Books: Richard of Jamestown
J >>
James Otis >> Richard of Jamestown
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7
BAKING BREAD WITHOUT OVENS
It was in this town of Powhatan's that I discovered how to bake
bread without an oven or other fire than what might be built on
the open ground, and it was well I had my eyes open at that time,
otherwise Captain Smith and I had gone supperless to bed again and
again, for there were many days when our stomachs cried painfully
because of emptiness.
While my master was talking with the king, Powhatan, on matters
concerning affairs at Jamestown, I saw an Indian girl, whose name
I afterward came to know was Pocahontas, making bread, and observed
her carefully. She had white meal, but whether of barley, or the
wheat called Indian corn, or Guinny wheat I could not say, and this
she mixed into a paste with hot water; making it of such thickness
that it could easily be rolled into little balls or cakes.
After the mixture had been thus shaped, she dropped the balls into
a pot of boiling water, letting them stay there until well soaked,
when she laid them on a smooth stone in front of the fire until
they had hardened and browned like unto bread that has been cooked
in the oven.
But I have set myself to the task of telling how we of Jamestown
lived during that time when my master was much the same as the
head of the government, and it is not well to begin the story with
bread making.
AN UNEQUAL DIVISION OF LABOR
First I must explain upon what terms these people, the greater
number of whom called themselves gentlemen, and therefore claimed
to be ashamed to labor with their hands, had come together under
control of those merchants in London, who were known as the London
Company.
No person in the town of James was allowed to own any land except
as he had his share of the whole. Every one was expected to work
for the good of the village, and whatsoever of crops was raised,
belonged to all the people. It was not permitted that the more
industrious should plant the land and claim that which grew under
their toil.
Ours was supposed to be one big family, with each laboring to help
the others at the same time he helped himself, and the result was
that those who worked only a single hour each day, had as much of
the general stores as he who remained in the field from morning
until night.
Although my master had agreed to this plan before the fleet sailed
from England, he soon came to understand that it was not the best
for a new land, where it was needed that each person should labor
to the utmost of his powers.
The London Company had provided a certain number of tents made of
cloth, which were supposed to be enough to give shelter to all the
people, and yet, because those who had charge of the matter had
made a mistake, through ignorance or for the sake of gain, there
were no more than would provide for the members of the Council,
who appeared to think they should be lodged in better fashion than
those who were not in authority.
My master could well have laid claim to one of these cloth houses;
but because of the charges which had been made against him by Captain
Kendall and Captain Martin, the sting of which yet remained, he
chose to live by himself. Thus it was that he and I threw up the
roof of branches concerning which I have spoken; but it was only
to shelter us until better could be built.
BUILDING A HOUSE OF LOGS
While the others were hunting here and there for the gold which it
had been said could be picked up in Virginia as one gathers acorns
in the old world, Captain Smith set about making a house of logs
such as would protect him from the storms of winter as well as from
the summer sun.
This he did by laying four logs on the ground in the form of a
square, and so cutting notches in the ends of each that when it was
placed on the top of another, and at right angles with it, the hewn
portions would interlock, one with the other, holding all firmly
in place. On top of these, other huge tree trunks were laid with
the same notching of the ends. It was a vast amount of labor, thus
to roll up the heavy logs in the form of a square until a pen or
box had been made as high as a man's head, and then over that was
built a roof of logs fastened together with wooden pins, or pegs,
for iron nails were all too scarce and costly to be used for such
purpose.
When the house had been built thus far, the roof was formed of no
more than four or five logs on which a thatching of grass was to
be laid later, and the ends, in what might be called the "peak of
the roof," were open to the weather. Then it was that roughly hewn
planks, or logs split into three or four strips, called puncheons,
were pegged with wooden nails on the sides, or ends, where doors
or windows were to be made.
Then the space inside this framework was sawed out, and behold
you had a doorway, or the opening for a window, to be filled in
afterward as time and material with which to work might permit.
After this had been done, the ends under the roof were covered
with yet more logs, sawn to the proper length and pegged together,
until, save for the crevices between the timbers, the whole gave
protection against the weather.
