Indian treachery, like the theft of tools from two woodsmen and the
later bold challenge in the form of a headless arrow wrapped in a
snake's skin; the latter was returned promptly and decisively with the
skin filled with bullets, and the danger was over for a time. The
stockade was strengthened and, soon after, a palisade was built about
the houses with gates that were locked at night. After the fort of
heavy timber was completed, this was used also as a meeting-house and
"was fitted accordingly for that use." It is to be hoped that
warming-pans and foot-stoves were a part of the "fittings" so that the
women might not be benumbed as, with dread of possible Indian attacks,
they limned from the old Ainsworth's Psalm Book:

"In the Lord do I trust, how then to my soule doe ye say,
As doth a little bird unto your mountaine fly away?
For loe, the wicked bend their bow, their arrows they prepare
On string; to shoot at dark at them
In heart that upright are."
(Psalm xi.)

Even more exciting than the days already mentioned was the great event
of surprise and rejoicing, November 19, 1621, when _The Fortune_
arrived with thirty-five more Pilgrims. Some of these were soon to wed
_Mayflower_ passengers. Widow Martha Ford, recently bereft,
giving birth on the night of her arrival to a fourth child, was wed to
Peter Brown; Mary Becket (sometimes written Bucket) became the wife of
George Soule; John Winslow; later married Mary Chilton, and Thomas
Cushman, then a lad of fourteen, became the husband, in manhood, of
Mary Allerton. His father, Robert Cushman, remained in the settlement
while _The Fortune_ was at anchor and left his son as ward for
Governor Bradford. The notable sermon which was preached at Plymouth