This "frow" is shaped something like a butcher's cleaver, and a wooden mallet is used to drive it into the log until the splint is forced off. Our people made many clapboards during the time between planting and harvest, so that we had enormous stacks under the trees ready to put on board the first vessel that should sail for England. COOKING PUMPKINS When the first pumpkins were ripe, Squanto showed us how to cook them, and most of us find the fruit an agreeable change from sweet puddings, parched corn, and fish. This is the way that Squanto cooked pumpkins. First he was careful to find one that was wholly ripe. In the top of the yellow globe he cut a small hole through which it was possible for him to take out the seeds, of which there are many. Then the whole pumpkin was put into the iron oven and baked until the pulp on the inside was soft, after which the shell could be broken open, and the meat of the fruit eaten with the sugar which we get from the trees. Mistress Bradford invented the plan of mixing the baked pumpkin pulp with meal of the Indian corn, and made of the whole a queer looking bread, which some like exceeding well, but father says he is forced to shut his eyes while eating it. A NEW OVEN Perhaps I have not told you how we happen to have an oven, when there is only the big fireplace in which to cook our food. Mistress White and Mistress Tilley each brought from Leyden, in Holland, what some people call "roasting kitchens," and you can think of nothing more convenient. The oven or kitchen is made of thin iron like unto a box, the front of which is open, and the back rounded as is a log. It is near to a yard long, and stands so high as to take all the heat from the fire which would otherwise be thrown out into the room. [Illustration] In this oven we put our bread, pumpkins, or meat and set it in front of, and close against, a roaring fire. The back, or rounded part is then heaped high with hot ashes or live embers, and that which is inside must of a necessity be cooked. At the very top of the oven is a small door, which can be opened for the cook to look inside, and one may see just how the food is getting on, without disturbing the embers that have been heaped against the outer portion. We often borrow of Mistress Tilley her oven, and father has promised to send by the first ship that comes to this harbor, for one that shall be our very own. When it arrives, I am certain mother will be very glad, for there is no kitchen article which can save so much labor for the housewife. MAKING SPOONS AND DISHES I wish you might see how greatly I added to our store of spoons during the first summer we were here in Plymouth. Sarah and I gathered from the shore clam shells that had been washed clean and white by the sea, and Squanto cut many smooth sticks, with a cleft in one end so that they might be pushed firmly on the shell, thus making a most beautiful spoon. [Illustration]