You must not think, however, that they were unhappy; children always find some means of having a good time, even if fathers and mothers are stern and sober people; and the Puritan fathers and mothers loved their children just as much as the Dutch fathers and mothers in New York loved theirs, only they showed their love in a different way, that is all. And, after all, these little log school-houses were not such bad places--they were always sure to be near the woods, where were great shady trees, and if the children did not sing pretty songs in school as you do, they could at least hear the birds singing all day long; if they had not bright pictures on the walls of the school-room, they had sweet, dainty wild flowers just outside, and the wind and trees and blossoms whispered their secrets to them; and that is one reason perhaps why they grew up so good and true and brave. Thanksgiving Day was the one day in the year on which the Pilgrims did not think it wrong to be merry. Early in the day they went to church, which was held partly as a service of thanks for the harvest, and partly in grateful remembrance for the relief that came to them from England when they were suffering from famine. When church was over the fun began. All the members of a family from near and far were brought together on this day, and what gay times the children had with their small cousins and nieces and nephews. What games and romps, and what interesting talk around the fire as to who had gathered the most nuts, who had built the strongest and swiftest sled, and who had been bravest when the Indians came prowling around. For of all the troubles which the settlers of New England had to bear, the trouble with the Indians was the worst. At first they seemed to get along quite peaceably with them; the chiefs of some of the tribes were very friendly and were kind to the colonists; but as time went on the Indians grew more and more unfriendly, and the settlers lived in constant fear of them. Sometimes they would come in the night to a house where a mother was alone with her children, and kill them all and then set fire to the house. Sometimes a man would be working at a distance from his home, and go back there only to find that the Indians had been there before him, and had taken his wife and children away with them to make slaves of them. The little children would go to bed at night and lie awake listening for the Indian warwhoop, which they dreaded even more than they did the howling of the wolves. Every woman in those days knew how to use a gun, and many a time a mother had to defend herself and children from some painted Indians who would come up to the house and ask to be taken in.