Stories of American Life and Adventure | Page 6

when they went
hunting and when they went to war. They could eat it with a little water,
without stopping to cook it. They called it Nokick, but the white people
called it No-cake.
When the Pilgrims came to Cape Cod, they sent out Miles Standish and
some other men to look through the country and find a good place for
them to settle. Standish tried to find some of the Indians in order to
make friends with them, but the Indians ran away whenever they saw
him coming. One day he found a heap of sand. He knew it had been
lately piled up, because he could see the marks of hands on the sand
where the Indians had patted it down. Standish and his men dug up this
heap. They soon came to a little old basket full of Indian corn. When
they had dug further, they found a very large new basket full of fine
corn which had been lately gathered.
The white men, who had never seen it before, thought Indian corn very
beautiful. Some of the ears were yellow, some were red. On other ears
blue and yellow grains were mixed. Standish and his men said it was a
"very goodly sight." The Indian basket was round and narrow at the top.
It held three or four bushels of corn, and it was as much as two men
could do to lift it from the ground. The white men wondered to see how
handsomely it was woven.

[Illustration: Standish and his Men find Corn.]
Near the pile of corn they found an old kettle which the Indians had
probably bought from some ship. They filled this kettle with corn, They
also filled their baskets with it. They wanted the corn for seed. They
made up their mind to pay the Indians whenever they could find them.
The next summer they found out who were the owners of this buried
corn, and paid them for all the corn they had taken. If they had not
found this corn, they would not have had any to plant the next spring,
and so they would have starved to death.
The people that were with Miles Standish settled at Plymouth. They
were the first that came to live in New England. An Indian named
Squanto came to live with the white people at Plymouth. Squanto was
born at this very place. He had been carried away to England by a sea
captain. Then he had been brought back by another captain to his own
country. When he got back to Plymouth, he found that all the people of
his village had died from a great sickness. He went to live with another
tribe near by. When the white people came to Plymouth, they settled on
the ground where Squanto's people had lived. As he could speak some
English, and as all his own tribe were dead, he now came to live with
the white people.
The people at Plymouth did not know how to plant the corn they had
found, but Squanto taught them. By watching the trees, the Indians
knew when to put their corn into the ground. When the young leaf of
the white oak tree was as large as a squirrel's ear, they knew that it was
time to put their corn into the ground. Squanto taught the white people
how to catch a kind of fish which were used to make their corn grow.
They put one or two fishes into each hill of corn, but they were obliged
to watch the cornfield day and night for two weeks after planting. If
they had not watched it, the wolves would have dug up the fishes, and
the corn with them.
The white people learned also to cook their corn as the Indians did.
They learned to eat hominy and samp, and these we still call by their
Indian names. "Succotash" is another Indian word. The white people
learned from the Indians to use the husks of Indian corn to make things.

The Indians made ropes of corn husks, and in some places they made
shoes of plaited husks. The white people in early times made their door
mats and horse collars and beds of corn husks. They also twisted and
wove husks to make seats for their chairs.
Of all the plants that grew in America, Indian corn was the most
important to the Indians. It was also of the most value to the first white
people who came to this country.

SOME WOMEN IN THE INDIAN WARS.
When white people first came to this country, they had much trouble
with the Indians. After a while, when they had learned to defend
themselves and got used to danger, they did not mind it much. Even the