Betty Alden: The first-born daughter of the PilgrimsAustin, Jane G. (Jane Goodwin)
History
Betty Alden: The first-born daughter of the Pilgrims
Austin, Jane G. (Jane Goodwin)
United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
And now Plymouth’s just and generous policy toward the Indians bore
fruit. The savages both loved and feared the white men of the Old
Colony; they knew that kindness would be rewarded, and offenses
surely punished; so acting accordingly, they hastened to overtake
the footsore wanderers, and discovering whither they would go, one
of the Indians went forward as their guide, while the other turned
back to the camp, where beside the last embers of a fire lay the
lifeless body of Garrett, his child crouching beside him, dazed and
dumb with cold and terror. At the other side of the exhausted fire
lay Harwood and the other man, only half conscious, and quite unable
to move or to help themselves. The Indian, making the most of his
few words of English, stopped only to promise help and to assure the
sufferers that their comrades were safe, and then sped away to his
wigwam, whence he presently returned laden with rugs, a hatchet, and
some sort of reviving draught which he heated over the renewed fire,
and administered to each in turn. Then, covering them warmly, he cut
saplings, pointed them, and built a hut over the prostrate bodies of
the sufferers. Last of all he hewed a grave in the frozen soil with his
hatchet, and respectfully raising Richard Garrett’s dead body in his
arms laid it to rest, carefully crumbling the soil to cover it, and
raising a cairn of stones and brushwood to protect it from the beasts
of prey then prowling up and down the waste of Cape Cod.
As the warmth increased, however, the apathy of the frozen men turned
to anguish and torture, and Harwood, dragging himself out of the hut,
had the resolution to thaw his feet in the water of a neighboring pool,
and so kept life in them; but his companion, too far gone, remained by
the fire, and when the pain was eased died, so that Harwood and the
little girl remained alone with the Indian.
The two men who had gone toward Plymouth were no more fortunate. One
died upon the road; the other so soon as he had told his piteous
story to Bradford and the rest who ministered to him so tenderly, yet
could do nothing to detain him. Within the hour a boat well manned,
and carrying the Indian for guide, was on its way to the scene of
the disaster, and the next day returned, bringing Christian Garrett,
Henry Harwood, the body of their comrade, and the Indian who had so
faithfully cared for them, and whom Bradford liberally rewarded and
praised for his benevolence.
Harwood was billeted upon Stephen Hopkins, but Betty Alden pleaded with
her parents that Christian Garrett might come to their house and be her
own especial charge; and this boon being easily granted, the spare-room
where Sir Christopher Gardiner had wearied and plotted became the happy
abiding-place of these two innocent young creatures, the one so active
and helpful, the other so languid and so sorrowful, and yet both of
them the happier and the better for their companionship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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