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Life on a Wisconsin Farm · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter three of the Story of My Boyhood and Youth. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Recording by Sue Anderson. The Story of My Boyhood
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and Youth by John Muir, Chapter three, Life on a Wisconsin farm.
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Humanity in oxen, Jack the pony learning to ride, knob and nell,
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snakes, mosquitoes and their kin, fish and fishing, considering the lilies learning
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to swim, a narrow escape from drowning, and a victory accidents to animals
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coming direct from school in Scotland, while we were still hopefully ignorant and far
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from tame. Notwithstanding the unnatural profusion of teaching and thrashing lavished upon us,
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getting acquainted with the animals about us was a never failing source of wonder and
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delight. At first, my father, like nearly all the backwood settlers,
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bought a yoke of oxen to do the farm work, and as field after
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field was cleared, the number was gradually increased until we had five yoke.
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These wise, patient, plodding animals did all the plowing, logging, hauling,
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and hard work of every sort for the first four or five years,
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and never having seen oxen before, we looked at them with the same eager
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freshness of conception as we did at the wild animals. We worked with them,
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sympathized with them in their rest and toil and play, and thus learned
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to know them far better than we should have had we been only trained scientific
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naturalists. We soon learned that each ox and cow and calf had individual character.
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Old White faced Buck, one of the second yoke of oxen we owned,
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was a notably sagacious fellow. He seemed to reason, sometimes almost like
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ourselves. In the fall, the cattle lots of pumpkins and had to split
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them open so that mouthfuls could be readily broken off. But Buck never waited
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for us to come to his help. The others, when they were hungry
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and impatient, tried to break through the hard brind with their teeth, but
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seldom with success. If the pumpkin was full grown, Buck never wasted time
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in this mumbling, slavering way, but crushed them with his head. He
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went to the pile, picked out a good one, like a boy choosing
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an orange or apple, rolled it down on to the open ground, deliberately
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kneeled in front of it, placed his broad, flat brow on top of
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it, brought his weight hard down and crushed it, then quietly arose and
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went on with his meal in comfort. Some would call this instinct, as
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if so called blind instinct must necessarily make an ox stand on its head to
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break pumpkins when his teeth got sore, or when nobody came with an axe
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to split them. Another fine ox showed his skins ill when hungry by opening
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all the fences that stood in his way to the cornfields. The humanity we
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found in them came partly through the expression of their eyes when tired, their
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tones of voice when hungry and calling for food, their patient plodding and pulling
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in hot weather, their long drawn out sighing breath when exhausted and suffering like
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ourselves, and their enjoyment of rest with the same grateful look as ours.
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We recognized their kinship also by their yawning like ourselves, one sleepy and evidently
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enjoying the same peculiar pleasure at the roots of their jaws. By the way
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they stretched themselves in the morning after a good rest. By learning languages Scotch,
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English, Irish, French, Dutch, a smattering of each as required
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in the faithful service. They so willingly wisely rendered by their intelligent alert curiosity
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manifested in listening to strange sounds, their love of play, the attachments they
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made, and their morning long continued when a companion was killed. When we
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went to Portage, our nearest town, about ten or twelve miles from the
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farm, it would oftentimes be late before we got back, and in the
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summer time, in sultry, rainy weather, the clouds were full of sheet
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lightning, which every minute or two would suddenly illumine the landscape, revealing all
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its features, the hills and valleys, meadows and trees, about as fully
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and clearly as the noonday sunshine. Then as suddenly, the glorious light would
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be quenched, making the darkness seem denser than before. On such nights,
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the cattle had to find the way home without any help from us, But
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they never got off the track, for they followed it by scent like dogs.
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Once Father, returning late from Portage or Kingston, compelled Tom and Jerry,
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our first oxen, to leave the dim track, imagining they must be
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going wrong. At last they stopped and refused to go further. Then Father
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unhitched them from the wagon, took hold of Tom's tail, and was thus
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led straight to the shanty. Next morning he set out to seek his wagon
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and found it on the brow of a steep hill above an impassable swamp.
