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

by Beulah Marie Dix

  CHAPTER XVII

  HOW THEY KEPT THE SABBATH

  A LITTLE daylight works a mighty change in the look of things. When inthe morning Miles rose at length from the stupor of sleep into which hehad fallen, the sky was clouded filmily to westward, but in the east,above the pines, hung a yellow sun. The river that curved through themeadow was half bright with the stroke of the sun, and, where the treesof the opposite bank grew low, half a lucid green; the strip of sandybeach shone white, and the coarse herbage of the level space all wasgleaming.

  Miles looked forth from the doorway of Chief Canacum's wigwam, and,sniffing the breeze with the tang of brine in it, decided that, afterall, Manomet might prove a pleasant place in which to spend a day. Hesaid as much to Dolly, but she held her poppet closer and shook herhead. "There were fleas in that bed," she answered sorrowfully. "Let'sgo home now, Miles."

  An easy thing to say, but to do it would have puzzled an older headthan Miles's, for not only did leagues of forest stretch between himand the English settlement, but, even had he known the direct road toPlymouth, there was no chance to follow it, since, wherever he turned,the watchful eyes of the savages were upon him.

  Now the first novelty had worn off, the warriors limited themselvesto staring at their visitors as they sauntered through the camp, butthe squaws and children still wished to press close, and feel theirclothes and touch their hands. However, no one meant to harm him, Milesdecided, though he only half realized how awe of their white facesand strange garments and of their great, ugly dog was protecting himand his sister; and, having once concluded he was to be left unhurt,he took pleasure in being a centre of interest; it was his firstexperience of this sort in all his much-snubbed life.

  So, though Dolly would scarce look on the dark people about them, Milessought presently to talk to them, just as he tried to talk to theIndians who came to Plymouth. So well did he impress it upon them thathe wanted his breakfast, that one of the squaws, who had bright eyes,though her face was very dirty, led the children into her wigwam, whereshe brought them food,--roasted crab fish and bread. Miles thanked herand ate, and bade Trug and Dolly eat too, while the little Indians andthe squaws, squatting in the sand about the wigwam door, watched as ifthey had never before seen two hungry children.

  Presently, as he wished to divide a morsel with Dolly, Miles drewout his whittle, whereat the onlookers crowded closer to gaze. Milesshowed them his knife, though he took care not to let it go out of hishands, and he exhibited the other treasures he carried in his breechespockets,--several nails, a button or two, some beads, and an Englishfarthing piece. Indians always looked for presents, he knew, so, beforehe went out of the wigwam, he gave a button to the squaw who had fedhim.

  With his Indian followers eying him the more admiringly, he now wentjourneying through the warm sand, past the dingy bark houses, to thefarther verge of the camp, where, beyond a lusty patch of rank weeds,the corn-field of the savages shimmered in the heat. The tillage ofthe Indians seemed to him of an untidy sort; they had cleared away thetrees with fire, never troubling to dig up the roots, so blackenedstumps dotted the field, and here and there lay the greater bulk of acharred and fallen trunk. In between, the green corn straggled up, andseveral squaws were tending it with hoes made of great clam-shells.They cast aside their tools to stare on Miles and Dolly, but Milesstared in return only a short space; he had seen corn-fields before.

  "Only to think, Dolly," he burst out, as he turned his back on thehoers, "there's no one to bid me weed or fetch water or aught elsethat displeases me. After all, 'tis a merry life the Indians lead; I'mwilling to dwell here with them."

  "_I_ do not wish to be a dirty Indian," Dolly answered decidedly, butin a whisper, as if she thought these attentive people must be able tounderstand her words. "Do you not think the men from Plymouth will cometo seek us soon and take us home?"

  "I do not want them to come," Miles replied calmly. "Maybe they wouldhang me for that Ned fought in the duel, and surely they would beatme for running away. I shall have to stay here always," he addedcheerfully.

  At this Dolly's lips quivered, but Miles, intent now on an Indian ladwith a little bow in his hand, who had just come near, gave his sisterno heed. "I'm minded to ask that boy to let me play with his bow," hespoke out, as they arrived once more within the lee of Chief Canacum'swigwam. "You sit here, and Trug shall watch you."

