THE NEW HOME

It seemed like a very long while before the houses were ready so that we who were well could go on shore to live. I must tell you what our home is like. In Scrooby, when one builds a house, he has the trees sawed into timbers and boards at a mill; but in this new land we had no mills. When a man in England wants to make a chimney, he buys bricks and mortar; but here, as father said, we had plenty of clay and lime, yet could not put them to proper use until tools were brought across the sea with which to work such material into needed form.

There was plenty of granite and other rock out of which to make cellars and walls; but no one could cut it, and even though it was already shaped, we had no horses with which to haul it. Think for a moment what it must mean not to have cows, sheep, oxen, horses or chickens, and we had none of these for three or four years.

My father built the house we are now living in, almost alone, having but little help from the other men when he had to raise the heavy timbers. First, after clearing away the snow, he dug a hole in the frozen ground, two or three feet deep, making it of the same shape as he had planned the house. Then, having cut down trees for timbers, he stood them upright all around the inside of this hole, leaving here a place for a door, and there another for a window, until the sides and ends of the building were made.

On the inside he filled the hole again with the earth he had taken out at the beginning, pounding it down solid to form a floor, and at the same time to help make the logs more secure in an upright position. Where the floor of earth does not hold the timbers firmly enough, what are called puncheons are fastened to the outside just beneath the roof.

Puncheons are logs that have been split and trimmed with axes until they are something like planks, and you will see very many in our village of Plymouth. Hard work it is indeed to make these puncheon planks; but they were needed to fasten crosswise on the sides and ends of our house, in order to hold the logs more firmly in place.

Across the top of the house, slanting them so much that the water would run off, father placed a layer of logs to make the roof.

Three puncheons were put across the inside of the roof, being fastened with pegs of wood, for the few nails we have among us are of too much value to be used in house building.

That the roof might prevent the water from running into the house, father stripped bark from hemlock trees, and placed it over the logs two or three layers deep, fastening the whole down with poles cut from young trees.

MASTER WHITE AND THE WOLF

Of course, when this home was first built, there were many cracks between the logs on the sides and ends; but these mother and I stuffed full of moss and clay, while father was cutting wood for the fire, until the wind no longer finds free entrance, and we are not like to be in the same plight as was Master White, less than two months after we came ashore to live.

He would not spend the time to fill up the cracks, as we had done, and one night while he lay in bed, a hungry wolf thrust his paw through and scratched the poor man's head so severely that the blood ran freely. Sarah thinks he must have awakened very quickly just then.

THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE

We have a partition inside our house, thus dividing the lower part into two rooms. It is made of clay, with which has been mixed beach grass. Mother and I made a white liquid of powdered clam shells and water, with which we painted it until one would think it the same kind of wall you have in Scrooby. With pieces of logs we children helped to pound the earth inside until the floor was smooth and firm; but father promised that at some later time we should have a floor of puncheons, as indeed we have now, and very nice and comfortable it is.

I wish you might see it after mother and I have covered it well with clean white sand from the seashore, and marked it in pretty patterns of vines and leaves: but this last we do only when making the house ready for meeting, or for some great feast.

At the windows are shutters made of puncheons, as is also the door, and both are hung with straps of leather in the stead of real hinges.

Perhaps you may think that with only a puncheon shutter at the window, we must perforce sit in darkness when it storms, or in cold weather admit too much frost in order to have light. But let me tell you that our windows are closed quite as well as yours, though not so nicely. We brought from home some stout paper, and this, plentifully oiled, we nailed across the window space. Of course we cannot look out to see anything; but the light finds its way through readily.

A CHIMNEY WITHOUT BRICKS

I had almost forgotten to tell you how father built a chimney without either bricks or mortar, for of course we had none of those things when we first made our village.

Our chimney is of logs plastered plentifully with clay, and fastened to the outside of the building, with a hole cut through the side of the house that the fireplace may be joined to it.

The fireplace itself is built of clay, made into walls as one would lay up bricks, and held firmly together by being mixed with dried beach grass.

It looks somewhat like a large, square box, open in front, and with sides and ends at least two feet thick. It is so large that Sarah and I might stand inside, if so be the heat from the fire was not too great, and look straight out through it at the sky.

