88 Singing Valleys 



mother of a woman who "looketh well to the ways of her 

 household and eateth not the bread of idleness," and who 

 therefore had the right to demand to be given "of the fruit of 

 her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates." 



One thing that kept New Englanders hustling was the per- 

 sistent necessity of making the colony pay dividends to the 

 shareholders in England. By 1624, for an investment of 25,- 

 ooo, English capitalists had acquired the whole of New Eng- 

 land. They made it clear that they were engaged in a strictly 

 business enterprise. The colony was expected to pay. And pay 

 it did if sometimes through the long, Yankee nose. 



Virginia paid her quit-rents in wheat first, later in tobacco. 

 New England paid hers in fish and furs. To get these she had 

 to have ships and corn, the last for bartej. She began building 

 ships before she built houses. In the first September, when the 

 harvest was barned, a party with the useful Squanto for 

 guide sailed in the shallop to trade with the Tarentine Indians 

 and brought back to Plymouth "a good return in furs/' 



The following year they pushed their trading along the 

 Maine coast and into the Kennebec, from which river they 

 acquired seven hundred pounds of beaver. The trade was in- 

 variably in corn. In 1633, when this was rated at six shillings 

 the bushel, beaver sold at: 



1 Ib. beaver 2 bu. corn 



2 Ibs. beaver 3 " " 



5 Ibs. beaver 9 



The acumen with which the Yankees bargained and bartered 

 was that of men prodded by threats of destitution. The busi- 

 ness done by one enterprising colonist whose original capital 

 was 13 gallons of seed corn reads like a teaser in arithmetic. 

 He sowed his seed, tended the crop and harvested 364 bushels. 

 These he sold on credit to the Indians, receiving in their winter 

 catch of furs, pelts to the value of 18 shillings per bushel of 



