nd presented to the governor and the captain and others. So all made
merry together.

And bountiful was the feast. Oysters, fish and wild turkey, Indian
maize and barley bread, geese and ducks, venison and other savory meats,
decked the board. Kettles, skillets, and spits were overworked, while
knives and spoons, kindly assisted by fingers, made merry music on
pewter plates. Wild grapes, "very sweete and strong," added zest to
the feast. As to the vegetables, why, the good governor describes them
thus:--

"All sorts of grain which our own land doth yield,
Was hither brought, and sown in every field;
As wheat and rye, barley, oats, beans, and pease
Here all thrive and they profit from them raise;
All sorts of roots and herbs in gardens grow,--
Parsnips, carrots, turnips, or what you'll sow,
Onions, melons, cucumbers, radishes,
Skirets, beets, coleworts and fair cabbages."

Thus a royal feast it was the Pilgrims spread that first golden autumn
at Plymouth, a feast worthy of their Indian guests.

All slumbering discontents they smothered with common rejoicings. When
the holiday was over, they were surely better, braver men because they
had turned aside to rest awhile and be thankful together. So the exiles
of Leyden claimed the harvests of New England.

This festival was the bursting into life of a new conception of man's
dependence on God's gifts in Nature. It was the promise of autumnal
Thanksgivings to come.

THE MASTER OF THE HARVEST

BY MRS. ALFRED GATTY (ADAPTED)

The Master of the Harvest walked by the side of his cornfields in the
springtime. A frown was on his face, for there had been no rain for
several weeks, and the earth was hard from the parching of the east
winds. The young wheat had not been able to spring up.

So as he looked over the long ridges that stretched in rows before him,
he was vexed and began to grumble and say:--

"The harvest will be backward, and all things will go wrong."

Then he frowned more and more, and uttered complaints against Heaven
because there was no rain; against the earth because it was so dry;
against the corn because it had not sprung up.

And the Master's discontent was whispered all over the field, and
along the ridges where the corn-seed lay. And the poor little seeds
murmured:--

"How cruel to complain! Are we not doing our best? Have we let one drop
of moisture pass by unused? Are we not striv