THE NEW WORLD.
When the news of this land of gold spread over the world, Eng-land
and France and Spain all sent ships to see what they could find.
They each thought they would like to have a slice. The Eng-lish
thought they had some rights, as one of their men, named Ca-bot,
had, in truth, been the first to touch this new shore. The next
time he came, he made his way down the coast to what we call
Vir-gin-ia, and set up a claim for Eng-land.
Then the King of France sent a man to plant his flag here, and
he gave the name of New France to part of our coast. But though
Eng-land and France both set claim to the land, they did not
send men here to live for a long time.
At last Queen E-liz-a-beth gave one of the great men at court,
called Sir Wal-ter Ral-eigh, a claim to a large tract of land
in A-mer-i-ca. He came with two ships, and found the red skins
kind. They brought him gifts, and he went back to tell of all
the strange things he had seen, and some came to live on the
new shores. But the red skins were hard to live with, and the
small group of white men could get no food, and were near death,
when a brave man, named Sir Fran-cis Drake, came with a ship
and took them off to their homes. The next band that came met
a sad fate, for they all fell by the hand of the red men.
There were some in Eng-land who had a great wish to see this
new world. They thought they would like to live in a land with
no King, and have a church where they could pray to God in their
own way. They were called "Pil-grims," for they went from place
to place and would sing psalms and pray, and they were full
of joy at the thought of their new home.
Do you know the name of the ship they came in? It is a sweet
name, and you must keep it in your mind--The May-flow-er. They
did not have a smooth trip, and a storm blew them on to the
coast of Mass-a-chu-setts. It was bare and cold, but it was
nice to see land at all. There were all sorts of fowl there,
and they saw a whale; but when they went to shoot it the gun
burst. They made their way to a vale where there was a spring,
and there they took their first drink in the new land.
[Illustration: IN-DI-AN FLINT-HEADED ARROW.]
There was a rock called Plym-outh Rock, and here they made their
homes and built the first house. It was in 1620, in a cold time
of the year, that the May-flow-er brought her crew to Plym-outh
Rock. There was not much food, and they had from the first a
foe whom they could not trust or make a friend. These were a
new race of men. They had brown skins; were tall and straight,
with long, coarse black hair. They had no books, and got their
food in the hunt, or caught fish in the streams. They made boats
of birch bark--queer, long things, with a point at each end.
They could make bows, and would pound their corn with two stones
for their bread. They took the skins of beasts for their clothes,
for they knew how to dress them. Each tribe had its head man,
called a chief, and their great joy was in war. When their foes
took them, they would not pray for their lives. They were brave
in their own way, and would show no fear at the sight of the
fire that was to burn their flesh.
Their wives, the squaws, would dress the food and do all the
hard work at home. They were the ones who dug each small patch
of ground and put in the beans and corn. The men had a scorn
for work. They were made to fight, they thought. They would
say, "The Great Chief gave the white man a plow and the red
man a bow, and sent them in the world to gain food, each in
his own way."
In this new land there was not a horse, cow, sheep, cat, dog,
or hen to be found. You would not like such a place, would you?
What did the young people do for pets in those days? No chicks
to feed, no puss with her soft, warm fur, for small hands to
stroke.
[Illustration: A canoe.]
But the new homes were not left in peace. The red men saw that
their doom was near. They felt that they would have to move
on and on, to give place to these men who knew so much; who
read books and had schools, and taught their young ones to pray.
So they took the guns that they had bought from the white men
and went to war with them. When they took them they would tie
them fast to stakes, burn them to death, and all the time the
flames were at work, these fierce red men would dance a war
dance of joy. They bought rum from the white men, and it made
them like brutes.
They knew that the white men had come to take their land, and
that was cause for their hate. And so the white men, in their
turn, felt no love for the red skin, and thought they did well
to push him back more and more, and take all they could from
him. The white men were to blame, for they first gave the vile
rum to the red men, and that made them wild. They would burn
down the white man's house at night, and kill his wife and babes.
Think how sad it must be to wake up in the night and find the
hot blaze of a fire in your face, and the wild war-whoop of
an In-di-an in your ears. But you can lie down in your bed in
peace, for there is no one to harm you--you live in good times.
