A Day in Plymouth
When Mary Jane stepped off the train in the little town of Plymouth the next morning, she expected to see the famous Plymouth Rock the very first thing. Instead, she saw a modern station with its line of autos, surreys and wagons drawn up along the side and a parkway stretching away toward the hill.
“Where do they keep the rock?” she asked her mother.
“Goodness only knows!” laughed Mrs. Merrill. “Don’t expect me to know everything, honey. But I do know they have it around here somewhere.”
“Oh, Mother,” cried Alice, “look at that darling pony! Couldn’t we get that man to drive us around some place? I’d adore to have that pony pull me!”
Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane liked the idea too, so they engaged the driver of a quaint little pony cart to take them around the village.
But before five minutes had passed, they almost repented of their bargain. For, turning away from the station to the right, they began ascending a hill that taxed the strength of the pony to the utmost. Up they went and up and up, and the little pony pulled and pulled and pulled his best, but with such a load he couldn’t go faster than a very, very slow walk.
At last they reached the top of the hill and there on an open plain they saw a handsome monument—the driver told them it was Forefathers’ Monument.
“Whatever did they put it here for?” asked Mary Jane. “There’s nothing here but a field.”
“You should get out and look,” said the driver proudly. “Just look—and you’ll see.”
They left the pony cart (they were glad to give the little fellow a chance to rest you may be sure) and walked close up to the monument before they turned around to look; and then they saw why the monument was set just there. Before them lay the bay, the blue waters sparkling in the bright sunshine; and to the left and to the right for miles and miles they could see the coast line gleaming gold with the shining sand, and back from the ocean to the north were the green marshes and fertile fields. It was a view long to be remembered.
“I expect the Pilgrims stood right here—didn’t they, Mother?” asked Alice.
“Without a doubt they did,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “and think how it must have looked to them! There were no fields then; only marshes and woods; no friendly city off in the distance; only strange Indians. I can imagine that many a time a lonely Pilgrim must have sat in this very spot and looked longingly out over the ocean toward the home they had left.”
“They were brave folks, weren’t they, Mother?” said Mary Jane, much impressed with the beautiful view and the thought of the long-ago Pilgrims. “But where’s Plymouth Rock?”
“We’ll have to find that rock for you in a hurry,” laughed Mrs. Merrill. “Well, at least we know it isn’t on a hill, so we can go on from here if you are ready.”
The pony cart next pulled them down the hill and that was nearly as exciting as going up, for it surely seemed as though the cart with its four folks would fall over on top of the little pony.
“I really believe,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, “that we could get around faster if we’d walk, girlies,” as they turned back into the station parkway. “Suppose we walk for a way and explore as we go?” The girls were willing, so the pony cart was dismissed, and the Merrills set out to explore.
They went south along the main street of the village, passed the museum where relics of the Pilgrims were kept and which they meant to visit later in the day; passed several big hotels and many stores till they came to the end of the village where the fishermen had headquarters. And there, at the shore end of a small wharf, they saw a stone monument. Not a big handsome one such as they had seen on the hill a few minutes before; a small stone monument with an open space in the center and an iron grating sort of a door shutting up the open space.
Alice and Mary Jane ran ahead to see what it was, and there Alice read the words, “Plymouth Rock.” There under the monument, set in the arch made by the stone corners and protected from injury by the heavy iron grating, was the famous stone. It wasn’t big as Mary Jane had expected it to be—it was just a common-looking boulder, and nobody would have thought of it twice if it hadn’t been in a monument so folks would know it was something to look at.
“Well,” said Mary Jane practically, after she had looked at it carefully for a minute or two, “I don’t see how in the world they stepped clear from the ocean there at the end of the pier to here—I don’t see!”
“But you must remember, dear,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “there wasn’t any pier then—just the ocean and the shore. No doubt the ocean was close to the rock then, for sometimes sand and rocks are washed around and the shore line changed in so many years as have passed since that day. Or, possibly, folks have moved the rock up here so it wouldn’t get weatherbeaten by the winter’s storms. I think that is most likely the reason why it is here.”
As she was speaking, two men came up to the monument to make some repairs on the lock of one of the iron gates. As the gate swung open after they unlocked it, Mary Jane looked longingly in at the rock—if she could only touch it! What fun it would be to tell Betty and Frances that she, Mary Jane Merrill, had really touched Plymouth Rock!
One of the workmen seemed to guess what she wanted for he said to her, “Hello there, little girl! Did you come a long way to look at that rock?”
“All the way from Chicago,” answered Mary Jane.
“Then I think you’d like to touch it, wouldn’t you?” he said. Mary Jane nodded happily.
“Here goes then,” he replied, and he stepped aside so she and Alice could stand inside the gate and actually lay their hands on the rock.
