They were two little Puritan children, going to school.
They laughed and pointed happily to the full ears of corn as they
crossed the fields. There would be a good harvest, they knew, and that
meant plenty of hot corn-meal mush filling the big copper kettle that
hung over their fireplace, and corn would fill the huge brick oven.
But as Peregrine and Patience crept softly between the great pine
trees of the wood, they clasped each other's hands more tightly, and
started to see a red-winged bird dart out of the branches. "Suppose
it had been the bright feather head-dress of an Indian," they
whispered. One was very apt to meet Indians on the way to school in
those old-time days.
The long distance was travelled in safety, though. Promptly at eight
o'clock, the two little Puritans knocked at the door of a second log
house and it was opened by their neighbor, Mistress Endicott. There
was no school-bell, there were no desks and comfortable chairs and
blackboards and picture books. Mistress Endicott had risen from her
spinning wheel, that stood by the fireplace, to let in Peregrine and
Patience, and a dozen other small boys and girls of Plymouth. There
was no real schoolhouse as yet in Plymouth. Mistress Endicott kept
house, and tended her garden, and taught all the children of the
neighborhood as well.
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