The Story of Our Country Part 2

Many people go to Florida in our own days in search of health, but Ponce de Leon is the only man who ever went there to find the magical Fountain of Youth.

About twenty-five years afterwards another Spaniard came to Florida. It was gold and glory he was after, not youth. This man, Fernando de Soto, had been in Peru with Pizarro, and helped him to conquer that land of gold. He now hoped to find a rich empire for himself in the north.

So with nine ships and six hundred brave young men he sailed away from his native land. They were a gay and hopeful band, while their bright banners floated proudly from the mastheads, and waved in the western winds. Little did they dream of what a terrible fate lay before them.

I think you will say that De Soto deserved a bad fate when I tell you that he brought bloodhounds to hunt the poor Indians, and chains to fasten on their hands and feet. That was the way the Spaniards often treated the poor red men. He brought also two hundred horses for his armed men to ride, and a drove of hogs to serve them for fresh meat. And in the ships were great iron chests, which he hoped to take back full of gold and other precious things.

For two long years De Soto and his band traveled through the country, fighting Indians, burning their houses and robbing them of their food.

But the Indians were brave warriors, and in one terrible battle the Spaniards lost eighty of their horses and many of their men.

In vain De Soto sought for gold and glory. Not an ounce of the yellow metal was found; no mighty empire was reached. He did make one great discovery, that of the vast Mississippi River. But he never got home to tell of it, for he died on its banks, worn out with his battles and marches, and was buried under its waters. His men built boats and floated down the great river to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, at length, they found Spanish settlements. But of that brave and gallant band half were dead, and the rest were so nearly starved that they were like living skeletons.

We must not forget that humble Italian traveler and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1499, saw the part of South America where lies the island of Trinidad. He afterwards reached the coast of Brazil. Some years later, when maps were made of the country he had visited, some one called it _America_. In later years this name was used for the whole continent. So what should have been called Columbia came to be called America.

CHAPTER III

THREE EARLY HEROES

WHAT do you think of Captain John Smith, the hero of Virginia? Was he not a man to dream of, a true hero? Why, I feel half ashamed to say anything about him, for every one of you must know his story. I am sure all those who love good stories of adventure have read about him.

John Smith was not the kind of man to work at a trade. He ran away from home when a boy, and became a wanderer over the earth. And a hard life he had of it. At one place he was robbed, and at another place was shipwrecked. Once he leaped overboard from a ship and swam ash.o.r.e. Once again he fought with three Turks and killed all of them without help.

Then he was taken prisoner, and sold as a slave to a cruel Turk, who put a ring round his neck and made him work very hard.

One day his master came out where he was at work and struck him with his whip. He soon found that John Smith was a bad man to whip. He hit the Turk a hard blow with the flail he was using, and killed him on the spot. Then he ran away, got to Russia, and in time made his way back to England. But England was too quiet a place for him. A ship was about to cross the sea to America and he volunteered to go in it. He had not half enough of adventure yet. Some people think that Captain Smith bragged a little, and did not do all he said. Well, that may be so. But it is certain that he was a brave and bold man, and just the man to help settle a new country where there were savage red men to deal with.

The English were in no hurry in sending out settlers to the New World which Columbus had discovered. While the Spaniards were seeking gold and empires in the south, and the French were catching fish and exploring the rivers and lakes in the north, all the English did was to rob the Spanish ships and settlements, and to bring them negroes from Africa for slaves.

But the time came, a hundred years after America was discovered, when some of the English tried to form a settlement on the coast of North Carolina. Poor settlers! When the next ship came out they were all gone.

Not a soul of them could be found. Nothing was left but some letters they had cut into the bark of a tree. What became of them n.o.body ever knew. Likely enough they wandered away and were killed by the Indians.

Nothing more was done until the year 1607, when the ship in which Captain John Smith had taken pa.s.sage sailed up a bright and beautiful river in Virginia. It was the month of May, and the banks were covered with flowers.

The colonists thought this a very good place to live in, so they landed and began to look around them. The river they called the James, and the place they named Jamestown. But instead of building a town and preparing for the future, as sensible men would have done, they began to seek for gold, and soon they were in no end of trouble. In a short time their food was all eaten. Then some of them were taken sick and died. Others were killed by the Indians. It looked as if this colony would come to grief as did the former one.

