"Now, Constance, there is no need of your turning preacher," Giles said, harshly.
"If you like to swallow insult, well and good. It does not matter about a girl, but a man's honour is his chiefest possession. Take the papers, and prate no more to me. My father wanted them; there they are. He suspected me of stealing them; I found the thief. That's all there is about it. What is there to-day to eat? An early row makes a man hungry. Art ready, Jack? We will go to the house, by your leave, pretty Sis. Sorry to see your eyes reddening, but better that than other harm."
Constance hesitated as Giles went up the beach, taking John with him. For a moment she debated seeking Captain Standish, giving him the papers, and asking him to be intermediary between her father and this headstrong boy, who talked so largely of himself as "a man," and behaved with such wrong-headed, childish obstinacy. But a second thought convinced her that she herself might serve Giles better than the captain, and she took her way after her brother, beginning to hope, true to herself, that her father's pleasure in recovering the papers, his desire to make amends to Giles, would express itself in such wise that they would be drawn together closer than before the trouble arose.
It was turning into a balmy day, after a chilly morning. Though only the middle of March the air was full of spring. In the community house, as Constance entered, she found her stepmother, and Mrs. White--each with her _Mayflower_-born baby held in one arm--busily setting forth the dinner, while Priscilla and Humility and Elizabeth helped them, and the smaller children, headed by Damaris, attempted to help, were sharply rebuked for getting in the way, subsided, but quickly darted up again to take a dish, or hand a knife which their inconsistent elders found needed.
Several men--Mr. Hopkins, Mr. White; Mr. Warren, whose wife had not yet come from England; Doctor Fuller, in like plight; John and Francis Billington's father, John Alden and Captain Myles Standish, as a matter of course--were discussing planting of corn while awaiting the finishing touches to their carefully rationed noonday meal.
"If you follow my counsel," the captain was saying, "you will plant over the spot where we have laid so many of our company. Thus far we hardly are aware of our savage neighbours, but with the warm weather they will come forth from their woodlands, and who knows what may befall us from them? Better, say I, conceal from them that no more than half of those who sailed hither are here to-day. Better hide from their eyes beneath the tall maize the graves on yonder hillside."