All week long young Obidiah Flagg worked the little farm his pa owned in Nottin’hamshire, but come Saturday the old man would spell him so he could go to town where he was apprenticed to a master carpenter. Scrooby, just the merest spit of a town it was, only it had two churches instead of the usual one like any respectable town, and that’s how Obidiah’s troubles began.
Saturday nights after he got through working his trade, he’d sit himself down at the Sign of the Golden Cock and wet his whistle with a dram of ale. Only he never had more than a farthing or two, so moist is about all he could call it. But one fatal Saturday night he met up with a young friend of his from Austerfield in the next county, who was chock full of conviviality and generosity and general high spirits because he was celebrating the end of his apprenticeship.
Obidiah and his friend from Austerfield drank enough ale to float the county of Nottin’hamshire out to sea, and came morning, they felt as if they were floating right along with it. It seemed as if they hadn’t been sitting there any time at all when the church bells began pounding in their ears and the sun shining into their eyes. “Hellsfire if it ain’t time to keep our appertment wi’ the Lawd,” said Obidiah, feeling saintly and virtuouslike, the way only a man with one too many tucked under his belt can, and somehow he managed to find the entrance to the church on the corner, though it was circling around him so fast he had to make a leap for the doorway as it went by.
He dozed through the sermon as usual, waking up just in time to groan Amen with the rest of the flock, and thought no more about it till the middle of the week when his pa stopped him right in the middle of his milking and said, “Son, how come ye let ye’self get mixed up with this darn fool Seprytist crowd over t’ Scrooby?”
“Seprytists?” said Obidiah. “I don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about, Pa.”
“Don’t ye be addin’ lyin’ to yer other sins,” Pa said, mad as a hornet. “I know where you was Sunday mornin’, worshippin’ in that infarnal Seprytist church they be fixin’ t’ run out o’ town.”
Then Obidiah got to thinking how it was a mite harder to fall asleep this time than usual on account of the preacher having some blood in his veins. And all of a sudden it smacked him in the face like the tail of his cow. “Moly Hoses!” Obidiah said. “The Devil take me if I didn’ go and sit me down in the wrong church!”
“He’ll take ye all right if ye keep on with yer heretical ways, an’ no mistake,” said Pa. “The Church o’ England was good enough fer Great-grandpa, for Grampy Flagg ’n’ fer me, so I reckon it’s good enough fer you.”
Well, Obidiah didn’t think much about it at the time, but his pa’s warning seemed to stick in his craw. Because next Sunday he couldn’t seem to keep his shoes from leading him right back into that darn Separatist church. He couldn’t exactly explain why. Just plain old-fashioned orneryness, maybe.
But once he got inside he had a terrible time getting his rest. When they all closed their eyes for the opening prayer, he was drifting off pretty good when he felt a tug on his sleeve and a girl sittin’ next to him was waking him up.
“You mus’n’ pray so long, Brother,” she was saying to Obidiah. She was a big, strapping girl who looked as if the Lord started out to make a plough horse and then changed his mind halfway through. She had a large, always-smiling round face and big snowy white teeth the Lord was so proud of he stuck them out good and proper so everybody would be sure and see them.
She kept looking at Obidiah out of the corner of her eye now and then so he couldn’t help but listen to what was going on. It seemed that the regular minister, Reverend Robinson, had been locked up in the gaol with the debtors and the pickpockets. And Deacon Brewster, a curly white-haired little fellow who had taken over the service for him, was all het up about how Reverend Robinson was a religious martyr like the early Christians and Joan of Arc and folks like that. “ ’Tain’t right fer one man to force his way o’ worshippin’ God on another,” he was saying, “an’ ’tain’t right fer the Church to be messin’ around with the State nuther.” The way he looked on it, all people were equal before God, and that went fer His Majesty and the whole royal caboodle.
Well, those were strange idees, Obidiah was thinking to himself. He had never given the subject much thought before, but why should the good Lord specially care what kind of a house you choose to worship Him in, long as you keep Him in mind? Same as a brewery doesn’t care what the shape of the mug is you drink their brew from, as long as you drink it down.
