And so it was that a very few days ago, the 16 of March, Father was standing in front of the Common House with Will Bradford when an Indian, wearing not a stitch save a leather apron round his waist, came out of the wood and strode toward the two men, calling out “Welcome, Englishmen!”
It was incredible enough that one lone man should enter our little village by himself—unarmed, and unaccompanied—but that he should also speak English was past believing. Giles, who somehow manages never to miss any bit of excitement, broke away from where he was playing stickball with the Billington boys, and came galloping up to Father, just in time, he says, “to see their mouths gawp open like loonies.” When the Indian then extended his right hand toward them, neither Father nor Will could do more than to clasp it with their own.
The Indian announced that his name was Samoset and that he came from Pemaquid—wherever that may be—and he had, it seems, simply come a-calling. Master Bradford felt that some sort of formal gathering should be held, and sent Giles thundering off to find Governor Carver and Captain Standish and Master Winslow and a few of the others. Giles took a moment from his errand to burst into the house where Elizabeth and I were sorting through the packets of seed she had brought, looking for some hollyhock which she was sure she had included, but we could not find it (though it turned up later mixed in with some written instructions for herb teas), and blurted out the news. It threw me into such a panic of fear that I jumped up, spilling the packets across the floor. Running to the door, I slammed it shut and lowered the bar across it.
“What’s taken you, sister?” Giles demanded. “There is nothing dangerous in one Indian.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I snapped. “There are hundreds of others close behind him! I know it! They have but sent him on ahead to be sure that we are as weak as . . . as we are!”
Elizabeth started picking up the seeds. “Then let us not do anything to make this one man our enemy,” she said calmly. “Constance, do you make a corn pudding, child, and fetch the little butter and cheese that is left.”
I stared at her. “What are you thinking of, ma’am? Are you mad?”
Elizabeth picked up the wild duck that Ted Leister had shot that morning and left on the table. “’Tis a good thing we have this,” she said. “Your father will have the Indian here to sup, or my name is not Elizabeth Hopkins.”
“Here? He would not dare! Why, the heathen will murder us all!”
Elizabeth looked up from plucking feathers from the duck. “Child, if the Indians choose to murder us they won’t spend time in discussing it with your father and Will Bradford first.”
“But they are savages!”
“Whatever they are, they have had ample opportunity ere now to chop us all into small bits while we slept. The fact that they have not done so would indicate they may not be quite as bloodthirsty as you seem to think. Quickly, Constance, the pudding.”
Giles took himself off, leaving the door unbarred and ajar behind him, and it was all I could do not to close it firmly again. But somehow, in the face of Elizabeth’s calm, I could not. With my hands shaking, and my teeth chattering so I dared not speak, I mixed the corn pudding. Every moment I expected to hear shrieks and screams as hordes of other heathens surged into the village, but the afternoon spun on quietly. Later, when the duck dripped its rich fat into the pan as it roasted, when the pudding cooked thick and creamy in its pot, when the table was laid with trenchers, Elizabeth’s precious pewter spoons, and our great tankard filled with water (for the beer we brought with us is long since gone), Father came striding up the hill from the Common House, the Indian beside him, and Giles tailing behind like a dutiful puppy. They walked in the door, and I stood frozen in the center of the room. Father looked at me quizzically.
“This is my daughter, Constance,” he said to the Indian.
I opened my mouth to make some sound lest I annoy the man by my silence, but not a sound would come. I could only nod my head like a muted booby.
“And this is my wife, Mistress Hopkins,” Father went on.
One would have thought Elizabeth entertained savages at dinner every day of her life! She simply smiled and nodded to him, as if he might have been Mistress Brewster dropping in for a bit of talk, and then went back to her work at the chimney!
Father seated Samoset in his own big chair—the which the Indian considered very fine—and himself sat on one of the stools, with Giles hanging over his shoulder. I could barely keep my eyes off Samoset! He was surely a fine figure of a man, as tall as Father, but very lean and hard, and his skin a most beautiful coppery brown. His hair, black and as coarse as a horse’s tail, was shaved into a sort of comb on his head, and his eyes were brilliantly dark and narrow. He looked clean enough, but there was a ripe odor about him that permeated the house very quickly, in spite of the cooking smells. Giles seemed to breathe it in like rose attar, but it soon nigh stifled me, so that when I was by him, serving the food or in passing, I held my breath till I was near blue. Elizabeth caught me at it, and with one of her little frowns and a shake of her head forbade me to do anything that might cause our guest to look at us with aught but kindness.
I thought at first the meal would never end, but halfway through I began to be so caught up in the stories that were told that I forgot the smell, my deep fear, and all else. Samoset told us of learning English from English fishermen who had been working at this Pemaquid for twenty years, salting down their catch and shipping it home. He taught us the names of some of the tribes of Indians who live in this area, and told us which we might trust and which we should fear. Once he looked at me, and his eyes sent a shivering straight to my backbone.
“Samoset have girl child too,” he said.
I knew not what to say—not having had to speak to him before—but then I stammered, “Is she . . . is she . . . pretty?”
His voice seemed to get even deeper as he said, “To Samoset she is morning star.”
Giles couldn’t stand it having me talk to Samoset when he had been told to be quiet, so he suddenly burst out, “I want to give Samoset a present, Father.”
Father beamed at him, pleased. “And what have you to give, Giles?”
Giles reached into his back pocket and in that flash-quick way he does things, pulled out the knife he had traded Love Brewster a jay’s nest for. “This,” he said, and thrust it out at Samoset, blade first. In truth, the Indian recoiled, and a most frightful look went across his face. Father grasped Giles’s wrist, roaring at him.
“Have ye no sense, young jackanapes? What are ye doing?”
Poor Giles dropped the knife, which clattered to the floor, and looked as though he would burst into tears.
“I only wanted to give the knife to Samoset,” he whimpered. “What have I done?”
Samoset leaned forward and picked up the knife from the floor. “Young brave move too fast,” he said. “To give a knife in friendship, it must be like this!” He carefully handed the knife to Giles, handle first, his arm extended. Giles took it slowly.
“But I wanted you to have it,” he said.
“In friendship?” the Indian asked.
“In friendship.”
“Then give again, as I have show you.”
Giles did as he was told, the while Elizabeth and Father watched him carefully. Samoset took the knife, smiled just a little, and said, “In friendship it is taken.”
I could see Elizabeth give a great sigh before she turned back to the fire.
When