l, some of the colonists met
again under the wise and kindly rule of Champlain. Little Helene lived
to bring her own roses to a garden in New France, and teach Indian girls
the secrets which old Jacqueline taught her. And it is recorded in the
history of the voyageurs, priests and adventurers of France in the New
World that wherever they went they were apt to take with them seeds and
plants of wholesome garden produce, which they planted along their route
in the hope that they might thus be of service to those who came after
them.

THE WOODEN SHOE

Amsterdam's the cradle where the race was rocked--
All the ships of all the world to her harbor flocked.
Rosy with the sea-wind, solid, stubborn, sweet,
Played the children by canals, up and down the street.
Neltje, Piet and Hendrik, Dirck and Myntje too,--
Little Nick of Leyden sailed his wooden shoe.

"Quarter-deck and cabin--rig her fore-and-aft,"--
Thus he murmured wisely as he launched his craft.
"Cutlass, pike and musquetoun, howitzer and shot--
But our knives and mirrors and beads are worth the lot."
Room enough for cargo to last a year or two,
In the round amidships of a wooden shoe!

Bobbing on the waters of the Nieuwe Vlei
See the bantam galleot, short and broad and high.
Laden for the Indies, trading all the way,
Frank and shrewd and cautious, fiery in a fray,--
Sagamore and mandarin are all the same to you,
Little Nick of Leyden with your wooden shoe!

XVIII

THE FIRES THAT TALKED

All along the coast of Britain, from John o' Groat's to Beachey Head,
from Saint Michael's Mount to Cape Wrath, twinkled the bonfires on the
headlands. Henry Hudson, returning from a voyage among icebergs, guessed
at once what this chain of lights meant. The son of Mary Queen of Scots
had been crowned in London.[1]

Hudson's keen eyes were unusually grave and thoughtful as the _Muscovy
Duck_ sailed up to London Pool on the incoming tide. The sailors looked
even more sober, for most of them were English Protestants, with a few
Flemings, and John Williams the pilot was an Anabaptist. It was he who
asked the question of which all were thinking.

"Master Hudson, d'ye think the new King will light them other fires--the
ones at Smithfield?"

Hudson shook his head. "That's a thing no man can say for certain, John.
But there's the Low Countries and the Americas to run to. 'T is not as
it was