OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 5 



to its upper end in spring as did their pilgrim! 

 fathers before them, the arbutus, from earliest I 

 days to this the Plymouth flower, no longer 

 grows on its margin. He who has not longed to 

 pick a mayflower in Plymouth on Mayday is not 

 a New Englander. That is perhaps why the ar- 

 butus no longer grows along byways of the old 

 town as once it did. Instead you must seek the 

 Pilgrim paths out of town to find it. 



One of these leads down along shore, over 

 Manomet and on through Plymouth woods to- 

 ward the old trysting place with the Dutch trad- 

 ers. The men of New Amsterdam, journeying 

 in boats along Long Island Sound and up Buz- 

 zards Bay met the Plymouth men yearly and held 

 a mcfst decorous carnival of barter. Tradition 

 has it that the Plymouth men made the trip by 

 sea to the nearest point on the Bay shore. I do 

 not know if the meeting place is known, but I 

 know a moss-grown and gnarled red cedar on the 

 margin of Buttermilk Bay, as we now call it, 

 which I am sure was growing there when the 

 first swapping of commodities took place and in 

 the shade of whose branches the grave and sturdy 

 traders may have sat. 



Here and there in Pilgrim land you find a tree 