“I know something better than that,” said the other workmen, much pleased with the girls’ interest and joy. “We’ll open the gate on the other side where the sun is shining and your mother can take your picture standing on the rock, just as the Pilgrims did.”
Mary Jane was so excited by that fine idea that she could hardly stand still, but with the help of mother and the men the gates were at last open, and she and Alice took their places on the rock—and the picture was taken.
“Thank you so very much,” said Alice gratefully as the gates were again locked up, “that picture will be fine to take to school ’cause I’m studying American history.”
“Then you want to notice that hill,” said one workman, pointing to a hill close by. It wasn’t such a very high hill but the sides were steep and grass covered and it was close to the shore. “That is the hill you will read about,” continued the man. “After that hard winter when so many of the Pilgrims died, the bodies of the dead were buried there and the Pilgrims planted corn over the top, so the Indians would not guess it was a cemetery and find out how very many had died. You must walk up that hill,” he advised Alice, “so you can tell your class about it when you get back.”
“We certainly will,” replied Alice gratefully, “and thank you for telling us about it.”
They crossed the street and climbed the wooden stairway up the hill. On the top was an inn where a sign announced that luncheon was served, but the girls didn’t care for anything so modern. Fortunately Mrs. Merrill had had the hotel put up a fine luncheon for them, so they wouldn’t have to waste time eating indoors. As it was now nearly noon and the girls were very hungry, she suggested that they sit on some benches halfway up the hill and eat now, where they could enjoy seeing Plymouth, the ocean and the historic hill.
That seemed a splendid idea, and the girls agreed that never had fried chicken and sandwiches tasted as good as on Plymouth Hill.
“I do feel awfully selfish though,” Mary Jane said as she polished off a drumstick, “to have such a good lunch at the very same place where folks died ’cause they didn’t have enough to eat.”
“I don’t feel so selfish as I do thirsty,” said Alice. “Now if I only had a drink—”
“No doubt we can find one,” replied Mrs. Merrill. “If you’ve eaten all you wish, we can put the papers and scraps in that trash basket over there and walk on. Surely we’ll find a drink soon.”
They walked along the street, passing many an old curiosity shop where Alice would have loved to linger and price old candlesticks and bellows and chairs and all the curious wares she could see through the window; only she was so thirsty that a drink seemed more interesting than curiosities just then.
Turning to the left they went up a steep grade to another street and there, right in plain sight, was a beautiful drinking fountain. Without stopping to read the inscription she and Mary Jane had a good drink. Then Alice read aloud the tablet that said this water was piped up the hill from the very spring where the Pilgrim fathers first got their water.
“I think we’re doing a lot of interesting things to-day,” said Mary Jane happily. “We stood on Plymouth Rock and we ate lunch where the Pilgrims didn’t have anything to eat, and now we’re drinking out of their own spring! Now what do we do next?”
“I think we’d better walk up these steps to the old cemetery,” said Mrs. Merrill.
Mary Jane thought it was awfully funny to walk up stairs on a street, but it was the only way to get up so steep a hill. Mrs. Merrill and Alice were much interested in the quaint, old inscriptions on the queer, flat tombstones, but Mary Jane was much more thrilled by the sight of the old funeral carriage which she saw in an old barn as they came down from the other entrance. It didn’t seem possible that real folks had ever made such a funny, fancy carriage—it seemed more as though it was “made up” for a show!
The afternoon was flying along and they had to hurry if there was to be time to stop and see the wonders of the historic museum they had passed before. And, indeed, that was the hardest place of all to leave, for there the girls saw old spinning-wheels and looms, old-fashioned chairs, dishes and toys such as little folks used to play with—though goodness knows, children in those old days had very few toys of even home-made sorts!—and boats, models of real boats of those early days and oh, so many things, Mary Jane thought they would have to stay there a week to see all she wanted to see.
But they wouldn’t stay a week, nor even an hour more, for at four they must take a train to Marshfield Hills where they were to visit Cousin Louise. If Mary Jane hadn’t wanted to visit there very much she might have suggested to wait till another train; but she had so often heard her mother tell about this dear cousin and her little boy, that not even the curious boats and wonders of the museum could make her want to miss that train.
“Now you tell us all about ’em,” she said to her mother, when, a little after four, they were seated in the train and speeding toward Marshfield Hills. “Is he big as me or is he a baby? And how do I talk to him?”
“Oh, you must play with him very nicely,” said Mrs. Merrill, “for he’s only a little bit of a boy—oh, lots younger than you are.”
But when Mary Jane stepped off the train at Marshfield Hills she certainly was surprised, for the little fellow who sat in the front seat of the waiting auto didn’t look as though he needed taking care of a bit!