A few more short stories on USA are on the way. Hope and wish you will enjoy reading them.                                     

        The Pilgrims

There were some people in England who were not happy in their country. They were not allowed to pray the way they wanted to  and they could not have their own church there. They wanted religious freedom. They decided to leave England and go to Holland. They were not happy in Holland either. Then they decided to go to America , the new land. They were called Pilgrims because went from one country to another.

In the year 1620, the Pilgrims  crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a small ship named the Mayflower. There were about one hundred people on the ship. The trip was hard and took over three months. The Pilgrims fought with one another and no one could agree on what to do. A leader suggested  they make some rules for living there.

 The people stopped fighting and they wrote down the rules. They called these rules the Mayflower  Compact. A compact is an agreement between two or people   All the Pilgrims  signed the Mayflower Compact to show that they agreed to follow the rules  The Pilgrims got to America in December. 

They thought  they were going to arrive in Virginia , but they arrived at a cold , rocky place instead. The city they left in England  was called Plymouth , so they decided to name their new home Plymouth.

April 2nd 2015

                                                       Thanksgiving

The first winter in America was very cold. The first thing the Pilgrims did was build houses to protect themselves from the cold But it was hard to keep warm event inside the houses.  They did not have warm clothes and they did not have much food. Because of the cold and because they did not have enough to eat, many of the Pilgrims were sick and about half of them died.

Since the Pilgrims had never seen Indians before , they were afraid of them. The Pilgrims men took turns guarding  the village  against the Indians .  One spring day, some Indians came to the village. The Pilgrims were frightened and thought  the Indians  had come to fight them. 

They were wrong . They had come to make friends  with the Pilgrims. The Indians  showed the Pilgrims how to hunt the deer and wild turkeys in the woods.  They also showed  the Pilgrims how to plant corn and other vegetables .  All through the summer , the Pilgrims took care of their gardens.  In the fall , they picked all the vegetables.

The Pilgrims were very happy because they knew they would have enough to eat all winter. They decided  to have a big dinner to celebrate their harvest.  To show their thanks to the Indians , they invited the Indians to the dinner. The Indians brought  deer and wild turkeys for the dinner .  The men cooked  the meat over big, open fires , and the women made the bread, cake and pies .  Before they ate , they thanked the lord for all the good things they had. For three days  the Pilgrims  and the Indians  ate together , sang, played games , and participated  in group sports. 

By 1630, a day of thanksgiving  was begin help after each harvest.  The custom grew  and in 1863 , President Lincoln proclaimed  it as a national holiday  in the U.S. In 1941, an Act  of congress  fixed  the date  on the 4^th  Thursday  of November .  Although  that first thanksgiving  dinner happened over three hundred years ago, we still celebrate Thanksgiving  Day every November.

Thanksgiving is a legal holiday. Schools , banks , government offices  and most  businesses  are closed. On this day , families  gather and share good things  to eat and feeling of love. Because wild turkeys were eaten  on the first Thanksgiving  in America , many people have turkey for Thanksgiving dinner .  Other traditional foods are corn , stuffing  green beans, sweet potatoes , gravy , and cranberry sauce. Traditional desserts are apple pie and pumpkin pie.