All the day of Saturday every able-bodied man of the Pilgrims was on the shore laboring with all possible diligence, felling trees, hewing them, and dragging them with their own hands to the building lots, for they had no horses or oxen. The women also were diligently at work cooking at camp fires and helping to stow away their goods as they were brought on shore. The whole company was divided into nineteen families, each family to build its own log hut. For protection against the Indians it was needful that these huts should be clustered near together. The captain of the Mayflower brought all the energies of his crew into requisition in transporting the luggage to the shore, for his provisions were fast disappearing, and he was exceedingly anxious to set out on his return. The distance of the ship from the land caused much time to be lost in going and coming. For several days a portion of the Pilgrim band remained to lodge in the ship, while others were on the shore. The labors of all were rendered painful and much impeded by cold and stormy weather. Often the bay, swept by the wintry gale, was so rough that no boat could leave the ship, and there could be no communication between the two parties. Sunday was again with them all a day of rest and devotion, though they were divided, some being still on board the ship, while others were in their frail shelters on the land. Those on shore assembled, for their devotions, in their partially finished store-house. Their harps must have been hung upon the willows, and pensive must have been the strains which were breathed from their lips as they endeavored to sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land. As with firm but saddened voices they sang, they were startled by the war-whoop of the Indians in the forest. They knew those fearful cries too well which many of them had heard at the First Encounter. Their efficient military commander, Miles Standish, had everything arranged for such an emergency. Instantly every man seized his musket and was at his post. Behind their barricade of logs, they could, with their deadly fire arms, repel almost any number of savages approaching over the open fields with only bows and arrows. The Indians, who had been already taught to dread these weapons, after carefully reconnoitering the position of the Pilgrims, vented their rage in a few impotent yells, and, without any exposure of their persons to the bullet, retreated into the wilderness. The next day was Christmas. With renewed diligence the Pilgrims plied their labors. “We went on shore,” writes Mourt, “some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry. So no man rested all that day.”