CHAPTER XII

THE SOWING OF THE FIELDS

"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 going back to England."

He little guessed that, at one time, the leaders of the colony had spoken seriously of returning Dolly and himself to the home-country. But Master Hopkins had urged that, in such case, the children might be drawn back into the faith of the Church of England, from which their father had sought to snatch them; and Elder Brewster had added that it was a weary journey for such little folk, and no prospect at the end save of hard fare among grudging kindred.

John Rigdale left no near relatives; and his distant cousins, to whom the children would have to go, were poor tenant-farmers, just as he had been, who would find it burdensome to feed two more mouths. For Miles and Dolly, not only would childhood prove hard and laborious, but there would be nothing better to look forward to; as the boy grew to manhood, he could hope only to toil for daily hire on some farmer's land. "Unless he fling away his soul's welfare by going as a mercenary in some iniquitous foreign war," said Master Isaac Allerton; whereat Captain Standish smiled a little behind his beard, but made no answer.

But here in New Plymouth, though Miles would have plenty of work to do, he would have, as his inheritance from his father, a claim to a share of land and of whatever cattle or other property the settlers should hereafter hold in common. By the time he was a man, there would be enough for him to have a small farm of his own, where he could live in more comfort than he would have known in England; and, till he was grown, Master Hopkins was willing to feed and shelter him, in return for what labor he could do.

As for Dolly, her case was simple enough, for if Miles stayed, she stayed; and Mistress Brewster was quite determined that the little girl should stay in no house but hers. So the _Mayflower_ sailed away, and Miles Rigdale, with his little household, remained behind; and he never dreamed that people had thought of continuing the colony without his aid.

The boy had some cause to rate his services highly, for, in the weakened condition of the settlement, every atom of strength had to be used, and tasks were set for him as seriously as for burly Edward Dotey. The full working-force of New Plymouth mustered but twenty-two men,--counting in the venerable Elder, the Governor, and the Doctor, who all labored with their hands as readily as the rest,--and nine boys--some half-grown fellows, like Giles and Bart Allerton, who, at a pinch, could bear a musket and do almost a man's work, and some small rascals, like Miles himself, who, with the best intentions, did not always, for lack of strength or of wisdom, accomplish what was bidden them.

But, old or young, laggard or brisk, every male member of the colony was expected to turn out now and bear a hand, for the mid-April season approached, and the precious corn, that was to feed the settlement, must be planted. To the elders, it looked like a stretch of hard work, but Miles hailed it joyously, as a dignified, manly labor.

It began excitingly, with the coming of the alewives up the river, just as Squanto had foretold; and straightway some of the men set to taking them with seines, while others with hoes scored up the rough soil of the cleared fields to the north, that once had been the planting land of the Indians of Patuxet. Still others got out the corn, a precious supply of seed which they had found buried in an Indian basket under the sand of Cape Cod, and had made bold to take against this sowing time.

For the present, Miles's part was only to splash about at the river brink, where he fancied he was hauling at the seines, or to carry a bucket of water to the workers in the field, or bring a stouter hoe from the storehouse. Planting was no labor, just sport, he went to assure Dolly, at the end of the first twelve hours.

He tried to see his little sister once each day, but this time the work had been kept up so late that it was past twilight before he could run across the street to Elder Brewster's cottage. A lingering warmth was in the evening air, so Dolly and tall Priscilla Mullins, their faces dim in the candlelight that shone from within the living room behind them, were sitting on the doorstone. Some one else stood leaning against the doorpost, some one with a deep voice, who called Miles by name.

"Is it you, John Alden?" the boy asked, and, because Alden was the Captain's friend, would have talked to him, had not Dolly, saying she had a great secret to tell him, dragged him away, round the corner of the cottage.

"Now guess what 'tis, Miles," she bade, as they halted in the ray of light that streamed from the house-window beside them.

"I cannot guess, Dolly. Be not so childish."

"I'd give you three guesses. 'Tis something Love and I found in the woods, up beyond the spring, on a southern hillside. 'Twas so far I was near afraid, but I am glad I went. We were playing in the dead leaves, and we found these. Look on them."

She drew her hand from her small bodice, with three wilted pink flowers clenched tightly in it. They were small flowers, of a star-shaped form and a rare, deep pink color, but Miles scarcely heeded color or size in his enjoyment of their sweet, spicy smell. They were unlike any blossom he had ever seen, so he was not ashamed to show his interest, even if a flower was a girlish trifle. "You and Love found them, Dolly? And no one else knows?"

"'Tis a secret," Dolly nodded. "We told only Wrestling and Priscilla and Mistress Brewster. Ay, and the Elder too, because Mistress Brewster said perchance he might know what flower it was, he is so wise. And John Alden, Priscilla told him. And Love told Harry Samson and Milly Cooper--"

"It's a mighty great secret when all the colony knows it," Miles said sarcastically, and then, at Dolly's hurt look, was sorry; so he added, "but I'm glad to know't, Dolly, and I'll go seek for some myself."

