CHAPTER VII

THE MAN OF THE FAMILY

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 prayers over the dead, as the ministers did in England, and, lest the savages should spy and note how few the colonists were becoming, they had levelled the grave, like the many round about it. A raw wind had blown from off the sea, so Goodwife Rigdale shivered as she stood by the grave, and Miles's hands were senseless with the cold.

Now it was over, and Goodman Rigdale dead and buried, but life went on, just as usual. Goodwife Rigdale helped Mistress Brewster prepare food, and ate of it herself; and Love and Wrestling, sorry though they had been for their playmates' sorrow, frolicked gayly with Solomon, whom Ned Lister had brought to the cottage, bag and all. By the second day, though her eyes were still heavy with crying, and her mouth tremulous, Dolly plucked up spirit to join the boys. Even earlier, Miles had begun to fetch wood and water for Mistress Brewster, lay the fire, and help where he could; if only everything had stopped for a time, till he could realize what had happened and master himself, he felt he could bear it; but the petty acts of living would go on.

In such a mood of wretchedness he trudged forth on the third morning, up the path beyond the spring, to fetch sticks from the edge of the wood where the trees had been felled. He gathered the fagots, and was trying to tie them strongly, as his father tied the swamp grass that last day they worked together, when he saw Francis Billington, also in search of wood, drawing near.

"Why, Miles!" the newcomer greeted him, in some surprise, for in these days Miles avoided his old comrades. But now there was no avoiding till the wood was tied up, so Francis came to him and, a bit awed, tried clumsily to be sympathetic. "I'll help you tie that wood, Miles."

"I c'n do 't alone."

"Look you, my daddy's going fowling to-day. Mayhap he'll take us."

"I don't want to go," snapped Miles, with a sick sort of anger that other boys still could talk of their fathers.

"You might at least be civil to a body," Francis said rather huffily. "What need to carry such a face for it, Miles? You were mortal afeard of your father while he lived. And now he can never flog you no more."

Without warning, other than a small catching of the breath, Miles sprang to his feet and struck the speaker in the face. Francis, thoroughly surprised, hit back, and, clenching, they pitched over among the crackling sticks. Miles fell uppermost, and, hardly realizing how or why, he was pommelling Francis lustily, when a mighty hand heaved him up by the scruff of the neck. "You must not strike a man when he is already worsted," spoke the voice of long-legged John Alden.

Miles stood biting his lips that twitched. "'A' shall not say--" he began, and there his voice broke. "Oh, I wish he could flog me again!"

Alden stared a moment, then, with sudden understanding, swung round upon the whimpering Francis and rated him mightily, while Miles, glad not to be noticed, caught up his bundle of wood and stumbled away toward the settlement.

Yet this was the last outward showing of the boy's grief. Little by little, as the busy days came, he found himself fitting into his new life, and at length even taking a certain zest in it. For he was now man of the family, and the cares he felt called on to shoulder did not a little to distract him from any sorry broodings. He must work with his full strength, wherever they sent him and whoever bade him; he must keep flibbertigibbet Dolly out of mischief; above all, he must run after his mother, as she went about to nurse the many sick of the settlement, and see to it that she did not catch cold or come to any harm.

The greatest and most important labor, however, he did in the earlier days of his loss, when he went to fetch his father's goods from the _Mayflower_. Others might have said the work was done by Ned Lister, for Master Hopkins, who had promised Goodman Rigdale to look to his family, so far as he was able, sent him about this task; but Miles, who was sure he was the leader and Ned only the assistant, felt the whole expedition a tribute to his own new-come manliness.

They went out in the shallop to the _Mayflower_ on a morning so bright and open that it scarcely recalled to Miles his coming from the ship. Once aboard, to be sure, the half-homesick pang laid hold on him, when he scrambled down to the little cabin that had sheltered him so long; but there was so much to do he soon cast it off. The bedding must be tied up securely, and the pots and platters loaded into the biggest kettle; and Ned, who had a coughing fit and said he didn't feel very well, let Miles do it all. He recovered, however, in time to help drag the stuff to the deck, and to get up from the orlop a small chest of Goodman Rigdale's; and he was also selfish enough to take charge himself of the loud, manly labor of transferring the goods to the shallop.

Somewhat disappointed, Miles clambered down again to the cabin to fetch the box with Dolly's Indian basket, and, when he came back, the shallop was so near ready to push off that he had only time to drop into the bow beside Lister. Glancing round the great sail toward the stern, where such other passengers as were going from the ship were placed, he caught sight of Captain Standish, who sat stiffly, with one arm about the muffled figure of a woman. "Yon is Mistress Standish, is it not?" Miles questioned Lister, very softly.

His companion nodded. "Set to come ashore, poor lass!" he answered, in the same low tone. "'Tis the last trip she'll ever make in the shallop." This Ned spoke sympathetically; then had no further leisure to talk for settling himself comfortably with his back against Goodman Rigdale's bedding.

