Stories of American Life and Adventure | Page 6

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 women became as brave as soldiers.
In very early times there were some families of people from Sweden living not far from where Philadelphia now stands. One day the women were all together boiling soap. It was the custom then to make soap at home. Water was first poured through ashes to make lye. People put this lye into a large kettle, and then threw into it waste pieces of meat and bits of fat of all kinds. After boiling a long time, this mixture made a kind of soft soap, which was the only soap the early settlers had. The large kettle in which the soap was boiled was hung on a pole. This pole was held up by two forked sticks driven into the ground. A