  A protest or two from Dolly, after the unreasonable fashion ofwomen-folk, but Miles, leaving her seated on the sand, walked away tothe coppery lad he had singled out. For a time the two boys stared ateach other gravely, then Miles, smiling affably, touched the bow,saying, "Cossaquot? Nenmia," till presently the other yielded it intohis hands.

  Then they strolled away, with several other beady-eyed youngsters, intothe weeds on the outskirts of the camp, where Miles tried his skillat shooting. Though in England he had often handled a bow, here thebest showing he could make set the little Indians laughing; and whenthe owner of the bow, taking it from him, shot an arrow and fetcheddown a pine cone from a tree many feet distant, Miles understood theirmerriment at his awkwardness.

  But then he stepped up to a young sumach, and, pulling out his whittle,hacked off a small branch in a manner to make his new friends marvel;so, each party respectful of the other's arts, they were speedily on asound enough footing to race away together to the river bank.

  On the shore, half in water and half on land, lay three Indian boats,light, tricky things, all built of birch bark. Miles had never seensuch craft, so he set to examining them, but his new comrades splashedinto the water. On the sunny beach it was hot, but across the stream,whither they swam, the trees that pressed close to the margin darkenedthe shallows with a deep green, so cool and tempting that Miles, dustywith travel, longed to bathe in it too.

  In the end he flung off his clothes, and prepared to join in thesplashing, when his Indian acquaintances paddled shoreward to studyhis garments. Miles suffered the youngster who had lent him the bowto try on his shoes, whereat all grew so clamorous he feared a littlelest his wardrobe disappear among them, for he remembered how ThievishHarbor took its first name from the pilfering habits of the Indians.Fortunately Trug, forsaking Dolly, arrived just then, and when hestretched his great bulk on his master's clothes, none cared to disturbthem.

  With his mind set at rest, Miles plunged into the tepid water, wherehe frolicked about with his new comrades, who swam like dogs, paw overpaw, and dived in a way that bewildered him. But speedily he was doinghis share in the ducking and splashing and whooping, till, before heknew it, the afternoon was half spent, and his shoulders smarted withthe burning of the sun.

  The little Indians followed him, when he spattered out of the river,and, with no more than a shaking of their ears, like puppies, wereready to run about, but Miles, as a penalty of civilization, had tostay to drag on his clothes. He felt chilly now, he found, and hungrytoo, and he guessed he and Trug were best go seek Dolly.

  But when he came into the lee of Chief Canacum's wigwam, he saw therejust scuffled, empty sand, so, with a big fright laying hold on him, heran out into the straggling street and called his sister's name aloud.Just then Trug's bark told him all was well, and, hastening afterthe dog, he found, in the shade of a distant wigwam, a squaw weavinga mat of flags, some children sprawling, and Dolly herself, who waseating raspberries from a birch bark basket. "Why did you run away andfrighten me?" Miles demanded crossly, as he flung himself on the groundbeside her.

  "I may go away and make friends as well as thou," Dolly answeredloftily. "But you shall have some of my berries, Miles. They fetchedme them, and I can eat these--" her voice sank--"because they must beclean. But their other victuals are not, I know. I watched, and thewomen do never wash their kettles."

  Miles had no such scruples of cleanliness, so when, some two hourslater, he scented the odor of cooking, he rose eagerly and, thinking onsupper, sought Canacum's wigwam. There were four dark boats upon thewhite beach now, he saw, so he judged that a fishing party had
come in.

  When he passed through the low door into the wigwam, he found a firealight and a great pot of clay hung on small sticks that were laidover it. Into the pot the drudging squaws were putting fresh fish, andacorns, and the meat of squirrels, and kernels of corn, and whateverelse they had of edibles,--"a loathsome mash," Dolly whispered Miles,but he was so hungry that it did not take away his appetite.