Then came the work of thatching the roof, which was done by the
branches of trees, dried grass, or bark. My master put on first
a layer of branches from which the leaves had been stripped, and
over that we laid coarse grass to the depth of six or eight inches,
binding the same down with small saplings running from one side to
the other, to the number of ten on each slope of the roof. To me
was given the task of closing up the crevices between the logs with
mud and grass mixed, and this I did the better because Nathaniel
Peacock worked with me, doing his full share of the labor.
KEEPING HOUSE
When we came ashore from the ships, no one claimed Nathaniel as
servant, and he, burning to be in my company, asked Captain Smith's
permission to enter his employ. My master replied that it had not
been in his mind there should be servants and lords in this new
world of Virginia, where one was supposed to be on the same footing
as another; but if Nathaniel were minded to live under the same
roof with us, and would cheerfully perform his full share of the
labor, it might be as he desired.
Because our house was the first to be put up in the new village,
and, being made of logs, was by far the best shelter, even in
comparison with the tents of cloth, Nathaniel and I decided that
it should be the most homelike, if indeed that could be compassed
where were no women to keep things cleanly. I am in doubt as to
whether Captain Smith, great traveler and brave adventurer though
he was, had even realized that with only men to perform the household
duties, there would be much lack of comfort.
The floor of the house was only the bare earth beaten down hard.
We lads made brooms, by tying the twigs of trees to a stick, which
was not what might be called a good makeshift, and yet with such
we kept the inside of our home far more cleanly than were some of
the tents.
LACK OF CLEANLINESS IN THE VILLAGE
There were many who believed, because there were no women in our
midst, we should spare our labor in the way of keeping cleanly, and
before we had been in the new village a week, the floors of many
of the dwellings were littered with dirt of various kinds, until
that which should have been a home, looked more like a place in
which swine are kept.
From the very first day we came ashore, good Master Hunt went about
urging that great effort be made to keep the houses, and the paths
around them, cleanly, saying that unless we did so, there was like
to be a sickness come among us. With some his preaching did good,
but by far the greater number, and these chiefly to be found among
the self called gentlemen, gave no heed.
It was as if these lazy ones delighted in filth. Again and again
have I seen one or another throw the scrapings of the trencher bowls
just outside the door of the tent or hut, where those who came or
went must of a necessity tread upon them, and one need not struggle
hard to realize what soon was the condition of the village.
After a heavy shower many of the paths were covered ankle deep
with filth of all kinds, and when the sun shone warm and bright,
the stench was too horrible to be described by ordinary words.
CAVE HOMES
There were other kinds of homes, and quite a number of them, that
were made neither of cloth nor of logs. These were holes dug in the
side of small hillocks until a sleeping room had been made, when
the front part was covered with brush or logs, built outward from
the hill to form a kitchen.
During a storm these cave homes were damp, often times actually
muddy, and those who slept therein were but inviting the mortal
sickness that came all too soon among us, until it was as if the
Angel of Death had taken possession of Jamestown.
Captain Smith said everything he could to persuade these people,
who were content to live in a hole in the ground, that they were
little better than beasts of the field.
But so long as the foolish ones continued to believe this new world
was much the same as filled with gold and silver, so long they
wasted their time searching.
THE GOLDEN FEVER
But for this golden fever, which attacked the gentlemen more fiercely
than it did the common people, the story of Jamestown would not
have been one of disaster brought about by willful heedlessness
and stupidity.
Again and again did Captain Smith urge that crops be planted, while
it was yet time, in order that there might be food at hand when
the winter came; but he had not yet been allowed to take his place
in the Council, and those who had the thirst for gold strong upon
them, taunted him with the fact that he had no right to raise his
voice above the meanest of the company. They refused to listen
when he would have spoken with them as a friend, and laughed him
to scorn when he begged that they take heed to their own lives.
I cannot understand why our people were so crazy. Even though
Nathaniel and I were but lads, with no experience of adventure
such as was before us, we could realize that unless a man plants he
may not reap, and because we had been hungry many a time in London
town, we knew full well that when the season had passed there was
like to be a famine among us.
