ost in the Woods

Elizabeth Zane

The River Pirates

Old-fashioned Telegraphs

A Boy's Foolish Adventure

A Foot Race for Life

Loretto and his Wife

A Blackfoot Story

How Fremont crossed the Mountains

Finding Gold in California

Descending the Grand Canyon

The-Man-that-draws-the-Handcart

The Lazy, Lucky Indian

Peter Petersen

The Greatest of Telescope Makers

Adventures in Alaska

STORIES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND ADVENTURE.

A WHITE BOY AMONG THE INDIANS.

Among the people that came to Virginia in 1609, two years after the
colony was planted, was a boy named Henry Spelman. He was the son of a
well-known man. He had been a bad and troublesome boy in England, and
his family sent him to Virginia, thinking that he might be better in
the new country. At least his friends thought he would not trouble
them so much when he was so far away.

Many hundreds of people came at the same time that Henry Spelman did.
Captain John Smith was then governor of the little colony. He was
puzzled to know how to feed all these people. As many of them were
troublesome, he was still more puzzled to know how to govern them.

In order not to have so many to feed, he sent some of them to live
among the Indians here and there. A chief called Little Powhatan asked
Smith to send some of his men to live with him. The Indians wanted to
get the white men to live among them, so as to learn to make the
things that the white men had. Captain Smith agreed to give the boy
Henry Spelman to Little Powhatan, if the chief would give him a place
to plant a new settlement.

Spelman staid awhile with the chief, and then he went back to the
English at Jamestown.

But when he came to Jamestown he was sorry that he had not staid among
the Indians. Captain John Smith had gone home to England. George Percy
was now governor of the English. They had very little food to eat, and
Spelman began to be afraid that he might starve to death with the rest
of them. Powhatan--not Little Powhatan, but the great Powhatan, who
was chief over all the other chiefs in the neighborhood--sent a white
man who was living with him to carry some deer meat to Jamestown. When
it came time for this white man to go back, he asked that some of his
countrymen might go to the Indian country with him. The governor sent
Spelman, who was glad enough to go to the Indians again, because they
had plenty of food to eat.

Three weeks after this, Powhatan sent