“I have strong doubts that the first Thanksgiving remotely
resembled the history I was told in 2nd grade. But considering
that, when it comes to holidays, America's traditions tend to be
over-eating, shopping, or getting drunk, I suppose it's a miracle
that the concept of giving thanks even surfaces at all.”
~Ellen Orleans

Got Holiday Stress? Blame it on Miles Standish, the intrepid Captain of the Mayflower, America's first con artist.

The story I heard is that after he conned the Indians into showing him where wild turkeys hung out, he invited them to dinner. Amazingly, he had also persuaded them to teach Pilgrim women how to grow and cook corn, squash, pumpkins, turnips and Boston Baked Beans.

While he stretches out on his horsehair sofa reading Julius Caesar, mooning over Priscilla or watching football (Pilgrims vs. Indians), his exhausted wife Barbara, is in the kitchen thinking seriously about killing him.

She has potatoes to mash and enormous pumpkins to lug back to the house. And how about those zucchinis the size of a Labrador Retriever? There's wheat to thrash, dough to roll and pellets to be picked out of the turkey because Miles insisted on introducing firepower to the Indians. For two days she’s been talking to herself and sweating like a mule as she prepares for this first Thanksgiving.

“I just don’t know what gets into Miles. Why did he have to invite the whole neighborhood? It wouldn’t have killed him to ask me how I felt about cooking for three days. Hmmmf! Waiting on strangers dressed in Tarzan outfits is just gonna exacerbate my PMS.”

Her baby Lora is crawling and getting into everything, Charles is heavy into teenage angst and Lil’ Myles is all about fishing and looking up little girls’ skirts. Big Miles just wants to sit around and muse about Priscilla.

“Husband,” she shouts above the wailing Baby Lora, “Will you pu-leese stop musing long enough to come in here and help me?”

Annoyed, he saunters into the dirt floor kitchen. “What is so all-fired important that you had to make me stop thinking what I was thinking, Babs? I hate when you do that.”

She is standing knee-deep in corn that needs to be shucked, the pumpkins need to be cut up and stewed, the dishes have to be washed and Baby Lora just messed up her last clean diaper. This woman is in no mood to put up with this man’s musing.

“Will you look at this place? What, pray tell, have you been doing for two days?”

The baby is squalling, the zucchini is growing bigger by the minute and the sweet potato pie has bubbled over and stunk up the house even more than Baby Lora’s dirty diaper.

“Please tell me,” he rants, “what is so difficult about cooking enough food to feed a country the size of Portugal?” “Oh, I don’t know,” she sighs while looking around

for something sharp. “I may be a little hormonal today, Miles, but I’d just as soon go to my room for a little nap and wake up in 1776 in time to catch the first Fourth of July fireworks.”

“Are you daft, woman? What is this nonsense you speak?”

Barbara spies the hypodermic injector she was using to pump the turkey full of butter. She sidles over to it while Little Lora, hanging onto her mother’s long frock, yells her head off. Barbara smiles through gritted teeth at the bad tempered, but intrepid, Mayflower Captain.

“Miles,” she whines, “I can’t do this all by myself. There’s a lot more work involved now that you’ve invited the entire Wampanoag Nation.”

“There you go exaggerating again, Babs. The entire nation is not coming to dinner. Only Squanto, Samoset, Chief Massasoitt and their families.”

Barbara shifts from one foot to the other, hiding the hypodermic in the folds of her skirt. “May I inquire as to how many family members there will be in all?”

Miles takes time to light up his pipe. “No more than ninety, I should think. Entertaining a few dinner guests isn’t too much to ask of my wife, now, is it? After all, I have a colony to run.”

“NINETY PEOPLE? Are you out of your gourd? You expect me to cook for ninety people, take care of the kids, do the laundry, pick the pumpkins and clean this house? Do I look like Martha Stewart to you?”

He is now fully convinced that she’s been sipping the blackberry wine again.

“Lookit, Babs, what we have here is a golden parachute. A rare opportunity to create a Thanksgiving tradition. What would you rather be doing?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Miles. Maybe I’d rather have you konk me in the head with a twenty pound sack of flour until I pass out.”

Taking the condescension route, he croons, “Babs, dear, you’re right. Maybe you do need some help. Why don’t you call 1-800-Butterball. Next to turkeys, they've got a lock on holiday stress.”

Babs snatches the hypodermic butter injector from within her skirt folds and sneaks up behind her husband who regrettably, has turned his back on her.

That is how on the first ever Thanksgiving Day, the intrepid Captain Miles Standish became known to the entire Wampanoag Nation as “Big Chief Butter Butt.”

