the gallant Henry II, three of whom were to be kings in turn, were
fated to be weak and sickly. Francis drooped and pined, and a year had
barely passed before his reign was ended, and Mary, patient nurse at
his side, was made a widow. Charles, the second brother, came to the
throne, only to find it a place of weariness and regret, and to shudder
at the horrors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, planned by his
mother. Perhaps it was as well for Mary that her reign in France had
ended. The land had fallen into evil days, wherein there was little
happiness for any one.
The Queen of Scots, still only a girl, went back to her northern home,
and the people of that mountainous land were glad to welcome her to the
old historic Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. But even when she was
leaving France her cousin Elizabeth the English Queen showed her
enmity. Mary had asked to be allowed to pass through England on her way
to Scotland, but this Elizabeth refused, and Mary was obliged to make
the long sea-voyage.
The youth and beauty and the sweet manner of the young Queen won all
Scotch hearts to her. She was at once beset by royal suitors; the King
of Sweden, the Archduke Charles, son of the Holy Roman Emperor, and Don
Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain, all wanted to marry her. In the
midst of the plots and plans of her statesmen the young Queen took
matters into her own hands and married her cousin, the handsome Earl of
Darnley, whom she loved with all the passion of her nature.
Though the Scotch people had longed to have their Queen home again they
did not make her happy when she lived with them. Plots and counterplots
surrounded her, the leaders of the Catholics and the Protestants were
continually fighting over her, and the dashing Darnley proved a weak
and vicious man. Mary did what she could to steer her course through
these troubled waters, but she was met by treachery on every hand. At
last she was betrayed by some powerful men who wished to be rid of her
and to rule the kingdom as guardians for her infant son, Prince James.
She was delivered over to the English, and charges were brought against
her of having conspired against Queen Elizabeth. Her judges found her
guilty; the English Queen, remembering how Mary had been proclaimed in
France as Queen of England, turned a deaf ear to all pleas for mercy,
and so Mary, the beautiful, heroic Queen of Scotland, came to her death
on the scaffold. Like so many others who had been brought up in royal
palaces in that glittering but cruel age she met a tragic fate not so
much on account of her own acts as through the bitter hatreds of other
people.
Mary's son became King James VI of Scotland, and when Queen Elizabeth
died King James I of England. In France the two young brothers of her
boy husband, Charles IX and Henry III, had met the same untimely deaths
as that young King, and the throne passed to the valiant Henry of
Navarre. The house of Guise had fallen, and the bloody civil wars were
ending. There was little left of that gay court of France where Mary
had seen such splendors as a girl. Like the thunder-storm that ends a
summer day tragedy too often closed those pageants. So it had been with
the life of the famous Scotch Queen, who had ruled all hearts as a girl
in France.
VII
Pocahontas
The Girl of the Virginia Woods: 1595-1617
Deep snow covered the fields about the encampment of the Algonquin
Indians on the banks of the river James. The snow had been falling for
days during January, and made the long, low houses of bark and boughs
look like so many great white ridges high above the ice-bound river.
They were big houses, these "long houses" as they were called, each one
large enough to hold twenty families. Each family had a compartment to
itself, with sleeping bunks built against the walls, and curtains of
deerskin to shield the family from the open passage which ran the
length of the house. At different places in this passage fire-pits were
built on the earth floor, and each pit gave heat enough to warm four
Indian families and an opportunity for them to cook their meals. Some
smoke went out at rude chimneys made in the roof, but much of it stayed
in and filtered through to the different living-rooms. Each of these
"long houses" was the home of from eighty to one hundred Indians.
The river James was called by the Indians the Pow-ha-tan, and the
Algonquin tribe that lived upon its shores went by the same name. The
tribe's chief settlement was the village of Wero-woco-moco, and here
the famous old chief, called by the white men Pow-ha-tan but by the
Indians Wa-bun-so-na-cook, was usually to be found. He had built there
a "long house" for his own family, and at one end of it was the council
room in which the various chiefs of the tribe met with him to discuss
all matters relating to tribe affairs. Here they spent much of the time
smoking about a fire-pit when the snow was falling and the hunting
season at an end.
