Almost Home

by Wendy Lawton

Francis continued, “No matter how much gunpowder I managed to press into the shaft, the explosions were no more than a pop, so I decided to shoot off one of them muskets as a joke—the ones up there were loaded with powder already. I figured inside this room it would make a loud noise and scare all the girls.”

  “You shot a musket in my powder room?” Captain Jones shook his head as if he could not believe what he heard. “With an open barrel of gunpowder?”

  “Aye. But first I had to find some fuse, so I got a piece of candlewick from down below and lit it with the flint. I lit the gun, and it went off, but the gun jerked so hard, I dropped the wick, and it caught the spilled powder on fire and …”

  “I cannot bear to hear any more.” Captain Jones told Francis’s father to take him below while they decided what to do.

  Before the men left to decide how to deal with Francis, Elder Brewster bent his knee and thanked God for keeping them safe once again. Captain Jones seemed to agree that ’twas nothing short of a miracle that the keg of gunpowder did not ignite.

  The next day Captain Standish mounted the first exploration. The shallop was far from finished, so they decided to undertake an overland expedition to the place that had what appeared to be a wide river running into the bay. Many expressions of concern followed the announcement, but the days grew colder and shorter. Every person aboard knew the disaster that lay ahead if they did not settle and build shelter before winter settled hard on the land. Governor Carver finally decided that because of the obvious dangers, the expedition would be “permitted rather than approved.”

  Mary joined Elizabeth and Constance at the rail as the two girls waved to their fathers in the longboat. They stood watching until the boat landed on the white sandy beach, and the sixteen men were put ashore. Wearing the shiny piece of body armor they called a corselet, the expedition set off, each man carrying his musket and sword. The girls watched until they could no longer even see the glint of sunlight off the metal armor.

  “How I wish I could go with them,” Constance said.

  “What about the savages?” Elizabeth had heard her share of hair-raising tales about the Indians. When Captain John Smith of the Jamestown settlement returned to England, people could not get their fill of stories.

  “I look forward to knowing more about the Indians,” Mary said. “True, the stories make them sound barbaric, but I cannot help wondering how much is fact and how much is the stuff of storytellers and bards.”

  “’Tis true.” Constance turned around and plopped on a crate. “After all, this is their land.”

  “Their land, aye … but our congregation also believes God led us to occupy this same land,” said Elizabeth. “If there are savages as some say …”

  “Elizabeth speaks true. Years of praying came before we ever set foot on the Mayflower.” Mary moved over to another crate and pulled her winter wrap closer. The weather seemed to get more chill with each day. If they were back in Holland, Mevrow van Altvorst would be lifting some of her more tender plants and muttering about a killing frost.

  That reminded Mary of Holland. “Remember when we first came to Holland? The Dutch folk seemed so scary to me. They talked funny, and they were always bustling around in those wooden shoes. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I shall never forget the sound of their klompen on the tile floors and cobbled streets. And in the winter, when they strapped their skates to their shoes and took off … I became terrified. As a three-year-old, I could make no sense of them, and they frightened me. I spent my first year in Leyden plastered to my mother’s leg.” Mary laughed at the memory. “Poor Mother. She spent her days hobbled at the knee by my fear.”

  Elizabeth laughed at the picture that made. She pushed Constance over to make room to sit on her crate.

  “Mary, I had not thought about the strangeness being part of the fear. When I lived in England, everyone feared the gypsies. They said gypsies stole children right out of their yards—especially children with light hair like mine.” Constance tucked a few of the windblown strands of blonde hair back under her coif, almost as if to hide the yellow color. “Now that I have grown, I see the folly of that threat. Why would the gypsies want more children? They could barely feed their own.”

  “So you think the Indians may be simple and good?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I doubt that be true, since there must be something to the stories,” Constance said thoughtfully. “Perchance it be somewhere in the middle. Some of the stories of savagery may be true, just as they are for our people. Other parts of the stories may just arise from lack of understanding.”