Father drags in, as if he were a horse, logs which are much larger around than is my body, and mother, or one of the neighbors, helps him roll them into the big fireplace where, once aflame, they burn from one morning until another.

BUILDING THE FIRE

The greatest trouble we have, or did have during our first winter here, was in holding the fire, for the wood, having just been cut in the forest, is green, and the fire very like to desert it unless we keep close watch. Neither mother nor I can strike a spark with flint and steel as ably as can many women in the village; therefore, when, as happened four or five times, we lost our fire, one of us took a strip of green bark, or a shovel, and borrowed from whosoever of our neighbors had the brightest blaze, enough of coals to set our own hearth warm again.

Some of the housewives who are more skilled in the use of firearms than my mother or myself, kindle a blaze by flashing a little powder in the pan of a gun, allowing the flame to strike upon the tinder, and thus be carried to shavings of dry wood. It is a speedy way of getting fire; but one needs to be well used to the method, else the fingers or the face will get more of heat than does the tinder. Father cautions us against such practice, declaring that he will not allow his weapons to remain unloaded simply for kitchen use, when at any moment the need may arise for a ready bullet.

But we have in Plymouth one chimney of which even you in Scrooby might be proud.

MASTER BRADFORD'S CHIMNEY

Master Bradford built what is a perfect luxury of a chimney, which shows what a man can do who has genius, and my mother says he showed great skill in thus building. If you please, his chimney is of stone, even though we have no means of cutting rock, such as is known at Scrooby. He sought here and there for flat stones, laying them one upon another with a plentiful mixture of clay, until he built a chimney which cannot be injured by fire, and yet is even larger than ours.

Its heart is so big that I am told Master Bradford himself can climb up through it without difficulty, and at the bottom, or, rather, where the fireplace ends and the chimney begins, is a shelf on either side, across which is laid a bar of green wood lest it burn too quickly; on this the pot-hooks and pot-claws may be hung by chains.

It would seem as if all this had made Master Bradford over vain, for because the wooden bar, which he calls a backbar, has been burned through twice, thereby spoiling the dinner, he has sent to England for an iron one, and when it comes his family may be proud indeed, for only think how easily one can cook when there are so many conveniences!

We are forced to put our pots and pans directly on the coals, and it burns one's hands terribly at times, if the fire is too bright. Besides, the cinders fall on the bread of meal, which causes much delay in the eating, because so much time is necessary in scraping them off, and even at the best, I often get more of ashes than is pleasant to the taste.

Bread of any kind is such a rarity with us that we can ill afford to have it spoiled by ashes. During the first two years we had only the meal from Indian corn with which to make it; but when we were able to raise rye, it was mixed with the other, and we had a most wholesome bread, even though it was exceeding dark in color.

SCARCITY OF FOOD

In Scrooby one thinks that he must have bread of some kind for breakfast; but we here in Plymouth have instead of wheaten loaves, pudding made of ground Indian corn, sometimes sweetened, but more often only salted, and with it alone we satisfy our hunger during at least two out of the three meals. I can remember of two seasons when all the food we had for more than three months, was this same hasty pudding, as we soon learned to call it.

That first winter we spent here was so dreadful and so long that I do not like even to think of it. Nearly all the food we had brought from England was spoiled before we came ashore.

There were many times when Sarah and I were so hungry that we cried, with our arms around each other's neck, as if being so close together would still the terrible feeling in our stomachs.

All the men who were able to walk went hunting; but at one time, before the warm weather came again, only five men were well enough to tramp through the forest, and these five had, in addition, to chop wood for the whole village.

Mother and the other women who were not on beds of sickness, went from house to house, doing what they might for those who were ill, while we children were sent to pick up dead branches for the fires, because at times the men were not able to cut wood enough for the needs of all.

Then so many died! Each day we were told that this neighbor or that had been called to Heaven. I have heard father often say since then, that the hardest of the work during those dreadful days, was to dig graves while the earth was frozen so solidly.

Think! Fifty out of our little company of one hundred and two, Captain Standish's wife among the others, were called by God, and as each went out into the other world, we who were left on earth felt more and more keenly our helplessness and desolation.