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PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS
Adventures of a Spring Day in Pilgrim Land
The first day on which one might hope for mayflowers
came smilingly to Plymouth in late April.
The day before a bitter northeaster had swept
through the town, a gale like the December one in
which the Pilgrim's shallop first weathered Manomet
head and with broken mast limped in under
the lee of Clark's Island. No promise of May had
been in this wild storm that keened the dead on
Burial Hill, yet this day that followed was to be
better than a promise. It was May itself, come a
few days ahead of the calendar, so changeful is
April in Pilgrim land. The gale, ashamed of itself,
ceased its outcry in the darkness of full night
and the chill of a white frost followed on all the
land.
In the darkest hour of this night I saw a thin point of light rise out of the mystery of the sea far to the eastward, the tiny sail of the shallop of the
