William Hilton had arrived in time for the celebration of their first Thanksgiving Day, which was kept after the kindly manner of the Harvest Home in Old England. Here is Winslow’s description of the festivity: “Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a more special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in a day killed as much fowl as, with a little help besides, served the company almost a week. At which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us. And amongst the rest their greatest king, Massasoyt, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the Plantation, and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us; yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” A memorable feast; and twenty-five years later Bradford wrote: “Nor has there been any general want of food amongst us since to this day.” The fine healthy temper of the pioneers shines out in these simple words—the words of men who could pass lightly over the uncertainties and privations of that first difficult winter, when more than once it must have seemed to them that all their hope and labor were in vain and their adventure doomed, to emphasize only the good things that had come to them. And Robert Cushman who, with his family, arrived by the Fortune, sent report back to his “loving friends the Adventurers of New England” that New England it was not only because Prince Charles had named it so, but “because of the resemblance that is in it of England, the native soil of Englishmen; it being much the same for heat and cold in summer and winter; it being champaign ground, but no high mountains, somewhat like the soil in Kent and Essex; full of dales and meadow ground, full of rivers and sweet springs, as England is.” IV