during the first few years of the Plymouth Colony we can but marvel that
human flesh and human soul could withstand the onslaught. The brave old
colonist Bradford, confirms in his _History of Plymouth Plantation_ the
stories told by others: "But that which was most sad and lamentable, was
that in two or three months' time half of their company died, especially
in January and February, being the depth of winter ... that of one
hundred and odd persons scarce fifty remained: and of these in the time
of most distress there was but six or seven sound persons; who to their
great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, but
with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them
wood, made them fires, ... in a word did all the homely, and necessary
offices for them."

The conditions were the same whether in the Plymouth or in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. And yet how brave--how pathetically brave--was
the colonial woman under every affliction. In hours when a less valiant
womanhood would have sunk in despair these wives and mothers
strengthened one another and praised God for the humble sustenance He
allowed them. The sturdy colonist, Edward Johnson, in his _Wonder
Working Providence of Zions Saviour in New England_, writing of the
privations of 1631, the year after his colony had been founded, pays
this tribute to the help-meets of the men:

"The women once a day, as the tide gave way, resorted to the mussels,
and clambanks, which are a fish as big as horse-mussels, where they
daily gathered their families' food with much heavenly discourse of the
provisions Christ had formerly made for many thousands of his followers
in the wilderness. Quoth one, 'My husband hath travelled as far as
Plymouth (which is near forty miles), and hath with great toil brought a
little corn home with him, and before that is spent the Lord will