I can well understand, now that I am a man grown, why our people
were so careless regarding the future, for everywhere around us was
food in plenty. Huge flocks of wild swans circled above our heads,
trumpeting the warning that winter would come before gold could be
found. Wild geese, cleaving the air in wedge shaped line, honked
harshly that the season for gathering stores of food was passing,
while at times, on a dull morning, it was as if the waters of the
bay were covered completely with ducks of many kinds.
DUCKS AND OYSTERS
I have heard Captain Smith say more than once, that he had seen
flocks of ducks a full mile wide and five or six miles long, wherein
canvasbacks, mallard, widgeon, redheads, dottrel, sheldrake, and
teal swam wing to wing, actually crowding each other. When such
flocks rose in the air, the noise made by their wings was like unto
the roaring of a tempest at sea.
Then there was bed after bed of oysters, many of which were
uncovered at ebb tide, when a hungry man might stand and eat his
fill of shellfish, never one of them less than six inches long,
and many twice that size. It is little wonder that the gold crazed
men refused to listen while my master warned them that the day
might come when they would be hungry to the verge of starvation.
Now perhaps you will like to hear how we two lads, bred in London
town, with never a care as to how our food had been cooked, so that
we had enough with which to fill our stomachs, made shift to prepare
meals that could be eaten by Captain Smith, for so we did after
taking counsel with the girl Pocahontas from Powhatan's village.
ROASTING OYSTERS
In the first place, the shell fish called oysters are readily cooked,
or may be eaten raw with great satisfaction. I know not what our
people of Virginia would have done without them, and yet it was
only by chance or accident that we came to learn how nourishing
they are.
A company of our gentlemen had set off to explore the country
very shortly after we came ashore from the fleet, and while going
through that portion of the forest which borders upon the bay,
happened upon four savages who were cooking something over the
fire.
The Indians ran away in alarm, and, on coming up to discover what
the brown men had which was good to eat, the explorers found a
large number of oysters roasting on the coals. Through curiosity,
one of our gentlemen tasted of the fish, and, much to his surprise,
found it very agreeable to the stomach.
Before telling his companions the result of his experiment, he ate
all the oysters that had been cooked, which were more than two dozen
large ones, and then, instead of exploring the land any further
on that day, our gentlemen spent their time gathering and roasting
the very agreeable fish.
As a matter of course, the news of this discovery spread throughout
the settlement, and straightway every person was eating oysters;
but they soon tired of them, hankering after wheat of some kind.
Among those who served some of the gentlemen even as Nathaniel
and I aimed to serve Captain Smith, was James Brumfield, a lazy,
shiftless lad near to seventeen years old. Being hungry, and not
inclined to build a fire, because it would be necessary to gather
fuel, he ventured to taste of a raw oyster. Finding it pleasant to
the mouth, he actually gorged himself until sickness put an end to
the gluttonous meal.
It can thus be seen that even though Nathaniel and I had never
been apprenticed to a cook, it was not difficult for us to serve
our master with oysters roasted or raw, laid on that which answered
in the stead of a table, in their own shells.
LEARNING TO COOK OTHER THINGS
Then again the Indian girl had shown us how to boil beans, peas,
Indian corn, and pumpkins together, making a kind of porridge which
is most pleasant, and affords a welcome change from oysters; but
the great drawback is that we are not able to come at the various
things needed for the making of it, except when our gentlemen have
been fortunate in trading with the brown men, which is not often.
This Indian corn, pounded and boiled until soft, is a dish Captain
Smith eats of with an appetite, provided it is well salted, and
one does not need to be a king's cook in order to make it ready for
the table. The pounding is the hardest and most difficult portion
of the task, for the kernels are exceeding flinty, and fly off at
a great distance when struck a glancing blow.
Nathaniel and I have brought inside our house a large, flat rock,
on which we pound the corn, and one of us is kept busy picking
up the grains that fly here and there as if possessed of an evil
spirit. Newsamp is the name which the savages give to this cooking
of wheat.
I have an idea that when we get a mill for grinding, it will
be possible to break the kernels easily and quickly between the
millstones, without crushing a goodly portion of them to meal.