Long, long ago, in a beautiful part of this country, there lived an man with his wife and children. He was poor and found it hard to provide food enough for his family. But though needy he was kind and contented, and always gave thanks to the Great Spirit for everything that he received.

His eldest son, Wunzh, was likewise kind and gentle and thankful of heart, and he longed greatly to do something for his people.

The time came that Wunzh reached the age when every young man fasts so that he may see in a vision the Spirit that is to be his guide through life. Wunzh's father built him a little lodge apart, so that the boy might rest there undisturbed during his days of fasting. Then Wunzh withdrew to begin the solemn rite.

On the first day he walked alone in the woods looking at the flowers and plants, and filling his mind with the beautiful images of growing things so that he might see them in his night-dreams. He saw how the flowers and herbs and berries grew, and he knew that some were good for food, and that others healed wounds and cured sickness. And his heart was filled with even a greater longing to do something for his family and his tribe.

"Truly," thought he, "the Great Spirit made all things. To Him we owe our lives. But could He not make it easier for us to get our food than by hunting and catching fish? I must try to find this out in my vision."

So Wunzh returned to his lodge and fasted and slept. On the third day he became weak and faint. Soon he saw in a vision a young brave coming down from the sky and approaching the lodge. He was clad in rich garments of green and yellow colors. On his head was a tuft of nodding green plumes, and all his motions were graceful and swaying.

"I am sent to you, O Wunzh," said the sky- stranger, "by that Great Spirit who made all things in sky and earth. He has seen your fasting, and knows how you wish to do good to your people, and that you do not seek for strength in war nor for the praise of warriors. I am sent to tell you how you may do good to your kindred. Arise and wrestle with me, for only by overcoming me may you learn the secret."

Wunzh, though he was weak from fasting, felt courage grow in his heart, and he arose and wrestled with the stranger. But soon he became weaker and exhausted, and the stranger, seeing this, smiled gently on him and said: "My friend, this is enough for once, I will come again to-morrow." And he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

The next day the stranger came, and Wunzh felt himself weaker than before; nevertheless he rose and wrestled bravely. Then the stranger spoke a second time. "My friend," he said, "have courage! Tomorrow will be your last trial." And he disappeared from Wunzh's sight.

On the third day the stranger came as before, and the struggle was renewed. And Wunzh, though fainter in body, grew strong in mind and will, and he determined to win or perish in the attempt. He exerted all his powers, and, lo! in a while, he prevailed and overcame the stranger.

"O Wunzh, my friend," said the conquered one, "you have wrestled manfully. You have met your trial well. Tomorrow I shall come again and you must wrestle with me for the last time. You will prevail. Do you then strip off my garments, throw me down, clean the earth of roots and weeds, and bury me in that spot. When you have done so, leave my body in the ground. Come often to the place and see whether I have come to life, but be careful not to let weeds or grass grow on my grave. If you do all this well, you will soon discover how to benefit your fellow creatures." Having said this the stranger disappeared.

In the morning Wunzh's father came to him with food. "My son," he said, "you have fasted long. It is seven days since you have tasted food, and you must not sacrifice your life. The Master of Life does not require that."

"My father," replied the boy, "wait until the sun goes down tomorrow. For a certain reason I wish to fast until that hour."

"Very well," said the old man, "I shall wait until the time arrives when you feel inclined to eat." And he went away.

The next day, at the usual hour, the sky stranger came again. And, though Wunzh had fasted seven days, he felt a new power arise within him. He grasped the stranger with superhuman strength, and threw him down. He took from him his beautiful garments, and, finding him dead, buried him in the softened earth, and did all else as he had been directed.

He then returned to his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of food. There he abode for some time. But he never forgot the grave of his friend. Daily he visited it, and pulled up the weeds and grass, and kept the earth soft and moist. Very soon, to his great wonder, he saw the tops of green plumes coming through the ground.

Weeks passed by, the summer was drawing to a close. One day Wunzh asked his father to follow him. He led him to a distant meadow. There, in the place where the stranger had been buried, stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright- colored, silken hair, and crowned by nodding green plumes. Its stalk was covered with waving leaves, and there grew from its sides clusters of milk-filled ears of corn, golden and sweet, each ear closely wrapped in its green husks.

"It is my friend!" shouted the boy joyously; "it is Mondawmin, the Indian Corn! We need no longer depend on hunting, so long as this gift is planted and cared for. The Great Spirit has heard my voice and has sent us this food."

Then the whole family feasted on the ears of corn and thanked the Great Spirit who gave it. So Indian Corn came into the world.

Adapted by Henry R. Schoolcraft in "Good Stories for Great Holidays" (1914)

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