hair. "I will make the porridge while
Desire lifts the beef from the pot, and Mary lays the table. Our mother
is more than tired with last night's watching beside Mistress Carver."

"Nay, then, child, I'll rest a minute, since I have such willing hands
to wait on me, and well I know thou art the most delicate cook among us.
Dame Carver will be the gainer."

And leaning her head against the back of the chair, poor, weary Mistress
Brewster closed her eyes, and even dozed, while the three girls busily
carried on their tasks, with low-voiced murmurs of talk that rather
soothed than disturbed the sleeper.

The first plan, of dividing the settlers into nineteen families and
building a house for each, had been abandoned before more than two or
three of the houses were begun, and now that the prostrating sickness
interrupting their plans was past, and the survivors counted, it was
found that sadly few dwellings were needed to contain them, so that at
present all were divided among four or five houses, although as the men
gained strength for labor each wrought upon his future home in all the
time to be spared from the common needs.

The house where we have found Priscilla was that of Elder Brewster,
situated on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway, as the
Pilgrims called the path crossing The Street at right angles, and
leading down to the brook, although to-day we should say that the
elder's house stood on the corner of Leyden and Market streets; like all
others built at this time, it was a low structure covered in with planks
hewn from the forest trees, and roofed with thatch. At each side of the
entrance door lay a tolerably large room, that on the right hand,
nearest to the brook, used as kitchen, dining, and general living room,
while the other was the family sleeping room, and also used as a
withdrawing room, where the elder held counsel with the governor, or
other friends, and studied his exhortation for the coming Sunday; here,
also, Mistress Brewster led her boys, or the maidens she guided, for
reproof, counsel, or tender comforting. At the back of this room,
partitioned by a curtain, was a nook, where Wrestling, a delicate child
of six, and Love, his sturdier brother, two years older, nestled like
kittens in a little cot. Above in the loft, reached by a ladder-like
staircase, was a comfortable room appropriated to Mary Chilton,
Priscilla Molines, and Elizabeth Tilley, all orphaned within three
months, an