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r-' z ; Jk ;V (tfhA'Hii x a. i-t.m,. -lu.,m f Mr. Turker Cobbler, the "National Bird" of America, who will lose hi. official bead, with many other members tl hu family, to grace the tablet ot America on inannsgiviDf oay. Hand of God Reached Out to Pilgrims fltA T11 m tyi Tict Yiria naia mnra thnn jluc a. xilaaxi I'aiuuo nv4 ujv v i, i jloneers in body. They were spiritual gioneers. And this it was that sus tained them when so many others failed. : And bo their homely Odyssey of : exploit and discovery is thrilling. From the ship, after its arrival in 'rrovinceton harbor, where they first jtiought to land, a small boat went iccmting. It encountered Indians, who ;&& It brought back "baskets of corn Cacovered buried in the sand. This laeed it was that saved them from ' Starvation later. Six months after ward (as they had purposed when !tfcey took it) they found the owners I wad paid them for it. Next the small feoat started on a circuit of Cape Cod Uy. The weather was very cold and Jt frose so hard as tl;e spread of the 8ea lighting on their coats, they were as If they had been glased." They camped ashore In u barricade of logs. At midnight caqie an alarm. It was only wolves. But at dawn, after prayers and breakfast, the Indians made a furious attack. They beat them off and gained the boat. Next It began to snow and rain. Wind in creased and sea roughened.; The rud der broke. "It was as much as 2 men could do to stoere her with a cupple of oares." The storm grew worse. Night was coining on. Their mast broke in throe pieces. They tried for a harbor, it proved a trap of deadly breakers. Cowing for their llvee, they barely got clear. "And though it was very dark and rained sore, yet in the end they gott under the lee of a small . island and re mained there all 'night in safetie." Promised i.and at Last. Next day on this island they kept their Sabbath." Monday they explored. Harbor, cornfields and running brooks. Here or nowhere was their Promised Land. They returned to their ship. On December 21 the Mayflower sailed . into Plymouth harbor. The pilgrimage of these refugees had ended. The pil grimage of a nation had begun. . Their settlement was a very Iliad of woes. One month after they landed, pestilence broke out. In three months half their number were dead. There was," says Governor Brad ford, "but 6 or 7 sound persons, who, to their great commendations be it spoken, spared no pains, night or day, but with abundance of toyle and hazard of their own health, fetched them woode, made them fires, drest them meat, made their beads, washed their lothsome clothes, cloathed and uncloathed them ; in a word, did all the homly and necessary offices for them whiclf dainty and quesie stom ack8 cannot endure to hear named ; , and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least." One of these good nurses was that gruit soiaier, capi. aiyies stanaisn. The Indians, meanwhile, skulked about and stole the colonists' farm ing implements. Finally came two who could speak broken English, which they had learned from crews that came to fish off the Maine coast. One was Samoset, the other Squanto. Both remained loyal friends, Squanto acting as interpreter and pilot, teach ing them how to plant corn and where to fish. Through these two red skinned friends they met the great sachem, Massasoyt, with whom they made a treaty of peace which lasted half a century. Additions to the Colony. In April the Mayflower sailed for home. And now it was bare hands against the wilderness. Their first harvest seemed fairly good; beans and Indian corn to the amount of "a peck of meal a week to each person." Then in sailed the ship Fortune, adding 35 unprovided men to their number. By putting every one on half rations they would have barely enough to hold out for six months. Next, the warrior tribe of Narragansetts sent 'them "a bundl of arrows tyed aboute with a great snakesklne." It was dec laration of war. They sent back the snakeskin with bullets in It. This gave the Narragansetts heart disease. They declined to accept the bullets and sent them back. By May, 1G22, food was exceedingly scarce. Anxiously, day after dayt they scanned the blank sea horizon for a ship. The one tharvcame was an open boat from a fishing vessel off Maine, bringing them . no food, but seven more hungry mouths. Hard on the. heels .of "this came a ship from England which unloaded do more men on the colony. "Put not your trust In princes," remarks Bradford ("much less In. mer chants).". Providential Interventions. And now begins that extraordinary series of interventions, seemingly pure chance, whereby time after time this colony, in its extremity of need is just saved from extinction. Bradford is so sure of their authorship and grows so used to them that he merely remarks: I'Behold now another Providence of God." One or two or half a dozen befriendings of chance may be pure coincidence. But when these befriend ings go on, month after month and year after year, seemingly in response to firm reliance that they will so come, then what are we to call them? Let ;:s first consider the bare facts of lids phenomenon. The plight of the colony was now r "speraie. Actual