Richard of Jamestown: A Story of the Virginia Colony — Section 6

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.