thanksgivingstory

Almost four hundred years ago, many of the people in England were very unhappy because their king would not let them pray to God as they liked. The king said they must use the same prayers that he did; and if they would not do this, they were thrown into prison, or taken away from home.

"Let us go away from this country," said the unhappy people to each other; and so they left their homes, and went far off to a country called Holland. It was about this time that they began to call themselves "Pilgrims." Pilgrims, you know, are people who are always traveling to find something they love, or to find a land where they can be happier.

In Holland, the Pilgrims were very poor; and when the children began to grow up, they were not like English children, and some grew naughty.

"This will never do," said the Pilgrim fathers and mothers; so after much talking and thinking and writing they made up their minds to come here to America. They hired two vessels, called the Mayflower and the Speedwell, to take them across the sea; but the Speedwell was not a strong ship, and the captain had to take it home again before she had gone very far.

The Mayflower went back, too. Part of the Speedwell's passengers got on the Mayflower.

There were one hundred two people on board - mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and little children. It was very crowded; it was cold; the sea was rough, and they were two months sailing over the water.

The children cried many times on the journey, and wished they had never come on the ship that rocked back and forth.

But they had one thing to make them happy. In the middle of the great ocean a Pilgrim baby was born, and they called him "Oceanus.” Oceanus' mother let the other children come and play with him, and that always brought smiles and happy faces back again.

At last the Mayflower came in sight of land; but if the children had been thinking of grass and flowers and birds, they must have become sad, for the month was cold November, and there was nothing to be seen but rocks and sand and hard ground.

Then at last all the tired Pilgrims landed from the ship on a spot now called Plymouth Rock, and the first house was begun on Christmas Day. The weather was cold, the snow fell fast, the wind was icy, and the Pilgrim fathers had no one to help them cut down the trees and build their houses.

The Pilgrim mothers helped all they could; but they were tired with the long journey, and cold, and hungry too.

So one got sick, and then another, till half of them were in bed at the same time. Brave Captain Standish and the other soldiers helped them as well as they knew how; but before spring came half of the people died.

Later, the snow melted, the leaves began to grow, and spring had come again.

Some friendly Indians had visited the Pilgrims during the winter, and Captain Standish, with several of his men, went to visit the Indians also.

One of the kind Indians was called Squanto, and he came to stay with the Pilgrims. He showed them how to plant their corn, their peas, and wheat and barley.

When it was fall, the fathers gathered the barley and wheat and corn that they had planted, and found that it had grown so well that they would have enough for the long winter that was coming.

"Let us thank God for it all," they said. "It is He who has made the sun shine and the rain fall and the corn grow." So they thanked God.

"Then," said the Pilgrim mothers, "let us have a great Thanksgiving party, and invite the friendly Indians, and all rejoice together."

So they had the first Thanksgiving party, and a grand one it was! Four men went out shooting one whole day, and brought back so many wild ducks and geese and great wild turkeys that there was enough for almost a week. There was deer meat also. Then the Pilgrim mothers made the corn and wheat into bread and cakes, and they had fish and clams from the sea.

The friendly Indians all came with their chief Massasoit. There were ninety of them altogether.

The Indians brought five deer with them, that they gave to the Pilgrims. They stayed three days.

They were dressed in deerskins. But whatever they wore, it was their very best, and they had put it on for the Thanksgiving party.

Each meal, before they ate anything, the Pilgrims and the Indians thanked God together for all his goodness.

Then sometimes the Pilgrims with their guns, and the Indians with their bows and arrows, would see who could shoot farthest and best.

The Pilgrim mothers and fathers had been sick and sad many times since they landed from the Mayflower. But now they tried to forget all this, and think only of how good God had been to them; and so they all were happy together at the first Thanksgiving party.

(Paraphrased from apples4theteacher.com)