So it would if it had not been for Captain Smith. He was only one man among a hundred, but he was worth more than all the rest of the hundred.

He could not keep still, but hustled about, here, there and everywhere.

Now he was exploring the country, sailing up the rivers or up the broad Chesapeake Bay. Now he was talking with the Indians, getting food from them for the starving colonists. Now he was doing his best to make the men build houses and dig and plant the ground. You can see that John Smith had enough to keep him busy. He had many adventures with the Indians. At one time he was taken prisoner by them and was in terrible danger of being killed. But he showed them his pocket compa.s.s, and when they saw the needle always pointing north, they thought there must be magic in it. They were still more surprised when he sent one of them with a letter to his friends. They did not understand how a piece of paper could talk, as his paper seemed to do.

But all this was not enough to save his life. The great chief Powhatan looked on him as the leader of these white strangers who had settled in his land. He wanted to get rid of them, and thought that if he killed the man of the magic needle and the talking paper they would certainly be scared and go away.

So Captain Smith was tied hand and foot, and laid on the ground with his head on a log. And a powerful Indian stood near by with a great war club in his hand. Only a sign from Powhatan was needed, and down would come that club on the white man's head, and it would be all over with the brave and bold John Smith.

Alas! poor Captain Smith! There was no pity in Powhatan's eyes. The burly Indian twisted his fingers about the club and lifted it in the air. One minute more and it might be all over with the man who had killed three Turks in one fight. But before that minute was over a strange thing took place. A young Indian girl came running wildly toward him, with her hair flying and her eyes wet with tears. And she flung herself on the ground and laid her head on that of the bound prisoner, and begged the chief to give him his life.

It was Pocahontas, the pretty young daughter of Powhatan. She pleaded so pitifully that the chief's heart was touched, and he consented that the captive should live, and bade them take the bonds from his limbs.

Do you not think this a very pretty story? Some say that it is not true, but I think very likely it is. At any rate, it is so good that it ought to be true. Afterwards this warm-hearted Indian princess married one of the Virginians named John Rolfe and was taken to London and shown to the Queen. I am sorry to have to say that poor Pocahontas died there and never saw her native land again.

Captain Smith got safely back to Jamestown. But his troubles were not at an end, for the colonists were as hard to deal with as the Indians. Some of them had found a kind of yellow stuff which they were sure was gold.

They loaded a ship with this and sent it to England, thinking that they would all be rich. But the yellow stuff proved to be what is known as "a fool's gold," and worth no more than so much sand. Instead of becoming rich, they were laughed at as great fools.

After a while Smith was made governor, and he now tried a new plan to make the men work. He told them that if they did not work they should not eat. None of them wanted to starve, and they knew that John Smith meant just what he said, so they began to build houses and to dig the ground and plant crops. But some of them grumbled and some of them swore, and it was anything but a happy family.

Captain Smith did not like this swearing, and he took a funny way to stop it. When the men came home at night each one who had sworn had a can of cold water poured down his sleeve for every time he had done so.

Did any of my readers ever try that? If they did they would know why the men soon quit grumbling and swearing. All was beginning to go well in the colony when Captain Smith was hurt by some gunpowder that took fire and went off. He was hurt so badly that he had to go back to England.

After that all went ill.

As soon as their governor was gone the lazy men quit working. The profane men swore worse than before. They ate up all their food in a hurry, and the Indians would bring them no more. Sickness and hunger came and carried many of them to the grave. Some of them meddled with the Indians and were killed. There were five hundred of them when winter set in; but when spring came only sixty of them were alive. And all this took place because one wise man, Captain John Smith, was hurt and had to go home.

The whole colony would have broken up if ships had not come out with more men and plenty of food. Soon after that, the people began to plant the ground and raise tobacco, which sold well in England. Many of them became rich, and the little settlement at Jamestown in time grew into the great colony of Virginia.

This ends the story of the hero of Jamestown. Now let us say something about the hero of Plymouth. In the year 1620, thirteen years after Smith and his fellows sailed up the James River, a shipload of men and women came to a place called Plymouth, on the rocky coast of New England. It was named Plymouth by Captain Smith, who had been there before. A portion of the rock on which they first stepped, is still preserved and surrounded by a fence.

These people are known as Pilgrims. They had been badly treated at home because they did believe in the teachings of the Church of England, and they had come across the stormy sea to find a place where they could worship G.o.d in their own way, without fear of being put in prison.