In the midst of all that heavy thinking, Obidiah must have dozed off again without knowing it, because all of a sudden he was awakened with a terrible start when the front door burst open and in ran a captain of the King’s Rifles with a bunch of redcoats with their muskets ready as if they were charging into battle instead of church. This captain ran straight down the aisle and up to the altar, grabbed Deacon Brewster by the collar and shouted, “I arrest ye and yer flock, in th’ name of our most dread sovereign, James the First, King of England, Scotland, Ireland an’ etcetery an’ etcetery!”
And the next thing Obidiah knew, they had flung him into the gaolhouse, just as if he were one of those Separatists himself.
“Maybe this is the Lord’s way of letting our reverend finish the service,” said Deacon Brewster, and they all fell on their knees and swore to God that all the persecuting in the world wouldn’t stop them from worshipping Him the way their conscience told them to. Well, Obidiah liked to think of himself as a stubborn cuss, but he could see right off he was just a reed in the wind alongside of them.
“Mule-stubbornest critters I ever see in m’ life,” he thought to himself.
After prayers he was sitting there in a corner, wishing he’d have stayed put in the King’s Church where he belonged, when that big draft horse of a girl who was sitting next to him in church come over and started up a conversation. It turned out her name was Silence, but if that’s what she stood for, Obidiah decided, he’d hate to meet up with a biddy named Talkative. Why, Silence could take a simple topic of conversation like “ ’Tis a nice mornin’,” and work it up into a regular two-hour discourse.
“Well,” she said, “I just had to come over and tell ye how happy it makes me to see young fellers like yourself joining our movement of their own free will.”
“I’m feared ye be barkin’ up the wrong tree, gal,” said Obidiah. “I ain’t no Seprytist and I ain’t j’inin’ nothin’ that’s goin’ to get me into no trouble nuther.”
“Seems kind o’ late to be thinkin’ on that,” Silence said.
“Not to my way o’ lookin’ on it,” said Obidiah. “Ye don’t catch me on the same hook twice. If I ever git out o’ here, I’m stayin’ away from ye Seprytists like ye had the leprosy.”
“I’m sorry to hear on’t,” said Silence, “ ’cause we be fixin’ to pick up and go to Holland, where they say we can worship Him as we’ve a mind to. I was kind of hopin’ you’d be comin’ along. A carpenter’d come in handy, like as not.”
“Don’t be wastin’ yer breath,” said Obidiah. “Who wants to live among all them Dutchmen, away over on t’ other side o’ the channel? No siree. Goin’ t’ town ’n’ back is travelin’ enough for me.”
“Well,” said Silence, “if ye don’t have the true religion, it’s no use trying to talk it into ye.”
Only just like a woman, that’s exactly what she proceeded to do until finally the gaoler came to his rescue by unlocking the gates and letting out all but the leaders who had to stand trial.
“Serves ye good and proper,” said Obidiah’s pa when he saw him come running home with his tail between his legs. “Nex’ time mebbe ye’ll listen to yer elders when they try to tell ye what’s good fer ye and what ain’t. I never thought I’d live to see the day when the Flagg family had to live down the name o’ havin’ a Purytin among ’em.”
“The Reverend Robinson, he says he ain’t ashamed o’ bein’ called Purytin,” said Obidiah. “He says he’ll bear the scorn of his enemies on his shoulders like it was a cloth o’ gold. He says there’ll come a time when to call a man a Purytin won’t be name-callin’ at all but a word to be proud on.”
“Stuff ’n’ nonsense,” his pa said. “Wait a spell and see if this whole Seprytist business don’t blow away quicker’n leaves in November.”
Obidiah hated like thunder to give in to anybody, but he had to admit his old man was talking sense. Being a stubborn, independent cuss is all fine and dandy, he thought to himself, but when you have to go clear over to Holland to keep on being one, it seemed to him that’s going a mite far.
So he kept his nose to the grindstone and did extra chores after dark to make up for the terrible disgrace Pa said he had brought down on the family name, and by the time Saturday comes around, he’s forgotten all about those Separatists and the pickle they had gotten him into.
