The sun., 1892-11-24
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING.
It Lasted a Week and Everybody
Was Invited,

It Lasted a Week and Everybody
Was Invited.
What do you think OF Thanks
giving feast spread out under the trees
and lasting for a week? Yet this act
ually happened-the whole village
gave the feast and every one was in
vited.
And even then they were not salts
fed, 80 they sent and invited their
nearest neighbors,. They invited
ninety of their neighhors, and as the
village itself consisted of only about
fifty people you can see how hospit.
able they were. If you could have
seen this little village you would have
thought tia poor affair. 1t had only one
little street of log huts facing one an
other, beginning in the forest and
ending in the forest, yet near the
sound OF the great sea and both sea
and forest were dear to the villagers,
for upon them they depended greatly
for food. From the sea they procured
bass, cod, Holsters, shell-tish and
other sea food, from the forest they
brought venison, wild turkeys, and
other game; and for both they were
grateful, for there had cen time in
the history of the village when both
sea and forest had seemed to
fail, and during this period one
half of the inhabitants had died
and were laid in graves leveled with
the earth so that their enemies might
not find out how weak they were. So
you can see why they loved the sea
and forest. Perhaps though, if you
had asked them, they would have
said that they loved the sea best, for
they knew that its waters stretched
away from their little forest home for
thousands OF miles till they dashed
against the coasts OF England, the
home that they had left forever but
which held for them still many things
as dear to them as life. And so the
ocean never seemed as strange to
them as did the forest with it's thou
sand unfamiliar sights and sounds
and where the wolves hOwled through
the long night hours, and their dark
skinred enemies prowled both night
and day.
But although the log huts with their
windows of oiled paper might seem
Door and mean to you and hardly to
warrant the giving OF such feast, yet
to the invited guests the village seemed
quite a grand affair. For the villagers,
having no white neighbors nearer
than New Amsterdam Onthe South or
Port Royal on the north, both of which
we are hundreds of miles away, had
asked to their feast the red Indians
who lived in the forest as they were
their nearest neighbors, and to the
Indians who lived in wigwams or slept
on the bare ground Plymouth village
in theautumn of 1921 seemed a fine
place, and it would have puzzled any
be required in the way OF comfort or
luxury. The special cause OF the feast
was the gatheringin of the first harvest.
Ten months before this the pilgrims
had landed on Plymouth knowing
that hardship, danger, and death lay
before them, and during the first
months they had suffered as we can
not now even imagine. The bitter
cold the fear Of the Indians the sick
ness caused by exposure, lack OF food,
and the hardships OF every kind made
the long winter seem like an endless
torture. But it passed away at last
and spring came. The air grew baImy,
the forest turned beautiful, the child
ren gathered wild flowers, the earth
yielded willingly to the labors of the
husbandmen and promised fair har-
vest. and perhaps best OF all, there ap-
peared one day in the village street an
Indian who came armed neither with
tomahawk. or arrow, but who held
out his hands toward the villagers as
If in benediction and uttered the word
"Welcome.
This was Samoset, messenger from
the great Massasoit, noble and gen
erous chieftain, who from that time
proved a sincere and enduring friend
of the whites, and so the following
summer was one of great comfort to
the colonists, frightened with the
prospect OF q good harvest, and
cheered with the friendship Of Massa-
soft.
In the autumn the harvest, consist
ing of twenty acres of corn and six OF
barley and peas, was gathered IN, and
then the Thanksgiving feast was pro
claimed as an expression of Thankful