Soldier Rigdale: How He Sailed in the Mayflower and How He Served Miles Standish

"Oh, Miles," laughed Constance Hopkins, who, standing at the rude table, was scouring the biggest kettle, "you have sung that half a score of times. Is there no other song you k...

"'Tis the forty and third time you've said that in the last sennight," Ned Lister answered dryly. He was lounging in the cabin door, shirt-sleeved and shivering, while Goodwife...

THE fields of New Plymouth at last were sown,--twenty acres of Indian corn and six of English seed, wheat, barley, and pease,--enough to yield an ample harvest. There was beside...

SAMOSET proved as good as his word. The very next morning, for all it was Sunday, back he came, and with him five other tall Indians, who were even more wonderful fellows than h...

EVEN Mistress Hopkins must at last somewhat overcome her fear of the savages, else her life would have been miserable beyond endurance. For Massasoit having plainly made the tre...

ACROSS the brook the woods spread away to westward and to southward,--majestic oak trees, lulling pines, pale birches, besides the walnut and beech trees, and a host of others,...

ONE sharp December afternoon, a week and a day after the Pilgrim leaders went forth the third time to seek a place for settlement, Love Brewster and his little brother Wrestling...

CAPTAIN STANDISH must have spoken to Master Hopkins of other matter than wounded Indians, for, to his surprise, Miles got no whipping next morning. "Since the Captain needed you...

WITH the approach of sunset, the wind that all day had ruffled the waves to white edges died down, till there was left on the water only a long, heaving motion, that rudely sway...

A LITTLE daylight works a mighty change in the look of things. When in the morning Miles rose at length from the stupor of sleep into which he had fallen, the sky was clouded fi...

AT first Miles found a jarring unfitness in everyday life. Only eight and forty hours before, they had buried his father on the bluff overlooking the harbor; they had read no pr...

"TO be sure, though, I was not weeping," Miles declared to Constance, who came out from the house to see why he tarried so long at the woodpile, "for I never even thought on goi...

THE sun had dropped behind Fort Hill, and long shadows darkened the soft sand of the street, when Miles at last ventured into the settlement. All the hot day he had lain hidden...

EASTWARD of Nauset, unchecked by headlands, as was Plymouth Harbor, but sweeping away into the very sky line, lay the ocean. The tide was now rolling in; far out at sea the wate...

IN the great cabin two huge, smoky lanterns, that swayed from the beams overhead, cast blending white circles in the middle space, while the corners still remained dusky. Somewh...

LYING upon his own bed, whither Master Hopkins had carried him, Miles harked to the rattle of eager drumsticks in the street, the hurried rush of footsteps, the shrill calls of...

AT last the shallop had put off from the Nauset shore. The babel of clamorous Indians sank down, and, in its stead, sounded the thud of muskets laid by and the clatter of sweeps...

BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was sheepish and awkward under open petting....

MILES was not fated, however, to learn by experience how it felt to be tied neck and heels; for all his double sin of abetting a duel and running away from the settlement, he su...

TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in the sick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, or take thought for anything save his own misery....

ALL that night the rain fell steadily; harking to its slow patter on the roof, Miles thought on those who were tramping the forest, and wondered how they fared. Ned, stretched b...

IT does not become an Englishman to make a weak showing before unclad savages; so presently Miles swallowed the sob that was fighting a way up his throat, mastered the other sha...

GOODMAN RIGDALE had died that day at noon; he had seemed sure of recovery, but there came a sudden change, and, with the ebbing of the tide, his life went out. So much they made...