I 156 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
— - .— - - —— . 
I told <>f sitting on Coles Hill in Ply¬ 
mouth reviewing: the great pageant .-ailed 
“The Pilgrim Spirit.” Ilarknes-. had fal¬ 
len over us. and the strong voice coming 
front near the rock repeated the lines 
which were quoted last week. As these 
impressive words ended a great light 
flashed upon the level stage in front of us. 
This pageant was really a series of great 
colored pictures designed to show the 
early history of the town and the develop¬ 
ment of Puritanism. It seems that Ply¬ 
mouth was- visited by European adven¬ 
turers eight times before the English Pil¬ 
grims came in 162<>. The first visit was 
in about the year 1000, when a band of 
Norsemen appeared. When the great 
light flashed upon tin* stage a group of 
Indians appeared, carrying three canoes. 
They evidently saw some strange boat ap¬ 
pearing, and went through an impressive 
pantomime-to 'cypress surprise and fear. 
Finally they ran back and hid under 
their boats. Tln n appearel a great ves¬ 
sel, pushed along by oars, slowly ap¬ 
proaching the land. About 25 men. all of 
large size, armed with great spears and 
carrying round shields, came off the boat, 
and after a short investigation marched 
up to (he canoes. They killed most of 
the Indians and carried the rest away as 
cantives. .Tust as they reached the edge 
o! the water to re-enter their ship a great 
crowd of Indians rushed out of the woods 
and began shooting arrows at the white 
men. Each white man at. once squatted 
on the ground with his shield held in 
front for protection. It is impossible to 
describe the striking beauty and power of 
such a sc-euc. The Indians succeeded in 
killing the white leader, Tliorwald, and 
lie was finally carried to the ship on the 
shoulders of iiis men. The object of this 
was to show how for six centuries the In¬ 
dians regarded the white men as robbers 
and murderers, come to destroy them. 
This belief was handed down through 
many generations. In our own day, 
when the events of history are handed 
down to ns in hooks, we often get only 
a garbled or prejudiced view. If that is 
so. think of what the Indians’ conception 
of the white man must have been after 15 
or more grandfathers in long succession 
had passed along tin- story as they remem¬ 
bered it. Out of all these story toilers 
there must have been at least half a dozen 
mon witli imagination, or. as we call 
them, “romancers.” They all threw in a 
few mental chips as the basket went by. 
I thought of that as the light faded out 
on that mournful procession of Norsemen 
Tfe RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
carrying their dead leader on board the 
ship. They would not bury him in a 
strange land, but far out at sea they 
would toss his body into the waves! It is 
a rare man who can tell a true story— 
just as it happened. Only last month I 
road a book in which the author claims 
that these early men of Plymouth were 
very ordinary people, who never would 
have boon heard of in history but for a 
successful propaganda carried on by New 
England people for financial benefit. This 
same author claims that Abraham Lin¬ 
coln was a poor, inferior man, a great 
failure as a lawyer and statesman, who 
was simply kept before the world by a 
political propaganda devised for selfish 
purposes! Well, you would have had 
something of a job to impress that idea 
upon the minds of the thousands who sat 
with us that night. 
if it If if * 
When the lights flashed out the actors 
of one scene rushed off through the dark¬ 
ness, and others came on to frame the 
next picture. We were, shown in rapid 
succession the visits of Martin Priug in 
1603, of Champlain in 1605, of Admiral 
Block in 1014. John Smith in the same 
year, and Thomas Hunt in 1015. All this 
was shown in a series of pictures, perfect 
in costume and brilliant in color. The 
white men were shown trading with the 
Indians, and in one scene fighting them. 
Up to within a short time before the Pil¬ 
grims came the country at Plymouth was 
inhabited by an industrious tribe of In¬ 
dians. They had cleared the land and 
cultivated corn, beans and squash. A 
great pestilence, it may have been small¬ 
pox or some form of fever, fell upon them 
and swept off the entire tribe, leaving the 
ground cleared but unoccupied, waiting 
for the white men. The other Indians 
evidently dared not live in a place where 
death had levied such a fearful tax. 
Neither they n<>r the white men knew 
anything about the germ theory of dis¬ 
ease, and there were no disinfectants in 
those days, except fire. It is not impos¬ 
sible that part of the terrible mortality 
among the Pilgrims during that first Win¬ 
ter was due to that former pestilence. 
After the scene showing the visit of 
Thomas Hunt the orchestra played a mu¬ 
sical interlude entitled “The Pestilence.” 
Then the lights flashed on once more and 
revealed a picture of Captain Thomas 
Hornier, who visited Plymouth in 1610. 
