permission to enter his employ. My master replied that it had not
been in his mind there should be servants and lords in this new
world of Virginia, where one was supposed to be on the same footing
as another; but if Nathaniel were minded to live under the same
roof with us, and would cheerfully perform his full share of the
labor, it might be as he desired.

Because our house was the first to be put up in the new village,
and, being made of logs, was by far the best shelter, even in
comparison with the tents of cloth, Nathaniel and I decided that
it should be the most homelike, if indeed that could be compassed
where were no women to keep things cleanly. I am in doubt as to
whether Captain Smith, great traveler and brave adventurer though
he was, had even realized that with only men to perform the household
duties, there would be much lack of comfort.

The floor of the house was only the bare earth beaten down hard.
We lads made brooms, by tying the twigs of trees to a stick, which
was not what might be called a good makeshift, and yet with such
we kept the inside of our home far more cleanly than were some of
the tents.



LACK OF CLEANLINESS IN THE VILLAGE


There were many who believed, because there were no women in our
midst, we should spare our labor in the way of keeping cleanly, and
before we had been in the new village a week, the floors of many