Innocent as a newborn lamb, he came whistling into the shop of Mr. Hatfield, with the proud sign MASTER CABINET MAKER & JOINER over the door, and what did he see but Bobby Bailey, the freckle-faced lad from the next farm, standing in his place and wearing his apron.
“Good mornin’, Mister Hatfield,” said Obidiah. “A regular squire you be comin’, what with two ’prentices and all.”
“Two?” said Mr. Hatfield, looking down at Obidiah over his bay window as if young Flagg was apprenticed to the Devil instead of him and had sprouted a red tail and a pair of horns. “Only one apprentice here, the way I look on’t. One apprentice and one ex-apprentice.”
“Ex-apprentice?” Obidiah said. “Are ye foolin’, Mister Hatfield? Mean to say my work ain’t been satisfac’ry?”
“ ’Tain’t yer work, lad,” said Mr. Hatfield, fitting a seat onto the legs of a chair and talking to Obidiah over his shoulder. “It’s yer persuasion. Two more gentlemen canceled their orders just this mornin’. ‘Don’ want t’ contribute to the support o’ no Separatist varmint,’ says they. For myself, I don’t care whether ye be a Separatist or a son o’ Satan himself, ‘long as you know the right way to drive a peg. But if it hurt m’ trade, I got no choice but to cast ye off like a split board.”
It was hard for Obidiah to believe folks would let their minds grow so narrow but there he was, tarred with the same brush as Reverend Robinson, Deacon Brewster and all the rest. And everywhere he went in Scrooby he heard the same thing. “Sorry. No job for a herytic. If our Church ain’t good enough for ye, nuther is our money.” He had never realized before how terribly set people were in their ways. But finally when Harry Muggridge, the tavern keeper who had drunk so much of his own ale he had begun to look like one of his barrels, when even he wouldn’t take Obidiah on as an extra barkeep to help with the Saturday night brawlers, Obidiah got in such a temper he just stood right out in the middle of the square and hollered, “This country’s goin t’ the Devil, if ye should ask me. When a body that’s willin’ and able can’t get work ’cuz he happened to walk into the wrong church by mistake, things’ve come to a fine howdy-do. And if the high and mighty Church o’ England is afeared of a handful o’ dissenters, mebbe it ain’t so high ’n’ mighty after all. The Seprytists, they got some pretty strange idees, but if ye think ye c’n kill an idee by gaolin’ its believers or starvin’ em out, well you got another think comin’….”
Obidiah had never talked like that in his life before, and while he was standing there trying to catch his breath and lower the wick on his anger, who should come up to him but Silence. “Brave words, Obidiah, and I’m proud on ye,” she said. “Mos’ courageous speakin’ I hear in this village in quite a spell.”
“Wasn’t makin’ no speech,” said Obidiah. “Jest a-tellin’ Mister Muggridge what I think on him fer bein’ sech a consarned narrer-minded critter what won’ even throw a poor persecuted dawg a bone of a job.”
“Now, mebbe that’s the way you blew it in,” Silence said, “but that sure ain’t the way it come out. The way it come out, that’s the most law-defyin’ speechifyin’ heered in Scrooby since I c’n remember. The author’ties’ll run ye in by nightfall for bein’ one o’ the ringleaders, I do believe.”
“Saints ’n’ sinners!” he said. “Obidiah, ye sure have the knack o’ gettin’ ye’self into one buster of a pickle.”
“Ye do wrong t’ call it a pickle,” said Silence.
“And what would ye call it?”
“I call it the glorious state o’ the true religion o’ free men.”
“The true religion o’ free men is all very well and good,” said Obidiah. “But it’s kind o’ stretchin’ things t’ call ye’self a free man while ye’re lookin’ out through the bars o’ the Scrooby gaol.”
Then Miss Silence turned her honest face around one way and then the other, conspiratoriallike, and whispered in his ear, “We be fixin’ to go a-pilgrimizin’ any day now and ye best be comin’ with us. We’ll be meetin’ in Deacon Brewster’s house tonight after lamps’re out for to make the plans.”
“Ain’t interested,” said Obidiah.