  “I do not think it wise to let our guard down,” Elizabeth said. “When Father’s cousin came to America, he came up against some Indians a time or two.”

  “Nor do I,” Mary agreed. “But Elizabeth spoke true when she remembered all the prayers offered for this journey—in fact, our families and congregation across the ocean still pray for us.”

  “And?” Constance cocked her head in interest and raised that eyebrow of hers.

  “And, who is to say that God, if we are indeed following His leading in coming here, is not, even now, working in the hearts of some of these who look like savages to us?”

  “Now that is an interesting thought, Mary Chilton.” Constance swung her legs around and stood up. “I need to help Mother with Damaris and the wee babe. Call out to me if anything exciting happens.”

  “What? Like Francis tries to blow us back to England?” Elizabeth also shook out her skirts.

  “Please do not even make the suggestion,” Mary said. “I shall go below deck and bide with Father awhile so Mother can breathe some fresh air.”

  After the party had been ashore for the best part of three days, the sailor manning the longboat caught the signal that the men had gathered on the beach. He rowed out to load the men and supplies and bring them back to the Mayflower. After supper that night, in the gently rocking main cabin of the Mayflower warmed with fragrant juniper wood fires, everyone gathered to hear the report of the exploration. Captain Jones joined them, as did several of the crew.

  Captain Standish stood up in the center of the room, as if to give a starched report. He was a short man of ruddy complexion who held his body ramrod straight. His hair and beard were much the same color as Mary’s coppery hair. “We had not been ashore more than an hour when we surprised six savages with a dog—”

  “Nay, Captain Standish,” Master Hopkins interrupted. “I saw only five.”

  Captain Standish bristled at the interruption but began again. “’Twas near a mile south, along the beach, that our party noticed five or six Indians and a dog.” He paused to look at Master Hopkins, who nodded his head. “They spied us and disappeared into the woods, whistling their dog after them.”

  “We followed them, trying to catch their trail, but they seemed to disappear,” William Bradford added with a quizzical shake of his head.

  “You plunged into the forest after a pack of wild men?” Captain Jones spoke in that clipped way again. They recognized it as agitation. “How did ye not know ’twas a trap?”

  Captain Standish sat down to answer slowly, “We had our weapons drawn, and our corselets protected our most vulnerable areas …” His discomfort was relieved when he was interrupted again.

  “No matter,” said Edward Tilley. “No one could say ’twas the wisest course of action, but the surprise of seeing them overrode our common sense.”

  The men took turns giving report. They never found the Indians. They did not even find tracks.

  “We did find buried treasure,” Master Hopkins said, looking at the children seated all around the deck.

  “Buried treasure?” asked one of the boys, as he wiggled in anticipation of a story.

  “Not Spanish doubloons from pirate ships but almost as good.” Constance’s father loved to tease as much as his daughter did.

  “Tell!” rang out several voices almost at the same time.

  “We came across a spring of fresh water …” He looked
around at the children, hoping for some disappointment before going on. “But that was not the treasure.”

  No one interrupted.

  “As we walked up a small hill, Captain Standish noticed some recently dug mounds. At first we thought they were fresh graves, but they appeared different. We dug down a ways and found a large basket …”

  “What did you find inside?” Bartholomew Allerton knew never to interrupt his elders, but the thought of buried treasure overcame good manners to an eight-year-old boy.

  “Look.” Master Hopkins put Bartholomew’s hands together, palm up, ready to hold treasure. The man reached into his pouch and spilled a handful of richly colored seeds into the boy’s cupped hands.

  “This is the treasure?”

  “Aye. We found a whole basket of seeds for next year’s crop of Indian corn. This treasure means we will have plenty to eat next harvest.” Master Hopkins motioned to Bartholomew to pass some of the seeds around, so all the children could touch them.

