My Time at the Old Time: A Narration about My Field Trip to St. Mary's City, Maryland (Third Student's Narration)

After a long drive, we arrived at St. Mary's City. We decided to go to the "Ship Fire." He said a bunch of things about the cannons, like that they were often used for signals and salutes. He warned us to cup our ears so much that Daddy and I thought it would be louder than it actually was. I saw the cotton that they put in there at sea. They had to put extra cotton in because it is embarrassing to have your ammo fall over the deck before you fire it at the ship! They were describing flags like red meant slow down and green meant speed up. I forget what blue meant. And pink polka-dots meant that there was a mermaid at port. You can obviously tell now that he was making this up.
After we got off, we went to see the “Pulley Stand.” There is somebody there and there was a wooden constructed object. There was two sacks that weigh the same. The first one had one pulley and it was hard to get up. The second one had two pulleys and it was hard to get up but not too hard. The last one had three pulleys and was pretty easy.
Then we saw the “Life at Sea” stand. You only had an itty bitty space, some bad food and your potty is a jug. You thew its contents overboard when the Captain gave you permission.
Then we went to the “Navigation” stand, which was misnamed. It was about the stuff they traded to the Indians. The stuff was bells, beaver skins. I also saw a spoon in there.
Then we went to the Indian village and we went to see a canoe burn which is making a canoe by burning it. There were two jobs you could do. One was fanning the fire with a turkey wing and the other was trying to get this black stuff off with a stick. There was two other people there but they let James and I do both of the jobs. The fire was warm!
Next we went to the “Man's Camp.” It was filled with fishing stuff and stuff to make hunting gear with. Then I saw deer feet. I wondered what it was for. Turns out they are making them into fishing poles because of the strong bones. Then we went into their storage hut. It was filled gourds at the top and a bunch of real animal skins. I touched a bear skin! There was a fireplace in the middle which was burning 24-7, well, it used to. They used the smoke to keep the animals from getting into their food.
Then we went into the “Settler's Hut.” It was filled with guns and spears. It had a fireplace and all kinds of things. They were in the Indian place because bad Indians were chasing them.
We went to have lunch, but Dad always kept delaying and I was starving! After lunch we went back in time. First we saw the poor man's house. There was a hard dirt floor, not much of a bed and no glass on the windows. Glass was expensive back then. Then we went into the rich man's house. There was glass in the windows, a tobacco garden and a bunch of spices that smelled good. There was a big fireplace where the men and woman of the house slept. They had seven children! We had permission to go upstairs, so we did. With the big chimney, you would have thought it would be the warmest part of the house, but it was the coldest because of all the cracks. The children slept there. Nice view of the place from the window. I wanted to steal the tobacco. Dad said that they would put me in the stockholds or put a “T” on my hand (for thief). I told him that I would be through the time porthole before they found out.
We looked at some sort of inn-like place. It had a hard floor and some sort of bed. You have to pay to sleep there. You also have to pay for a meal and you didn't get to choose -whatever was in the pot there, but you did get to choose drinks. Dad read the menu and it said “English Spirits” and I was thinking about ghosts. Somebody showed us a gun demonstration. They changed the rules and he didn't know how to read that well so the crowd helped him. Every step they missed meant five pounds of tobacco they would have to pay. They did it an extra time than they should have and luckily they didn't shoot us. It was a little less loud than the cannon firing. One or two minutes before the demonstration we heard another cannon fire from the ship. Then I saw Laurel and she brought me to Megan. After a short while they had to go.
We stopped by the canoe burning to see how it was going. Then we went to the gift shop and we parked by (a friend). After a little goodbye chat with my friend we went to the gift shop. I got a map. Dad got for (First Student) a compass, for (Second Student) a telescope, for (Fifth Student) a whistle. Dad got something for himself, but I am not sure what it was. (Fourth Student) got a cannon pencil sharpener. Dad suggested it to him because he like the cannon fire so much. I had a hard time choose between a telescope a Treasure Island thing, a compass and the map. Dad helped me decide.