Miles moved a little to give Ned room, but, without heeding him, continued to gaze at Captain Standish and Mistress Rose. He could not see her face for the hood about her head and the cloak drawn up above her chin, but he marked the listless droop of her whole body; and he noted, too, how the Captain sat with his eyes looking straight out and his mouth hard. Miles wondered if what Lister said of Mistress Standish were true, and, what with wondering and watching, was taken by surprise and nearly overset when the shallop bumped up to the landing place.

For a moment he lingered by the boat, feigning to busy himself with unlading the kettle, while he watched Mistress Standish. The Captain and Alden, who was waiting at the landing, helped her from the boat, and half carried her away between them up the hill. The Captain's face was still so grave and stern, that Miles was a trifle frightened, and very sorry; he wished he were a man like John Alden, so he could have spoken to the Captain and helped Mistress Standish.

Then he had to think of other matters, for Ned, with an access of energy, was tumbling the goods ashore, and they must together drag them up to the Elder's house. Just at present that was home to Miles, because his mother and Dolly lived there, and he sometimes ate with them, though, as an additional mark of manhood,--so he esteemed it,--he spent his nights at the Common House.

It really came about because his friends could not shelter him. Goodwife Rigdale and Dolly had the last spare bed at the Elder's house; the cottage higher up the hill, on which Goodman Rigdale had labored, and where Goodman Cooke and Jack had now one bunk, was filled with men whose houses were building; while Master Hopkins, however well he might mean by his friend's son, had not a roof to cover his own family. So Miles slept with Giles Hopkins at the Common House, where at night the beds were placed so thick one need not step on the floor in passing from the fire to his sleeping place.

On Sunday all was changed, however, for then the Common House became a meeting-house. They tucked the beds up in corners, and swept the floor, as Miles knew to his cost, for on this, his second Saturday on the mainland, they pressed him into the service. Twice on the Sabbath the Elder taught his little company, and prayed with them there,--a sorry little company indeed, of whom fair half lay sick within the cheerless cabins, or dead beneath the level ground of the harbor bluff.

The thought of his own dead father made Miles listen attentively that day; and, when he walked staidly up to the Elder's house before twilight, he took Dolly apart into his mother's cold little chamber, where he read to her from Goodman Rigdale's black-letter Bible. He was a painful reader, but he felt it was the fit thing for him to do in filling his father's place, so, with the great book on his knees, he sat on the floor, beneath the little window that let in the light sparsely through its oiled paper, and Dolly sat by him, with her head on his shoulder. He was much elated at finding her so quiet and attentive, but, when he paused to recover breath at the end of a very tough sentence about the Perizzites, he perceived the little girl was fast asleep.

Miles did not wake her; just sat with the Bible in his lap and his stiffening arm round his sister till, when it had grown darker, his mother came to seek them. He had nothing to say to his mother that night, but afterward it was something to remember keenly, though with an under-pang of sorrow, how he had sat close by her in the dark and had felt her hand rest on his head.

Next day was dreary with rain and sleet, and a dull twilight that, closing in early, drove Miles into the house, where he played at Even-and-Odd with the little Brewsters and Dolly, very quietly, because the Elder was writing at the table. Elder Brewster was always kindly-spoken, but the fact that he knew such a deal about the next world, and what would befall you if you were not good, put Miles in great awe of him.

When he went forth at length, Miles, feeling more like himself, raised his voice, and even let the trenchers clatter while he and Dolly laid the table. But he had no desire to be noisy, when, late in the evening, the Elder returned from the house where the sick lay. A word or two passed between the older folk that sent Miles with a whispered question to his mother, who told him simply that Mistress Rose Standish had died that evening.

Dolly cried, because she was a foolish girl, but it did not stir Miles so deeply. Indeed, he did not come to feel a hearty grief till next morning, when, as he climbed the hill to Elder Brewster's cottage, he saw Captain Standish, grim and set-faced, trudging up to the woods through the sleet and rain. The weather was too bitter for work, and the axe which the Captain carried was, Miles guessed, a mere pretext. All through the day it made him shiver to think of the solitary man, lingering in the cold among the pines; he wondered if even to himself the Captain would make pretense of working, or if he would sit idle among the wet logs.

But forty-eight hours later the Captain was going and coming and working among the rest, just as before, though maybe a bit more silent. For the hale ones who could labor were few; the work must be done; and, where so many were falling, there was small space to grieve for a single life.

Miles had even grown somewhat blunted to the sight of the sorry little companies that twice and even thrice a week trudged with the body of a friend or kinsman to the bluff above the harbor. His own life went on methodically; he worked, and even played with Jack Cooke and Trug, and some days, when he was allowed to go fowling with Ned Lister and Giles Hopkins, fairly enjoyed himself.