Before the council-house a group of boys were playing "snow-snake" and
tumbling about in the drifts on a raw afternoon in January. Suddenly
there appeared an Indian runner, coming noiselessly out of the woods
and crossing the open space where the boys were playing. "It's
Ra-bun-ta," cried one of them, and making a snowball threw it at the
slim young Indian. Others took up the cry and pelted him with
snowballs, while one named Nan-ta-qua-us dashed forward and tried to
trip him with the knob-headed stick they had been using in their game
of "snow-snake."
Ra-bun-ta, however, kicked the stick away and gave the boy a push which
sent him sprawling. He dodged the snowballs and ran on without a word
to the door of the old chief's house. Pushing the matting aside he
dashed in and spied the chief sitting with other braves about a fire at
the farther end of the house. Other Indians were lounging about nearer
fires and children were playing up and down the passage. Some of these
were turning somersaults in the open spaces between the fires while
others were trying to balance on their heads and walk on their hands.
As the runner darted along the passage a girl, dressed in buckskin,
came whirling along turning handsprings. Ra-bun-ta leaped to one side,
but the girl's feet struck full against his breast, and with such force
that he was thrown backward while the girl went tumbling to the ground.
Both fell sprawling just clear of a fire-pit. There followed a great
roar of laughter, the other children danced about in delight, while the
chiefs, loving a rough joke, leaned back and ridiculed the upset
messenger. "Knocked down by a girl! Oh, for shame, Ra-bun-ta!" called
one as the young man slowly picked himself up. "You'd make a splendid
brave," cried another.
But the old chief, taking his pipe from his mouth, looked at the girl
on the floor. "My daughter, you have nearly killed our brother
Ra-bun-ta with your foolery," said he. "That is hardly young girl's
play. Why will you be such a little _po-ca-hun-tas_!"
"Po-ca-hun-tas! Po-ca-hun-tas!" called the other children delightedly,
using the word which in the Algonquin tongue meant "little tomboy."
Ra-bun-ta, laughing, turned quickly and made a dash at the little girl,
but she jumped aside in time to avoid him. "A _po-ca-hun-tas_ must
always be on guard," she exclaimed as he stepped past her.
The runner now turned and faced the chief Pow-ha-tan. "Oh, strong one,"
said he, "the feet of the little princess Ma-ta-oka, whom you have now
renamed Po-ca-hun-tas, are more dangerous to me than the 'snake-stick'
of her brother Nun-ta-qua-us. I have with difficulty escaped from these
two with my life, but it is well I have been able to do so, for I have
news for you. I have traveled fast over the snow to tell you. The
braves who are with your mighty brother O-pe-chan-ca-nough have seized
the pale-face chieftain in the swamp-lands of the Chicka-hominy and are
even now bringing him here to this your council-house."
Pow-ha-tan nodded his head. "It is well, Ra-bun-ta," said he. "We will
be ready for him."
The young Indian messenger bowed and made his way to one of the nearer
fire-pits. As he warmed his hands over the blaze other young braves
crowded about him, asking him countless questions. One wanted to know
if it was true that the white chief wore a headpiece of heavy iron, and
another if the chief had used magic against the braves, and a third if
he was indeed half as tall again as any Indian chief. Ra-bun-ta
answered their questions as best he could, and then, squatting by the
fire while he ate the parched Indian corn that the little Ma-ta-oka
brought him, he told how the "Great Captain" had been surprised and
taken prisoner in the swamps by O-pe-chan-ca-nough and two hundred of
his braves. "The Great Captain" had only had two white warriors with
him, and these had been slain by the Indian chief, but then the white
chief had caught his Indian guide and held him in front of him as a
shield, and so saved his life while he shot flames through his magic
fire-tube. Finally the Captain's foot had slipped and he had fallen
into a mud-hole, and then the braves had found it an easy matter to
surround him and make him prisoner. They found his clothes shot through
and through with arrows, but the Captain as brave and confident as
ever.
The news that the great White Captain was coming to the village caused
great excitement. The Indians admired courage and craftiness above all
other qualities, and this pale-face was known to be extraordinarily
brave and cunning. Reports of this Captain John Smith, the governor of
the little settlement of white people that was called Virginia, had
spread far and wide among the Indians, and he was undoubtedly the white
chief whom the Indians most admired and feared. All that night and the
next day the Pow-ha-tans talked of Captain Smith, and the chief's
daughter Ma-ta-oka, or Po-ca-hun-tas as she was now called in jest,
listened eagerly to all the stories about him. Already she thought of
him as an all-conquering hero.
