The Indians hew down a huge pine tree, and when I say it is done without the use of axes, then you will wonder how the timber can be felled. Well, when one of the savages desires to build him a boat, he selects the tree from which it is to be made, and builds a little fire around the trunk close to the ground. As fast as the flames char the wood, he scrapes it away with a sharp rock, or a thick seashell, and thus keeps scraping the burning wood until the tree falls. [Illustration] Then he cuts off ten or twelve feet in length by burning and scraping exactly as before, and this is the length of the boat he would build; but it is simply a solid log. Now he sets about building a fire along the top, charring the wood and scraping it away until, after what must surely be a wonderful amount of labor, he has hollowed out that huge log into a shell. The bark is then stripped from the outside, and the ends fashioned by burning until they are smooth, and the ship is completed. GOVERNOR CARVER'S DEATH It was in April, when, because the weather had grown so warm it seemed much as if we had been restored to the favor of God, that a great calamity came upon us of Plymouth, and my father says it is impossible for us to understand how sore a stroke it was to our people who count on making a home in this new world. Governor Carver had hoped to make such a garden as should be a model for all in the village, and to that end he worked exceedingly hard, so father says. He was planting and hoeing from early light until it was no longer possible to see what he was about because of the coming of night. Already many of the plants, concerning which Samoset and Squanto had told us, were showing through the ground, until, as Captain Standish said, "all the others should take pattern by him that we might not taste again of the bitterness of famine." The day had been very warm, and the governor was working exceeding hard, when suddenly he complained of a pain in his head. He strove in vain to continue the labor; but Mistress Carver insisted that he come into the house and lie down on a bear skin, which Captain Standish had made into a bed-cover, and this he did. Master Bradford and my father were summoned in the hope that it might be possible to give him some relief; but they could do no more than pray for his recovery, and even while they were pleading most fervently with God, the poor man lost all knowledge of himself, nor did he speak again. During three days every one prayed; no trees were hewn lest the noise disturb him, and all the women in the village gathered in or around the house that they might be ready in case their services were needed. It was as if we were having three Sabbaths at once. Then he died, without having come to know that he was ill, and we were more heartsick and lonely even than when the _Mayflower_ sailed away.