Free Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac Page B

crying out, "
wingapo.
" He revealed himself to be the emissary of the one he called the Great King, Powhatan. The other kings were bound to do the bidding of this greater one who wished our friendship. Although he would not yet come to us or allow us to visit him, the attacks upon our fort would now cease so that we might sow and reap in peace.
    Good as this word was, that Great King sent us no gifts or corn or other food. Peace we had, but no less hunger. Each day was hotter than the last and the air almost too thick to breathe. Swarms of insects from the swamps, biting and buzzing gnats, came flocking about our faces, in such clouds that they sometimes filled our mouths as we breathed. The sweat and strain was great on those who would work. And now upon us came a host of sickness, fevers, swelling, and the bloody flux.
    ***
    Being thus left to our fortunes, it soon fortuned that within ten days scarce ten men could either go or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness oppressed us. And thereat none need marvel if they consider the cause and reason. While our ships stayed, our allowance had been somewhat bettered by a daily proportion of biscuits. The sailors pilfered both biscuits and drink from the ship's store to sell, give, or exchange with us for money, sassafras, or furs. But when they departed, there remained neither tavern, beer house, nor place of relief but the common kettle. We became so free of gluttony and drunkenness that all of us but our president might have been canonized as saints.
    To himself our president engrossed a private hoard of oatmeal, sack, oil, aqua vitae, beef, eggs, and whatnot. All that he allowed equally to be distributed was half a pint of wheat and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day. This having fried some twenty and five weeks in the ship's hold, it contained as many worms as grains. Our drink was water, our lodging castles in the air.
    Captain Bartholomew Gosnoll, my old and wise friend, clapped his hand upon my shoulder one day as I looked with worry at our state.
    "Good John," he said, "our palisade has been well built. We are safe now."
    As always, his gentle words were true enough and meant to bring peace. No natural could either see within nor breach our walls. I noted that our storehouse, too, was sturdily built.
Carefully guarded by our president, it was fashioned of pilings covered with clapboard, twigs, and mud, its roof a thatch of reeds gathered from the swamp. But now, weakened and lessened in numbers as we were, no further building could be done.
    That evening in my tent, I shook my head as I read once again the
Instructions by Way of Advice
given us by the London Company for the making of our town: "
Set your houses even and by a line, that your streets may have a good breadth, and be carried square about your market place.
"
    Wise and gentle words, indeed, but of little use when half the men were gentlemen unused to soiling their hands and even those disposed toward labor now grown too weak to work. I looked about our settlement and saw only tents grown grey and ragged from use and soldier holes dug into the earth. In these trenches, those more common and less fortunate slept covered by canvas and branches on the nights when the rains did not fill their shallow holes with water. Like graves those holes looked. And though there was little food in James Town, I thought that soon enough there would be graves aplenty.

13. POCAHONTAS: The Strange Camp of the Coatmen
Now that Great Hare had placed the deer all throughout the land, he decided it was time to also release the people, for they could hunt the deer and thus survive on their own. So Great Hare opened his bag. Within that bag there were now many men and women. With care, Great Hare took them from his bag two by two. He placed a woman and a man in one country, then he placed another woman and man in another country and so on until there were people in every country. Those first people were the