But those who were brave enough to come and live in this new
land, had a hard life at first. There were no snug farms as
now, with fields of green corn and wheat. At times the poor
men could not get much to eat, and one wrote home: "The crumbs
that fall from your meals would be sweet to me. When I can get
a cup of meal and boil It with a pinch of salt, I give thanks
as for a great feast. The In-di-ans at times bring corn and
trade it for clothes or knives. One day they gave me a peck
of corn for a small dog. It would be a strange thing to see
a piece of roast beef or veal here."
[Illustration: PIL-GRIMS ON THEIR WAY TO CHURCH.]
It will not seem strange, then, that, in such hard times, death
came to these small bands and took some away. But those who
were left kept up brave hearts, and would not go back to their
old homes; and though all were so poor, there was not a case
of theft in four years. They grew to like the land, and one
said, "A sup of New Eng-land air is worth more than a draught
of Old Eng-land ale."
For one of the first bands of men who came here, made their
homes in a place to which they gave the name of New Eng-land,
after their old home. As time went on each place grew to be
a town, and soon had a church and a school of its own. If we
had gone in one of those towns on the Lord's day, we would have
seen some strange sights. As the clocks struck nine, there would
come out a man who would beat a drum or blow a conch shell,
or ring a bell to call all the folks to church. As we drew near
to this church, we would have seen that it was built of logs,
with a small flag to wave on it. There would be a fence of stakes
round it, and a man with a gun on guard near it. Those who went
in left all their guns in his care.
If you look at this church you will see that it has no glass
panes like ours, but small and dull and thick ones set in lead.
It is the style now to like that old thick glass, and to use
it once more. You might see on the front of this church, near
the door, the heads of wolves that had been slain in the hunt
in the past year.
In this church the old men sat on one side, and the young men
were not with them. They had their own place. So, too, the boys
did not sit by the girls. Most of the boys sat on the stairs,
and there was a man there as a sort of guard to see that they
did not talk. He had a long rod or wand in his hand, with a
hare's foot on one end, and a hare's tail on the other. He would
let no one go to sleep. If he saw a girl nod, he would touch
her on the face with the soft brush of the hare's tail; but
if it were a boy who was caught in a nap, he got a sharp rap
from the hare's foot. So you see in those times one could not
make such a snug nest in the pew and take a long sleep as one
does now; and they had to stay three or four hours in church.
It must have been hard for small folks not to nod at times.
When they sung, it was out of a book by the name of "The Bay
Psalm Book," and they did not know more than ten tunes. In those
days no one could stay from church but for a good cause, or
else they had to pay a fine. And if a man staid from church
a month, he was put in the stocks, or in a cage of wood, where
all could see him and laugh and jeer at him.
You do not know what stocks are in these times, but if you had
stood in a New Eng-land town then, you would have seen a strange
thing made of wood, by the road near the church. This queer
frame of wood would hold a man fast so that he could not move,
and you may think a day in the stocks would be hard to bear,
and would make one's bones ache.
A house in such a town, in those days, was all built on the
ground floor; so there were no stairs. It was made of earth
or logs, and had a steep roof of thatch. The place for the fire
was built of rough stones. It was large enough to burn logs
four feet long, and had so much room in it that a man and his
wife and boys and girls could sit in it and look up at the sky.
The dress in those days was not the same as it is now. The men
wore small clothes, which came to the knee like a small boy's
in these times, and they had stiff ruffs round their necks and
caps of rich stuff on their heads. The young men wore fine belts,
and great high boots which were made with a roll at the top.
The girls wore silk hoods in the streets, and stiff rich gowns,
with long waists, and lace caps on feast-days. But folks could
not wear gay clothes if the law did not think they had means
to spend for such fine things.
They had some queer laws in those days. Those who had done wrong
had to stand in the stocks, which held them by the feet and
neck, so they could not get away, or they had to mount stools
in church. If a man had a wife who had the name of a bad scold,
a cleft stick was put on her tongue, or she was made to take
a cold dip in a stream. I dare say you think those were hard
laws, and you are glad to live in these days. But that was a
race who had the fear of God in their hearts; their aim was
to do just right and to rule the land in the best way.