But that night he was walking the streets of Scrooby feeling lower than the underparts of a worm when the lamplighters came around to snuff out the wicks. Well, what’ve I got to lose, he thought to himself, my goose is cooked in Scrooby anyhow. So he sneaked up to Deacon Brewster’s and set himself down. Silence greeted him with her best smile, and kept smiling to herself like a Cheshire cat.
And that’s now Obidiah came to shake the dust of dear old Nottin’hamshire from his boots and set up shop in Leyden away over yonder in the land of the Dutch.
The good people of Holland left the migrant Separatists alone. They didn’t seem to care if this strange little group prayed forwards, backwards or upside down, as long as it paid its way and kept the peace. Nice little country, Holland, for the Dutch, Obidiah was thinking. But it doesn’t matter how fine a house is, if a man’s only visiting it, your host can say, “Make y’self to home,” till he’s blue in the face and you still can’t get yourself to feel comfortable in it. A man’s got to build a country around him like a house.
That little bug of restlessness was biting all the Separatists, that and the fact that not being able to talk the Dutch lingo made supporting themselves as difficult as squeezing sweat from a stone. There were only a few hundred of them but when they went down the list of countries and the tyrants that were heading them, it seemed as if Europe wasn’t big enough for Separatists and tyrants, too.
Now, there was a man among them, Will Bradford, who could read as well as any priest. He read so well he’d even set himself down to reading a book for the sport of it when he hadn’t got anything better to do. And one day he happened to pick up a pamphlet that a fellow named Captain Smith had written about the New World, and especially a little corner of it called Virginia, which from the sound of it was second only to Paradise itself. In fact, Bradford told them, Captain Smith had to lean over backwards not to put it the other way ’round.
So, after the usual arguments and procrastination, it was decided to part with every article of worldly goods they could spare, pool their money and buy a couple of boats to ferry them across to that Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. John Carver, Miles Standish and Deacon Brewster had a guinea or two, but the rest of them were just plain yeomen that hadn’t had any land to yeo, and humble artisans as honest as they were poor. So all together they didn’t have enough gold to buy any but the poorest excuses for ships that ever shivered in a gale, and one of them was hardly bigger than the little Dutch canalboats. The Speedwell it was called, though the fellow that named it—Obidiah grumbled—must have been quite a joke-ster. And the other one was only slightly larger, just a little old wine freighter it was, with the letters spelling out MAYFLOWER nearly weathered off the stern, though it didn’t exactly suggest a mayflower to the nose, with the hold still smelling of stale, sour grapes.
The two boats were hardly big enough to hold more than half the group between them, so the old and the sick had to stay behind and wait until the first group got themselves settled over there. When old Reverend Robinson saw he had to be left behind, he knelt down on the dock and prayed the Lord to keep watch over them. “These pilgrims be yer bravest soldiers,” he said, “a little army flying yer banner that’s going forth to conquer a new world with love and peace in their hearts, instead of force and hate.” Then everyone cried “Amen!” and fell to hugging and kissing, God-blessing and bawling, such tearful goings-on Obidiah hoped never to see again.
But after all that leave-taking, they had to turn back and go through it all over again because the Speedwell, the one Obidiah was on, turned out to be just about as seaworthy as a sieve. They were hardly out of the harbor before it began to look as if they had more ocean inside the ship than they had out. So they had to put back to shore and lay over a couple of days to mend the leak and try again. But damn if she didn’t spring another leak, bigger than the first, and Obidiah thought his back would break from helping to pump her out till they made it to shore.
Obidiah figured those forty souls on the Speedwell would be running out of enthusiasm for Virginia by now and content to wait behind with the old folks and the sick ones. But those pilgrims who piled off the Speedwell couldn’t wait to join the others on the Mayflower, till that old scow looked as if she was going under right there in the harbor.
“No thank ye,” said Obidiah, when he was invited to come aboard. “Sometime I get to wonderin’ if I wasn’t a mite crazy to leave home in the fust place. But I’d a sight ruther go on livin’ here in Holland—least it’s got land in it, and that’s more’n ye’re likely to see in that plaguey tub o’ yourn.”
Then John Carver spoke up in his deep organ voice, “This is just the Lord’s way of testing us to see if we be strong enough to go out into the wilderness in His name and build a new world.” And then he fixed his fiery eyes on Obidiah and said, “For those who’ve got the faith and strength of spirit, all aboard. For those that haven’t, all ashore.”
