives," so laden was she with those precious commodities. "Come Captain!" called Bradford as the dory lay ready to transport the last three to the pinnace already under sail. "No," somewhat morosely returned Standish. "I shall only be in the way of other men's rejoicings. There's naught for me | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925333 | aboard that or any other ship that floats. No, I say,--push off, Cooke!" And the captain strode up the hill, and climbed the roof of the Fort to cover and pet his big guns and see that the dampness did them no mischief. Below, Alden helped Priscilla to make ready all the food remaining in the village, for surely the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925334 | new-comer had brought supplies, and the famine was at an end. "If this ship might bring him a wife as perchance it hath to our good surgeon," said John after describing his master's mood. "Ay, but I fear me he'll be hard to suit," replied Priscilla. "Natheless, remember sweetheart, you promised me that so soon as the famine was over | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925335 | and our new house finished"-- "And the captain cheerful as his wont." "Ay, well so soon as all these matters were settled fairly, you promised"-- "Oh sooth, good lad, stand not gaping there and minding me of last winter's snow and last summer's roses! Go and call the captain and the elder to their breakfast while I see to the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925336 | dear mother." But breakfast was hardly over when Mistress Winslow ran across the street to the elder's wife. "Lo you now, dear mother," cried she excitedly. "There are three boats rowing toward the Rock, and in every one of them you may make out women's gear, and who knows but Patience and Fear are of the company. All the men | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925337 | have gone down to the Rock, and I am going." Out she ran again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and the dame softly said,-- "Yes, they have come. I knew it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925338 | in the night. They have come, but Priscilla thou 'rt none the less my dear and duteous daughter. Now get you to the Rock with the rest. I shall be well alone." "Now is Will Bradford well content; now is comedy ready to tread upon the heels of tragedy, and funeral dirges to end in marriage chimes," muttered the captain | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925339 | as he plunged down the steep of Leyden Street, and stood with overcast face and compressed lips watching the boats sweeping merrily up to the landing. In the foremost sat the governor, and close beside him two female figures their backs to the shore. On the next thwart Surgeon Fuller, his whimsical face for once honestly glad, leaned an elbow | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925340 | on his knee and peered up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry John Faunce and become mother of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925341 | last ruling Elder of Plymouth Church. Later on, two more of these fair Carpenter girls were to come over to the home of their sister Alice: Priscilla, who married William Wright, one of the joyous passengers of the Fortune; and Mary, of whom the Chronicles say that she died "a godly old maid" in her sister's home. Pardon the interlude, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925342 | but there is something very fascinating in the story of this family of five beautiful girls so eagerly sought in marriage by the best men of the colony, and of her who was the flower of all and yet died "a godly old maid." The governor's boat was at the Rock, and willing hands on shore caught at the rope | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925343 | thrown from the bows, and dragged her up so that the passengers could step out dry shod. Standish drew back a little, and with folded arms stood watching the debarkation. Last of all came Bradford and the two ladies he had escorted. "So that is Mistress Alice Carpenter Southworth, is it," muttered the soldier grasping a handful of his ruddy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925344 | beard. "Well, it is a winsome dame and a gentle; I wonder not that Will hath"-- But the calm comment ended abruptly in an exclamation of incredulity and pleasure, for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand, Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four or five and twenty years old, with one | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925345 | of those rounded and supple figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow in cheek and lip than its | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925346 | native tone. Little tendrils of sunny brown hair pushed their laughing way from beneath the edge of the hood and curled joyously to the fingers of the toying wind. Straight dark brows and long eyelashes of the same deep tint gave character to the face, and shaded a pair of eyes whose beauty has stamped itself upon every generation of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925347 | this woman's descendants. Large, and peculiarly opened, these eyes were of a clear violet blue, but with pupils whose frequent dilatation gave such range of tint and expression, and such extraordinary brilliancy that many were found to insist that the eyes themselves were black, while others vowed that no such intensity of blue had ever been seen in human orbs | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925348 | before. But neither in the shape, nor the color, nor the brilliancy, nor the pathetic curve of the upper lid, did the wonderful beauty of these eyes abide; it was a fascination, a compelling power in their regard; the power of appeal or of assurance, of love or wrath, of promise or of trust, that dwelt in their depths, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925349 | leaped or stole thence bending to their service the will of all who gazed steadfastly upon them. Weapons more dangerous in a woman's hands than was Gideon the Sword, in the hands of the Captain of Plymouth. As their owner lightly leaping from the gunwale of the boat alighted upon the Rock, these eyes sought and rested merrily upon Myles' | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925350 | wonder-stricken