136 A WIND-MILL
for anybody to stumble over, as lazy Davy did,
according to the auld ditty:

Davy Doits, the king o’ loits,
Fell o’er the mortar-stane.
When a’ rest got butter an’ bread,
Davy Doits got nane.

_ When I read about a “guern” in stories of old

England, I can see such a hand-mill as people
used for grinding grain and something else that
was of quite as much importance to those ancient
beer-drinkers—malt. There was even in London
a church named St. Michael-a-Quern, because in
the market-place near was one of these mills. It
was a round stone of the size of a half-bushel
measure ; another stone fitted into it having a hole

 

 

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PILGRIMAGE

the little church behind the building of the Essex
Institute.

No doubt, as they came direct from Holland,
they soon built a wind-mill like those in that coun-
try; and the grinding was called “beating out the
corn.” One thing which they did not have, either
in England or Holland, was Indian corn; but they
learned to value it, after many straits, “more than
silver.” ~ 3

It was almost the first thing they found, and
before they arrived at Plymouth. The Mayflower
anchored first in Cape Cod Harbor, sailing around
the northeastern point (Race Point), where the
elbow sticks out into the sea, and coming within
the safe, comfortable, sheltering arm where Prov-
incetown is. It was then and there that the

 

IN HOLLAND.

_ through which the grain was dropped, and an iron
~ ring on the edge to pull it out, through which was
placed a stick to move it around when grinding.
Possibly the Pilgrims brought over some kind
of hand-mill; but if so, the records at Plymouth,
which give inventories of estates will show. There
is a queer one preserved among other relics at
Salem, which anybody can see who cares to, iz

“A WIND-MILL VILLAGE.”

women went ashore and washed the clothes, had
the first New England washing-day, on Monday,
too, which Mrs, Preston made such a- spirited
ballad about.

Then Miles Standish and a few other men ate
some biscuit and Holland cheese in their pockets,
set off to explore; and seeing a heap of sand, dug
iste if, acd feund < cellar lined with bark. and