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We learned less from the cows because we did not enter so far into their
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lives, working with them, suffering heat and cold, hunger and thirst,
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and almost deadly weariness with them. But none with natural charity could fail to
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sympathize with them in their love for their calves, and to feel that it
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in no way differed from the divine mother love of a woman in thoughtful self
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sacrificing care, for they would brave every danger, giving their lives for their
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offspring. Nor could we failed to sympathize with their awkward, blunt nosed baby
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calves, with such beautiful, wondering eyes looking out on the world and slowly
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getting acquainted with things all so strange to them, and awkwardly learning to use
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their legs and play and fight. Before leaving Scotland, Father promised us a
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pony to ride when we got to America, and we saw to it that
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this promise was not forgotten. Only a week or two after our arrival in
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the woods, he bought us a little Indian pony for thirteen dollars from a
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storekeeper in Kingston who had obtained him from a Winnebago or Menominee Indian in trade
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for goods. He was a stout, handsome bay with long black mane and
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tail, and though he was only two years old, the Indians had already
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taught him to carry all sorts of burdens, to stand without being tied,
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to go anywhere over all sorts of ground, fast or slow, and to
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jump and swim and fear nothing. A truly wonderful creature, strangely different from
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the shy, skittish, nervous, superstitious civilized beasts. We turned him loose
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and strange to say. He never ran away from us or refused to be
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caught, but behaved as if he had known Scotch boys all his life,
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probably because we were about as wild as young Indians. One day, when
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father happened to have a little leisure, he said, now, barons,
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run down the meadow and get your pony and learn to ride him. So
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we let him out to a smooth place near an Indian mound back of the
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shanty, where Father directed us to begin. I mounted for the first memorable
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lesson, crossed the mound and set out at a slow walk along the wagon
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track made in hauling lumber. Then Father shouted, whap him up, John,
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wap him up, make him gallop, gallopin is easier and better than
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walking or trotting. Jack was willing, and away he sped at a good
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fast gallop. I managed to keep my balance fairly well by holding fast to
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the main, but could not keep from bumping up and down, for I
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was plump and elastic, and so was Jack. Therefore, about half of
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the time I was in the air. After a quarter of a mile or
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so of this curious transportation, I cried, whoa Jack. The wonderful creature
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seemed to understand scotch, for he stopped so suddenly I flew over his head,
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but he stood perfectly still, as if that flying method of dismounting were
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the regular way. Jumping on again, I bumped and bobbed back along the
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grassy, flowery track over the Indian mound. Cried whoa Jack, flew over
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his head and alighted in Father's arms as gracefully as if it were all intended
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for circus work. After going over the course five or six times in the
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same free picturesque style. I gave place to brother David, whose performances were
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much like my own. In a few weeks, however, or a month,
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we were taking adventurous rides more than a mile long, out to a
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big meadow frequented by sand hill cranes, and returning safely with wonderful stories of
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the great long legged birds we had seen, and how on the whole journey
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away and back we had fallen off only five or six times. Gradually we
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learned to gallop through the woods without roads of any sort, bare back and
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without rope or bridle, guiding only by leaning from side to side or by
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slight knee pressure. In this free way, we used to amuse ourselves riding
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at full speed across a big kettle that was on our farm without holding on
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by either maine or tail. These so called kettles were formed by the melting
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of large detached blocks of ice that had been buried in moraine material thousands of
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years ago, when the ice sheet that covered all this region was receding.
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As the buried ice melted, of course, the moraine material above and about
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it fell in forming hopper shaped hollows, while the grass growing on their sides
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and around them prevented the rain and wind from filling them up. The one
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we performed in was perhaps seventy or eighty feet wide and twenty or thirty feet
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deep, and without a saddle or hold of any kind, it was not
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easy to keep from slipping over Jack's head and diving into it, or over
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his tail climbing out. This was fine sport on the long summer sundays when
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we were able to steal away before meeting time without being seen. We got
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very warm and red at it, and oftentimes poor Jack, dripping with sweat
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like his riders, seemed to have been boiled in that kettle. In Scotland
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we had often been admonished to be bowled, and this advice we passed on
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to Jack, who had already got many a wild lesson from Indian boys.
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Once, when teaching him to jump muddy stream, I made him try the
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creek in our meadow at a place where it is about twelve feet wide.
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He jumped bravely enough, but came down with a grand splash, hardly more
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than half way over. The water was only about a foot in depth,
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but the black vegetable mud half afloat was unfathomable. I managed to wallow ashore,
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but poor Jack sank deeper and deeper until only his head was visible in
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the black abyss, and his Indian fortitude was desperately tried his foundering so suddenly,
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in the treacherous gulf, recalled the story of the Abbot of Aberbarthowk's bell,
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which went down with a gurgling sound, while bubbles rose and burst around.
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I had to go to Father for help. He tied a long hemp
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rope brought from Scotland around Jack's neck, and Tom and Jerry seemed to have
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all they could do to pull him out, after which I got a solemn
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scolding for asking the poor beast to jump into such a soft, bottomless place.