face, while a joyous smile illuminated the features and showed bright and pretty teeth. "Barbara!" exclaimed the captain, leaping down from the hillock where he had so unsympathetically posted himself to observe the landing. "Yes, Barbara," returned a blithe voice. "Come all this way to look after her cousin, who cared not to come so far as the ship | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925351 | to greet her." "But how was I to know thou wert coming, lass? Ever and always at thine old trick of laying me in some blunder! Well, thou 'rt welcome, Bab, welcome as flowers in May." And seizing the round face between his two hands Myles pressed a hearty salute upon either cheek. "And Captain," broke in Bradford's well pleased | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925352 | voice, "let me bring you to the notice of Mistress Southworth, in whose matronly company your cousin has journeyed." A fair and gentle English face, albeit not without a quiet determination in its lines, was turned upon the soldier as Alice Southworth held out her hand saying,-- "And greatly beholden am I to Mistress Standish for her companionship. I know | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925353 | not quite how we could have borne some of our discomfiture had not she cheered and upheld us as she did." "Ay, 't is a way the wench hath of old," replied the captain gayly. "I mind me of a home across the seas where one declared that naught but Barbara's care kept her in life at all. But in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925354 | good sooth, girl, why didst not warn me of thy coming?" "I would fain take thee by surprise, cousin, and methinks I have." "A total, an utter surprise." "We had fared but ill here in the colony had yon sachem surprised thee as effectually, Myles," laughed the governor as the little party climbed The Street, a long procession of jocund | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925355 | men, women, and children streaming after them, the joy of reunion and the flood of loving greetings sweeping away the conventional barriers wherein the Separatists attempted to imprison Nature. "Ah! There are the elder's girls!" said Bradford, as they halted before his gate and looked back upon the busy street. "Yes, Fear and Patience, sweet maids both of them," replied | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925356 | Alice. "And those five merry Warren girls have found their father," said Barbara. "But he looks not over strong." "No," replied the governor sadly. "He hath not grudged both to spend and to be spent for the common weal, and glad am I that his wife hath come to restrain his zeal. But come in, come in, dear friends, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925357 | Mistress Eaton, who cares for me and my house until I can purvey me another housekeeper, will make you welcome." "I would not say nay to some breakfast, nor I think would you, maid Barbara, eh?" laughed Alice, and the governor's face clouded. "I fear me there is but sorry cheer to set before you, dear friends," said he. "Mistress | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925358 | Eaton warned me last night that a few clams were all she had, or could compass, in her larder." "Something was told aboard of a famine in the place," said Barbara quietly, "and I fancied it could do no harm to put some provant left over of my stores into a bag and carry it ashore. If none wanted it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925359 | I could leave it hid, and--but here it is--the bag, Myles?" "What, this sack I have tugged up the hill? All this, provision?" "Ay, for the cook gave me a good bit of boiled beef, and a hen to boot." "Beef!" exclaimed the captain involuntarily, but in a tone of such amazed delight that Barbara's eyes dwelt upon him in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925360 | pity and wonder. "Myles! Thou dost not mean that thou hast been actually a-hungered!" said she. "Oh Alice, they are starving." "Starving!" echoed Alice in the same tone of dismay. "Oh Will!" "Nay, nay, nay!" protested the governor with a somewhat hollow laugh. "We have not feasted of late, perhaps, and the word beef hath a strange sound in our | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925361 | ears, since no meat save a little wild game hath been seen among us for a year or more, but still, thank God, we are well and hearty"-- "Well and hearty!" repeated Alice Southworth. "Look at him, Barbara; look at his cheeks, his temples, look at that hand, all as one with the skeleton in the museum of Leyden. Oh | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925362 | Barbara, to think that we should find them starving after all!" "Better starving than starved," replied Barbara calmly. "And if the governor will give me warrant, and this same Mistress Eaton will lend me her aid, I will soon set forth a table that shall make hungry men's hearts leap within them." "There, Will," exclaimed Alice generously. "That is the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925363 | sort of maid she is, never stopping to lament and wring her hands as silly I do, but ever looking for the way to mend the evil, and finding it, too." Dame Eaton, whom we have known as Lois, maid to Mistress Carver, but now married to Francis Eaton and promoted on her marriage to be the governor's housekeeper, soon | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925364 | made her appearance, and the three women were not long in setting forth a breakfast whereunto the governor invited as many of his neighbors as the table could accommodate, and over which he offered a thanksgiving, glowing with loving gratitude to Him who giveth all. . MARRIAGE BELLS. "And now, Governor, we have to billet all these new-comers as best | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925365 | we may. Six-and-ninety names the captain of the Anne reports on his roster, and that fairly doubles the population of Plymouth. Where shall we bestow them all?" "Why, Captain, you know that many of our men expecting their wives and children have built housen and now will occupy them; and for the rest, I am minded, if you will have | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925366 | me, to impose myself upon you and Alden, and leave mine own house to Mistress Southworth and your cousin. Then, as the elder's daughters now have come, Priscilla Molines, whom my dame knoweth and loveth well, and Mary Chilton and Elizabeth Tilley can all find room here also, and the rest we will dispose of among the other families. Mayhap | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925367 | for a while the young men may sleep at the Fort." "Nay, Governor, we'll have no rantipoles at the Fort meddling and making among the ammunition, and playing tricks with the guns. Alden and you and I and Howland, and some other of the ancients, will swing our hammocks at the Fort if you will, and my house may be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925368 | turned into a billet for the bachelors, until we can help them to knock up housen for themselves." "So be it, comrade, and yet 't is hardly worth while to make great changes or fatigues until"-- "Until?"