The Indians were all waiting out-of-doors when the chief
O-pe-chan-ca-nough and his braves reached the village with their
prisoner. Wild yells rent the air as they caught sight of the tall
white man, walking fearlessly among the red men, his head held high,
and his eyes smiling. He was led to the council-house, and there a
great feast was spread before him, which he shared with Pow-ha-tan and
the other chiefs of the tribe. Po-ca-hun-tas, watching secretly from a
corner, saw that the white man ate heartily, although she knew he must
be in doubt as to what fate lay in store for him.
Pow-ha-tan was a wise chieftain and he knew that if he should kill
Captain Smith he would cause a relentless hatred among the white
settlers towards his own tribe. He knew the white men were strong and
he preferred to have them as friends rather than as enemies in his wars
with his tribe's chief foes, the Manna-ho-acks. When a prisoner was not
killed he was usually made a slave, but Pow-ha-tan thought the Captain
too big a man to use in that way, and so he decided to treat him as a
guest, talk with him for several days about affairs between the
settlers and his tribe, and then send him home with many presents.
To Captain Smith's surprise he was invited to regard himself as a guest
in Pow-ha-tan's house, and the following day was adopted by the chief
as a son, and given a large grant of land in the neighborhood. The old
chief's daughter seemed much interested in him, and was always waiting
to serve him in any way, occasionally asking him questions which showed
her great curiosity in the white people. The Captain could not help
liking her for her kindness to him, and asked the chief her name. The
latter hesitated, for Indians did not like to let their real names be
known to these strange people. "She is called Po-ca-hun-tas," he
answered evasively. And to Captain Smith she was known as Po-ca-hun-tas
from that time.
The Indian girl seemed sorry the Captain was leaving when he said
good-bye to her the next day, and wished him a safe journey back to the
Virginia settlement. Captain Smith gave her a few small gifts he had
managed to carry with him, and he promised to bring her more when he
should come again. With the rest of the children she stood out in the
snow to wave him a farewell as he left the village in company with two
of Pow-ha-tan's guides, and that night she dreamed of the "Great
Captain" as a hero in a far country doing prodigious deeds of valor. To
her he now seemed the most wonderful man in the world.
After the excitement of the "Great Captain's" visit the village of
Wero-woco-moco sank back to its ordinary life, and Po-ca-hun-tas shared
the work of the other girls, although being the daughter of the chief
she was relieved of much of the drudgery that fell to most of them. Two
things she particularly wished for now, the one that she might see the
white Captain again, and the other that she might visit a white man's
village and see all the wonders she had heard so much about. Winter
changed to spring and the Indian braves went hunting, and spring
deepened into summer, and in the early fall her first wish was granted,
for Captain Smith with some friends came to Pow-ha-tan's village to
invite that chief to go with them to the white man's town of Jamestown
to be crowned by the English people as king of the Pow-ha-tan tribe.
The Captain had not forgotten the twelve-year old Indian princess and
had brought her a necklace of coral beads and bracelets set with red
stones, and in thanks she led ten other girls of her own age in an
Indian dance before the Captain and his friends, a graceful dance about
a fire in the forest to the accompaniment of gay Indian songs and the
music of the Indian drum. By now Po-ca-hun-tas and Captain Smith had
become great friends, and Pow-ha-tan, watching them with his shrewd
eyes, decided that if he should ever need to ask a favor of the white
settlers this little daughter of his might prove the best of messengers
to send.
It was only a few weeks afterward that some of Pow-ha-tan's braves were
made prisoners by the settlers through fear that a conspiracy was being
planned against them. The old chief sent his daughter with Ra-bun-ta to
Jamestown, and she begged the Captain to free the captive braves. Like
Pow-ha-tan John Smith knew when to be gracious, and he at once gave
orders for the release of the Indians. Then he entertained
Po-ca-hun-tas as though she were a royal princess. She met the white
girls and boys who lived at Jamestown and learned their games, teaching
them in exchange the sports of the Algonquin children. One day when
Captain Smith came into the market-place square he found his young
guest leading a line of boys who were turning handsprings. A crowd had
gathered to watch them go round and round the square in a great circle,
the Indian princess at the head, turning better wheels than any of the
boys. She had such a good time that she came again and again, sometimes
on matters of business with Ra-bun-ta, sometimes with her brother
Nun-ta-qua-us, and sometimes with her girl friends. With each visit her
admiration for Captain John Smith increased.