  One of the sailors hanging on the ladder turned to his friend and said in an overloud voice, “They nicked them seeds right out from under the savages’ noses. There be grief to pay for that.”

  Elder Brewster furrowed his eyebrows. “Perchance the seed stash, laid right across our path, was God’s provision for us. We brought seeds with us, but I fear that the climate and the soil may not agree with our English peas and our Dutch barley. The hours we spent in prayer may have been answered today.”

  “What about God’s provision for them angry savages?” heckled the sailor.

  “Lad,”—it was the clipped voice of Captain Jones. “Perhaps you left some chores undone above deck.” He did not have to repeat his suggestion. The two sailors scrambled up the ladder.

  “The man raises a fair question. We made a covenant to come back next year and pay the Indians for their seed as well as replacing it.” Elder Brewster paused. “’Tis to be hoped that the Indians bury their seed stores near several different fields, so that if animals raid one, they still have plenty.”

  The elder bent his knee, as did the rest of the company. He prayed, thanking God for His provision, for seeing them safely back to the ship, and asking for wisdom in their dealings with the Indians. Mary could tell that the elder struggled with the worry that what they saw as God’s provision might belong to someone else. “Like Elijah’s oil jar, Almighty God, and like the boy’s lunch of loaves and fishes—multiply the seed. Make it sufficient for the Indians and make it sufficient for us as well. Amen.”

  The weather turned bitter, and ice formed on the top of buckets. With the shallop repairs complete about ten days later, a second expedition went out. The men decided to sail down to the mouth of the river they had found on the first expedition and replenish their water supply from the spring nearby.

  Several of the passengers wanted to disembark and make their home right at the hill of Master Hopkins’s “buried treasure,” which they named Corn Hill. Mary often wondered if they had to spend so much time deciding where to set up their new home. It was taking so long. Couldn’t they just pick a place and get started?

  The leaders promised that when they came back from this expedition they would hold a meeting and decide whether to keep looking or whether to settle at Corn Hill.

  After little more than a day, the shallop came sailing back with only a handful of the men who originally set out. Word spread all over the ship, and some thought the worst—that something had happened to their loved ones. Pilgrims gathered at the rail to see if their husband, father, or brother was on board.

  As soon as the shallop came within earshot, the helmsman yelled out, “Ho, the ship! Bringing supplies.”

  Many a tear of gratitude fell to find out that the shallop was sent back to bring more seed stock and that the men were safely exploring. When they went back to Corn Hill they found even more seed. They brought back another ten bushels of Indian corn seed and some Indian wheat or maize seed, some dried beans, and even a bottle of oil—all had been cached on the hill. They wanted to get the seed to the ship before it froze so they sent it on ahead.

  Another day passed, and those keeping watch on the Mayflower saw the signal fire on the beach—the sign to send the shallop for the return trip.

  Before the men even returned, there was a flurry of excitement aboard the Mayflower. All the women hastened around the ship arranging for the return of the men, preparing for the meeting to decide where they would settle, and cooking a savory supper with some of the game that came back with the seed. All the women except for Mistress White, that is. Amid the bustle and twitter, the warm fires and the duck stew, Susannah White gave birth to a boy child. As those gathered heard him wail, someone remarked that he was the very first Pilgrim born after landfall in America. They named the baby boy Peregrine, which meant “one who has made the journey.”

  Mary’s mother could not take part in the preparations—Father’s illness kept her at his bedside. Only when Mary took a turn sitting with him did Mother have a chance to go above deck. Father stirred now and then, but a terrible weakness had overtaken him. Most of the others who suffered had since left their beds, and Mary continued to pray for her father’s recovery.

  That evening Mother came back and touched Mary on the shoulder. She had fallen asleep next to her father, and her head rested on the covers right next to him. As she carefully moved, trying not to wake him, she realized that at some time while she slept her father had moved his hand to stroke her hair. Please, heavenly Father, most holy, heal my father.