-- "Until some among us are wed, Myles." "Why, truly yes. I had forgot, and yet I have heard the jingle of marriage bells | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925369 | in thy voice since ever yon ship rounded Manomet. How soon will it be, Will?" "So soon as my dame agreeth," replied Bradford contentedly. "At all odds before the Anne returneth. We have magistrates enow among us, however, for Master Oldham and Master Hatherly both carry the king's patent as justices; and this Master Lyford who cometh in Oldham's train | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925370 | is preacher in the Church of England." "Ha! Say you so, Will? One of the 'hireling priests' of such noisome odour in the nostrils of thy friends of the stricter sort at Leyden!" "Nay, Captain, but you will remember that Pastor Robinson did receive members of England's Church to the Lord's Table, and did counsel us to live in brotherly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925371 | love and communion with them." "And so fell into disfavor with his old friends the Brownists," remarked Standish carelessly. "Well, 't is all one to me, who am no church member, and deny not due respect to the old faith of mine house. And you will be wed anon, Will?" "Ay, and we will have your Barbara to stay with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925372 | us until she finds another home, if you and she consent. Dame Alice loves her passing well." "'T is a good wench and a comfortable one," replied Standish well pleased. "Had Rose lived, or had Priscilla said me yea, I had taken Barbara under mine own roof; but now I must wait until she makes her choice of the swains | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925373 | that soon will come a-wooing, and then she and her husband shall come to me." "Ay," returned Bradford musingly, and checking upon his lips the smile that danced in his eyes. "Thy plans are ever wisely laid, Myles." Turning into his own house Bradford found Alice with her wimple and scarf on just about to leave it. "Whither away, mistress?" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925374 | asked he gayly. "Only to breathe a mouthful of fresh air, Master Governor. I have been so long ashipboard that four walls seem a prison to me. Mayhap I'll take passage back again with good Master Pierce." "Mayhap thou 'lt do naught of the sort. I have thee now, and I'll not let thee go, as I did sometime in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925375 | Leyden." "Thou didst anger me sore, Will, when thou 'dst not close with that good man's offer of half his business, though it was but a merchant's. And my father crying up Edward Southworth"-- "Nay, Alice, we'll not go pulling open old wounds to see if they be healed. I would not, I could not do violence to my English | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925376 | name and blood and become a Dutch trader though it were to gain thy hand, nor did I think thou wouldst in thine anger go so far--but there, sweetheart, we'll say no more on 't, now or ever. God has been exceeding gracious in bringing us once more together, and we will not be ungrateful. Thy boys shall find a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925377 | father in me, Alice, and should Elder May give me again my little John"-- "Nay, the boy is well with his grandsire in Leyden, and my Constant and Thomas must abide with their father's folk for a while. They would not part from me unless I left the boys for a year or two." "And still thou wouldst come, Alice." | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925378 | "Dost mind what words Ruth said to Naomi, Will?" "Truly do I, Alice." And as the two long-parted lovers looked deep into each other's eyes there needed no further speech to show that the long winter was over and the time of the singing of birds had come. Two weeks from the arrival of the Anne all Plymouth put on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925379 | festal gear and merry faces. Good cheer abounded in place of famine, for the new-comers were well stored with provision, and although this was not turned into the common stock, those who had promising crops--and since the Fast Day there had been no stint of rain, and the corn promised marvelously well--could always obtain dry provisions for the promise of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925380 | a share in the green meat when it should be gathered. And fitting it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925381 | Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the Fortune's pilgrims and brother of Edward and Gilbert. Finally John Howland so strongly pleaded his cause before the elder and his wife that they consented to give him Elizabeth Tilley to wife, young though she was, and to allow him to take her to the pretty cottage he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925382 | had built upon The Street, next to Stephen Hopkins's substantial house on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway. John Alden also had built a cottage between the captain's house and the governor's; and Eaton with his wife Lois was to share a house with Peter Browne, who had manfully assumed the charge of Widow Martha Ford and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925383 | her three children. Christian Penn, a stalwart lass, passenger of the Anne, was to make one of the governor's family, and literally to be "help" to his wife in the duties of the household, while Mary Becket consented to fill the same place in Edward Winslow's