“It ain’t so much strength o’ spirit I be lackin’,” said Obidiah. “It’s strength o’ stomach. I was feelin’ the seasickness afore we even left the harbor. There ain’t a sea on the globe my spirit don’t hanker to sail, if my stomach could be left behind.”
“Let this be a free assembly of free worshippers,” said John Carver. “May your conscience be your guide.”
Silence was waiting right behind him, and as Obidiah stood there trying to make up his mind, she didn’t say anything, but two big tears fell from her eyes and went sliding down her rosy cheeks.
“Reckon that trip’ll be trouble enough, without havin’ no woman on my neck,” Obidiah muttered, and started to turn away. Just then the skipper of the Mayflower, Captain Jones, came up and tapped him on the shoulder. “I hear ye be a carpenterin’ man,” he said. “Would ye mind comin’ aboard a minute to tighten a beam supportin’ the main deck that’s worked itself loose?”
So Obidiah carried his tools into the ship and sweated and grunted the beam back into place again. But when Captain Jones was satisfied the job was done, it took a little time for Obidiah to get away from Silence, who still hadn’t given up trying to talk him into coming along.
“Fer the last time, no!” he said when all of sudden he looked out the porthole. “Cap’n, Cap’n, there’s been a terrible mistake,” he hollered. “You forgot t’ leave me off.”
“Well, I swan!” said the captain. “I thought ye went ashore when ye got the job done.”
“And if it ain’t o’ been for a woman’s gab, so I would,” said Obidiah. “But since I didn’t, ye had better put her about, becuz I ain’t a-goin’ with ye.”
“That seems to be a matter of opinion,” said Captain Jones, quietly smiling down his beard. “Looks to me like you be, fer a fac’.”
Then John Carver stepped forward. “Since this be the exodus of free men searching for a place to live and worship as they please, seems like a bad omen to begin the voyage by forcing a man to come with us against his will.”
“I don’t know much about omens and sech,” said Captain Jones. “Tides ‘n’ currents is my business. I can think o’ worse things ’n startin’ a voyage on a bad omen. Startin’ it wi’ the tides ag’in ye, fer instance. And that’s the way it’ll be if we take this young feller back.”
“Nevertheless,” said John Carver, “our duty is clear. Even if it means waiting over till the morrow.”
Well, Obidiah wasn’t a superstitious fellow, but he couldn’t help thinking how maybe the Lord meant for him to go along, on account of their needing a carpenter perhaps, or because they had so many pious, heaven-minded souls aboard, the Lord figured it might not be a bad idee to send a likker-drinking, cussword-using critter along with them so they could see how far they had come along the road to the Pearly Gates. “Well, ‘long as I’m aboard,” Obidiah shrugged, “I reckon I might as well take m’ chances wi’ the rest o’ ye.”
“Praise the Lord!” said Silence. “I knew His voice would speak through ye afore it was too late.”
“He spoke through me after it was too late,” Obidiah protested. “An’ that’s the only reason I’m aboard.”
“Who are we to question the ways of the Lord?” said Silence, smiling that smile that brought sunlight to the cold, dark places of the old scow.
If John Carver had put his offer to Obidiah the morning after the first night, young Flagg would have jumped at the chance to go ashore. The whole flock of them, women, children and all, had to sleep in one big room with sand on the floor and a ceiling that was just high enough to give your head a good crack when you tried to straighten up. And as for ventilation, when Obidiah lay on his back in the wooden bunk with the cabin so black he couldn’t see his hand in front of his nose, he said to himself, “Obidiah, now ye know what it feels like t’ be lyin’ in yer coffin six feet under the earth.” And the next morning when they barely managed to stagger up to the deck, the sea rose up beneath them until as they looked across the bow, they seemed to be flying up into the angry sky, only to come crashing down into the valley between those giant waves.