When the Indian corn is young, that is to say, before it has grown
hard, the ears as plucked from the stalks may be roasted before
the coals with great profit, and when we would give our master
something unusually pleasing, Nathaniel and I go abroad in search
of the gardens made by the savages, where we may get, by bargaining,
a supply of roasting ears.
With a trencher of porridge, and a dozen roasting ears, together
with a half score of the bread balls such as I have already written
about, Captain Smith can satisfy his hunger with great pleasure,
and then it is that he declares he has the most comfortable home in
all Virginia, thanks to his "houseboys," as he is pleased to call
us.
THE SWEET POTATO ROOT
The Indians have roots, which some of our gentlemen call sweet
potatoes, which are by no means unpleasant to the taste, the only
difficulty being that we cannot get any great quantity of them. Our
master declares that when we make a garden, this root shall be the
first thing planted, and after it has ripened, we will have some
cooked every day.
Nathaniel and I have no trouble in preparing the root, for it may
be roasted in the ashes, boiled into a pudding which should be well
salted, or mixed with the meal of Indian corn and made into a kind
of sweet cake.
However, we lads have not had good success in baking this last
dish, because of the ashes which fly out of the fire when the wind
blows ever so slightly. Captain Smith declares that he would rather
have the ashes without the meal and sweet potato, if indeed he must
eat any, but of course when he speaks thus, it is only in the way
of making sport.
Captain Kendall, who, because he has made two voyages to the Indies,
believes himself a wondrously wise man, says that he who eats sweet
potatoes at least once each day will not live above seven years,
and he who eats them twice every day will become blind, after which
all his teeth will drop out.
Because of this prediction, many of our gentlemen are not willing
even so much as to taste of the root, but Captain Smith says that
wise men may grow fat where fools starve, therefore he gathers up
all the sweet potatoes which the others have thrown away, for they
please him exceeding well.
A TOUCH OF HOMESICKNESS
There is no need for me to say that it makes both Nathaniel and me
glad to be praised by our master, because we keep the house cleanly
and strive to serve the food in such a manner as not to offend
the eye; but we would willingly dispense with such welcome words
if thereby it would be possible to see a woman messing around the
place.
Strive as boys may, they cannot attend to household matters as do
girls or women, who have been brought into the world knowing how
to perform such tasks, and it is more homelike to see them around.
Nathaniel and I often picture to each other what this village of
Jamestown would be if in each camp, cave, or log hut a woman was in
command, and ever when we talk thus comes into my heart a sickness
for the old homes of England, even though after my mother died
there was none for me; but yet it would do me a world of good even
to look upon a housewife. A most friendly gentleman is Master Hunt,
and even though he is so far above me in station, I never fail of
getting a kindly greeting when I am so fortunate as to meet him.
He comes often to see Captain Smith, for the two talk long and
earnestly over the matter of the Council, and at such times it is
as if he went out of his way to give me a good word.
MASTER HUNT'S PREACHING
Therefore it is that I go to hear him preach whenever the people
are summoned to a meeting beneath the square of canvas in the wood,
and more than once I have heard from him that which has taken the
sickness for home out of my heart. Our people are not inclined to
listen to him in great numbers, however. I have never seen above
twenty at one time, the others being busy in the search for gold,
or trying to decide among themselves as to how it may best be found.
More than once have I heard Master Hunt say, while talking privately
with my master, that there would be greater hope for this village
of ours if we had more laborers and less gentlemen, for in a new
land it is only work that can win in the battle against the savages
and the wilderness.
Four carpenters, one blacksmith, two bricklayers, a mason, a sailor,
a barber, a tailor, and a drummer make up the list of skilled
workmen, if, indeed, one who can do nothing save drum may be called
a laborer. To these may be added twelve serving men and four boys.
All the others are gentlemen, or, as Master Hunt puts it, drones
expecting to live through the mercy of God whom they turn their
backs upon.