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We moved into our frame house in the fall when Mother with the rest
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of the family arrived from Scotland, and when the winter snow began to fly,
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the burr oak shanty was made into a stable for Jack. Father told
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us that good meadow hay was all he required, but we fed him corn
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lots of it, and he grew very frisky and fat. About the middle
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of winter, his long hair was full of dust and as we thought required
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washing, so, without taking the frosty weather into account, we gave him
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a thorough soap and water scouring, and as we failed to get him rubb
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dry, a row of icicles formed under his belly. Father happened to see
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him in this condition and angrily asked what we had been about. We said
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Jack was dirty and we had washed him to make him healthy. He told
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us we ought to be ashamed of ourselves soaking the poor beast in cold water
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at this time of year, and when we wanted to clean him, we
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should have sense enough to use the brush and currycomb. In summer, Dave
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or I had to ride after the cows every evening about sundown, and Jack
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got so accustomed to bringing in the drove that when we happened to be a
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few minutes late, he used to go off alone at the regular time and
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bring them home at a gallop. It used to make Father very angry to
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see Jack chasing the cows like a shepherd dog, running from one to the
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other and giving each a bite on the rump to keep them on the run,
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flying before him as if pursued by wolves. Father would declare at times
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that the wicked beast had the devil in him and would be the death of
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the cattle. The corral and barn were just at the foot of a hill,
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and he made a great display of the drove on the home stretch as
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they walloped down that hill with their tails on end. One evening, when
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the pell Mell Wild West Show was at its wildest, it made Father so
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extravagantly mad that he ordered me to shoot Jack. I went to the house
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and brought the gun, suffering most horrible mental anguish, such as I suppose
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unhappy Abraham felt when commanded to slay Isaac. Jack's life was spared. However,
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though I can't tell what finally became of him, I wish I could.
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After Father bought a span of work horses, he was sold to a
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man who said he was going to ride him across the plains to California.
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We had him, I think some five or six years. He was the
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stoutest, gentlest, bravest little horse I ever saw. He never seemed tired,
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could canter all day with a man about as heavy as himself on his
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back, and feared nothing. Once fifty or sixty pounds of beef that was
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tied on his back, slid over his shoulders along his neck, and weighed
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down his head to the ground, fairly anchoring him. But he stood patient
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and still for half an hour or so without making the slightest struggle to free
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himself. While I was away getting help to untie the pack rope and set
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the load back in its place. As I was the eldest boy, I
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had the care of our first span of work horses. Their names were Knob
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and Nell. Knob was very intelligent and even affectionate, and could learn almost
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anything. Nell was entirely different, bulky and stubborn, though we managed to
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teach her a good many circus tricks, but she never seemed to like to
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play with us in anything like an affectionate way as Knob did. We turned
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them out one day into the pasture, and an Indian hiding in the brush
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that had sprung up after the grass fires had been kept out, managed to
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catch Noob, tied a rope to her jaw for a bridle, rode her
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to Green Lake, about thirty or forty miles away, and tried to sell
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her for fifteen dollars. All our hearts were sore, as if one of
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the family had been lost. We hunted everywhere and could not at first imagine
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what had become of her. We discovered her track where the fence was broken
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down, and following it for a few miles made sure the track was Knobs,
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and a neighbor told us he had seen an Indian riding fast through the
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woods on a horse that looked like Knob. But we could find no further
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trace of her until a month or two after she was lost, and we
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had given up hope of ever seeing her again. Then we learned that she
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had been taken from an Indian by a farmer at Green Lake because he saw
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that she had been shod and had worked in harness. So when the Indian
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tried to sell her, the farmer said, you are a thief. This
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is a white man's horse. You stole her. No, said the Indian.
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I bought her from Prairie Duchin and she has always been mine. The
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man, pointing to her feet and the marks of the harness, said you
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are lying. I will take that horse away from you and put her in
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my pasture, and if you come near it, I will set the dogs
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on you. Then he advertised her One of our neighbors happened to see the
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advertisement and brought us the glad news. Ann great was our rejoicing when Father
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brought her home. That Indian must have treated her with terrible cruelty, for
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when I was riding her through the pastures several years afterward, looking for another
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horse that we wanted to catch, as we approached the place where she had
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been captured, she stood stock still, gazing through the bushes, fearing the
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Indian might still be hiding there, ready to spring. And she was so
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excited that she trembled, and her heart beats were so loud that I could
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hear them distinctly as I sat on her back. Boom, boomp, boomp,
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like the drumming of a partridge. So vividly had she remembered her terrible
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experiences. She was a great pet and favorite with the whole family. Quickly
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learned playful tricks, came running when we called, seemed to know everything we
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said to her, and had the utmost confidence in our friendly kindness. We
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used to cut and shock and husk the Indian corn in the fall until a
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keen Yankee stopped overnight at our house, and among other labor saving notions,
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can evinced Father that it was better to let it stand and husk it at
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his leisure during the winter than turn in the cattle to eat the leaves and
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trample down the stalks so that they could be plowed under in the spring.