  So soon as the broth was done, near half the village squatted round thepot, the men in an inner circle, while on the outskirts, eager for anymorsel their masters might fling to them, waited the poor squaws. ButDolly, because she was a little white squaw, was suffered to sit downwith her brother beside the old Chief, who scooped up pieces of thefish and hot broth in a wooden bowl and gave it to Miles.

  Dolly looked askance at the food, but Miles and Trug ate ravenously;neither his queer table mates nor their queer table manners troubledthe boy, since he himself was licking his fingers and wiping them onTrug's fur contentedly. "I like to eat with my fingers," he chatteredto his venerable host. "At home they make me to eat tidily with anapkin, but I like it better thus."

  But, even at his hungriest, he could not match the Indians in trencherwork; for, long after Miles had done eating and lain back against Trug,the savages still champed on, till nothing but scattered bones was leftof the fare. By then the sun was quite down, so the lodge was black,save for the flashes of the sinking fire. Out-of-doors an owl hooted,and speedily the Indian guests withdrew to their own lodges, and theChief's household went to their common bed. Little comfort did Milesand his two companions find there, for the singing Indians and themosquitoes pestered them as on the preceding night.

  "I'll not endure this a third time," Miles fretted, when he awoke inthe chilly morning. "Look you, Dolly, why should I not build us alittle wigwam? I make no doubt they'll suffer us go sleep there byourselves."

  Full of this new plan, he bustled forth from the wigwam, but outsidethe doorway halted in surprise. He could see no river nor more thanthe tips of the pines for a thick white fog that drifted through thevillage and struck rawly to his very marrow. For a moment he had amind to slip back to Dolly in the close wigwam, but, spying his Indianallies, he kept to his first manly resolve and began chatting to themof his intentions. Though they could understand nothing of his talk,they came with him readily, through the clammy fog, out beyond thecamp, where the sand, sloping up to the pine ridge, offered, as Milesremembered, a good location for a wigwam.

  The Indian houses, so far as he could judge, were built by bending overyoung saplings and securing both ends in the ground, then covering theframe with mats or great pieces of bark. Miles decided that poles,bound together at the top, would serve him as well, so he went to cutthem in a growth of young oaks at some distance from the camp. Thetrees, all laden with fog moisture, drenched him as he worked, and thetask took him a long time with his small whittle,--would have taken himlonger, had not the Indian boys helped him to break the poles.

  They were all intent on his proceedings, and, when he returned to thesite he had chosen, settled themselves in the sand to watch him, anaction which pleased him little. For, when he stuck his poles intothe sand, at the circumference of a rough circle, and bent them alltogether at the top, the ends that were thrust into the sand would flyup, and 'twas annoying to have other people see his failure. It tookhim some minutes to make all secure, and by then he was so breathlessand tired that he was glad to run tell Dolly of his progress, and, atthe same time, rest a bit.

  Spite of the fog, he found his sister had come out from the chokingatmosphere of the wigwam. She was sitting a little up the pine ridge,behind the lodges, on a fallen tree trunk that was all a-drip; thesand, too, Miles noted, when he lay down at her feet, was damp andsticky to the touch.

  "They have left us alone, haven't they, Dolly?" he said in somesurprise, as he glanced about him and saw no Indians near. "But Trug,he has not followed; very like they think we'll not run away and leavehim behind." Then he perceived that his sister's arms were empty."Where's the old red poppet?" he cried.

  "My poppet Priscilla," Dolly replied seriously. "I did put her awaycarefully. For 'tis the Sabbath to-day, Miles."

  "Is it?" the boy questioned, with some misgivings. "I'd lost count ofthe days. Why, I have been cutting poles and begun my wigwam--"

  "Then you are a Sabbath-breaker," Dolly said relentlessly. "If yoube so wicked, I doubt if ever God let us go back to Plymouth. AndI've been praying Him earnestly. Miles, have you said your prayers o'nights?"

  "N--no," the boy faltered, "last night I forgot 'em, and night before Iwas weary."

  "Come, we'll say them now," Dolly announced, and fell on her knees inthe wet sand.