With them came a soldier. He was named Captain Miles Standish. He was a little man, but he carried a big sword, and had a stout heart and a hot temper. While the Pilgrims came to work and to pray, Captain Standish came to fight. He was a different man from Captain Smith, and would not have been able to deal with the lazy folks at Jamestown. But the Pilgrims were different also. They expected to work and live by their labor, and they had no sooner landed on Plymouth Rock than they began to dig and plant, while the sound of the hammer rang merrily all day long, as they built houses and got ready for the cold winter. But after all their labor and carefulness, sickness and hunger came, as they had come to Jamestown, and by the time the winter was over, half the poor Pilgrims were dead.

The Indians soon got to be afraid of Captain Standish. They were afraid of the Pilgrims, too, for they found that these religious men could fight as well as pray. One Indian chief, named Canonicus, sent them a bundle of arrows with a snake's skin tied round it. This was their way of saying that they were going to fight the Pilgrims and drive them from the country. But Governor Bradford filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and sent it back. When Canonicus saw this he was badly scared, for he knew well what it meant. He had heard the white men's guns, and thought they had the power of using thunder and lightning. So he made up his mind to let the white strangers alone.

But the Pilgrims did not trust the red men. They put cannon on the roof of their log church, and they walked to church on Sunday like so many soldiers on the march, with guns in their hands and Captain Standish at their head. And while they were listening to the sermon one man stood outside on the lookout for danger.

At one time some of the Indians made a plot to kill all the English. A friendly Indian told Captain Standish about it, and he made up his mind to teach them a lesson they would remember. He went to the Indian camp with a few men, and walked boldly into the hut where the plotting chiefs were talking over their plans. When they saw him and the men with him, they tried to frighten them. One of them showed the captain his knife and talked very boldly about it.

A big Indian looked with scorn on the little captain. "Pah, you are only a little fellow, if you are a captain," he said. "I am not a chief, but I am strong and brave."

Captain Standish was very angry, but he said nothing then. He waited until the next day, when he met the chiefs again. Then there was a quarrel and a fight, and the little captain killed the big Indian with his own knife. More of the Indians were slain, and the others ran for the woods. That put an end to the plot.

There is one funny story told about Captain Standish. His wife had died, and he felt so lonely that he wanted another; so he picked out a pretty young woman named Priscilla Mullins. But the rough old soldier knew more about fighting than about making love, and he sent his young friend, John Alden, to make love for him.

John told Priscilla's father what he had come for, and the father told Priscilla what John had told him. The pretty Priscilla had no fancy for the wrinkled old soldier. She looked at her father. Then she looked at John. Then she said: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"

John did speak for himself, and Priscilla became his wife. As for the captain, he married another woman, and this time I fancy he "spoke for himself."

Miles Standish lived to be 70 years old, and to have a farm of his own and a house on a high hill near Plymouth. This is called Captain's Hill, and on it there is now a stone shaft a hundred feet high, with a statue of bold Captain Standish on its top.

We have now our third hero to speak of, Roger Williams. He was not a captain like the others, but a preacher; but he was a brave man, and showed in his way as much courage as either of the captains.

The Pilgrims were quickly followed by other people, who settled at Boston and other places around Ma.s.sachusetts Bay until there were a great many of them. These were called Puritans. They came across the seas for the same reason as the Pilgrims, to worship G.o.d in their own way.

But they were as hard to live with as the people at home, for they wanted to force everybody else into their way. Some Quakers who came to Boston were treated very badly because they had different ways from the Puritans. And one young minister named Roger Williams, who thought every man should have the right to worship as he pleased, and said that the Indians had not been treated justly, had to flee into the woods for safety.

It was winter time. The trees were bare of leaves and the ground was white with snow. Poor Roger had to wander through the cold woods, making a fire at night with his flint and steel, or sometimes creeping into a hollow tree to sleep.

Thus he went on, half frozen and half starved, for eighty long miles, to the house of Ma.s.sasoit, an Indian chief who was his friend. The good chief treated him well, for he knew, like all the Indians, what Roger Williams had tried to do for them. When spring time came, Ma.s.sasoit gave his guest a canoe and told him where to go. So Roger paddled away till he found a good place to stop. This place he called Providence. A large city now stands there, and is still called Providence.