But Ned began presently to have coughing fits even when he was bidden to go hunting, though Miles, who had grown distrustful of his convenient illness, urged him to "have done with fooling and come along." One morning in February, when Lister, instead of going about his work, was wasting his time thus with Miles and Jack and Giles by the fire in Goodman Cooke's cottage, came another to urge him, no less a one than Master Hopkins. Miles remembered a long time the terrible rating he gave Ned for his laziness and trickery, and he wondered that the young man sat with his head leaning on his fist, and flung back but a single protest: "I can judge better than you, sir, whether I be ill or not. 'Tis my head that's aching, not yours."

To which Master Hopkins retorted grimly that, if there were a whipping post in the colony, something besides Ned's head would ache.

Then, for that there was no help for it, Lister took his fowling piece and slouched away from the fire. "I'm going, since you drive me," he said sulkily, "but these youngsters need not follow at my heels. 'Twill be all I can do to fetch myself home again, let alone three brats."

Much disappointed, Miles spent the day in the less joyous labor of fetching and carrying on the great hill, where they were putting the last touches to the platform on which the guns were to be mounted. He came to be interested, none the less, when Goodman Cooke told him how, in a few days, they would drag the guns up the hill and put them in place. That would be a brave thing to see, Miles thought, for the sailors from the _Mayflower_ were to come ashore and help, and the street from the hill to the landing place would be noisy and busy. Not so busy, though, as the crew of the _Mayflower_ would have made it a month before, for the sickness now had settled on the ship, where it was raging unchecked.

At dusk, as Miles came down from the hill, he chanced on Master Hopkins, still grumbling at Lister, who bade him go see if that malingerer were loitering anywhere in the settlement. It seemed a spying errand, but, not thinking of disobedience, Miles started down the street. Nearest the shore stood the Common House, the house for the sick, and the storehouse, all three of which, to make the search complete, he visited.

In the big main room of the sick-house lay the men who were ill, and, as Miles stepped in, on tiptoe because of his heavy shoes, the first thing he saw beneath the candlelight was Ned Lister's black head, half hidden under the coverlets of one of the bunks. Miles stole up to him. "Why, Ned, ha' you cheated the Doctor himself?" he whispered cheerfully.

Lister raised his head and looked at him, with his eyes very bright. "I'm cheating you all; yes," he said, with a laugh. "Go tell Hopkins be more cautious next time how he wastes so good a property as a serving man. A pity! If I die he'll be out my passage-money. Well, I always owed him a grudge for bringing me to this forsaken country, and I'll even scores now."

The thought seemed to please Ned mightily, for he laughed, till Doctor Fuller, stepping from the inner room, sharply bade him hush. "Get you to Master Hopkins and tell him the man is ill," he ordered Miles; and, as he let the boy out at the door, added, for his ear alone, "very ill."

Somehow Ned's overthrow frightened Miles more than any other illness. Lister had always seemed so tough and wiry that his succumbing at last set the boy to asking himself, in some fright, if he, too, might not fall ill. A soreness in his throat or an ache in his head made him nervous. He questioned Jack minutely as to how he felt before he was taken sick, and then he began at once to feel as Jack had felt. He started to tell his mother and get her to comfort him, but then he was ashamed; she was busy and anxious all the time for the people she was called on to nurse, and he was a great, strong boy, who, of course, would not be sick.

But one day his head ached in good earnest--no imagination; and next morning the ache was worse, so he was too stupid even to go out. Wrestling Brewster was ailing too, so Dolly and Love stayed by his bed to amuse him, and Miles was left quite alone. All day he sat toasting himself by the fire, till he was too warm and was sure his head ached because of the heat, so out he went, and tramped up and down the street till his teeth chattered with cold. He wanted no supper, but he went back to the house to bid his mother good night and get to bed early.

"Mother came home very weary and has lain down within," Dolly said, so he went into the bedroom. A cold light streamed in at the little window, but the corners of the low room were dark and the pallet was in shadow. His mother was stretched upon it, with the cloak that had been his father's wrapped round her, but at his step she raised her head. "It's you, my lad?" she asked, and reached out her hand.

"I came in to give you good night, mother," he said, in his manliest tone, because it made him proud to think he was hiding his illness from her. "I'll mess at the Common House to-night."

She put up her hand, and, drawing his head down to her, kissed him. Her cheek felt hot as it pressed against his, and even in the dim light he noted that her face was flushed, but his head ached so lamentably that he made nothing of it. "Why, deary, you're not ill?" he heard her say.

"Indeed, no, mother. No more ill than you," he answered bravely, and, bidding her good night, went softly out of the room.

The west was all a chill yellow, and a northerly breeze was astir that set Miles shivering long before he reached the Common House. There a fire was alight that looked comforting, and, going up to it, he snuggled down in a corner of the hearth. At the table of boards laid on trestles some of the men were eating their supper, but Miles was sick at the mere thought of food. He sat staring and staring into the heart of the flames, where he could see the outlines of the farmhouse at home, and then he saw nothing, but he faintly heard steps upon the floor, and somebody caught him up.

"What are you falling on the fire in that fashion for, eh?" one asked, and the man who held him--he had a vague notion it was Alden--questioned, "What's wrong, lad?"

"Oh--h!" wailed Miles, "I think I'm dying."