The Landing of the Pilgrims by James Daugherty Page A

according to the peace treaty must be turned over to them.
    At this moment a cannon shot announced a sailon the horizon. The lookout reported that it appeared to be a pirate ship. The Governor ordered everyone on the alert. Bradford told the Indians that they must await his decision about Squanto.

Of How They Built a Strong Fort for Their Defense

    The sail did not belong to a French pirate ship, but to a shallop with an English crew from one of Mr. Weston’s fishing vessels,
The Sparrow
. It had come to deliver seven passengers from Leyden. The visitors brought no supplies other than enough for the return of the shallop’s crew.
    These new arrivals added seven more mouths for Plymouth to feed, besides the thirty-five men from the
Fortune
. The Plantation’s provisions were nearly exhausted.
    In desperation, Bradford decided to send to the fishing fleet for provisions. He appointed Winslow to this difficult business. He had been a wise ambassador on all occasions.
    Winslow now took the long trip up the east coast in the shallop and found the
Sparrow
and the fishing fleet. When he told them of Plymouth’sdesperate need, the fishermen gave him what they could spare. Winslow returned with enough food to provide a lean diet till harvest time.
    In this crisis, Standish, Bradford, and Elder Brewster sat in the meeting house considering future plans. “The Indians, knowing of our poor condition, grow daily more insolent, and Massasoit hath taken much offense and cometh no more unto us as formerly,” said the Governor gloomily. Then he added, “Hunger and weakness doth greatly discourage our people.”
    “And the sin of idleness will do worse,” said Captain Standish, rising and pacing the floor.
    Brewster opened the great brass-studded Bible on the table before him.
    “ ‘Lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen ye the feeble knees,’ ” he read. “Thus sayeth the Prophet Isaiah.”
    “Methinks this is the Lord’s counsel to us to arise and build a fort on top of the mount, and there place our cannon. It will greatly set back our enemies,” mused the Captain, looking out the window toward the mount.
    “Such a fort could serve as a meeting house and would greatly encourage our people in their worship of God,” replied Elder Brewster vigorously.
    At the town meeting every man’s vote was cast in favor of building the fort. Soon the hills echoed with the clamor of ax and saw and hammer. Worktook men’s minds off the gnawing emptiness under their belts. They talked gaily, or grimly, and jested as they worked. It gave them a lift of heart to see the wooden walls rise higher day by day.
    May came, and with it planting time. Shifts of workers left the fort and went to the fields to set corn. On the flat roof of the fort were planted four cannons. Within were a goodly meeting hall, a gun room for muskets and ammunition, and a guardhouse where lawbreakers were to be kept.
    “Now the fort is finished, we shall keep a guard there,” said Mr. Winslow to the Captain as they stood on the roof of the new building and looked out over their fields green with new corn. “It will utterly discourage the Indians from rising against us.”

Concerning the Coming of the
Charity
and the
Swan
and of the Great Sickness That Came upon Massasoit and How Master Winslow Did Marvelously Recover Him

    One day toward the end of June, two ships sailed into Plymouth Harbor. They were the
Charity
and the
Swan
, sent by Mr. Weston in England to begin a plantation on Massachusetts Bay. The sixty newcomers asked to stay at Plymouth until their surveyors could find a good place to settle somewhere in Massachusetts.
    The long-suffering colonists of Plymouth took these visitors into their homes and shared with them their lean rations in Christian charity. The Weston men proved themselves a graceless crew. Some helped to weed and tend the corn fields by day. Others by night stole and ate the unripe ears of corn.
    At last this band of