THE PILGRIMS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.

About two hundred and fifty years ago, there was living in England a class of people who did not think it right to worship God in the same way that most of the English nation did: they did not believe in building so many fine churches and cathedrals, or in having so much chanting and singing in the service; they did not like to see the priests, dressed in rich robes, standing before magnificent altars whereon candles blazed and incense burned. They said that this was all wrong, and that the money that was spent in fine churches and music and candles was only wasted, and that such things were not pleasing to God; and above all they did not believe many of the things which the English Church held sacred. So all these people refused to go to church; they stayed at home and had meeting at their houses, much in the same way that people now, who live far away from churches, meet at one another's houses and have prayer-meeting.

But the king of England, James I., said that these people had no right to stay away from church, and he made a law which said that every one who did not go to church should be punished.

These punishments were very severe, and the people were even sometimes afraid of their lives. After this law was passed they did not dare any more to go to meeting openly, but used to meet at night at their minister's house.

At last things got so bad that they decided to go away from England, and find some place where they could worship God as they thought right; so they sold their houses and lands, gathered their families together, and one day sailed away for Holland.

The king's officers, however, were looking out for them, and some of them were captured before they could get on the ship and taken to prison, where they were kept many weary months; but finally as many of these people as wanted to found their way to Holland. Here they lived very quietly for eleven years, the Hollanders being very willing to have them among them, as they were a very peaceable, honest, and kindly people.

But after a time the Pilgrims—for so these people were called—did not like it so well in Holland as they did at first, for they found that their children were growing up to be Dutch children instead of English; their sons and daughters began to marry into the families of their Dutch neighbors, and they feared that in a few years they would no longer consider themselves English. The Pilgrims were still very fond of England and everything English. Their language and customs were still dear to them, and they considered themselves Englishmen in every way.

So the principal men met together and talked the matter over, and at last decided that they would leave Holland and seek some other place where their children would hear only English spoken and learn only English habits.

As they could not think of any place in Europe where it would be safe for them to go, they all agreed that the best thing for them to do would be to sail away across the ocean to the New World, where they would be free to worship as they pleased, and where they would make a little colony by themselves.

There were so many Pilgrims in Holland at this time that they could not all go to America at once, as they did not have enough ships or money to undertake such a voyage; so they chose some of the youngest and strongest who were most willing to go, and one sunny morning in the month of July, 1620, a little ship sailed away from Holland, carrying with it the brave-hearted Pilgrims who were so determined to seek a home across the sea.

The voyage was very long, the weather cold and stormy, and many times the little Mayflower seemed to make no headway against the rough winds and waves; but at last, after long waiting, they saw the shores of the New World. For a month they sailed up and down the coast looking for a good place to land. They had expected to go to the Hudson River, but the storms drove them farther north, and the first land that they saw was the coast of Massachusetts.

It was not a very pleasant-looking country—with low sand hills, and no sign of grass or flower; but the pines looked fresh and green, and the Pilgrims were determined not to be discouraged. They sent little expeditions to the shore to look for a good place to land, and finally one day they all left the ship at a place which Captain John Smith had named Plymouth, and here they resolved to stay.

If you should ever go to Plymouth you would see in the Hall there some of the curious old furniture which the Pilgrims brought with them—old-fashioned armchairs and queer spinning-wheels, ladles, wooden spoons, a great iron dinner-kettle said to have been owned by Miles Standish, and the "samplers" which little Lora Standish worked. Perhaps the thing that you children would like best would be the old-fashioned cradle wherein slept the little Peregrine White, who was born on board the Mayflower. It is not a very fine cradle, not trimmed with silk and dainty laces, but the little English baby slept in it very comfortably, and every one will admit that it is the most interesting cradle in America to-day.

It was on December 21st that the Pilgrims landed, and you can imagine how cold and bleak it was down there by the sea; the first thing they did was to build a house, a large one that would hold them all; and they lived in this until they had time to build separate houses for the different families. These houses were built of logs, having tiny little windows in which oiled paper was put instead of glass. As soon as they could they built a church, of logs also, with four cannon on the top, to defend it from the Indians.

The Pilgrims had a very hard time of it that first winter, they suffered very much from the cold and from sickness, and, worst of all, they had scarcely enough to eat; nearly one half of them died before spring, but the rest were still not discouraged. They lived on game, killing deer and wild turkeys, and besides, being so near the sea, they could catch fish. As soon as the weather grew warm enough they planted corn, and after that they got along much better.

Seven or eight years after the Pilgrims landed, another company of English people came to America; they, like the Pilgrims, left England because they could not worship there in the way they thought right.

These people were called Puritans, but it made very little difference whether they called themselves Pilgrims or Puritans; they were all alike Englishmen and had come to America for the same purpose; they all suffered the same hardships and endured them bravely, for wherever the Englishman goes he takes a brave heart with him.

The Puritans, looking for a good place for settlement, chose the peninsula of Shawmut, or Tri-mountain, which they found to be a place of "sweet and pleasant springs, and good land affording rich corn-fields and fruitful gardens," and here, in September, 1630, were laid the foundations of the City of Boston.

For many years the colonists could not raise any cattle on account of the wolves which roamed day and night through the forests. The Indians were sometimes friendly and would bring them corn, which the settlers would pay for in clothing, knives, etc.; it is said that once one of the Indians gave a settler a peck of corn in exchange for a little puppy-dog. Whenever food was scarce they all shared alike, so that no one had more than another, and after a time, as they began to raise more crops and as the forests became cleared, they got along very nicely and lived as happily in their log-houses as if they had been marble palaces.

To-day New England is famous for its beautiful villages, with their broad streets shaded with elms and their wide pleasant lawns and comfortable houses; but if you could have seen a New England village two hundred and fifty years ago, it would have been a very different thing.