"There are buds yonder on the hillside, but no blossoms. Maybe, though, we could find some, if we went and searched. Priscilla wishes to get some too. Oh, Miles, could we not all three go to-morrow?"

"I must work," Miles answered proudly. "I'm not a child or a girl, so I cannot stop to play."

Yet he was child enough to think he should like to go get a handful of those rare, pretty flowers. After he got them, he would not greatly care for them, but there would be the zest of owning something that every boy in the colony did not own; and if he gave the flowers to Dolly or to Constance, it would please them, since they were girls. So, before dawn next morning, Miles tumbled out of bed, and, taking in his hand the hunch of bread that formed his breakfast, ran away up beyond the spring. Perhaps before work-time he could find a blossom or two, he thought; and so grubbed hopefully among the damp, dead leaves of the hillslope.

The mist that precedes the sunrise melted from the air; a bird sang faintly in the distance; and even amidst the undergrowth the light grew yellow and cheerful; work-time was near, and Miles had found only a poor half-dozen blossoms. He hated to give over, but there was no help for it; so, getting slowly to his feet, he was starting down the path to the settlement, when a man crashed out through the bushes on his left. It was John Alden, Miles saw at once, and he carried a great handful of the pink flowers.

That was palpably an unfair arrangement, Miles held, so, as he fell into step at Alden's side, he queried: "You did not come hither and strip our place, did you?"

"Whose place, lad?"

"Why, mine and Dolly's and Priscilla's and--"

"Do you think I should dare plunder the holding of so many proprietors? I have been to northward."

Miles was silenced a moment, then insinuated, "John Alden, what do you want of posies? You're a man."

"Well, what do _you_ want of them, Miles?" John smiled down at him.

"I'm going to give mine away; I'm taking them to the Elder's cottage--"

"Give them away there, eh? To Mistress Mullins, now, perhaps?"

"No, to be sure," Miles said indignantly. "I do not like Priscilla Mullins."

"Then you are the only one of that mind in New Plymouth. Why do you not like her?"

Miles went in silence a time, kicking at each hump and hummock in his path, but Alden was waiting for his answer, and he wished to please him. "Well, if you must know, John Alden," he broke out at last, "I do not like Priscilla Mullins because she kissed me."

Alden began to laugh, then, suddenly picking Miles up by the back of his doublet, shook him a little. "Miles Rigdale," he said solemnly, as he set the boy, rather breathless, on his feet again, "you are an ungrateful little cub."

Miles held that a most uncalled-for charge, but he had no time to defend himself, for just then they came over the brow of the hill by Cooke's cottage and saw men astir in the street, so the day's labor must be beginning. Miles ran to join Francis and Jack, and, in bragging to his comrades of his flowers, forgot to take them to Dolly. That night, when he stopped to have a word with her, he told her all about them, but he found that she was not interested in a story of six blossoms, seeing that Priscilla Mullins, since the morning, had had a fair large bunch of them, such as no one else in the settlement could show.

But in the days that followed Miles had little time to go seeking flowers on the hillslopes, or gossiping with his sister in the twilight. For, with never a minute of daylight to rest, the whole colony worked now in good earnest,--taking alewives in the brook, tugging them up into the fields, setting the little hills with corn seed and with fish to keep it moist. To crown all, the planting fell in a season of heat, and an intense heat, unlike the milder warmth of England, that sapped the heart of the stoutest worker.

The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn, putting two shiny alewives into each hole, and Jack Cooke was set to plant the row next him. But unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently realized, in some horror, that he had supplied several hills with alewives, but no corn, and, while he was pulling up the ground to set the matter right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not that he blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and, saying he could not be trusted at such important work, sent him down to the shore to labor hereafter.

From that time on, Miles tugged fish,--a dreary task, in which he was coupled with Francis Billington, another scatter-head. They had a great flat Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives, taken all slippery from the big pile that lay upon the river brink; then they would lift the basket between them, to each a handle, and, panting and heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river, and so through the settlement, out to the hot, open fields.

It was not a great load they could carry at one time, so their usefulness depended on the number of trips they made, but there they were sluggish. Often the basket upset, and they had to sit down to refill it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot days went on, they must halt to quarrel, when Francis vowed Miles was bearing down on his end of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not doing his share.

One morning it came to such a pass that Miles took a basket by himself, but he found the journey single-handed so hard that he was in even less hurry than usual to return from the fields and get a second load. Loitering along, he was amusing himself by trying to carry on his head the empty fish-basket, which _would_ fall off, when, as he paused to pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time, Captain Standish, coming shirt-sleeved and grimy from the fields, overtook him. Rather guiltily, Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good morrow, sir," as he always said it to the Captain.

"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?" asked Standish. "At this speed you'll not come thither ere dinner-time."

"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting the words as an invitation to trot along at the other's side.

