58 Singing Valleys 



gracious Queen, was commonly brought us by the Lady Poca- 

 hontas. . . . 



Behind John Smith's stern insistence that the colonists plant 

 as well as buy corn, was his awareness that if once the Indians 

 came to realize that the whites were dependent on them for 

 food, more than half the value of the muskets and gunpowder 

 in Jamestown's fort would be lost. He had evidence that al- 

 ready the Powhatan suspected this. On one of Smith's corn- 

 trading expeditions, the King held out against giving him the 

 corn bargained for except at the price of a musket a basketful. 

 Only the cleverness of Smith, when the Indians surrounded the 

 house where he and his men were lodged, saved them from 

 massacre. Only his firmness with the Powhatan, refusing the 

 powder and firearms, even though this might mean that the 

 colony would have to tighten belts, made the wily savage sell 

 his corn for the price bargained for. 



But in that summer of 1609, John Smith's eyes rested fre- 

 quently on the forty acres of standing corn within the palisade 

 of Jamestown. Carefully he counted the ears, calculated on 

 the grains. Here were bread and hominy. Here was hot por- 

 ridge to put heart into men who had the wilderness before 

 them. Here was security. Here was Virginia's future. 



Within a few weeks the Captain was to meet with the acci- 

 dent which so crippled him that Newport insisted on taking 

 him back to a London surgeon. Without his practical advice, 

 the colonists did not save the corn in their granary from the 

 rats which had come in Newport's ship. Much of the harvest 

 of that first cornfield was eaten and spoiled. The news of this 

 leaked out to the Indians. Now there were threatening figures 

 in the woods about the settlement. The price of corn went up 

 and up. "If you are starving and need our corn, then pay us 

 in muskets and gun powder. Pay or starve." 



Sixty out of five hundred settlers Smith left survived the 

 winter. These had neither strength of body nor heart to meet 

 the Spring when the Judas trees began to flower in the pine 



