Part 11

“After being equipped with light armor, we took each an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy leave their barricade. They were about two hundred men, of strong and robust appearance, who were coming slowly toward us with a gravity and assurance which greatly pleased me, led on by three chiefs. Ours were marching in similar order, and told me that those who wore three tall feathers were the chiefs, and that I must do all I could to kill them.

“The moment we landed, our Indians began calling me with a loud voice, and making way, placed me marching at their head--about twenty paces in advance--until I was within thirty paces of the enemy. The moment they [the Iroquois] saw me, they halted, gazing at me and I at them. When I saw them preparing to shoot at us I raised my arquebus, and aiming directly at one of the three chiefs, two of them fell to the ground by this shot, and one of their companions received a wound of which he died afterwards. I had put four balls in my arquebus. Our Indians, on witnessing a shot so favorable for them, set up such tremendous shouts that thunder could not have been heard, and yet there was no lack of arrows on either side.

“The Iroquois were greatly astonished, seeing two men killed at once, though they were protected by arrow-proof armor, woven of cotton thread and wood, this frightened them very much. While I was reloading one of my [white] men in the bush fired a shot which so astonished them anew that they lost courage, took to flight, and abandoned the field and their fort, hiding in the depths of the forest where I followed them and killed some others. Our savages also killed several of them, and took ten or twelve prisoners. The rest carried off the wounded. Fifteen or sixteen of ours were wounded by arrows; they were promptly cured.

“After gaining the victory, they amused themselves plundering Indian corn and meal from the enemy, also the arms which the Iroquois had thrown away in order to run faster. After feasting, dancing and singing, we returned three hours later with the prisoners.

“I named the place where this battle was fought _Lake Champlain._”

“The White Governor” went on to tell about the devilish delight his friends, the St. Lawrence Indians, took in torturing their Iroquois prisoners. The braves, and even the squaws, would try to think of something to do that would make the dying Indians’ sufferings still more terrible. If the victim cried out or uttered the least sound, the torturing Indians would laugh and dance about for joy. Champlain begged his friends to stop this fiendish sport, but they could not understand why. The Iroquois would have tortured them just as wickedly if they had won. So “the White Governor” shot several of the suffering victims to put them out of their agonies. After that, when the St. Lawrence Indians gained a victory, Champlain would demand as many prisoners as he could for his share. These he would not allow to be tortured, and, in time, would contrive to let them escape.

By being friends with the neighboring tribes in war, Champlain made bitter enemies of the Iroquois who lived in New York, so that in the later wars between France and England those powerful tribes fought with the English against the French, and in the end helped to place New France in the hands of the British.

Champlain’s sympathetic and romantic nature made him a welcome visitor, whether in the wigwams of the savages or in the palaces of the kings and noblemen of France. He did all he could to help the people of Old France and New to understand one another. He sent a young Frenchman up into the country some distance north of Montreal to live among the savages. After this youth had spent the winter in the north, he came back to the St. Lawrence with glowing stories about the finding of a “salt sea” much farther north. He was taken to France and became the lion of the day there, for explorers from all lands were still looking for a northwest passage across America to “the South Sea” and China. Just about this time Henry Hudson had discovered the Hudson River and was lost in Hudson Bay in his search for this passage; but this was not yet known in Europe.

So Champlain, with his strong desire to explore and to prove a great benefit to mankind, arranged to command an expedition into the far northern wilds and make his young friend’s boasted discovery of actual use to Old and New France. With the young explorer and an Indian guide, the Governor and a company of men reached the lake and island belonging to the tribe with which the young Frenchman had stayed. In talking with those Indians about the great discovery, Champlain spoke with pride of his young friend’s energy and success. They laughed and told him he had been fooled, for that young man had never gone farther north than the island on which they were standing!

This was a bitter experience for the good “White Governor.”

The Indians, who had told him before that there was no salt sea anywhere near that region, taunted Champlain with,

“Now who were your friends? Don’t you see that he wanted to cause your death? Give him to us and we promise you he shall never lie again.”

Champlain knew too well that with the savages’ hatred of a liar and their cruel modes of punishment they would have tortured that young Frenchman to death. Of course, the kind-hearted governor could not permit this. But he did make the fellow stand before all the Frenchmen at Montreal and confess that he had been guilty of lying and committing

a great fraud. After that, as Champlain himself expressed it, “We left him to the mercy of God.”