home. Barbara, cordially invited both by Alice Southworth and by Priscilla to become their | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925384 | perpetual guest, laughingly accepted both invitations, saying to Priscilla,-- "When I find too much pepper in thy soup, Pris, I'll e'en go cool my tongue with Dame Alice's comfitures; and when I fancy one new-wed pair were as content without me, I'll e'en go and inflict myself upon t' other." "And the captain will keep house with only Hobomok," said | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925385 | Priscilla dubiously. "Nay, Kit Conant is to 'bide with them, and do certain service, and I shall still be in and out," said Barbara briskly. "Like enough the most they eat will be of my brewing. We shall do well enow for the captain. But, Priscilla, what ailed thee not to wed him, since his comfort sits so nigh thy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925386 | heart?" "Why, 't is but Christian to pity them who are in need, yet none can wed with more than one man at a time, and from the first I knew that John Alden was the one for me. Wed him thyself, Barbara, and send Kit Conant about his business." A sudden color surged all over Barbara's face, and the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925387 | wonderful eyes shot out an angry spark, but after a moment she quietly said,-- "Myles and I have ever been more like brother and sister than cousins. His mother was all as one with mine own." "Ay, and so it is. Yes, yes, I see," said Priscilla hurriedly, but when Barbara had left her she stood for many minutes drumming | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925388 | on the table, and thoughtfully gazing through the open door at the blue wonder of the sea. And now the wedding day had come, a glorious golden summer day, and some of the older folk, whose habits of early life held rigidly to the soil since planted anew to a Separatist crop, remembered that it was Lammas Day. One of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925389 | these was Elizabeth, Master Warren's new-come wife, and as she looked abroad in the early morning, she sighed a bit and said,-- "A year agone, Richard, I looked upon another guess sort of scene than this. The church bells were ringing and the people trooping in, and many was the goodwife who brought her loaf baked of the first-fruit wheat | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925390 | to offer it for the parson's table if not for the Communion"-- "Nay wife, nay, remember Lot's wife," chided the husband, already so far upon his way to that abode of Light where shall be no Separatism and no uncharity. As all the world would fain be present at one or the other of the four marriages, it was concluded | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925391 | that they should be held in the open air, and the captain with much enthusiasm directed the spreading of an open tent, or, more properly, a canopy upon the greensward stretching across the King's Highway from Bradford's house to Hopkins's. This completed, and the military band paraded ready to salute the governor upon his arrival, Standish stood aside, wiping his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925392 | brow, and looking jovially about him at the tables already spread with the wedding feast, which was thriftily to take the place of the villagers' ordinary dinner. "A cheerful and a refreshing season, Captain," said a staid voice at his elbow. "Ay," replied Standish briefly and with something of the good-humor gone from his face, for he had no great | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925393 | love for Isaac Allerton, Assistant of the Governor, and one of the principal men of the colony, though he was. "Methinks you and I might be principals instead of spectators at some such solemnity, and offend no law of God or man." "I know no law against your being wed if it pleases you, Master Allerton," replied the soldier briefly. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925394 | "No--no, as you justly say, no law, Captain, and truth to tell I had it in my mind to speak to you this morning"-- "To me, to me!" exclaimed the captain, wheeling round and staring at the smooth face and narrow figure of the assistant. "Dost fancy that I am a pretty maid hid within a buff jerkin?" "Ha! ha! | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925395 | Our good captain still must have his joke. Nay then, in sober earnest my dear brother, your cousin, Mistress Barbara Standish, doth much commend herself to my mind as a discreet and godly maiden, notable in household ways, and of a mild and biddable nature. I fain would have her to wife, Standish, if I may do so with your | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925396 | consent." "Nay now, Master Allerton, your eyes are keener after a good chance for trucking than ever a pair in the colony, and I'm not saying that the governor could find a better assistant in his weighty affairs of State, but you've no more eye for a gentlewoman's good qualities than I have for a peddler's. 'Mild and biddable,' forsooth! | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925397 | Those virtues were left out when they brewed the Standish blood, Master Allerton, and courage and honor and some other trifles thrown in to make amends. Why man, should you wed Barbara Standish and raise a hand upon her as I've seen you do upon your daughters, woman-grown, I'd not answer but she'd have your life's blood for it; and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925398 | if you bade her stint the measure of the corn she sold to your neighbors, she'd quit your roof and you, before you could say whiskerando! No, no, Master Allerton, best not try to mate yourself with a Standish. No luck would come on 't I promise you." "Methinks, Captain Standish," replied the councilor smoothly, although his pale face had | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012925399 | taken a livid cast harmonizing with a green light in his narrow eyes,--"methinks you take over much upon yourself in this our land of liberty and God-given rights. Why should you decide so absolutely for Mistress Standish? Why may not she speak her own mind. She at least has no narrow and ignorant prejudice against me, unless indeed you have | 60 | gutenberg |
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