They were a sick-looking bunch of believers that day, and the next night even the seamen had fear in their eyes, though rougher, fiercer-looking brutes Obidiah had never seen. And in language that made Silence and the other maids put their hands to their ears, they grumbled and groused that it made no sense to go any farther with the sea a raging hell. Aye, they even muttered threats as to how they’d deal with Cap’n Jones if he didn’t see eye to eye with them and turn his leaky tub of a ship around.
A toss of the ship sent Obidiah rolling from his bunk and when he landed on his arm and was sure it was broken, he was so mad he hollered out before he knew what he was saying, “God damn us all to hell if I don’t think them tars be right. We wuz all a pack o’ blasted idiots to trust our lives to this rotten ol’ scow in the fust place. But we be even bigger fools if we don’ give up this infernal wild-goose chase afore it’s too late.”
Then John Carver spoke up and his voice was as deep and strong as the roar of the waves. “Obidiah,” he said, “mind your tongue. We’re not afraid to live and we’re not afraid to die. The only thing we be afraid of is turning back, ’cause that would be a confession of weakness. And the Lord wants nothing but strong men for to build a New World.”
“But all we got lef’ fer victuals is the stale bread and salt beef we’ve been sharin’ with the maggots,” said Obidiah. “And the damned boat is groanin’ like it wants to split in two.”
“Our faith will hold it together,” John Carver said.
“I’m a carpenter,” said Obidiah. “An’ I never j’ined two pieces o’ wood wi’ faith yet. Takes pegs an’ screws, it does.”
“The Lord doesn’t need such tools,” John Carver said.
“But mebbe we’re out to sea so fur the Lord can’t see us,” Obidiah argued. “Mebbe He figgers He’s got enough to do just watchin’ over the land, an’ the sea c’n go to the Devil.”
“Obidiah Flagg,” said John Carver, in his steely voice, “that comes mighty close to heresy.”
“Well, a man’s got a right to his own opinion,” Obidiah talked back. “And I say the New World is about as far off as m’ marriage to Silence. And ye know how far that be.”
“Obidiah Flagg,” John Carver said, pointing a long, bony finger at his head, “as the elected leader of this expedition, I find you guilty of blaspheming and undermining confidence.” He turned to the group’s only military man. “Mister Standish, put this man in the brig.”
So there he was, cooped up in the tiny brig, with his chin cracking against his knees every time another wave crashed against the hull. He was cursing the day he ever wandered into that little church of theirs back in Scrooby, and thinking how nice it would feel to be back in Nottin’hamshire in the field with his pa, when all of a sudden the sea started falling away from under them until he thought they were going to hit the bottom for sure. But just as suddenly the water came up to meet them again, and the ship shuddered in its tracks like a butchered cow, and there was a terrible sound like lightning, only it was coming from inside the ship, right over Obidiah’s head and he was resigned that the end had come at last. And while he was squatting there with his eyes closed waiting for Judgment Day, Captain Standish came running with a lamp in his hand and started to set him free.
“So it’s every man for himself?”
“No,” said Standish, “the main beam is sprung again. The upper deck’s nigh cavin’ into our quarters. An’ ye’re the only man among us who c’n fix it.”
So Obidiah got out his lever, his mallet and his big brace, and went to work on the beam. When the tossing of the boat made him hit his thumb a mean lick with the mallet, he cried out in pain, “Hellsfire!”
“Mind your blaspheming,” warned John Carver, and Deacon Brewster and Will Bradford and all the others watching Obidiah work nodded in agreement.
When he got the beam set, Obidiah told them all to put their shoulders to it and push. “Heave, goddammit, heave!” he shouted, and John Carver looked up again. “I said mind your blaspheming. Ye be out of the brig on good behavior. I don’t want to have to warn ye again.”
“Well, gol darn it,” said Obidiah, “I can’t work without cussin’. Kind o’ helps me to bear down on what I’m a-doin’. So it’s up to ye to decide whether to let me go on fixin’ this damn ship or see us all plunge to hell.”
John Carver kind of hesitated a minute, looking to Deacon Brewster for advice. Then he said quietlike so that maybe God wouldn’t be able to hear him, “Go on with yer fixin’.”
