Now you may suppose that I had not been dumb during this time, when I was showing goods to the savages while our gentlemen made the bargains, but so I must have been had I not learned a word now and then of their speech, until, by using many signs in addition, I could carry on quite a conversation with such of the brown men as would stoop to make talk to a boy. [Illustration] Therefore it was I understood Indian words far better than I could speak them, and when these stories were told concerning a company of English people at this new village of Plymouth, my heart went out to them, for was I not an English boy, and these my countrymen? I had known, of course, that those of my race who once lived in Leyden, came to this New World; but that we might be anywhere near them never entered my head, until the savages told us of Plymouth, and then I said to myself that there could be no greater pleasure than to see these people who had been friendly with my father and mother. I GO ON A VOYAGE I also knew, because of hearing him speak of it to some of the gentlemen traders in my presence, that Master Minuit had sent a letter to the governor of Plymouth by one of the Indians, and a reply had come back; but more than that I heard nothing until the Secretary told me, one certain morning, that I was to make a sea voyage with him. It was a direct command from Master Minuit, and I made ready without asking to what land we should go, because it was for me to obey, not to question; but I had a great hope that Hans Braun might not be put into the storehouse in my place, fearing lest he would not willingly give up the position, after learning how much more pleasing it was to handle the toys than the ill-smelling furs. "We are to journey as far as Plymouth, where is a village in which English people live," the Secretary, whose name was that of a Frenchman and bothered my tongue, said to me when I went on board the pinnace Nassau, which had been made ready for the voyage. One might have knocked me down with a breath, so astounded and overjoyed was I at the possibility of seeing my father's friends, and it was a full five minutes before I could set down an account of the goods that were being brought on board, for Master Minuit counted on sending a present to the governor of Plymouth, of no less value than a chest of sugar, near to an hundred strings of wampum, and three rolls of best cloth, each of a different color. [Illustration] If it had been in my power to provide the wind for the voyage, it could not have been more favorable, and the _Nassau_ sent up a jet of spray from her bow, as we sailed down the river on the eastern side of New Amsterdam till we were come to what is called Long Island Sound, which is a vast inland sea. Then we crossed the bay which is called Narragansett, because of the Indians of that tribe living along the shores, and afterward were come to a trading post belonging to the people of Plymouth. A LUKEWARM WELCOME