Stories of American Life and AdventureEggleston, Edward
History
Stories of American Life and Adventure
Eggleston, Edward
Readers -- History; United States -- History -- Juvenile literature
The white men, who had never seen it before, thought Indian corn very
beautiful. Some of the ears were yellow, some were red. On other ears
blue and yellow grains were mixed. Standish and his men said it was a
"very goodly sight." The Indian basket was round and narrow at the
top. It held three or four bushels of corn, and it was as much as two
men could do to lift it from the ground. The white men wondered to see
how handsomely it was woven.
[Illustration: Standish and his Men find Corn.]
Near the pile of corn they found an old kettle which the Indians had
probably bought from some ship. They filled this kettle with corn,
They also filled their baskets with it. They wanted the corn for seed.
They made up their mind to pay the Indians whenever they could find
them. The next summer they found out who were the owners of this
buried corn, and paid them for all the corn they had taken. If they
had not found this corn, they would not have had any to plant the next
spring, and so they would have starved to death.
The people that were with Miles Standish settled at Plymouth. They
were the first that came to live in New England. An Indian named
Squanto came to live with the white people at Plymouth. Squanto was
born at this very place. He had been carried away to England by a sea
captain. Then he had been brought back by another captain to his own
country. When he got back to Plymouth, he found that all the people of
his village had died from a great sickness. He went to live with
another tribe near by. When the white people came to Plymouth, they
settled on the ground where Squanto's people had lived. As he could
speak some English, and as all his own tribe were dead, he now came to
live with the white people.
The people at Plymouth did not know how to plant the corn they had
found, but Squanto taught them. By watching the trees, the Indians
knew when to put their corn into the ground. When the young leaf of
the white oak tree was as large as a squirrel's ear, they knew that it
was time to put their corn into the ground. Squanto taught the white
people how to catch a kind of fish which were used to make their corn
grow. They put one or two fishes into each hill of corn, but they were
obliged to watch the cornfield day and night for two weeks after
planting. If they had not watched it, the wolves would have dug up the
fishes, and the corn with them.
The white people learned also to cook their corn as the Indians did.
They learned to eat hominy and samp, and these we still call by their
Indian names. "Succotash" is another Indian word. The white people
learned from the Indians to use the husks of Indian corn to make
things. The Indians made ropes of corn husks, and in some places they
made shoes of plaited husks. The white people in early times made
their door mats and horse collars and beds of corn husks. They also
twisted and wove husks to make seats for their chairs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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