The Captain had his own concerns to look to, plainly, by the way he tramped along, but, right in the midst, he glanced down at his small companion and asked unexpectedly: "Where are your shoes, Miles?"

"I--I could not wear them," the boy explained, kicking his bare feet in the sand. "Down by the river 'tis very wet. And then 'tis hot, so I laid off my doublet and my shoes and stockings too. I like to go barefoot," he added defensively. "In England, they never suffered me; they said only beggar children went barefoot. But--" his voice grew suddenly anxious, "I am sure my mother would think it right now, do not you, sir?"

The Captain did not look convinced.

"It is a great saving to my shoes," murmured Miles.

"You were better save your feet," the Captain answered. "When your shoes wear out, there'll be new ones for you. Now do you go to the house and put them on, before you step on a thorn or do yourself some hurt." His tone was brusque, and he hurried at once about his business, as if he had no time to waste.

Obediently Miles went to the house to finish dressing; he was a little sorry, because he liked the fun of going barefoot in the soft dirt, yet, on the whole, it was pleasant to have Captain Standish speak to you and order you into your shoes, as if he had some concern for you. So flattered did he feel, indeed, that he only smiled in a superior way when Francis Billington, barelegged and unregenerate, sneered at him for putting on his shoes and stockings.

But that was the last happening of the week which Miles remembered with enjoyment, for the first excitement had now gone out of the labor, yet the work dragged heavily on. All through the weary day he felt the weight of the basket pulling at his arm and the heat of the steady sun scorching upon his bare head; and at night, when he lay on his pallet, with his feet throbbing and his back aching, he dreamed of tugging fish up the breathless pitch of a never-ending bluff.

A little respite came on the Sabbath, when, of course, no work could be done, but with Monday's light all were in the fields once more. It was a day of sweltering heat; the rays of the sun seemed beaten upward again by the steaming earth, and the languid air was heavy and sick. Toward the fiercest hour, about noon, as Miles was panting through the fields on a return trip to the brook, Master Carver called to him.

The Governor had knelt to set the corn at the head of one of the rows; his doublet was off and his hands were grimy, but, for all the heat, Miles saw that his high, bald forehead was quite dry of perspiration. "Here, lad," he said, as Miles ran to him, "can you fetch us a pail of water hither to drink?"

"Ay, Governor," Miles piped in a respectful treble, and, much impressed by the importance of his errand, trotted off briskly. At the spring he longed to dally a moment, to drink of the water and to stir up the great green frog who lived in the cool sand of the bottom, but, so soon as his bucket was filled, he resolutely turned back through the glaring heat to the fields.

Short as the time had been, a change had taken place. At first he thought it a mere trick of the dazzling light, but, as he looked again, he saw that indeed most of the men had risen from labor and, drawn together, were gazing in his direction. Nearer at hand, he beheld two coming toward the settlement; the one was John Howland, a member of the Governor's household, and the other, who leaned heavily upon his arm, was the Governor himself. They passed within arm's length of the boy, and Miles took note how the Governor's down-bent face was now of a dull reddish hue, and he noted, also, how the grime of his homely toil still clung to his limp hands.

Surprised and a little awed, though he scarcely could tell why, Miles tugged on into the fields, and, finding Goodman Cooke among those who stood gazing after the Governor, asked him eagerly what was wrong. "Why, naught," spoke Cooke, "only Master Carver complains of his head; 'tis along o' the heat, so the Doctor ordered him back to his house to rest. He'll be well again by eventide."

But with eventide the word went among the colonists that Governor Carver lay unconscious, and at those tidings faces grew grave. Miles, in his youthfulness, gave little thought to it all; he was more concerned with his own half-flayed hands and aching legs than with Master Carver's illness, and each day these physical pangs grew keener.

The height of misery came on a sultry afternoon toward the close of the week, a breathless, stifling time, when, for sheer weariness and hopelessness, Miles sat down in the hot dirt in the middle of the field and thought he never could rise again. Yet he scrambled up briskly, when he saw his guardian approach, though Master Hopkins, whose face was very grave, did not scold the boy, but, after a first sharp look, bade him go rest in the shade till the day was out. "The hot sun is deadly," he said, as to himself; but Miles realized only that he was bidden to cease from labor.

He dragged himself back to the house, where he lay down upon his bed, and watched the little patch of sunlight clamber higher up the wall and harked to the drowsy sounds of out-of-doors; then heard nothing clearly till the men tramped in to supper. He sat up slowly, and listened to catch what gossip they might bring; their voices were subdued, and he half guessed what had befallen ere he heard Master Hopkins say solemnly that the good Governor Carver was dead.

Miles thought on it the night long; this death, lonely by itself, was so much more awesome than the crowded sicknesses of the last winter. It seemed the order of life must show some change, but, with the heat of the next rising day, the colonists, as usual, only more silent, filed forth to their labor in the fields. For whether men were well or ill, or lived or died, the corn that was the hope of the settlement must be planted.