PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS 



Adventures of a Spring Day in Pilgrim Land 



The first day on which one might hope for may- 

 flowers came smilingly to Plymouth in late April. 

 The day before a bitter northeaster had swept 

 through the town, a gale like the December one in 

 which the Pilgrim's shallop first weathered Man- 

 omet head and with broken mast limped in under 

 the lee of Clark's Island. No promise of May had 

 been in this wild storm that keened the dead on 

 Burial Hill, yet this day that followed was to be 

 better than a promise. It was May itself, come a 

 few days ahead of the calendar, so changeful is 

 April in Pilgrim land. The gale, ashamed of it- 

 self, ceased its outcry in the darkness of full night 

 and the chill of a white frost followed on all the 

 land. 



In the darkest hour of this night I saw a thin 

 point of light rise out of the mystery of the sea far 

 to the eastward, the tiny sail of the shallop of the 



