Let us gather the fruits of our first labours and rejoice together,"
said Governor Bradford.

"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank
God for all our blessings, and invite to it our Indian friends who
have been so kind to us."

The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so they planned to
have a celebration for a whole week. This took place most likely in
October.

The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest
warriors, all gayly dressed in deerskins, feathers, and foxtails, with
their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint.

As a sign of rank, Massasoit wore round his neck a string of bones and
a bag of tobacco. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was
painted red, and his hair was so daubed with oil that Governor
Bradford said he "looked greasily."

Now there were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village,
four log storehouses and seven little log dwelling-houses; so the
Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This was no matter, for it
was one of those warm weeks in the season we call Indian summer.

To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to
hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the whole
company almost a week.

Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters
into the woods. They killed five deer, which they gave to their
paleface friends, that all might have enough to eat.

Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked
clams, broiled fish, roast turkey, and deer meat.

The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins.

Let us remember two of the fair girls who waited on the tables. One
was Mary Chilton, who leaped from the boat at Plymouth Rock; the other
was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first
Thanksgiving, and of those who came over in the _Mayflower_ she was
the last to die.

What a merry time everybody had during that week! It may be they joked
Governor Bradford about stepping into a deer trap set by the Indians
and being jerked up by the leg.

How the women must have laughed as they told about the first Monday
morning at Cape Cod, when they all went ashore to wash their clothes!

It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it
at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They
little thought that Monday would afterward be kept