They brought back five deer which they gave to their
pale face friends, that all might have enough to eat.
Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked
clams, broiled fish, roasted turkey, and venison. The young Pilgrim
women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins. We shall always
remember two of the fair young girls who waited on the first
Thanksgiving table. One was Mary Chilton, who leaped first from the
boat at Plymouth Rock. The other was Mary Allerton. She lived for
seventy-eight years after this first Thanksgiving; of those who came
over in the _Mayflower_ she was the last to die.
What a merry time everybody had during that week! How the mothers must
have laughed as they told about the first Monday morning on 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 always after be kept as washing day. One proud Pilgrim
mother, we may be sure, showed her baby boy, Peregrine White.
And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played
games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and
danced for their friends; and to make the party still more lively they
gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in
the still night air.
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