"
And so it happens that the only record of Christmas Day in the pilgrims'
journal is this:
"Monday, the 25th, being Christmas Day, we went ashore, some to fell
timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; and so no man
rested all that day. But towards night some, as they were at work, heard
a noise of Indians, which caused us all to go to our muskets; but we
heard no further, so we came aboard again, leaving some to keep guard.
That night we had a sore storm of wind and rain. But at night the ship-
master caused us to have some beer aboard."
So worthily kept they the first Christmas, from which comes all the
Christmas cheer of New England to-day. There is no record how Mary
Winslow and Rose Standish and others, with women and children, came
ashore and walked about encouraging the builders; and how little Love
gathered stores of bright checker-berries and partridge plums, and was
made merry in seeing squirrels and wild rabbits; nor how old Margery
roasted certain wild geese to a turn at a woodland fire, and conserved
wild cranberries with honey for sauce. In their journals the good
pilgrims say they found bushels of strawberries in the meadows in
December. But we, knowing the nature of things, know that these must have
been cranberries, which grow still abundantly around Plymouth harbor.
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