Those were times when there was little real safety for either Indians
or white men. The settlers were far too often greedy and selfish,
taking land as they pleased, regardless of the fact that it had
belonged to other men for generations, and breaking their agreements
with the Indians as though a promise given to a redskin was of no
value. What the settlers wanted they tried to get by hook or crook, and
so the Indians soon came to distrust, and then to fear and hate them.
Certain discontented men in Jamestown also were planning to rid the
colony of its strong governor Captain Smith, and conspired with
restless Indians to capture and kill him when he was unprepared. Some
of these Indians were of the Algonquin tribe, and one day
Po-ca-hun-tas, stealing silently through the woods, came upon a meeting
of them and overheard their plans.
This was in midwinter of the year 1609. Provisions had run low in
Jamestown and the settlers were almost starving. Captain Smith,
trusting to the old friendship of Pow-ha-tan, left the colony and
journeyed through the forest to Wero-woco-moco. There he met Pow-ha-tan
and made a treaty with him, by which he was to receive a supply of corn
to carry back to the settlement with him. The chief said it would take
him several days to collect the provisions, and so the Captain pitched
his camp in the woods by the York River to wait until the promised corn
was sent out to him. But meantime certain braves had come to Pow-ha-tan
and shown him how easy it would be to deal the pale-faces a serious
blow by killing their leader and letting the people suffer for
supplies. Pow-ha-tan listened, considered how much harm the white men
had already done his Algonquins, and at last nodded his head. None of
those seated at the council-fire knew that the sharp-eared
Po-ca-hun-tas was hiding close behind one of the deerskin curtains that
hung at her bedroom door.
The braves ceased their conference and scattered for the night. Then
the girl stole out from her room and glided down the passageway to the
door. There was no moon and she could cross the open space about the
houses without observation. She slipped into the forest, and with
scarcely a crackle of twigs to mark her progress over the dead leaves
she made her way in and out through the trees, following the trail to
the camp on the river with the sure instinct born and bred in her.
Now and then she would stop and listen or glance up through the bare
branches at the star-strewn sky. Then she would turn and steal on
again, fleet-footed as a deer. So she covered several miles and came
near the river. She stopped to listen and then stepped on again. Soon
she caught the light of a camp-fire shining through the trees.
She stood behind the trunk of a giant oak and looked at the little camp
before her. At the fire sat a man, his gun resting across his arms.
Near him lay a dozen other men, wrapped in blankets and apparently
asleep. She knew the man on watch was Captain Smith.
She took a step forward and a dry twig crackled ever so little under
her tread. The Captain turned like the wind, his gun raised in defense.
"Wake up!" he cried. "Watch! I heard a noise!"
The girl took another step, holding up her hands. "It is I,
Po-ca-hun-tas," she said. "I come alone to speak with you."
The Captain lowered his gun. "Come, Po-ca-hun-tas," he answered. "You
are always welcome."
She stepped into the clearing, and the men, glad to find only one girl
where they had feared to see a line of savage Indians, sank back on the
ground.
"What would you say to me, Po-ca-hun-tas?" asked the Captain, extending
his hand in welcome to her. "I hope you have come to tell me that the
corn and the good cheer will soon be here."
She took his hand and stood very close to him. "Be guarded, oh, my
father," she answered. "The corn and the good cheer will come just as
they have been promised to you, but even now my father, chief of the
Pow-ha-tans, is gathering all his power to fall upon you and your men
here and kill you. If you would live, get you away from these woods at
once."
"Is it so?" said the Captain. "Then, men, we must be up and off before
the twigs crack again. How can I thank you, Po-ca-hun-tas, for this
warning?" He thought of the Indian's love of presents and put his hand
in the pocket of his coat, but there was nothing there. Then his eyes
fell on the small compass which hung from a chain at his neck. It was
very valuable to him, but he wanted to show the girl his appreciation
of the greatness of her service. He took it from his neck and held it
out to her. "My daughter," said he, "three times you have come to me in
Jamestown to warn me of dangers that waited for me, and now again you
have saved my life, coming alone, and at risk of your own young life
through the lonely woods and in this gloomy night to warn me. Take this
present, I pray you, from me, and let it always speak to you of the
love for you of Captain Smith."
