Soon after this Penn got into a ship and sailed from England.  He sailed to Penn-syl-va-ni-a.  When he came there, he sent word to the tribes of Indians to come to meet him.

The Indians met under a great elm tree on the bank of the river.  Indians like to hold their solemn meetings out of doors.  They sit on the ground.  They say that the earth is the Indian’s mother.

When Penn came to the place of meeting, he found the woods full of Indians.  As far as he could see, there were crowds of Indians.  Penn’s friends were few.  They had no guns.

Penn had a bright blue sash round his waist.  One of the Indian chiefs, who was the great chief, put on a kind of cap or crown.  In the middle of this was a small horn.  The head chief wore this only at such great meetings as this one.

When the great chief had put on his horn, all the other chiefs and great men of the Indians put down their guns.  Then they sat down in front of Penn in the form of a half-moon.  Then the great chief told Penn that the Indians were ready to hear what he had to say.

Penn had a large paper in which he had written all the things that he and his friends had promised to the Indians.  He had written all the promises that the Indians were to make to the white people.  This was to make them friends.  When Penn had read this to them, it was explained to them in their own lan-guage.  Penn told them that they might stay in the country that they had sold to the white people.  The land would belong to both the Indians and the white people.

Then Penn laid the large paper down on the ground.  That was to show them, he said, that the ground was to belong to the Indians and the white people to-geth-er.

He said that there might be quarrels between some of the white people and some of the Indians.  But they would settle any quarrels without fighting.  When-ever there should be a quarrel, the Indians were to pick out six Indians.  The white people should also pick out six of their men.  These were to meet, and settle the quarrel.

Penn said, “I will not call you my children, because fathers some-times whip their children.  I will not call you brothers, because brothers sometimes fall out.  But I will call you the same person as the white people.  We are the two parts of the same body.”

The Indians could not write.  But they had their way of putting down things that they wished to have re-mem-bered.  They gave Penn a belt of shell beads.  These beads are called wam-pum.  Some wam-pum is white.  Some is purple.

They made this belt for Penn of white beads.  In the middle of the belt they made a picture of purple beads.  It is a picture of a white man and an Indian.  They have hold of each other’s hands.  When they gave this belt to Penn, they said, “We will live with William Penn and his children as long as the sun and moon shall last.”

[Illustration:  Penn jumping with the Indians.]