Busy Times

From this on, until the year was come to an end, all of us at St. Mary's, governor, gentlemen, and serving men, found work enough with which to employ our hands during every hour of daylight. We had begun to build houses, cutting timber into planks and boards by long, heavy saws with a handle at either end.

In order to do this last, the trunk of a tree was raised on uprights some distance from the ground, beneath which one man stood pulling down the saw, while another, on top of the log itself, did his portion of the work.

Also during the summer was the Dove  sent again and again to Jamestown, returning therefrom with bricks, lime, clapboards, and such like material as would be needed for the houses.

Then there were the crops to be gathered, and much hunting done in order that we might have meat during the cold season.

The task of curing venison fell upon the younger members of the company, of which I was one, and we did it in Indian fashion, first cutting the meat into strips, then drying the strips in the sun, and afterward smoking the same freely.

It was not pleasing work, and more than once would I have fretted at being set about such menial labor, but that I remembered it was for the future good of us all, and that I should do my share toward providing for our people who were striving to build up Lord Baltimore's Province of Maryland.

It is needless for me to set down all that which we did, making mention of every task, for he who reads can easily understand what it would be necessary for a company of men and boys to do who had gone into the wilderness, there to build a town in which to spend the remainder of their days.

Before we were well come to an end of the season's work, and while saying to ourselves that there was no longer any fear that evil-minded men might set the brown-skinned people against us, word was brought that William Claiborne had begun to arm one of his pinnaces for the purpose of declaring war upon us, by preventing our own trading vessels from sailing up the bay.

This news disturbed John and me not a little; but Governor Calvert and our gentlemen paid little heed to it, so far as I could see, except that they met during two or three evenings, on board the Dove, where it was said a formal council of war was held.

As the season wore on, the white and the brown-skinned people in our town of St. Mary's grew to be fast friends, until there was no longer fear that such as Captain Fleet and William Claiborne could stir up trouble between them.