So Obidiah went on cussing and working, working and cussing, and pretty soon he got the blasted beam back in place again. Then Captain Jones came down and asked if he would take a “look-see at the middle mast that’s a-splitting at the base.” Well, it wasn’t exactly the job Obidiah was hankering for but there didn’t seem any way of getting out of it, so he climbed to the outer deck. Soon as he set his foot outside, his legs blew up over his head like a suit of long underwear hung on a line on a windy day. He had all he could do to hold onto the rigging, to keep from flying off into the foaming sea. So Captain Jones had a couple of tars lash Obidiah to the mast while he mended it as best he could. But just when they were untying him a big wave came over the side that seemed to be looking for Obidiah in particular. Before he knew it, he was getting the first bath he had had since he left Holland, only the tub he was taking it in was a mite too big for comfort. But he reckoned he must be too ornery to die, because the next wave slapped him right against the side of the ship and he grabbed hold of the topsail halyard that was hanging down and rode along that way for a while with his head mostly under water till they fished him out with a boat hook.
He lay there on deck, with a bellyful of seawater, looking deader than a mackerel three days on the dock. And Deacon Brewster was all ready to give him the proper send-off for his trip to the Heavenly Gates. And way off in the distance some-whereas he could hear them saying the nice things they only say about you after you’re gone. But as he was lying there a little voice inside him began to tell him what a damnfool time this would be to quit the journey just when he was getting kind of interested to see how it would come out. And then he knew he was out of his head for fair, because he got the crazy notion that if he didn’t keep on living, this old ship of freedom would go to the bottom.
So right in the middle of the prayer Deacon Brewster was saying over him, he suddenly managed to sit up and say, “Hellsfire, will one o’ ye stop prayin’ for my departed soul long enough t’ help a man up to his feet?”
“Hallelujah! Our Lord’s performed a miracle and brought him back to us!” he heard a familiar voice cry out, and when he opened his eyes there were Silence’s buck-teeth smiling down on him and her big, warm hands stroking his hair.
“Miracle my foot,” Obidiah said. “Jes’ took me a minute or two t’ git me wind back, is all.”
“Hallelujah!” Silence said again, rubbing her warmth back into his hands. “He’s coming back to his old self again!”
“Which still leaves plenty of room for improvement,” said John Carver, to which Deacon Brewster and Will Bradford and Miles Standish all solemnly agreed, though Captain Jones had to remind them to save their lectures for later, since right now, improvement or no improvement, they needed to dry off their carpenter and get him working to keep the old Mayflower rightside up.
All through the night the storm kept raging, but early next morning it let up a bit and John Carver called the weary flock together. Dignified and seriouslike, he said, “From the look of things, seaweed ’n’ birds ’n’ such, we’re near a landing at last. But Captain Jones is now of a mind that we’re a way off our course for Virginia. That means the Virginia charter that’s supposed to govern us won’t hold good any more. So Deacon Brewster and Will Bradford and I have taken the liberty of writing up our own. Subject to the approval, of course, of all here on board.”
John Carver took a deep breath and began to read:
“In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord King James, etcetery and etcetery, having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and covenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November. Anno Domini, 1620.”
Some spoke right up and said it was the most liberty-loving document in the history of Englishmen and were all for signing it on the spot. Others wanted to hold off a bit and ask the meaning of this line or that.
“Moly Hoses!” said Obidiah when he got it digested. “What that’s sayin’ is that even though we still be subjec’s o’ the King, we got the right to make our own laws!”
“Aye, that it does,” John Carver agreed, “and since it be our faith that all men are equal before God, why shouldn’ it follow that all men be equal one with another?”
“Well, I dunno now,” Obidiah said. “I never heered o’ such a thing afore.”
“There has to be a first time for everything,” John Carver said.
“I’m not so sure,” Obidiah objected. “Makin’ our own laws. Sounds kind o’ dangerous t’ me. If we ain’t got no royal commands, what’s to stop one man from doin’ jest as he pleases, murderin’ us in our beds f’ instance, or stealin’ our land?”
“The rest of us,” John Carver said, “the civil body politic, as it says right here in black and white.”
“I dunno,” Obidiah shook his head. “Guess there’s no use my signin’ it if I can’t get m’self t’ believin’ in it. Don’t see how ye c’n expect common ordinary folks like us to know how to rule each other.”
