woods hemming them in, and concealing they knew not what savage perils;
with the bitter waves flinging frozen spray along the shore, and
immitigable clouds lowering above them--memory may have drawn a picture of
the quiet English vales in which they were born, or of the hazy Dutch
levels, with the windmills swinging their arms slumberously above the
still canals, and the clean streets and gabled facades of the prosperous
Holland town which had sheltered and befriended them. They thought of
faces they loved and would see no more, and of the secure and tranquil
lives they might have led, but for that tooth of conscience at their
hearts, which would give them peace only at the cost of almost all that
humanity holds dear. Did any of them wish they had not come? did any doubt
in his or her heart whether a cold abstraction was worth adopting in lieu
of the great, warm, kindly world? Verily, not one!

They got to work at their home-making without delay; but all were ill,
and many were dying. That winter they put up with much labor a few log
huts; but their chief industry was the digging of clams and of graves.
Half of their number were buried before the summer, and there was not food
enough for the rest to eat. John Carver, who had been elected governor at
landing, died in April, having already lost his son. But those who did
survive their first year lived long; it is wonder that they ever died at
all, who could survive such an experience.

Spring came, and with it a visitor. It was in March--not a salubrious
month in New England; but the trees were beginning to pat out brown buds
with green or red tips, and grass and shrubs were sprouting in sheltered
places, though snow still lay in spots where sunshine could not fall. The
trailing arbutus could be found here and there, with a perfume that all
the cruelty of winter seemed to have made only more sweet. Birds were
singing, too, and the settlers had listened to them with joy; they had