famine impended. ;.t this pinch in sailed a boat bearing a letter from a man and a settlement they ha i never so much as heard of, telling them where food could be had. They sent a boat to the place directed and obtained enough to sustain them, till the next harvest by dint of all liv ing on one-quarter of a pound of bread a day. The harvest of 1622, when it did come, was meager. Markets they had none, and no commodities to trade for corn from the Indians. Again the nflrtaroroua face of famine clarid tJieia TLo year just pas:b hz brought us ninny things for which to L2 thrxJifcl. , Of all the many blessings for which we are thankful, the pleasant relations we have enjoyed, and are enjoying with the large number of friends and patrons we have had the pleasure of serving, stands out most vividly before us. For this we are most sincerely thankful. J. T. Moore & Co. Let's Make It a Glorious Thanksgiving Brighten up the home with a new Sunbeam Heater or a New Atwater Kent Screen Grid Radio. In selecting either of these articles it will make the whole family thankful. CONVENIENT TERMS Macon County Supply Co. In the eye. And, again, a 'seeming chance befriended them. An adven turlng ship, sent to explore and trade, sailed in with a supply of English beads and knives. These the colonists obtained in return for beaver skins, and traded off to the Indians for enough corn to keep them alive for another space. Saved From' Trrashery. Next came two bufriendings of chance even more startling. The col onists hear that their friend, the great Sachem, Massasoyt, Is ill. They send him food, medicines and attend ance. He recovers. Visited by com punction he tells h:$ benefactors that he had been party to a conspiracy to wipe out both the Massachusetts Bay and the Plymouth settlements. As if to engrave the faith in an unseen power on the very hearts of these religious folk, at the same time comes a messenger from the Massachusetts Bay colony with the same tidings, and under the following extraordinary circumstances: he knew not one foot of the way to Plymouth, yet he reached the place. On the journey, however, he lost his direction, and this was well, for the Indians were pursuing him and had he known the trail and kept to It, he never would have reached Plymouth. Ignorance itself befriended them. Then back came their grisly visitor, famine. Corn they had none. They were reduced to living on ground nuts, such shellfish as they could dig at low tide, what wild fowl they could shoot, and now and then a deer. When spring did come thoi-e was a drouth from May 21 to mid-July. Their crops were burning up. They ap pointed a day for prayer. On the afternoon of that very day, fell "sweet and gentle showers." True to Their Principles. In their dealings with that riffraff humanity which forever gravitates to frontier settlements these religionists adhered to a principle which the doubling world proclaims to be lu natic. And they proved it to be sane. Time after time they" were wronged and betrayed by people whom they had befriended at grievous cost to themselves. Their betrayers would shortly come to grief, straggle back to Plymouth, beg forgiveness and fresh assistance, receive both; then turn around and betray their benefactors again, and again come to grief. : Such were the episodes of the scoundrels Thomas Weston, John Lyford and John Oldham, and the , untrustworthy steward, Isaac Allerton. All these and many more stabbed the. colony in the back; yet the colonists always forgave the injury and recovered from the wound. It was as if they deliberately "tempted Providence" ; as if they said: ! "AXT O Y flinf fnA -fl c tiic iuiu unit viuu ia&C9 cui( Ul His own. Let us try it." All that human heads and hands could do they did. This done, they befriended their enemies, forgave their foes, and, for the rest, relied on Providence. Bos ton Globe. L'ENVOI With head bowed in prayer, I give thanks to Thee Cod for your promise of Eternity. Now One Dollar and a Half per Year V Now Is the Time Do It Now! Some Reasons Why: Next year is election year. There will be great things of interest happening that everyone will want to read about. The neighbors will not be so keen to lend the paper from now on when the Press management gets going the first of the year as they plan to do. )nou)iM Suiop jo umq anQ SuiAng,, jo sseo u aq im i u It's good to have neighbors that will lend their paper. But what kind of a neighbor is the one that's borrowing it all the time? There will be great things happening in W. N. C, next year that our people will want to know about. The Press will cer tainly tell it to all its subscribers. The Farm Page, Church Page, Wo man's Page, School Page, State News Page are well worth the money, each within itself, that is charged for the whole paper. Give the members of the Junior Class at the Franklin High School a start on their improvement fund by subscribing for The Press NOW for as long as you want it at the present price. BEGINNING JAUNARY THE FIRST, TWO DOLLARS PER YEAR 1 .V'
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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Nov. 28, 1929, edition 1
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