e 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 up