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In this winter method, each of us took two rows and husked into baskets,
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and emptied the corn on the ground in piles of fifteen to twenty basketfuls,
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then loaded it into the wagon to be hauled to the crib. This
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was cold, painful work, the temperature being oftentimes far below zero, and
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the ground covered with dry, frosty snow, giving rise to miserable crops of
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chilblains and frosted fingers, a sad change from the merry Indian summer husking when
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the big yellow pumpkins covered the cleared fields golden corn. Golden pumpkins gathered in
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the hazy, golden weather. Sad change, indeed, but we occasionally got
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some fun out of the nipping shivery work from hungry prairie chickens and squirrels and
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mice that came about us. The piles of corn were often left in the
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field several days, and while loading them into the wagon, we usually found
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field mice in them, big blunt nosed, strong scented fellows that we were
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taught to kill just because they nibbled a few grains of corn. I used
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to hold one while it was still warm up to Nob's nose for the front
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of seeing her make faces and snort at the smell of it, and I
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would say, here, Nob, as if offering her a lump of sugar.
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One day I offered her an extra fine, fat, plump specimen,
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something like a little woodchuck or muskrat. And to my astonishment, after smelling
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it curiously and doubtfully, as if wondering what the gift might be, and
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rubbing it back and forth in the palm of my hand with her upper lip,
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she deliberately took it into her mouth, crunched and munched, and chewed
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it fine, and swallowed it bones, teeth, head, tail, everything.
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Not a single hair of that mouse was wasted. While she was chewing
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it. She nodded and grunted, as though critically tasting and relishing it.
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My father was a steadfast enthusiast on religious matters, and of course attended almost
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every sort of church meeting, especially revival meetings. They were occasionally held in
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summer, but mostly in winter, when the slaying was good and plenty of
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time available. One hot summer day, Father drove Knob to Portage and back
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twenty four miles over a sandy road. It was hot, hard, sultry
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day's work, and she had evidently been overdriven in order to get home in
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time for one of these meetings. I shall never forget how tired and wilted
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she looked that evening when I unhitched her, how she drooped in her stall,
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too tired to eat or even to lie down. Next morning it was
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plain that her lungs were inflamed. All the dreadful symptoms were just the same
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as my own when I had pneumonia. Father sent for a Methodist minister,
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a very energetic, resourceful man who was a blacksmith, farmer, butcher,
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and horse doctor as well as minister. But all his gifts and skill were
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of no avail. Nob was doomed. We bathed her head and tried to
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get her to eat something, but she couldn't eat, and in about a
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couple of weeks we turned her loose to let her come round the house and
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see us in the weary, suffering and loneliness of the shadow of death.
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She tried to follow us children so long, her friends and workmates and playmates.
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It was awfully touching. She had several hemorrhages, and in the forenoon
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of her last day, after she had had one of her dreadful spells of
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bleeding and gasping for breath, she came to me trembling with beseeching, heart
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breaking looks. And after I had bathed her head and tried to soothe and
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pet her, she lay down and gasped and died. All the family gathered
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about her, weeping with aching hearts. Then dust to dust. She was
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the most faithful, intellience, ligent, playful, affectionate human like horse I
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ever knew, and she won all our hearts. Of the many advantages of
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farm life for boys, one of the greatest is the gaining a real knowledge
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of animals as fellow mortals, learning to respect them and love them, and
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even to win some of their love. Thus, godlike sympathy grows and thrives
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and spreads far beyond the teachings of churches and schools, where too often the
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mean, blinding, loveless doctrine is taught that animals have neither mind nor soul
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have no rights that we are bound to respect, and were made only for
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man to be petted, spoiled, slaughtered, or enslaved. At first we
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were afraid of snakes, but soon learned that most of them were harmless.
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The only venomous species seen on our farm were the rattlesnake and the copper head,
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one of each. David saw the rattler, and we both saw the
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copper head. One day, when my brother came in from his work,
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he reported that he had seen a snake that made a queer, buzzy noise
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with its tail. This was the only rattlesnake seen on our farm, though
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we heard of them being common on limestone hills eight or ten miles distant.
