Their First Winter

“Thomas, come here and add this log to the fire.” His speech was cut off with a big resounding cough.

“But father, I’m cold and tired.” I squeaked out. I was always cold, but I knew that if I stood up, the tiny spot of warmth that came from curling up next to my sleeping mother would be gone. My legs shook at just the thought of crawling off the mattress and making my way across our tiny house my father build a few weeks earlier. 

He looked at me from his position of the other side of my mother and gave me a strange smile that looked like he was hurting, “Thomas, we cannot let the fire go down, otherwise, you and your mother and I will be much colder than we already are.”

“Okay.” I shifted out of the blanket, and struggled to stand; trying to force my numb legs and arms to move out of their position. I had barely managed to get my feet under me when the wooden walls spun around and around until I fell over, crying out as my knees crashed onto the hard, frozen dirt. 

“Thomas baby, please do not hurt yourself.” My mother gasped.

“He’s just fine Jane,” my father whispered to my mother. My vision cleared enough that I could see my mother, her eyes were squinted open and she weakly reached her hand out to me. 

“I can do it mother, go back to sleep.” I took a deep breath and looked back down at my hands; I had fallen right next to the last dry log we had. I forced my fingers to curl around it and drag it over to the dying coals of the fire. I dumped it on the orange embers with a small grunt. Nothing happened at first, but I sat and watched as the outer portions of the log began to catch on fire. I waved my hands near the small flame, feeling the warmth wrap around my hands and seep into my bones. 

“Thomas, come back now, we have to warm up together.”

I wordlessly crawled back, not trusting myself to try to stand, and slid back under the thin blanket. I pressed my cold face against my mother’s shoulder and she responded by slowly winding her arm around me and pulled me close. Her skin was hot to the touch-even as I felt her shiver with a deeper cold that I did not feel. 

I looked over at my father, curled up on her other side, mirroring me with his head resting on her shoulder and staring at me with sad eyes.

“Is mother going to get better?” I whispered.

He was quiet, and for a moment I thought I had asked about one of those grown-up things that grown-ups only tell you when you are grown-up yourself, until he whispered back, “I pray everyday that she will.”

“That is why we sailed to the Americas right?” I asked, remembering the quiet and hurried conversation as my mother and father woke me up in the middle of the night when we left England. They told me then that it was so we could pray to God whenever we wanted, and so we wouldn’t have to hide or be afraid of soldiers coming to get us.

“Exactly.”

“Then why did we leave Holland?”

He sighed, “go to sleep Thomas, get some rest so we can all get better.”

I closed my eyes, and as I fell asleep, my thoughts unknowingly slipped out in a breathy whisper, “But if we stayed in Holland, we wouldn’t be so cold.”

The comforting emptiness of sleep flew away as someone knocked on the door to our small shack. Bitter cold wind rushed through the fabric wrapped around me, but I was too tired to do anything but squeeze myself tighter against my mother and wait for it to be over. 

My eyes were still squeezed shut as I listened to the soft voices of my father and the man that had entered our home. 

“Mr. Tinker? It’s me, Myles Standish.”

“Myles, how good to see you!” My father’s voice sounded so quiet and weak compared to the strong tone of this soldier.

“I brought you something,” something landed on top of the thin blanket wrapped around me, I squinted my eyes slightly to see that it was another blanket.

“Myles! Where did you get this? I thought there was only one per family?”

“Well…” There must have been something in the sergeant's expression that I couldn’t see, but my father muttered a soft “oh” in understanding. I could smell the stench of old sick on the blanket, and wondered what happened to whoever had been sick on it. But I could feel everything getting a bit warmer, so I was glad he brought it. 

“How are they holding up?” the man whispered, changing the subject.

My father sighed, and a great sadness permeated his voice. It was so thick and overwhelming that it caught in his throat multiple times. 

“Jane is close. She’s always been strong but, this sickness is keeping her out of consciousness most of the time now. And the boy is so tired and weak-I don’t think he has caught whatever this illness is yet-but once he does, I wonder if he will last to his 9th birthday. It is only 2 months away, in February.” His voice broke as he said these words. I was not sure what he meant, would I not have a birthday this year?

“And what about you Thomas?”

It was always strange hearing people call my father by his first name. I was named after him, so we are both called Thomas, but to me, he is just my father.

“It has gotten a hold of me too. I can feel it in every breath I take. At this point, I know I am going to watch them go, and then join them myself in the heavens.” My father took a deep breath before asking, “How bad is it with the rest of the colony?”

