FOREFATHERS' DAY 51 



fire on shore, they might have taken a step 

 toward warding off the sickness which was even 

 then fastening itself upon them. But they cer- 

 tainly did not, and in visiting their landing-place 

 on their landing-day and trying to see the world 

 here as they then saw it, one must put such riot- 

 ous thoughts out of mind, as he must put the 

 great present-day town out of it. 



Those two things aside on any before-Christ- 

 mas week it is possible to see the landing-place of 

 the Pilgrims much as they saw it, to feel the same 

 stormy weather sweep across the same sea and 

 to see landward the same hills clad with dark 

 forests tossing their giant branches and seeming 

 to hold much of mystery and dread. To know 

 just a little of what they saw and felt one need 

 but to stand on the brow of Manomet Head when 

 a December night lowers and the northeast wind 

 is hurling the surf on the rocks out of "a very 

 grown sea." 



