A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620 — John Shaqi
A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620Taggart, Marion Ames
History
A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620
Taggart, Marion Ames
Massachusetts -- History -- New Plymouth, 1620-1691 -- Juvenile fiction
Damaris fell asleep on Constance's shoulder, and slept so deeply that
when Myles Standish, Stephen Hopkins, and John Alden came to help the
girls to get the children safely down again into their cabin she did not
waken, and Constance begged to be allowed to stay there with her,
letting her sleep in the strong air, for the child had troubled her
sister by her languor.
Cramped and aching Constance kept her place, Damaris's dead weight upon
her arm, till, after a long time, her father returned to her with a
moved face.
"Shift the child to my arm, Constance," he said, sitting beside her.
"You must be weary with your long vigil over her, my patient, sweet
Constance!"
"Oh, Father-daddy," cried Constance, quick tears springing to her eyes,
"what does it matter if you call me that? You will always love me, my
father?"
"Child, child, what aileth thee?" said Stephen Hopkins, gently. "Are you
not the very core of my heart, so like your lovely young mother that you
grip me at times with the pain of my joy in you and my sorrow for her.
The pilgrim brethren would not approve of such expressions of love, my
dear, yet I think God who gave me a father's heart and you a daughter's,
and taught us our duty to Him by the figure of His own Fatherhood,
cannot share that condemnation. All the world to me you shall be to the
end of my life, my Constance. But I came to tell you a great piece of
news. The _Mayflower_ has shipped another passenger, mid-seas though it
is."
Constance looked up questioningly.
"I have another son, Constance. The angels given charge of little
children saw him safely to us through the perils of the voyage. Do you
not think, as I do, that this child is like a promise to us of success
in the New World?"
"Yes, Father," said Constance, softly, sweet gravity upon her face, and
tears upon her lashes. "Will he be called Stephen?"
"Your stepmother wishes him named Oceanus, because of his sea-birth. Do
you like the name?" asked her father.
Constance shook her head. "Not a whit," she said, "for it sounds like a
heathen god, and that I do not like, though my stepmother is a stricter
Puritan than are you and I. I would love another Stephen Hopkins. But if
it must be Oceanus--well, I'll try to make it a smooth ocean for the
little fellow, his life with us, I mean."
"Shall we go below to see him? I will carry Damaris," said Mr. Hopkins,
rising, and offering Constance his hand, at the same time shifting her
burden to himself.
Damaris whined and burrowed into her father's shoulder, half waking.
Constance stumbled and fell laughing, to her knees, numb from long
sitting with the child's weight upon them.
At the door of the cabin they met Doctor Fuller, who paused to look long
and steadily at Constance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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