“It is not looking good. Right now there are about 2 or 3 passing every day. Even William Bradford has fallen ill.”

“No…”

“I am afraid it is true. But remember: Always hold onto hope my friend. I brought you this as well. Just some dried meat, and a pail of boiling water. It is still hot, so wait for it to cool, then it will warm you up nicely from the inside.”

I heard a soft clink as the sergeant set something on the packed dirt floor.

“Thank you so much.” There was a note of desperation in his voice now, as if this was the last thing he would ever say to his friend. “Not just for this, but for everything you have done for me and my family since we fell ill.”

“Of course! You are my friend, and one of the best carpenters we have. You built half of the houses that we have now yourself! Anything I have done is repayment in kind for all the good you have brought to this colony. You deserve so much more than this.”

My father responded with a round of wet and shaky coughs. All I could hear was the pain in each hack that turned into quiet sobs, and the soft murmurs of comfort from Mr. Standish. When all was silent again, Mr. Standish whispered a farewell, and slipped out the door.

It was quiet for so long, I wondered if my father had fallen asleep. But then he gently shook my mother awake. I opened my eyes as well to see him smiling at us.

“What is it father?”

“Look,” he said, holding out a few strips of dried meat to us, “we are going to have a family dinner, just like we always do.”

My mother looked at the pieces that he gave to each of us, before taking some of hers and pushing it into his hands.

“If this is a family dinner,” she rasped, “then everyone in the family must eat.”

My father smiled at her, before bowing his head and murmuring a quiet prayer of thanks. 

When he raised his eyes again, he continued. “So, I realized there was something we are not doing,” he glanced at my mother and me in the eyes, “we need to feed our souls as well as our bodies."

“How do we do that?” I asked, cuddling closer to my mother.

“We need to remind ourselves of all the things we have to be grateful for.” 

My mother interrupted by forcefully heaving a round of coughs. She spat whatever came up into the dirt behind my head.

Her voice was a croak, but I could still make out her words, “We do have so much to be thankful for. Why don’t you go first Thomas?” She gently stroked my father’s cheek before falling into another round of coughs. I wanted to tell her to stop speaking, since it only seemed to make it worse, but stopped when I saw the radiant smile she gave my father.

“I am eternally grateful for men like Myles Standish," my father began, "who have taken care of us these past couple of weeks.” He bit off a small piece of his food and drank from the pail of water Mr. Standish had brought. “It is your turn Thomas, say what you are thankful for, and then have some of your meat.”

“But I am not hungry, father.”

“Thomas, you must eat. You cannot get better if you do not eat.” 

I wanted to obey my father, I knew I had not eaten in a while, and that I should be hungry; but the thought of eating something made my stomach clench painfully.

“I am thankful for my mother and father.” I shoved a tiny bite into my mouth and my father handed me the heavy pail of still steaming water. I blew on it and sipped some of it down, feeling the warmth slide down my throat. I smiled back at my father and handed the water back to him. Then I looked up at my mother. Her face was shiny in the firelight. “Mother, why are you crying?”

“Because,” her voice was still weak, but was choked with emotion instead of bile. “I just love you and your father so much. And I am so thankful that we made it.”

“Made what?”

She pulled me closer and whispered in quiet awe, “We made it to freedom.”

I looked back to the selfish thought I had about staying in Holland. I had said that without thinking about how life had really been there. We were no longer under English rule, but we were not truly free in Holland. I remembered the tired look on my father’s face after coming home from a long day at the carpenter's shop with barely anything to show for it. I remembered the dread in my parent’s eyes when they spoke about a coming war between Holland and Spain. I remembered the frustration when dealing with other religious groups that disagreed with us. I remembered the fear we all felt when some of those sects threatened violence. And I also remembered the joy on their faces when the sailors first caught sight of land after our long voyage on the Mayflower. 

My father helped my mother bring the food to her mouth, and pour some hot water down her throat.

“I am thankful for Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice he made so that we could live in Heaven together forever. I know that one day, we will live together in true freedom, and be warm and happy and together as a family. No matter what happens, we are a family, and will always be together.” He wiped away the tears that rolled down his face; smiling through it all as we huddled together on a thin, dirty mattress.

We finished the rest of the food in satisfied silence. And I fell asleep that cold winter night with a full heart, a full belly, and a mind full of thankful thoughts.



“Thomas Tinker and his wife and sone all dyed in the first sicknes.”

-William Bradford