  As the Pilgrims gathered to discuss their settlement plans, it soon became clear that opinion was divided. The men told of finding an Indian dwelling and several Indian graves—one freshly dug. The river they had begun to call the Pamut River was not a river at all. It was a tidal estuary.

  “This place be as good as any,” one Pilgrim said. “’Tis but folly to go any later into the season without shelter.”

  “Aye. I shall grant you that.” Governor Carver led the meeting. “Truth be told, however, the Pamut is too shallow for ships, as is the harbor. If we hope to have ships plying goods and passengers to and fro across the ocean, this cannot be our settlement.”

  “Corn Hill be a good defensible location,” said another.

  “True enough,” William Bradford said. “But there is no water at Corn Hill. All our water would needs be hauled up from the springs. Can we defend a stronghold that stands to run out of water?”

  “The fishing here in Cape Cod holds great promise. We should be able to salt down many barrels of cod to send back to England.” This reasoning caused murmured agreement.

  The debate went back and forth for a good long time with no accord.

  From the back of the room, one of the ship’s mates, Robert Coffin, spoke up. “Beggin’ yer pardon, but, when I sailed here before, we anchored in at a good, deep harbor not far from here. We called it Thievish Harbor because one of the wild men what often hung around stole one of our harpoons.” He paused. “I believe it be the harbor what John Smith calls Plymouth on the map.”

  Elder Brewster rolled out his copy of John Smith’s 1614 map of the area and found the bay. The company of Pilgrims decided to make one more expedition to see Coffin’s Thievish Harbor before coming to a decision.

  Eighteen men set out the following Wednesday. This time Mary did not stand at the rail to see them off. ’Twas bitterly cold with a wind that cut right through clothing. The Mayflower pitched and rolled, and the spray froze on their hair and clothes.

  Even below deck, the whistling wind through the cracks and the swirling draft blowing through the open grate made the main cabin blustery, chill, and damp. Coughing and sneezing kept time to cries of babies and whining pleas of toddlers. Teeth chattered and bellies rumbled from hunger.

  Food had been scarce almost since they left England and, except for days when the men caught game, they went to bed hungry nearly every night. The last bit of meal grew so buginfested that the young people took tur
ns sifting out bugs so the grain could be used. The thought of it turned Mary’s stomach. Now that winter descended on the land, hunting stopped. Wild game had either burrowed under or flown to warmer climes.

  Sadness settled in with the onset of winter as well. Most of the women stayed busy with the work of caring for the sick ones along with their regular chores. Loneliness hit them all at one time or another, but some seemed to become lonelier and lonelier as time went on.

  William Bradford and his wife, Dorothy, had made the decision to leave their small son with family in Leyden until they could settle and send for him. As Mistress Bradford helped with the little ones, Mary couldn’t help seeing the loneliness in her.

  Each time her husband left on an expedition, Mistress Bradford would walk the deck waiting to catch sight of the returning boat. While the weather was still fair, she often perched atop one of the crates and read a book—waiting. Now that the sea spray turned icy and the deck had become slick and slippery, she wrapped in blankets and tried to stay near the rail so she had a handhold.

  The expedition had only been gone two days when Captain Jones came below deck. For the first time, he seemed shaken. “Where is Elder Brewster?”

  “Here, Captain.”

  “I bring tragic news … William Bradford’s wife slipped on deck and went over the port side into the icy water below.” He shook his head from side to side as if he could not believe what he had seen.

  “No!” the cries went up all over the cabin.

  “So many blankets tangled around her … they soaked up water, becoming sodden and heavy. She slipped too fast beneath the water.” He continued to shake his head. “Too fast.”

  Elder Brewster gathered the company of Pilgrims together, and they knelt to pray. How could they find words to tell William Bradford?

  Mother still sat on the crate beside Father. Mary squeezed in to sit with her. So much loss …

  “Mary, ’tis so difficult to say good-bye to friends.” Mother held Mary’s hand in both of hers.