He talked with two famous Indians Sam- 
oset and Tisquantum. or, as he is com¬ 
monly known. Squanto. Both of these 
Indians had learned something of Eng¬ 
lish, and Dermer tries to induce them to 
come with him. Samoset agrees, but 
Squanto will not go. lie is the last 
of all the tribe that formerly lived at Ply¬ 
mouth. He seems to feel that his life was 
spared in order that he may do some 
great thing, and so he will not leave his 
old home. 
***** 
The evident idea, of all this is to con¬ 
vey to the jnind if possible the thought 
that running all through this history was 
something of divine prophecy, a shaping 
and .grouping of events beyond the power 
of human hand or brain. Samoset was 
the first Indian who appeared in Ply¬ 
mouth. saving “Welcome Englishmen!” 
In truth he evidently hung about the town 
waiting for someone to offer him a drink 
of liquor. One of the most amusing 
things about (he present outcry against 
Prohibition enforcement is the boot-leg¬ 
ging argument that these Puritans started 
the crusade against rum drinking. The 
truth is that in those days drinking was 
very common. It was An evil, but was 
not so much regarded as a curse and sin 
until the growth of cities and the breeding 
of a race of town men made the liquor 
business an iniquity. In 1642. when El¬ 
der Brewster died, Wm. Bradford wrote 
of him : 
“He had, many times, nothing but fish, 
and often wanting that also; and drinko 
nothing but water for many years to- 
geathre * * * for it is found in ex¬ 
perience that.famine, or 
unwholesome food, much drinking of wa¬ 
ter, sorrows and troubles, all of them are 
enemies to health !” 
As for Squanto, he was the first Amer¬ 
ican agronomist, for he taught the white 
men how to select seed corn and how to 
plant it with.a dead herring in each hill. 
Another Indian named HobOmack came 
to live with the white men. There arose 
some jealousy between this man and 
Squanto. Bradford says they handled 
this trouble as follows : 
“They also made use of the emulation 
that grue betweene Ilobamaek and him 
which made them carry more squarely. 
And the governor seemed “to countenance 
the one and the captain the other, by 
which they had better intelligence and 
made theme both more diligent.” Which 
is much the same old political game that 
lias been played in all ages, including our 
own. For if yon tried to get the 25,000 
people who were watching that pageant 
to agree on some perfectly evident public 
need you would find that they were held 
apart very much like Squanto and Hoba- 
; lack! 
$ afe * »Je )|t 
With the conclusion of these historical 
scenes the pageant took us back to Eng¬ 
land in a swift review of some of the inci¬ 
September 24, 1921 
dents connected with the rising of Puri¬ 
tanism. The most striking picture in this 
group was entitled “The Opposition,” and 
represented a group of sober Puritans pre¬ 
senting a petition to King James. There 
must have been nearly 10OO people on the 
stage at one time. The contrast between 
the gay and brilliant members of the 
icing s court and the soberly dressed Puri¬ 
tans was very striking. A group of these 
black-clad men approached the king, who 
sat on horseback, the center of a gorgeous 
picture. The little group removed their 
peaked hats and knelt before him. He 
glanced at the paper and waved them 
away. Then the royal procession moved 
gaily on. It was very striking—this little 
group of sober, rejected men, standing at 
• me side, watching the pomp and pride of 
this magnificent parade. The king on his 
great horse and the queen in her chair 
sneered at this bumble group, and even- 
parasite in the long train took the cue 
and mocked the Puritans as they passed. 
As the great company faded from view 
and the rejected Puritans slowly walked 
away into the shadows, I thought how 
the years had sifted the truth and the 
gold out of the sham and arrogance. They 
always do—they always will sift that 
way. There was another great scene 
where a group of Puritans were shown 
trying to escape from England for a new- 
home in Holland. The ship was delayed, 
and before the women and children could 
get on board the sheriff and his men were 
upon them. As the light faded out we 
saw tlie women in a bunch being driven 
off the stage like a herd of cattle. Then 
the scene shifted to show the life of lie 
Pilgrims in Holland. 
***** 
I have heard it said that this pageant 
was, on the whole, a melancholy spec¬ 
tacle—an attempt to glorify a group of 
narrow religious fanatics! I find that to 
be a common view of the Puritans in 
New York City and in parts of the West. 
People speak of ‘the blue laws and the 
blue noses of the Pilgrims, and wonder 
how it happens that their memory and 
their town have been etched into Ameri¬ 
can history so that nothing can take it 
out. The fact seems to he that these Pil¬ 
grims were human beings like the rest of 
us. They were not supermen, bur they 
had all the loves and the fears and the 
general human qualities of the rest of hu¬ 
manity. There have always been Puri¬ 
tans since the world began—in every land, 
every church and every period of history, 
and I think I may say that they have on 
the whole done more to influence (lie 
world for true improvement than any 
(Continued on page 1165) 
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