  Miles obediently knelt beside her; his father had looked somewhataskance at this practice, but Miles's mother had first taught thechildren to say their evening prayer on their knees, and, for her sake,the boy held obstinately to that usage.

  The thought of her came clearly to him now, and how she had bidden himbe good to Dolly, so, when he had prayed "Our Father," he added anextemporaneous appeal, that the English folk might soon come in searchof them. "Not for my sake, O Lord," he explained carefully, "but Thouknowest Dolly is but a wench and were better at Plymouth, perhaps. And,O Lord, I'd near be willing to go thither myself, if Thou wouldst putit in their minds not to flog me."

  Indeed, as he prayed, his heart grew very tender toward the tinysettlement; he would have liked well to open his eyes and see thesandy street of the little village stretching away up the hillside,the ordered cottages, the grave men about their tasks, even MasterHopkins--perhaps.

  Rather subdued, he set himself by Dolly on the wet log. "Now I'll tellyou somewhat out of the Bible, since there is no one to preach us adiscourse," he said, and set forth to her what he remembered of thelast portion of the Scriptures which Master Hopkins had made him read.It was all about how Moses let loose the plagues upon the wicked kingof Egypt, flies and boils and frogs,--Miles was not quite sure of theorder of events, but he detailed them with much gusto.

  "I do not think there is a great deal of doctrine therein," Dollycommented, with a mournful shake of the head. "Elder Brewster, he didnot discourse thus; and Mistress Brewster and Priscilla and the boyswill have bread for dinner to-day, and maybe butter, and lobster, and,if I were home, I should sleep in my own bed with Priscilla, and puton a clean gown in the morning. I wish I were home now."

  Miles squeezed Dolly's fingers, and sat staring away from her into thefleecy fog that still shivered through the camp. So intent was he ongulping down his home-sickness that he started in surprise when a handwas laid on his shoulder, and he looked up into the face of one ofCanacum's warriors.

  He was to come to the Chief's wigwam, he interpreted the Indian'ssigns, so he rose and, leading Dolly, followed his guide down the sandyslope. "Maybe 'tis that they have meetings too on the Sabbath," Dollywhispered him.

  Inside the lodge, where a fire smoked, many warriors were gathered,true enough, but no one preached to them. Instead all puffed at theirpipes and, with long pauses, spoke together, till Miles, sitting withDolly by the Chief, grew weary. Understanding nothing of their talk,he thought on his new wigwam and scarcely heeded them, till a warrior,whom he had a vague idea he had not seen before about the camp, rose upand, coming to him, lifted him to his feet.

  "What will you do?" Miles cried, with a quick pang of fright as hefound his arm fast in the other's grip. "Are we to go with you?" Andthen, with a sudden, overwhelming hope, "To Patuxet?"

  "Nauset," grunted the imperturbable Chief.

  "They set upon the English there!" gasped Miles. "I will not go, I willnot!"

  After that, all passed so quickly he remembered nothing clearly, justthe confusion of bronzed figures in the smoky lodge, the choking odorof the fire, the sight of Dolly's blanched face, as one of the Indiansdrew her back from him. He had a scattered remembrance of crying outthat they should not dare take his sister from him, Captain Standishwould punish them for it; and then
of a helpless, childish struggle,wherein he kicked and struck unavailingly at the savage who held him.

  The chill fog stung against his face, as he was dragged forth fromthe wigwam. He seemed to come to his senses again, and, ceasing tostruggle, called over his shoulder to Dolly not to be afraid, no onewould dare hurt her. Something pressed feebly against his knees, and helooked down at Trug, with a broken thong hanging at his neck and hishead bleeding. He caught the old dog by the collar. "Go in unto Dolly,sirrah," he bade in his sternest voice. "And guard her, guard her!"

  He had a last glimpse of his sister, crouching in the door of thewigwam, with her arms clasped close about the mastiff's neck and herfrightened eyes fixed on him. Then the grasp on his wrist tightened,and stumblingly he followed along with his new captors, past thedripping wigwams with their staring people, past his own unfinishedlodge, and into the chill silence of the moist woods.