In the same vessel came a preacher, by name of John Lyford, a ship carpenter, and a man who is skilled in making salt; therefore does it seem now as if our town of Plymouth could boast of nearly as many comforts and conveniences as you enjoy at Scrooby. Nor were the return of father and Master Winslow, the coming of the animals, the arrival of the salt man, or the joining to our company of the preacher, the only things for which we had to give thanks. A REAL OVEN Father brought in the vessel as many bricks as would serve to make an oven by the side of our fireplace, and thus it was that we were the first family in Plymouth who could bake bread or roast meats, as do people in England. This oven is built on one side of the fireplace, with a hole near the top, for the smoke to go through. It has a door of real iron, with an ash pit below, so that we may save the ashes for soap-making without storing them in another place. At first the oven was kept busily at work for the benefit of our neighbors, being heated each day, but for our own needs it is used once a week. Inside, a great fire of dried wood is kindled and kept burning from morning until noon, when it has thoroughly heated the bricks. Then the coals and ashes are swept out; the chimney draught is closed, and the oven filled with whatsoever we have to cook. A portion of our bread is baked in the two pans which mother owns; but the rest of it we lay on green leaves, and it is cooked quite as well, although one is forced to scrape a few cinders from the bottom of the loaf. [Illustration] BUTTER AND CHEESE Can you imagine how Sarah and I feasted when, for the first time in four years, we had milk to drink, and butter and cheese to eat? You must not believe that we drank milk freely, as do you at Scrooby, for there are many people in Plymouth, all of whom had been hungering for it even as had Sarah and I. Father claimed that each must have a certain share, therefore it is a great feast day with us when we have a large spoonful on our pudding, or to drink. John Alden made a most beautiful churn for mother; but many a long month passed before we could get cream enough to make butter, so eager were our people for the milk. Now, however, when there are seventeen cows in this town of ours, we not only have butter on extra occasions; but twice each year mother makes a cheese. [Illustration] THE SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSETT Because of having spent so much time, and set down so many words in trying to describe how we lived when we first came to this new world, I must hasten over that which occurred from day to day, in order to tell you what seems to me of the most importance, without giving heed to the time when the events took place.