All Indians looked upon the compass, or "path-teller" as they called
it, as an instrument of magic, and as Po-ca-hun-tas saw this present
gleaming in the Captain's hand she would have liked to own it. But she
shook her head.
"No, no, _Cau-co-rouse_," said she, using the Indian word for "Great
Captain." "I must not take it. If it should be seen by my tribesmen, or
even by my father, the chief, I should be as but dead to them, for they
would know that I had warned you whom they have sworn to kill, and so
they would kill me too. Stay not to parley, my father, but be gone at
once."
"It is well we should," agreed the Captain, and he gave orders to his
men to prepare for the march at once.
"Good-bye," said Po-ca-hun-tas, giving him her hand again, after the
fashion of the white people.
"Good-bye, my daughter," he answered. "May we soon meet again when
there will be no danger in the meeting."
Po-ca-hun-tas slipped away into the forest as silently as she had come,
and threaded her way safely home to her own "long house." No one knew
she had been out of bed. When the Algonquin braves, in war paint,
reached the bank of the York River they found only the embers of a
camp-fire to show that the white men had waited for them there.
[Illustration: POCAHONTAS
_From the only authentic portrait_]
Captain Smith got safely back to Jamestown, but he found many of his
own people discontented, and soon afterward, tired out by the continual
difficulties that beset him in Virginia, he gave up his position there
and sailed back to England. Po-ca-hun-tas heard the news and decided
that she had better keep away from Jamestown now that the settlers were
hostile to her father and her great protector was gone. Troubles were
increasing between the Indians and the white men, and neither trusted
the others any more.
When she was sixteen Po-ca-hun-tas was visiting friends in another
village on the James when she was suddenly made prisoner by a man named
Captain Argall, a trader, who decided to hold the Indian girl as
hostage for the friendship of Pow-ha-tan. He took her to Jamestown, and
there Po-ca-hun-tas was given a certain amount of liberty and met again
some of the boys and girls she had played with before. They all liked
her, and although she missed her free life in the woods she found so
much that was new and strange to interest her that she was not sorry to
stay for a time in Jamestown. Here she soon met a young Englishman
named John Rolfe, who was much attracted by her, and who at length
asked her to marry him. She consented, and a short time after their
marriage she sailed with him to visit his home across seas in England.
The people of London had seen few Indians and were very curious to
learn more about them. They were charmed with Mistress John Rolfe, or
the Princess Po-ca-hon-tas of Pow-ha-tan, as they liked to call her.
Captain John Smith met her again and told his friends how she had saved
his life that night on the York River. The story spread, and the
Princess Po-ca-hon-tas found herself a heroine in England. But she bore
her honors very modestly, and was much happier alone with her devoted
husband than when she was being stared at by crowds of strange people.
She did not live to go back to Virginia or see her own tribesmen again,
but died in England when she was only twenty-two.
Ma-ta-oka, or Pocahontas as we call her, was a real heroine, one of the
few daughters we know of that brave, romantic race which so quickly
vanished from America after the white settlers came. Many among the
Indians were cruel and bloodthirsty, many were treacherous and sly, but
Pocahontas we know was warm-hearted and true, faithful to the great
Captain she had admired before she had even seen him and risking her
life to save him from her father. It is fortunate that history has kept
her story, for we must always think more kindly of the Indians when we
remember the little daughter of Powhatan, nicknamed Pocahontas by her
father because she was such a tomboy.
VIII
Priscilla Alden
The Girl of Plymouth: About 1604--after 1680
Two girls stood on the deck of the _Mayflower_, hand clasped in hand,
their eyes fixed on a narrow strip of grayish shore beyond the waste
of tossing ocean. About them stood others, men and women and a few
children, all looking in the same direction, wonder and satisfaction
and a certain awe in their faces. They had been at sea for nearly
thirteen weeks, and during most of that time their little ship had been
buffeted by constant storms.
"Mary dear," said one of the girls to the other, "can you really
believe that yonder low line is land?"