“Don’t say ‘each other,’ ” John Carver said. “Say ourselves.”
“Seems like an awful lot to ask o’ simple folk,” said Obidiah.
Just then a great shout of joy broke over the ship, “Land! Land ho!” and everyone fell to hugging and kissing and laughing the way they thought they had forgotten how, and the sick jumped up out of their bunks and danced around, and folks that the voyage had made enemies out of got to smiling at each other and shaking hands and slapping each other on the back. And all of a sudden Obidiah got the spirit and ran up to John Carver and shouted, “Gimme that darn fool paper, Gov’nor, I’ll sign ’er all right. Probably the damnfoolest notion that was ever thunk up, but I guess it won’ hurt to give ’er a try.”
Then he ran up on deck and sure enough, laying dead ahead, was the prettiest little bay he had ever seen, calm as beer in a barrel, with a narrow stretch of cape curving out to them as if it were the arm of the New World beckoning them to shore. And with all the husbands and wives standing there side by side, Silence ran up to Obidiah so happy she actually looked kind of pretty, and she said, “Obidiah, my betrothed, isn’t that a joyful sight?”
“Betrothed?” said Obidiah. “That be no way for a decent gal to joke.”
“Why, Obidiah,” she said, “don’t tell me you fergot your promise.”
“Promise! What kind o’ promise? I don’t ’member no promise …”
“Why you mos’ certainly did! I heard you with my own ears. Tellin’ Gov’nor Carver our marriage ’d have to wait till we reached the New World.”
“Never said no sech thing,” said Obidiah.
“Oh, what’s to become o’ me?” she cried, and he could see the wet come to her eyes. “The shame of it, to be publicly spoken for in front of all them witnesses.”
Then Obidiah thought back on it, as hard as he could, and he kind of remembered saying something to Gov’nor Carver about Silence in the heat of anger, but it wasn’t exactly how she took it—the New World is about as far off as m’ marriage to Silence, is how he recollected it.
But by this time Silence was bawling good and loud, and everybody was listening. “I suppose ye want to wait for one o’ them nekkid little heathen gals, like John Smith did,” she blubbered, and tears the size of sparrow eggs slid down her apple cheeks.
Obidiah was silent. There was no answer for that kind of an argument. And as he looked across the bay at the green coast waiting for them to settle it, he started thinking to himself, An empty log cabin’ll be a lonely thing t’ come home t’ these cold winter nights. After a back-breakin’ day in the field, a woman in th’ doorway ‘twill be a warmin’ sight, like the fire blazin’ in th’ fireplace an’ the steamin’ bowl o’ porridge hangin’ over it. An’ Silence may not be the purtiest gal in the world, nor the fanciest in her ways nuther, but she looks like she’s built to the proportions o’ this country, large ’n’ sturdy ’n’ fertile ’n’ formidable to approach but with a lovin’ nature underneath, like the snow out yonder that’s a-coverin’ the rich yield-in’ earth.
So he took Silence’s hand and put it in his, his head all full of the things they had been through. Only something told him this wasn’t the end of all their troubles neither, it was just the beginning. For they say some men are born to trouble and some others inherit it. Well, if trouble was money, Obidiah Flagg would be a millionaire three times over, once for the trouble that was in him by nature and twice for the trouble he’d find on the way. Seems like every time freedom’s in a scrap, the harder he’d try to stay out of it, the harder he’d fall kerplunk into the middle of it. And in case you haven’t noticed, freedom and trouble grow close together on the same branch, just like roses and thorns. If you want the one, you’ve got to take your chances of pricking your fingers on the other.
“Silence,” said Obidiah, as he lifted her out of the shallows and carried her ashore, “I’m mighty proud o’ my foresight in choosin’ to j’in the Pilgrims and come to Americy, if I do say so m’self.”
“Choosin’!” Silence exclaimed. “Why, Obidiah Flagg, if I hadn’t a-coaxed ye …”
“Coaxed!” said Obidiah. “Jest like a woman, ain’t got no more memory’n a rabbit.” Then he set her down easy on that old Plymouth Rock.