At last, Sieur de Champlain brought his young wife to Canada. Her brother, who had been a settler on the St. Lawrence for years, exclaimed when he met her, “You are a brave girl to come here!” The Indians, always glad to welcome the great white chief, were now doubly glad to see his young “squaw”! They greatly admired “the little white witch,” as they called her, and would have worshiped her if she had let them. She wore a small mirror--the fashion in Paris then--as a sort of charm. When she allowed the Indians to see their painted faces in this, they said, “She carries each one of us in her heart!” She used her good influence over her dusky admirers to persuade them to be baptized. Of a very devout spirit, Madame de Champlain returned to France after a short stay in the western wilds, and entered a convent in Paris.

Once more England and France were at war, and King Charles the First looked with jealous eyes upon the fair islands and settlements of the St. Lawrence. English warships appeared before Quebec, claimed possession, and threatened to take that place. “The White Governor” wrote back, with French courtesy, to the impudent enemy:

“We will await you from hour to hour and shall endeavor if possible to dispute the claim which you have made over these places. Upon which I remain, Sir, your affectionate servant,”

The English commander did not dare dispute the claim then, but he came again with a powerful force and “the White Governor” was forced to yield and go back to France. But at the end of the war, England returned Canada to France, and the Father of New France came again to Quebec, his capital, amid the rejoicings of all the people, both French and Indians, and even of “our friends our enemies,” the English. Here he lived like another French knight, “without fear and without reproach,” until he received the call of the King of kings in the Far Country, on Christmas Day, 1635.

MYLES STANDISH, THE BRAVE LITTLE CAPTAIN OF PLYMOUTH

Little is known of the life of Myles Standish before he sailed from Holland among the hundred and two passengers of the _Mayflower_ on its way across the stormy ocean to the wilderness of America. The brave men and women who had been driven out of England, on account of their religion, by foolish King James, had made their escape to Holland. Although the Dutch who lived in that country were very kind to them, the English people decided to go to America where they could live and worship as they wished and teach their children their own language and ways of living; for, though their king was silly and mean, they still loved dear Old England.

The _Mayflower_ was a poor, clumsy, leaky craft about the size of a coastwise schooner, which would not be allowed to risk a voyage across the ocean to-day. The Pilgrims, as the _Mayflower_ passengers were called, did not know just where to land. The part of America to which they had chosen to go was called Virginia, but that was the name of the country all along the eastern coast, from the South nearly to New York harbor, which had been claimed by the Dutch only a few years before. The Pilgrims had a vague idea of landing about halfway between New York and Jamestown, which had been settled some years before by John Smith and a company of men from England. But storm after storm drove the _Mayflower_ farther and farther northward, till the Pilgrims found themselves just within the long, protecting arm of land called Cape Cod.

They were very tired of being huddled together and pitched about in the little ship. Many of them were ill from the close quarters, as well as from terrible seasickness. During the long voyage they had had nothing but mouldy bread and salt pork to eat, for there were no canned meats, vegetables, and fruits in the fall of 1620, when the Pilgrims made their long voyage across the sea.

The first thing they did was to go ashore near the end of Cape Cod, where the Pilgrim Mothers did their much-needed washing. The Cape was a long, low, sandy arm of land extending far out to sea. The ship’s carpenter worked to finish the shallop, or small sailboat, which he had started to build during the voyage. It was intended for the purpose of sailing in shallow water to find a good place to live, where there were trees for shelter and springs of water and, if possible, a good, safe harbor in which the _Mayflower_ and all coming ships might stay at anchor.

The Pilgrims held a meeting in the cabin of the _Mayflower_ and signed a paper which they called “The Compact,” by which they agreed to live and be governed. They elected John Carver, the oldest man in the company, governor. Although they are called “The Pilgrim Fathers,” they were nearly all young or middle-aged men. Elder Brewster, the minister, was about forty years old, and Myles Standish was thirty-six. William Bradford, who wrote the story of the settlement in his diary, and John Alden, the cooper, were still younger.

The Pilgrims chose twenty of their number to go along the shore of Cape Cod toward the mainland to find a place to build their cabins and spend the winter, for it was late in November and very cold. While waiting for the shallop to be finished, this Pilgrim “Lookout Committee,” led by Myles Standish, started out afoot on their great search, not knowing what might happen to them. Captain John Smith had explored that part of the country after he lived two years at Jamestown, Virginia; he had made a map of all that region which he named New England. The men went ashore from the _Mayflower_ and had walked along the Cape a mile or more when they saw a party of Indians with a dog coming toward them. When the red men saw the white strangers they hid in the bushes and whistled to their dog, which followed them out of sight. Myles Standish and his men tried to catch up with the Indians and speak with them, but they were afraid of the strangers who wore helmets and armor over their bodies and thighs, and carried “fire-sticks,” as the Indians called the guns.

