for the Indian corn. He taught the boys and girls how to gather clams
and mussels on the shore and to "tread eels" in the water that is
still called Eel River. He gathered wild strawberries and sassafras
for the women and they prepared a "brew" which almost equalled their
ale of old England. The friendly Indians assisted the men, as the
seasons opened, in hunting wild turkeys, ducks and an occasional deer,
welcome additions to the store of fish, sea-biscuits and cheese. We
are told [Footnote: Mourt's Relation] that Squanto brought also a dog
from his Indian friends as a gift to the settlement. Already there
were, at least, two dogs, probably brought from Holland or England, a
mastiff and a spaniel [Footnote: Winslow's Narration] to give comfort
and companionship to the women and children, and to go with the men
into the woods for timber and game.

It seems paradoxical to speak of child-life in this hard-pressed,
serious-minded colony, but it was there and, doubtless, it was normal
in its joyous and adventuresome impulses. Under eighteen years of age
were the girls, Remember and Mary Allerton, Constance and Damaris
Hopkins, Elizabeth Tilley and, possibly, Desire Minter and Humility
Cooper. The boys were Bartholomew Allerton, who "learned to sound the
drum," John Crakston, William Latham, Giles Hopkins, John and Francis
Billington, Richard More, Henry Sampson, John Cooke, Resolved White,
Samuel Fuller, Love and Wrestling Brewster and the babies, Oceanus
Hopkins and Peregrine White. With the exception of Wrestling Brewster
and Oceanus Hopkins, all these children lived to ripe old age,--a
credit not alone to their hardy constitutions, but also to the care
which the Plymouth women bestowed upon their households.

The flowers that grew in abundance about the settlement must have
given them joy,--_arbutus_ or "mayflowers," wild roses, blue