MILES STANDISH 193 " so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." And yet his relations with such men as the noble Bradford, the blameless Brewster, the politic Winslow, were so close and of so personal a char- acter that one can hardly accept unquestioningly the story of his hot and unrea- soning temper. He was a soldier and a fighter ; but he loved peace and quiet, and his li/e was full of friendly offices and of kindly deeds. On Nantasket Beach he built the first " house of refuge " and life-saving station in America. He was a gentle nurse in the winter of sickness, a friend and adviser to those in troub- le or distress, a loving father in the days when parents were not unfrequently tyrants, and a forgiving spirit, as the old story of his famous " courtship " (with sufficient foundation to warrant its acceptance) amply proves. The communism of the early Pilgrim days gave place in time to personal pos session and, as the colony grew, certain of those who had been leaders desired more extended holdings. Captain Standish was one of these, and despite his friend Bradford's protests, he moved across the bay and in 1632 occupied a large and fertile stretch north of Plymouth, to which, still clinging to his old claim of a stolen heritage, he gave the name of Duxbury. Here in the midst of peaceful pursuits, but ever ready to obey the colony's call for counsel or for leadership, he lived for over twenty years, dying October 3, 1656, at the age of seventy-two. A notable figure in American history, Miles Standish is a type of that min- gled spirit of adventure, liberty, and distrust that impelled emigration across the sea and, combined with the uncompromising stand for freedom of conscience, founded and up-built the Pilgrim Colony of Plymouth. His existence among these Pilgrims is in itself an anomaly. But it is one of those strange associations and unfaltering friendships that have left their mark for good upon the world since the. days when the Roman fighting-man stood stanchly by the side of the Christian proselyte even to the death. Tradition says that Miles Standish was buried between two pointed stones in the graveyard of South Duxbury, but the question of his burial-place is still un- settled. The tall shaft, rising from the crest of Captain's Hill in Duxbury, and surmounted with a statue of the famous colonial captain, fitly commemorates a life that has won a place in the American heart that only grows stronger and more enduring as time goes on. 13