The Pilgrims followed the natives about ten miles without seeing them again. Then they built a hasty camp of logs and brush in which eighteen men slept while three stood on guard outside. Nothing happened that night to disturb them.

Next day they saw wild ducks and deer and discovered a kettle and some fresh mounds of earth, “which,” William Bradford wrote in his diary, “we digged up, and found a fine, great, new basket, full of very fair corn of this year, with some six and thirty goodly ears of corn, some yellow, and some red, and other mixed with blue. The basket was round and narrow at the top. It held about three or four bushels, which was as much as two of us could lift up from the ground, and was very handsomely and cunningly made. But, whilst we were busy about all these things, we were in suspense what to do with it, and at length, after much talk, we concluded to take as much corn as we could carry away with us; and when our shallop came, if we could find any of the people, we would satisfy [pay] them for their corn. The rest we buried again; for we were so laden with armor that we could carry no more.”

As they walked slowly on, noting all the strange things they met, they found a deer trap. One of their number wrote down afterward just what happened at this point: “As we wandered we came to a tree where a young sapling was bowed [bent] down over a bow and some acorns strewed underneath. Stephen Hopkins said it had been to catch some deer. So as we were looking at it, William Bradford, being in the rear, when he came and went about, it gave a sudden jerk up and he was caught by the leg. It [the deer trap] was a pretty device, made with a rope of their own making and having a noose as well made as any ropemaker in England can make.” Even those solemn Pilgrims had to laugh to see Brother Bradford with one foot up in the air and his head on the ground!

The men returned to the ship and reported what they had seen. When the shallop was completed they sailed away in that, and went farther on little voyages of discovery; but Cape Cod is a long peninsula, and they went back and forth several times between the land and their ship, which remained at anchor near the end of the Cape.

One time they came back from their site-hunting and found that another Pilgrim had been born in the _Mayflower_. This baby (William White was its father) was the first white child born in this part of America. They named the baby Peregrinus, the Latin word for Pilgrim; so he was called Peregrine White.

There was a mischievous small boy in the _Mayflower_--“that Billington boy,” the Pilgrims called him--who found some gunpowder and proceeded to make trails of it on the deck, then touched a live coal to it and made it flash up. So young Francis Billington made the first fireworks in New England. He also shot off a musket. There were two kinds of musket; one called the matchlock, lighted by punk or “slow match” (there were no friction matches for two hundred years after that); and the other kind called the snaphance, or flintlock. While playing with fire, “that Billington boy” flashed a line of powder which ran back to the kegs of gunpowder and came very near blowing up the _Mayflower_ and all on board!

Another time the home hunters had had a hard day, and, being tired and hungry, made their camp and went to rest after placing men on guard. Bradford wrote in his journal:

“About midnight we heard a great and hideous cry; and our sentinels called, ‘Arm, arm!’ So we bestirred ourselves, and shot off a couple of muskets, and the noise ceased. We concluded that it was a company of wolves or other wild beasts, for one told us he had heard such a noise in Newfoundland.

“About five in the morning we began to be stirring; and two or three [men who] doubted whether their pieces would go off or no, made trial of them, and shot them off, but thought nothing at all. After prayer we prepared ourselves for breakfast, and for a journey; and, it being now twilight in the morning, it was thought meet [best] to carry the things down to the shallop.

“Anon, all of a sudden, we heard a great and strange cry, which we knew to be the same voices, though they varied their notes. One of the company came running in and cried, ‘They are men! Indians! Indians!’ and withal their arrows came flying amongst us.

“Our men ran with all speed to recover their arms, as by the good Providence of God they did. In the meantime, Captain Myles Standish, having a snaphance ready, made a shot; and after him another. After they two had shot, other two of us were ready, but he wished us not to shoot till we could take aim, for we knew not what need we should have; and there were four only of us which had their arms there ready.

“Our care was no less for the shallop; but we hoped all the rest would defend it. We called unto them to know how it was with them; and they answered, ‘Well, well!’ everyone; and, ‘Be of good courage!’ We heard three of their pieces go off; and the rest called for a firebrand to light their [punk] matches [for their matchlock muskets]. One took a log of the fire on his shoulder, and went and carried it unto them. The cry of our enemies was dreadful, especially when our men ran out to recover their arms. Their note was after this manner, ‘Woach! woach! ha ha hach woach!’”

This “hideous and great cry” was the first Indian warwhoop the Pilgrims ever heard. It must have curdled the blood of those quaint old Puritans who had never heard a modern college yell! The white men’s matchlocks and snaphances seem to have scared the Indians even more than their warwhoop and arrows--tipped with brass, buckhorn, and eagles’ claws--frightened the white men. So the red men ran away and lived to fight another day.