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We discovered the copperhead when we were plowing, and we saw and felt at
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the first long, fixed, half charmed admiring stare at him, that he
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was an awfully dangerous fellow. Every fiber of his strong, lithe quivering body,
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his burnished copper colored head, and above all his fierce able eyes seemed
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to be overflowing, full of deadly power, and bade us beware. And
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yet it is only fair to say that this terrible, beautiful reptile showed no
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disposition to hurt us until we threw clods at him and tried to head him
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off from a log fence into which he was trying to escape. We were
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barefooted, and of course afraid to let him get very near, while we
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vainly battered him with the loose sandy clods of the freshly plowed field to hold
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him back until we could get a stick. Looking us in the eyes,
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after a moment's pause, he probably saw we were afraid, and he came
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right straight at us, snapping and looking terrible, drove us out of his
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way and won his fight. Out on the open sandy hills, there were
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a good many thick, burly blow snakes, the kind that puffed themselves up
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and hiss. Our Yankee declared that their breath was very poisonous, and that
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we must not go near them. A handsome ringed species common in damp,
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shady places, was, he told us, the most wonderful of all the
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snakes, for if chopped into pieces, however small, the fragments would wriggle
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themselves together again, and the restored snake would go on about its business as
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if nothing had happened the commonest kinds with the striped, slender species of the
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meadows and streams, good swimmers that lived mostly on frogs. Once I observed
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one of the larger ones of two feet long, pursuing a frog in our
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meadow, and it was wonderful to see how fast the legless, footless,
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wingless, finless hunter could run. The frog, of course, knew its
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enemy, and was making desperate efforts to escape to the water and hide in
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the marsh mud. He was a fine, sleek, yellow, muscular fellow,
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and was springing over the tall grass in wide arching jumps. The green
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striped snake, gliding swiftly and steadily, was keeping the frog in sight,
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and had I not interfered, would probably have tired out the poor jumper.
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Then, perhaps, while digesting and enjoying his meal, the happy snake would
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himself be swallowed frog and all by a hawk. Again, to our astonishment,
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the small specimens were attacked by our hens. They pursued and pecked away
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at them until they killed and devoured them, oftentimes quarreling over the division of
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the spoil, though it was not easily divided. We watched the habits of
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the swift darting dress and flies, wild bees, butterflies, wasps, beetles,
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et cetera, and soon learned to discriminate between those that might be safely
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handled and the pinching or stingy species. But of all our wild neighbors,
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the mosquitoes were the first with which we became very intimately acquainted. The beautiful
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meadow, lying warm in the spring sunshine, outspread between our lily rimmed lake
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and the hill slope that our shanties stood on, sent for thirsty swarms of
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the little, gray, speckly, singing, stinging pests. And how tellingly
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they introduced themselves. Of little avail were the smudges that we made on muggy
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evenings to drive them away. And amid the many lessons which they insisted upon
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teaching us, we wondered more and more at the extent of their knowledge,
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especially that in their tiny, flimsy bodies room could be found for such cunning
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palettes. They would drink their fill from brown, smoky Indians or from old
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white folk flavored with tobacco and whiskey when no better could be had. But
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the surpassing fineness of their taste was best manifested by their enthusiastic appreciation of boys
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full of lively red blood, and of girls in full bloom fresh from cool
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Scotland or England. On these it was pleasant to witness their enjoyment as they
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feasted. Indians, we were told, believed that if they were brave fighters,
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they would go after death to a happy country abounding in game, where
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there were no mosquitoes and no cowards, For cowards were driven away by themselves
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to a miserable country where there was no game fit to eat, and where
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the sky was always dark, with huge gnats and mosquitoes as big as pigeons.
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We were great admirers of the little black water bugs. Their whole lives
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seemed to be played skimming, swimming, swirling and waltzing together in little groups
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on the edge of the lake and in the meadow springs, dancing to music
27:57
we never could hear. The long legged skaters, too, seemed wonderful fellows,
28:03
shuffling about on top of the water with air bubbles like little blatterers tangled
28:07
under their hairy feet, and we often wished that we also might be shod
28:11
in the same way, to enable us to skate on the lake in summer
28:15
as well. As an icy winter. Not less wonderful were the boatmen swimming
28:21
on their backs, pulling themselves along with a pair of oar like legs.
