Standish of Standish | Page 5

out his hand to a stout, solid-looking woman with a young girl
beside her said,--
"Mistress Tilley, you had best come first, for you will be apt at helping
the others, as I hand them down. And thou, too, Elizabeth, if thou wilt."
"And Constance Hopkins and Remember Allerton," pleaded the girl,
lifting a sweet, saucy face to the young man; "we never are separated,
for we're all of an age, all going on sixteen you know."
"Hush, Bess, thou 'rt malapert," chided her mother, descending heavily
into the boat, while a mutinous young voice above called out,--
"Nay, I'm not going. Stepmother won't spare me."
"Now Constance Hopkins, thou naughty hussy, wilt thou grumble at
tarrying with me to care for thine own dear sister and brother? Fie on
thee, girl!"
"They're not my own," grumbled Constance in Remember Allerton's
ear. "Giles is my own brother and he is to go, and Damaris and

Oceanus are but half sister and brother, and she's but my stepmother."
"Hush, now, or she'll hear and thou 'lt come by a whipping," whispered
Remember hastily, as Dame Hopkins turned from Mistress Winslow
who had spoken to her, and came toward the girls. "I'll stay aboard with
thee, Constance, and help thee with the babies."
"Thou 'rt a dear good wench and I love thee," replied Constance in the
same tone, and, as the stepmother placed the muffled baby in her arms,
she took him without comment, and went below followed by Elizabeth
Tilley.
Two trips of the capacious boat sufficed to carry women, clothes,
utensils, and assistants across the three quarters of a mile of shallow
water lying between the brig and the shore, and the boys who went in
the first boat were at once set to work to gather dry stuff from the
thickets of scrub oak and pine sparsely clothing the beach, and to build
several fires along the margin of a large pool or perhaps pond of fresh
water divided from the harbor by a narrow beach of firm white sand.
Beach and pond have long since been devoured by the hungry sea, but
stumps of good-sized trees are still dug from the dreary sands
environing Provincetown, to show what once has been.
The second boat-load arrived, and by help of Alden's stalwart arm,
Howland's cool decision and prompt action, and Winslow's quick eye
and ready aid to any woman needing assistance, the apparatus was soon
adjusted, and a dozen pairs of strong white arms were plunged in the
suds, or throwing the clothes into the great caldrons bubbling over the
fires which the boys gayly replenished.
Not all the women of the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for
several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who
took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor
with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in
so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain
deference of manner and speech from the lower rank to the higher, and
from youth to age, the very fact that every one of these persons had
abandoned home and friends and comfort that they might secure liberty,

induced a sense of self respect and respect for others, which is the very
root and basis of a true republic. Thus Katharine Carver, wife of the
governor, daughter of Bishop White, and sister of Robinson, the pastor
of the community left behind in Leyden, although she sent her maid
Lois, and her man-servant Roger Wilder, to do the required work, came
ashore with the rest, and by a touch here and a word there, and her
interest and sympathy, took her part in the labor of the whole, and
delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those
hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her
station, that prevented her doing all that they did. "Eleven o' the clock,"
said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six hoarse strokes.
"They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and he looked
wistfully toward the ship.
"Who said?" asked Howland; "for I've more faith in some say-sos than
in some others."
"Well, if I remember, 't was Mistress Molines who told me," replied
Alden carefully careless.
"Oh, ay," assented Howland, his blue eyes twinkling. "But I thought
she was ill, poor woman."
"Nay, I meant Mistress Priscilla Molines," retorted the giant, blushing.
"She said somewhat to me of an onion soup which she flavors
marvelously well."
"Ah, yes, onion soup," retorted Howland gravely. "Methought it must
be some such moving theme you discussed yester even as you sat on
the cable. I noted even at that distance the tears in your eyes."
"And if there were