620, 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 God 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 pl