28:26
Great was the delight of brothers David and Daniel and myself when father gave us
28:30
a few pine boards for a boat, And it was a memorable day when
28:33
we got that boat built and launched into the lake. Never shall I forget
28:38
our first sail over the gradually deepening water, the sunbeams pouring through it,
28:44
revealing the strange plants covering the bottom, and the fishes coming about us,
28:48
staring and wondering as if the boat were a monstrous, strange fish. The
28:53
water was so clear that it was almost invisible, and when we floated slowly
28:59
out over the plants and fishes, we seemed to be miraculously sustained in the
29:04
air while silently exploring a veritable fairy land. We always had to work hard,
29:11
but if we worked still harder, we were occasionally allowed a little spell
29:15
in the long summer evenings about sundown to fish, and on Sundays an hour
29:21
or two to sail quietly without fishing, rod or gun when the lake was
29:25
calm. Therefore, we gradually learned something about its inhabitants pickerel, sunfish,
29:32
black bass, perch, shiners, pumpkin seeds, ducks, loons, turtles,
29:37
muskrats, et cetera. We saw the sun fishes making their nests in
29:41
little openings in the rushes where the water was only a few feet deep,
29:45
plowing up and shoving away the soft gray mud with their noses like pigs,
29:49
forming round bowls five or six inches in depth and about two feet in diameter
29:56
in which their eggs were deposited, And with what beautiful, unweariable devotion they
30:00
watched and hovered over them, and chased away prowling spawn, eating enemies that
30:06
ventured within a rod or two of the precious nest. The pickerel is a
30:11
savage fish, endowed with marvelous strength and speed. It lies in wait for
30:17
its prey on the bottom, perfectly motionless, like a water logged stick,
30:22
watching everything that moves with fierce, hungry eyes. Oftentimes, when we were
30:26
fishing for some other kinds over the edge of the boat, a pickerel that
30:30
we had not noticed would come like a bolt of lightning and seize the fish
30:33
we had caught before we could get it into the boat. The very first
30:37
pickerel that I ever caught, jumped into the air to seize a small fish
30:41
dangling on my line and missing its aim, fell plump into the boat as
30:47
if it had dropped from the sky. Some of our neighbors fished for pickerel
30:52
through the ice in midwinter. They usually drove a wagon out onto the lake,
30:57
set a large number of law vines baited with live minnows, hung a
31:02
loop of the lines over a small bush planted at the side of each hole,
31:06
and watched to see the loops pulled off when a fish had taken the
31:08
bait. Large quantities of pickerel were often caught in this cruel way. Our
31:15
beautiful lake, named Fountain Lake by father, but Meares Lake by the neighbors,
31:19
is one of the many small glacier lakes that adorn the Wisconsin landscapes.
31:25
It is fed by twenty or thirty meadows. Springs is about half a mile
31:29
long, half as wide, and surrounded by low, finely modeled hills dotted
31:34
with oak and hickory, and meadows full of grasses and sedges and many beautiful
31:40
orchids and ferns. First, there is a zone of green shining rushes,
31:44
and just beyond the rushes a zone of white and orange water lilies fifty or
31:48
sixty feet wide, forming a magnificent border. On bright days when the lake
31:53
was rippled by a breeze, the lilies and sun spangles danced together in radiant
31:59
beauty, and it became difficult to discriminate between them. On Sundays, after
32:04
or before chores and sermons and Bible lessons, we drifted about on the lake
32:08
for hours, especially in lily time, getting finest lessons and sermons from the
32:15
water and flowers, ducks, fishes, and muskrats. In particular, we
32:20
took Christ's advice and devoutly considered the lilies, how they grow up in beauty
32:24
out of gray lime mud, and ride gloriously among the breezy sun's spangles.
32:30
On our way home we gathered grand bouquets of them, to be kept fresh
32:34
all the week. No flower was hailed with greater wonder and admiration by the
32:38
European settlers in general Scotch, English and Irish than this white water lily Nymphaea
32:46
odorata. It is a magnificent plant, queen of the inland waters. Pure
32:52
white, three or four inches in diameter. The most beautiful, sumptuous,
32:57
and deliciously fragrant of all our Wisconsin flowers. No lily garden in civilization we
33:01
had ever seen could compare with our lake garden. The next most admirable flower
33:07
in the estimation of settlers in this part of the New World was the pask
33:12
flower or wind flower Aneemye patents variant New Taliana. It is the very first
33:19
to appear in the spring, covering the cold, gray black ground with cheery
33:22
blossoms. Before the axe or plow had touched the oak openings of Wisconsin.
33:28
They were swept by running fires almost every autumn after the grass became dry.
33:34
If from any cause, such as early snowstorms or late rains, they happened
33:37
to escape the autumn fire, besom they were likely to be burned in the
33:42
spring after the snow melted. But whether burned in the spring or fall,
33:46
ashes and bits of charred twigs and grass stems made the whole country look dismal.
