meadows, in the blue streams and ponds, the past is inseparably blended with the present. A small theatre it is, and the actors were but few who played such important _rôles_ in the building up of a nation, but the few memorials in which that early struggle for existence is recorded are here lovingly preserved. From the Rock where they landed we may follow their weary footsteps up the steep ascent of the first street, now named for Leyden, their city of refuge, and which may well be called the Via Sacra of Plymouth. Running back from the waterside to the foot of Burial Hill, and parallel to the Town Brook, it formed the centre of their daily toil, the scene of their early joys and sorrows. Here on either hand were staked out the homesteads for the nineteen first families; here with sturdy courage and endless labor they dragged the trees felled outside the clearing, and built their rude houses, thatching them with swamp-grass. The site of their first or “Common-House” is now marked, and near the lot assigned to Elder Brewster still we may stop to drink from the Pilgrim Spring: the “delicate water” is fresh and sweet now as when our thirsty forefathers delighted in it. [Illustration: PLYMOUTH in 1622. Copyright, 1891, by A. S. Burbank.] Crossing Main Street, once the King’s highway, we find ourselves in Town Square, under the shade of beautiful old elm-trees, planted more than a hundred years ago. To the north was William Bradford’s homestead. Here came all those who sought advice and help in their sore need, and here in 1630 were begun those “scribbled writings” which, “peeced up at times of leasure afterward,” are now printed, in letters of gold in many a faithful memory! Here, perhaps, or in the vicinity of the Common House, was concluded their first treaty with a foreign power for mutual aid and protection, when the noble chief Massasoit, with his sixty Indian braves, was led thither by Samoset, the friendly sachem, whose English welcome had surprised the anxious colonists. Through Samoset they learned that some four years before a pest had devastated that region, called by them Patuxet. With him came Tisquantum, who became a valued friend and interpreter, teaching them to plant their corn when the oak-leaves were the size of a mouse’s ear, and to place three herring in each hill with the seed-corn, which novel practice awakened serious doubts in English minds. In the autumn of 1621, this was the scene of the first Thanksgiving held in New England, when, their houses built, their crops garnered from some thirty fertile acres, their furs and lumber safely stored, they made merry for three days, with Massasoit and ninety Indians as guests. Even with fish, wild-fowl and deer in plenty, the good housewives must have spent a lively week of preparation for such a feast!