Standish of Standish | Page 2

I.
THE BATTLE OF THE TUBS.
It was Monday morning.
It was also the twenty-third day of November in the year of our Lord
1620; but this latter fact was either unknown or matter of profound
indifference to the two-and-twenty women who stood ready to make
the day memorable in the world's history, while the fact of Monday was
to them one of paramount importance.
Do you ask why this was thus?
The answer is duplex: first, the two-and-twenty women were not aware
of their own importance, nor could guess that History would ever
concern herself with the date of their present undertaking; and second,
for a reason whose roots are prehistoric, for they spring from the
unfathomable depths of the feminine soul wherein abides inherently the
love of purity, of order, and of tradition. Yes, in two hundred and
seventy years the face of Nature, of empires, and of peoples has
changed almost beyond recognition in this our New World; but the
grand law at whose practical establishment in the New World we now
assist, abides to-day:--

Monday is Washing Day.
Does some caviler here suggest that although the human female soul is
embodied in the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, the mighty law
referred to is binding only upon that Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman
division of Japhet's daughters domiciled in and emanating from the
British Isles? Let us proudly reply that in considering the result of a
process we consider the whole; and let us meekly add that to our mind
the Anglo-British-Saxon-Norman woman, perfected under an American
sky, is the woman of the world; and finally, let us point to the
two-and-twenty heroines of that Monday as chief among American
women, for they were the Pilgrim Mothers of the New World.
The Pilgrim Fathers were there also; and they, too, were exemplifying a
law of nature, that is to say, a law of male nature in every clime and
every age. They did not love Washing Day. They felt no joy in the
possibility of its observance, they felt no need of its processes. And yet
again more humano, they did not openly set themselves against it, they
did not frankly express their unworthy content in their present estate,
but they feebly suggested that as the observance had been some weeks
omitted, with no sensible loss of comfort to themselves, it might well
be farther postponed; that the facilities were by no means remarkable;
that rain was very possible, and that they had to apply themselves
without delay to unshipping the pinnace from the hold of the
Mayflower, and fitting her for the immediate service of exploration.
To these arguments the women meekly responded that in the nature of
things they were better fitted to judge of the emergency than their lords,
whose attention must be absorbed in matters of so much higher import;
that they did not require the help of any man whose work upon the
pinnace would be at all important, and that the sandy beach, the pool of
fresh water, and the clumps of stunted shrubs fairly spread upon the
shore in front of them were all the facilities they required. As for the
weather, as Dame Hopkins piously remarked:--
"If Monday's weather be not fit for washing, there is no promise in
Holy Writ of anything better in the rest of the week."

"Oh, if thou r't bent on washing, the shrewdest storm that ever swept
the Zuyder Zee will never stop thee; so get thy rags together as soon as
may be," growled her husband, a grizzled, hard-visaged veteran some
twenty years older than this his second wife of whom he was very fond.
"Nay, then," interposed another voice, as a shrewd, kindly looking man,
albeit with a certain whimsical cast to his thin features, approached the
pair; "Mistress Hopkins will do no washing to-day; no, nor even go on
shore to gather chill and weariness for my little friend Oceanus."
"'Will not,' shall not? Marry and who is to hinder, if you please, good
Master Fuller?" asked the young woman in a somewhat shrewish voice.
"I, Samuel Fuller, Licentiate of Cambridge, late practitioner of
Bartlemy's Hospital, London, and your medical adviser, madam,"
replied the doctor with a dry smile and mocking bow. "Recall, if you
please, that Oceanus is not yet a fortnight old, and that both mother and
child are still my responsibility. Would you ruin my reputation, madam,
not to mention risking your own life and the boy's?"
"Have a care, Doctor, or some fine day you'll trip in your own quips,
and break your neck," replied Mistress Hopkins half sullenly, while her
husband cried,--
"He's right there, Bess. Thou 'rt in no case for such rough sport as this
is like to prove, and thou 'lt stay aboard whoever goes ashore."