33:52
Then, before a single grass blade had sprouted, a hopeful multitude of
33:57
large, hairy, silky buds about as thick as one's thumb came to light,
34:01
pushing up through the black and gray ashes and cinders, and before these
34:07
buds were fairly free from the ground, they opened wide and displayed purple blossoms
34:12
about two inches in diameter, giving beauty for ashes in glorious abundance. Instead
34:17
of remaining in the ground awaiting for warm weather and companions, this admirable plant
34:23
seems to be in haste to rise and cheer the desolate landscape. Then at
34:29
its leisure, after other plants had come to its help, it spread its
34:32
leaves and grew up to a height of about two or three feet. The
34:37
spreading leaves formed a whirl on the ground and another about the middle of the
34:40
stem as an involucre, and on top of the stem, the silky,
34:45
hairy, long tailed seeds formed a head like a second flower. A little
34:52
church was established among the early settlers, and the meetings at first were held
34:55
in our house. After working hard all the week, it was difficult for
35:00
boys to sit still through long sermons without falling asleep, especially in warm weather.
35:07
In this drowsy trouble, the charming anemony came to our help. A
35:10
pocketful of the pungent seeds industriously nibbled while the discourses were at their dullest kept
35:16
us awake and filled our minds with flowers. The next great flower wonders on
35:22
which we lavished admiration, not only for beauty of color and size, but
35:28
for their curious shapes, were the cyprepediums, called ladies, slippers or Indian
35:32
moccasins. They were so different from the familiar flowers of old Scotland. Several
35:37
species grew in our meadow and on shady hillsides, yellow rose colored and some
35:44
nearly white. An inch or more in diameter and shaped exactly like Indian moccasins.
35:50
They caught the eye of all the European settlers and made them gaze and
35:53
wonder like children. And so did calopoguan, Porgonia, spiranthes and many other
36:00
fine plant people that lived in our meadow. The beautiful turks turban Lilium superbum
36:07
growing on stream banks was rare in our neighborhood, but the orange lily grew
36:12
in abundance on dry ground beneath the burr oaks and often brought aunt Ray's Lily
36:16
bed in Scotland to mind. The butterfly weed, with its brilliant scarlet flowers,
36:22
attracted flocks of butterflies and made fine masses of color. With autumn came
36:29
a glorious abundance and variety of asters, those beautiful plant stars, together with
36:35
golden rods, sunflowers, daisies, and leatris of different species. While around
36:40
the shady margin of the meadow, many ferns in beds and vaselike groups spread
36:45
their beautiful fronds, especially the osmundas Claytoniana regalis and Cinema maya, and the
36:52
sensitive and ostrich ferns. Early in summer we feasted on strawberries that grew in
36:58
rich beds beneath the meadow, grass and sedges, as well as in the
37:01
dry sunny woods and in different bogs and marshes and around their borders. On
37:07
our own farm and along the Fox River, we found dewberries and cranberries,
37:12
and a glorious profusion of huckleberries, the fountain heads of pies of wondrous taste
37:17
and size, colored in the heart like sunsets. Nor were we slow to
37:22
discover the value of the hickory trees, yielding both sugar and nuts. We
37:28
carefully counted the different kinds on our farm, and every morning when we could
37:30
steal a few minutes before breakfast. After doing the chores, we visited the
37:36
trees that had been wounded by the axe to scrape off and enjoy the thick,
37:39
white, delicious serp that exuded from them, and gathered the nuts as
37:45
they fell in the mellow Indian summer, making haste to get a fair share
37:49
with the sapsuckers and squirrels. The hickory makes fine masses of color in the
37:53
fall, every leaf a flower, but it was a sweet sap and sweet
37:59
nuts at first interested us. No harvest in the Wisconsin woods was ever gathered
38:04
with more pleasure and care. Also, to our delight, we found plenty
38:07
of hazel nuts, and in a few places abundance of wild apples. They
38:13
were desperately sour, and we used to fill our pockets with them, and
38:16
dare each other to eat one without making a face. No easy feet.
38:22
One hot summer day, father told us that we ought to learn to swim.
38:24
This was one of the most interesting suggestions he had ever offered, But
38:30
precious little time was allowed for trips to the lake, and he seldom tried
38:34
to show us how. Go to the frogs, he said, and they
38:37
will give you all the lessons you need watch their arms and legs and see
38:42
how smoothly they kicked themselves along and dive and come up. When you want
38:45
to dive, keep your arms by your side or over your head and kick.