The Indians who first fought with the Pilgrims proved to be the Nausets, an unfriendly tribe living on Cape Cod. The white men named this place, “The First Encounter.” The Lookout Committee went on after this until they reached the main land and soon found the site they had been searching for so long. Bradford’s diary contains the record:

“On the Sabbath day we rested; and on Monday we sounded the harbor, and found it a very good harbor for shipping. We marched also into the land and found divers cornfields and little running brooks--a place very good for situation. So we returned to our ship [_Mayflower_] again with good news to the rest of our people, which did much comfort their hearts.”

Though Bradford did not then think it worth mentioning, there was a big boulder in the edge of the harbor upon which these men sprang out of the shallop. This happened on the 21st of December, 1620, and is known as the Landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. December 21st is celebrated now, more than three hundred years after that event, as Forefathers’ Day. This place was marked Plymouth on Captain John Smith’s map of New England, and the Pilgrims, who had sailed from Plymouth, England, were glad to give their new-found settlement that name.

Four days after this landing, the _Mayflower_ sailed from the end of Cape Cod and came to anchor in Plymouth harbor. The first thing the Pilgrims did was to build a common house of logs to be used later as a sort of town hall. Then they erected a square cabin on top of the hill for both church and fort. On its flat roof they mounted three brass cannon. Christmas Day came while they were building their first cabin, but they worked all that day, for they were too strict even to celebrate Christmas. While they were building their village of log cabins with thatched roofs, some of them stayed in their quarters on the _Mayflower_.

It seemed a long time before they saw Indians again. But one day while the grave and reverend Pilgrims were holding a council in their common house, a tall red man came stalking up to their door, saying: “Welcome, Yankees! Welcome, Yankees!” “Yankees” was the nearest the Indian could pronounce “Englishmen”! From this, the people of New England are still called Yankees.

This Indian’s name was Samoset. He had learned a little English from some fishermen farther north on the New England coast. He came again to Plymouth bringing another red man named Squanto, who, years before, had been carried away with other savages by an English captain and sold into slavery. Squanto had been taken to London and learned to speak English. He was glad to stay with the Pilgrims and talk for them to the tribes around Plymouth, for while he was away a slave in foreign lands, his own people had been taken with a dreadful disease called a plague, and when he came back they had all died, and poor Squanto was left alone in the world.

The Pilgrims elected Myles Standish, who was the only soldier in the company, their captain. But about the first work Captain Standish had to do was to take care of the sick, and he did so, according to the poet Longfellow, “With a hand as gentle as woman’s.”

In the spring there were only fifty-one of the Pilgrims--just one-half the number that had landed on Plymouth Rock. Among the first to die was Rose Standish, the Captain’s beautiful wife. Although they were not attacked that winter, they knew the Indians were lurking about, so the Pilgrims did not make mounds of the graves in their poor little burial ground on the hill for fear the savages would see how few white men were left, and attack them while they were all so ill. At one time only two men were well enough to nurse all the rest and bury them as fast as they died.

In April the men were well enough to plant corn and do other work. It was so hot that Governor Carver, the oldest of all the Pilgrims, was prostrated by the heat and died. William Bradford was elected Governor in his place.

When the Pilgrims had erected cabins enough to house all who were left of them, they built a stockade, or wall of upright logs, around the settlement. In April, 1621, the _Mayflower_ started back to England. Much as they had suffered through the long, dreary winter, none of the Pilgrims wished to return home on their little ship. That plucky band of men and women had come to America to stay.

They marched to their church-fort on the hill every Sunday, led by their governor, minister, and captain. The men carried their muskets to be ready to defend themselves if the Indians tried to surprise them while at their worship. The Pilgrims believed in watching and fighting as well as praying.

After a long time, Massasoit, the great Indian chief, came with a company of his braves to see the Pilgrims, and the white men and the red made a treaty of peace and friendship. Afterwards the chief of a more distant tribe sent an Indian runner to Plymouth with a bundle of arrows tied together with a rattlesnake skin. Captain Standish promptly filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and sent it back. This frightened the Indians, for they thought the white “medicine man” had the power to send a plague among them which would make them all sicken and die.

After a time the people of Plymouth were comfortable and at peace with their Indian neighbors. Then a lad known as “that Billington boy” disobeyed the rules by going outside the limits and was lost. The settlers were alarmed, and Captain Standish took a small company of men and made a search for the lad. They found him with the unfriendly Nausets, the Indians they had fought with at “The First Encounter.”