"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank G.o.d for all our blessings and invite to it our Indian friends who have been so kind to us."
The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so they planned to have a celebration for a whole week.
The great Indian chief, Ma.s.sasoit, came with ninety of his bravest warriors, all gaily dressed in deerskins, feathers, and fox tails, with their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint. As a sign of rank, Ma.s.sasoit wore a string of bones and a bag of tobacco around his neck. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was painted red, and his hair was daubed with oil.
There were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village, four log storehouses, and seven little log dwelling-houses, so the Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This did not matter for it was one of those warm weeks in the season that we call Indian summer.
To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the company almost a week.
Ma.s.sasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters into the woods. They brought back five deer which they gave to their pale face friends, that all might have enough to eat.
Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked clams, broiled fish, roasted turkey, and venison. The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins. We shall always remember two of the fair young girls who waited on the first Thanksgiving table. One was Mary Chilton, who leaped first from the boat at Plymouth Rock. The other was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first Thanksgiving; of those who came over in the _Mayflower_ she was the last to die.
What a merry time everybody had during that week! How the mothers must have laughed as they told about the first Monday morning on Cape Cod, when they all went ash.o.r.e to wash their clothes! It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They little thought that Monday would always after be kept as washing day. One proud Pilgrim mother, we may be sure, showed her baby boy, Peregrine White.
And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and danced for their friends; and to make the party still more lively they gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in the still night air.
The third day came. Ma.s.sasoit had been well treated, and would have liked to stay longer, but he said that he could not be away from his camp for more than three days. So the pipe of peace was silently pa.s.sed around. Then, taking their gifts of gla.s.s beads and trinkets, the Indian King and his warriors said farewell to their English friends and began their long march through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay.
On the last day of this Thanksgiving party, Elder Brewster preached the first Thanksgiving sermon and all the Pilgrims united in thanking G.o.d for His goodness to them.
The first Thanksgiving was nearly three hundred years ago. Since that time, Thanksgiving has been kept by the people of our nation as the great family festival of the year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, who had been separated, again seat themselves side by side.
Thanksgiving is our season of sweet and blessed memories.
THE KING"S THANKSGIVING
Every child in the village was very much excited on account of the news that had come down from the castle on the hill.
Because it had been such a rich harvest, the fields yellow with grain and the orchards crimson with fruit, the King was going to keep a thanksgiving day. He was going to ask some child from the village to come up the hill to the castle and eat dinner with the Prince and Princess. It was rumored, too, that this child would be given good gifts by the King. But it must be a very special kind of child indeed.
That they all knew.
Then the village children remembered everything that had been told them by their mothers, and their grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers about the castle kitchen. Scores of cooks and scullery boys were kept busy there night and day. The fires always glowed to roast the rich fowls that turned on the spits. The cake bowls and the soup pots were never empty. Spices and herbs from far countries, strawberries when the ground was covered with snow, ices of all the rainbow colors, and cream so thick that a knife could cut it--all these were to be found in the King"s kitchen.
There were dishes of gold and silver upon which to serve the fine foods, and a hothouse of rare flowers with which to deck the table, and linen as fine as a cobweb and as beautiful in pattern as snowflakes to cover it. Oh, a thanksgiving day in the castle would be very wonderful indeed, the children thought, and each hoped that he or she would be chosen to go.
The day before this day of thanksgiving the messenger of the King came down from the castle and went from door to door of the homes in the village. He went first to the house of the burgomaster. It was a very pretentious house with tall pillars in front, and it stood on a wide street. It seemed likely that the burgomaster"s child might be chosen to go with the messenger to the castle for the thanksgiving. She was dressed in silk, and her hair was curled, and the burgomaster had packed a great hamper with sweets as an offering for the King.
"Are you ready to keep the feast as the King would like you to?" asked the messenger.
"Oh, yes!" said the burgomaster"s child. "I have on my best dress, and here are plenty of sweets to eat. Will you take me?"
But the messenger shook his head, for the child was not ready.
Then the King"s messenger went on until he came to the house where the captain of the guards lived. The captain"s little boy was quite sure that he would be chosen to go with the messenger to the castle for the thanksgiving. He wore a uniform with silver braid and b.u.t.tons like that which the guards wore. A sword hung at his side, and he wore a soldier"s cap. He held the cap in his hand, so that he could put it on quickly.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" asked the messenger.
"Oh, yes!" said the child of the captain of the guards. "I have my sword here and I can fight any one who crosses our path on the way to the castle. Will you take me?"
But the messenger went on again and he came to the baker"s shop. The baker"s boy stood at the door, dressed in his best white suit, and holding an empty basket on his arm. He was quite sure that he would be chosen to go to the palace, for his father"s bake shop was an important place in the village. They measured their flour carefully, and weighed the loaves so that they might receive the utmost penny for each. They very seldom had any crumbs left for the poor, but they were selling a great deal of bread every day.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" the messenger asked of the baker"s boy.
"Oh, yes!" the boy said. "I have this basket to gather up whatever remains of the King"s feast and bring it home with me. The King would not want anything wasted. Will you take me?"
But the messenger shook his head a third time, for the child was not ready.
Then he did not know which way to go, and he began to think that he would not be able to find any guest for the King"s feast. As he waited, he saw two children, a girl and a boy, coming toward him. They were poor children, and one was leading the other, for he was lame.
The messenger looked at them. The little girl had eyes like stars and her hair, blowing in the November wind, was like a cloud made golden by the sunset. She held her head so high, and smiled so bravely that no one would have noticed her old dress and the holes in her coat. The messenger stood in the road in front of her and spoke to her.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" he asked.
The little girl looked up in the messenger"s face in surprise.
"No, I am not ready," she said, "but this child is. I am bringing him because he is lame, and because he is hungry. Will you take him?" she asked.
"Yes," said the messenger, "and you, too. There is room at the King"s table for both."
WINTER
THE GRAY HARE
A gray hare lived during the winter near a village. When night came, he would p.r.i.c.k up one ear and listen, then he would p.r.i.c.k up the other, jerk his whiskers, snuff, and sit up on his hind legs.
Then he would give one leap, two leaps, through the snow, and sit up again on his hind legs and look all around.
On all sides nothing was to be seen except snow. The snow lay in billows and glittered like silver. Above the hare was frosty vapor, and through this vapor glistened the big white stars.
The hare was obliged to make a long circuit across the highway to reach his favorite granary. On the highway he could hear the creaking of the sledges, the whinnying of horses, the groaning of the seats in the sledges.
Once more the hare paused near the road. The peasants were walking alongside of their sledges, with their coat collars turned up. Their faces were scarcely visible. Their beards, their eyebrows were white.
Steam came from their mouths and noses.
Their horses were covered with sweat, and the sweat grew white with h.o.a.r frost. The horses strained on their collars, plunged into the hollows, and came up out of them again. Two old men were walking side by side, and one was telling the other how a horse had been stolen from him.
As soon as the teams had pa.s.sed, the hare crossed the road, and leaped unconcernedly toward the threshing-floor. A little dog belonging to the teams caught sight of the hare and began to bark, and darted after him.
The hare made for the threshing-floor across the snowdrifts. But the depth of the snow impeded the hare, and even the dog, after a dozen leaps, sank deep in the snow and gave up the chase.
The hare also stopped, sat on his hind legs, and then proceeded at his leisure toward the threshing-floor.