If you had lived in those days your home would have been a log-house on the edge of a great deep forest. Imagine these little English boys and girls going to bed in a room where the snow could drift in through the cracks, and where they could hear the wolves howling in the forests. How afraid they must have been, and how they must have snuggled under the covers and covered up their faces.

Imagine going to a little church built of logs and having a flag waving from it, and cannon in front of it to protect it from the Indians. Sometimes the people were called to church by the beating of a drum, and every man carried his musket with him, as no one knew when the Indians might come. In these queer little churches, families did not sit together as they do now, but the men sat in one place, the women in another, and the children in another. There was always a man to keep the children in order, and well he did it too. No child dared smile in church, or he might be rapped on the knuckles for it. Every one had to go to church, whether he wanted to or not; if any one was absent the "tithing man" was sent after him, and for many years after this custom was given up, the New England mothers used to frighten their children by telling them that the "tidy man" was coming when they were naughty.

These children used to go to school in queer little log school-houses, and school was not the pleasant place to them that it is to you. Everybody had to be as solemn there as possible, and all the pupils used to sit up stiffly and primly, and look as grave as little owls, for the schoolmaster was feared and respected next to the minister, and no New England child in that age would have thought of even smiling if the minister were present. The fathers and mothers were very solemn people too—life was such a serious thing to them, they thought it wicked to waste time amusing children. They did not even keep Christmas for many years, and the Puritan children did not know as much about Santa Claus as you do about the man in the moon.

You must not think, however, that they were unhappy; children always find some means of having a good time, even if fathers and mothers are stern and sober people; and the Puritan fathers and mothers loved their children just as much as the Dutch fathers and mothers in New York loved theirs, only they showed their love in a different way, that is all. And, after all, these little log school-houses were not such bad places—they were always sure to be near the woods, where were great shady trees, and if the children did not sing pretty songs in school as you do, they could at least hear the birds singing all day long; if they had not bright pictures on the walls of the school-room, they had sweet, dainty wild flowers just outside, and the wind and trees and blossoms whispered their secrets to them; and that is one reason perhaps why they grew up so good and true and brave. Thanksgiving Day was the one day in the year on which the Pilgrims did not think it wrong to be merry. Early in the day they went to church, which was held partly as a service of thanks for the harvest, and partly in grateful remembrance for the relief that came to them from England when they were suffering from famine. When church was over the fun began. All the members of a family from near and far were brought together on this day, and what gay times the children had with their small cousins and nieces and nephews. What games and romps, and what interesting talk around the fire as to who had gathered the most nuts, who had built the strongest and swiftest sled, and who had been bravest when the Indians came prowling around.

For of all the troubles which the settlers of New England had to bear, the trouble with the Indians was the worst.

At first they seemed to get along quite peaceably with them; the chiefs of some of the tribes were very friendly and were kind to the colonists; but as time went on the Indians grew more and more unfriendly, and the settlers lived in constant fear of them.

Sometimes they would come in the night to a house where a mother was alone with her children, and kill them all and then set fire to the house. Sometimes a man would be working at a distance from his home, and go back there only to find that the Indians had been there before him, and had taken his wife and children away with them to make slaves of them.

The little children would go to bed at night and lie awake listening for the Indian warwhoop, which they dreaded even more than they did the howling of the wolves. Every woman in those days knew how to use a gun, and many a time a mother had to defend herself and children from some painted Indians who would come up to the house and ask to be taken in.

About forty years after Boston was settled, these difficulties with the Indians brought about a war which extended over all that country. The most powerful of the Indians at that time was King Philip, chief of the Wamponoags. This tribe had always been friendly to the whites, Philip's father, Massasoit, having formed a treaty with the Puritans soon after their settlement in New England.

King Philip was a very brave and good man, and for a time after his father's death he remained friendly to the whites; but he saw that, no matter how friendly the whites seemed, they really were trying to get all the land from the Indians that they could, and he thought if he could drive the English away from his country it would be much better for his own people. So he sent messengers to all the tribes from Maine to Connecticut, asking the chiefs to join with him and drive the whites away. All the chiefs promised to do this, and soon there was a terrible war all over New England.

The Indians did not like to fight the whites in open field, but they used to come at night, creeping through the forest in the shadow of the trees, steal down the quiet little village street, and then, with dreadful shrieks and war-whoops, begin their horrible work. Sometimes they would not go away until everybody in the village had been killed, and the houses all burned.

Sometimes they would go to lonely houses where the inmates were all quietly sleeping, and forming themselves into a ring, would dance around the house yelling and waving their torches, and the poor people would be awakened by this noise only to know that death awaited them.

This war lasted nearly two years, and in that time many villages were burned, and many people killed; but finally King Philip was killed, and then the Indians lost heart, and in a short time there was peace again.

For some years after this the colonists had no trouble with the Indians, but after a time war broke out again. This time the Indians were stronger and better armed, and besides they were helped by the French.

For a long time the English and French had each been trying to gain possession of North America. The English said they had the best right to it, and the French said that they had the best right; and so it went on, until the French and Indians agreed that they would join together and fight against the English. The Indians liked the French much better than they did the English, as they had always treated them better.

Some of the French had married Indian wives, and they were looked upon by the Indians as brothers. To this day in Canada you can see little dark-eyed boys and girls, who call themselves French, but whose ancestors were Indian and French.

You will learn later that this struggle between the French and English lasted for more than half a century after the time of which I have been telling, and ended in a great war between the nations, that extended in America all over the country that was then settled. But at last the English gained the day and the French gave up all the country that they had owned in America east of the Mississippi to the English, and that is how this country came to be under English rule.

After the French and Indian wars were over the colonists had very little trouble with the Indians, and in a few years there was peace and quiet all over New England.