NEGLECTING TO PROVIDE FOR THE FUTURE
The one thing which seemed most surprising to us lads, after Captain
Smith had called it to our notice, was that these people, who knew
there could be no question but that the winter would find them in
Jamestown, when there could be neither roasting ears, peas, beans,
nor fowls of the air to be come at, made no provision for a harvest.
Captain Smith, not being allowed to raise his voice in the Council,
could only speak as one whose words have little weight, since he
was not in authority; but he lost no opportunity of telling these
gold seekers that only those who sowed might reap, and unless seed
was put into the ground, there would be no crops to serve as food
during the winter.
Even Master Wingfield, the President of the Council, refused to
listen when my master would have spoken to him as a friend. He gave
more heed to exploring the land, than to what might be our fate
in the future. He would not even allow the gentlemen to make such
a fort as might withstand an assault by the savages, seeming to
think it of more importance to know what was to be found on the
banks of this river or of that, than to guard against those brown
people who daily gave token of being unfriendly.
The serving men and laborers were employed in making clapboards that
we might have a cargo with which to fill one of Captain Newport's
ships when he returned from England, according to the plans of the
London Company. The gentlemen roamed here or there, seeking the
yellow metal which had much the same as caused a madness among
them; and, save in the case of Master Hunt and Captain Smith, none
planted even the smallest garden.
SURPRISED BY SAVAGES
The fort, as it was called, had been built only of the branches of
trees, and might easily have been overrun by savages bent on doing
us harm.
It was while Master Wingfield, with thirty of the gentlemen,
was gone to visit Powhatan's village, and the others were hunting
for gold, leaving only my master and the preacher to look after
the serving men and the laborers, that upward of an hundred naked
savages suddenly came down upon us, counting to make an end of all
who were in the town.
It was a most fearsome sight to see the brown men, their bodies
painted with many colors, carrying bows and arrows, dash out from
among the trees bent on taking our lives, and for what seemed a
very long while our people ran here and there like ants whose nest
has been broken in upon.
Captain Smith gave no heed to his own safety; but shouted for all
to take refuge in our house of logs, while Master Hunt did what he
might to aid in the defence; yet, because there had been no exercise
at arms, nor training, that each should know what was his part at
such a time, seventeen of the people were wounded, some grievously,
and one boy, James Brumfield of whom I have already spoken, was
killed by an arrow piercing his eye.
STRENGTHENING THE FORT
Next day, when Master Wingfield and his following came in, none the
better for having gone to Powhatan's village, all understood that
it would have been wiser had they listened to my master when he
counseled them to take exercise at arms, and straightway all the
men were set about making a fort with a palisade, which last is
the name for a fence built of logs set on end, side by side, in
the ground, and rising so high that the enemy may not climb over
it. This work took all the time of the laborers until the summer
was gone, and in the meanwhile the gentlemen made use of the stores
left us by the fleet, until there remained no more than one half
pint of wheat to each man for a day's food.
The savages strove by day and by night to murder us, till it was
no longer safe to go in search of oysters or wildfowl, and from
wheat which had lain so long in the holds of the ships that nearly
every grain in it had a worm, did we get our only nourishment.
The labor of building the palisade was most grievous, and it was
not within the power of man to continue it while eating such food;
therefore the sickness came upon us, when it was as if all had been
condemned to die.
A TIME OF SICKNESS AND DEATH
The first who went out from among us, was John Asbie, on the sixth
of August. Three days later George Flowers followed him. On the
tenth of the same month William Bruster, one of the gentlemen, died
of a wound given by the savages while he was searching for gold,
and two others laid down their lives within the next eight and
forty hours.
Then the deaths came rapidly, gentlemen as well as serving men or
laborers, until near eighty of our company were either in the grave,
or unable to move out of such shelters as served as houses.
A great fear came upon all, save that my master held his head as
high as ever, and went here and there with Master Hunt to do what
he might toward soothing the sick and comforting the dying.
It was on the twentieth day of August when Captain Bartholomew
Gosnold, one of the Council, died, and then Master Wingfield forgot
all else save his own safety. More than one in our village declared
that he was making ready the pinnace that he might run away from
us, as if the Angel of Death could be escaped from by flight.
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7