I can well fancy you are asking how it is we complain thus about the
scarcity of food, when you know that the sea is filled with fish.
Captain Standish declares that there are no less than two hundred
different kinds to be found off this coast, and lobsters are at some
seasons so plentiful that the smallest boy may go out and get as many
as he can carry. I myself have seen one so large that I could, hardly
lift it, and father says its weight was upwards of twenty pounds.
You will say that if we could send out a certain number of our people
in boats to get food thus from the sea, what should prevent us from
taking as many as would be necessary for our wants during one year?
I myself put that same question to father one night last winter while
we were hungry, and mother and I sat chewing the dried leaves of the
checkerberry plant which ground to powder between our teeth, and he
answered me bitterly:
"It is owing to our own shortsightedness, my daughter; to our neglect
to understand what might be met with in this new world. Those who made
ready for the voyage believed we should find here food in abundance;
but yet had no reason for such belief. It was known that we were to
go into the wilderness, and yet, perhaps, for we will not say aught of
harm against another, it was thought that we should find in the forest
so much of fowls and of animals as would serve for all our needs."
[Illustration]
"But why do we not take more fish, father?" I asked, speaking because
such conversation served to keep my mind from the hunger which was
heavy upon me.
"Because of not having the lines, the hooks, or the nets with
which to catch a larger store. When the _Fortune_ sailed for home,
Governor Bradford sent to the people in London who had made ready the
_Mayflower_, urging that they send in the next ship which may come to
this land such fishing gear as is needed. When that reaches us, then
shall we be able not only to guard against another time of famine; but
have of cured fish enough to bring us in money sufficient to buy other
things we now need."
And thus speaking of money reminds me to set down what the savages use
in the stead of gold and silver coins.