38:51
And when you want to come up, let your legs drag and paddle
38:53
with your hands. We found a little basin among the rushes at the south
38:58
end of the lake, about waste steep and a water too wide, shaped
39:02
like a sunfish's nest. Here we kicked and plashed for many a lesson,
39:07
faithfully trying to imitate frogs, but the smooth, comfortable, sliding gait of
39:13
our amphibious teachers seemed hopelessly hard to learn. When we tried to kick frog
39:17
fashion, down went our heads as if weighted with lead the moment our feet
39:22
left the ground. One day, it occurred to me to hold my breath
39:25
as long as I could, and let my head sink as far as it
39:29
liked without paying any attention to it, and try to swim under the water
39:32
instead of on the surface. This method was a great success, for at
39:37
the very first trial I managed to cross the basin without touching bottom, and
39:43
soon learned the use of my limbs. Then, of course, swimming with
39:45
my head above water soon became so easy that it seemed perfectly natural. David
39:52
tried the plan with the same success. Then we began to count the number
39:55
of times that we could swim around the basin without stopping to rest, and
40:00
after twenty or thirty rounds failed to tire us, we proudly thought that a
40:05
little more practice would make us about as amphibious as frogs. On the fourth
40:09
of July of this swimming year, one of the Lawson boys came to visit
40:14
us, and we went down to the lake to spend the great warm day
40:16
with the fishes and ducks and turtles. After gliding about on the smooth mirror
40:22
water, telling stories and enjoying the company of the happy creatures about us,
40:28
we rowed to our bathing pool and David and I went in for a swim
40:31
while our companion fished from the boat a little way out beyond the rushes.
40:36
After a few turns in the pool, it occurred to me that it was
40:38
now about time to try deep water. Swimming through the thick growth of rushes
40:44
and lilies was somewhat dangerous, especially for a beginner, because one's arms and
40:47
legs might be entangled among the long, limber stems. Nevertheless, I ventured
40:52
and struck out boldly enough for the boat, where the water was twenty or
40:57
thirty feet deep. When I reached the end of the little skiff, I
41:01
raised my right hand to take hold of it, to surprise Lawson, whose
41:05
back was toward me and who was not aware of my approach. But I
41:08
failed to reach high enough, and of course the weight of my arm and
41:13
the stroke against the overleaning stern of the boat shoved me down and I sank,
41:19
struggling, frightened and confused. As soon as my feet touched the bottom,
41:23
I slowly rose to the surface, but before I could get breath enough
41:27
to call for help, sank back again and lost all control of myself.
41:31
After sinking and rising, I don't know how many times, some water got
41:36
into my lungs and I began to drown. Then suddenly my mind seemed to
41:40
clear. I remembered that I could swim under water, and making a desperate
41:45
struggle towards the shore, I reached a point where, with my toes on
41:50
the bottom, I got my mouth above the surface, gasped for help,
41:53
and was pulled into the boat. This humiliating accident spoiled the day, and
42:00
we all agreed to keep it a profound secret. My sister Sarah had heard
42:04
my cry for help, and on our arrival at the house, inquired what
42:07
had happened? Were you drowning? John? I heard you cry you couldn't
42:10
get out, Lawson made haste to reply, Oh, no, he was
42:15
just havrn making fun. I was very much ashamed of myself, and at
42:21
night, after calmly reviewing the affair, concluded that there had been no reasonable
42:24
cause for the accident, and that I ought to punish myself for so nearly
42:29
losing my life from unmanly fear. Accordingly, at the very first opportunity,
42:34
I stole away to the lake by myself, got into my boat, and
42:37
instead of going back to the old swimming bowl for further practice or to try
42:43
to do sanely and well what I had so ignominously failed to do in my
42:46
first adventure, that is, to swim out through the rushes and lilies,
42:51
I rode directly out to the middle of the lake, stripped, stood up
42:54
on the seat in the stern, and with grim deliberation, took a header
42:59
and dose straight down thirty or forty feet turned easily and letting my feet drag,
43:04
paddle straight to the surface with my hands, as father had at first
43:08
directed me to do. I then swam around the boat, glorying in my
43:13
suddenly acquired confidence and victory over myself, climbed into it and dived again with
43:19
the same triumphant success. I think I went down four or five times,
43:23
and each time as I made the dives, spring shouted aloud. Take that
43:28
feeling that I was getting most gloriously even with myself. Never again, from
43:34
that day to this have I lost control of myself in water. If suddenly
43:38
thrown overboard at sea, in the dark, or even while asleep, I
43:43
think I would immediately right myself in a way some would call instinct, rise
43:49
among the waves, catch my breath, and try to plan what could be
43:52
better done. Never was victory over self more complete. I have been a
43:58
good swimmer ever since. At a slow gate, I think I could swim
44:01
all day in smooth water, moderate in temperature. When I was a student
44:07
at Madison, I used to go on long swimming journeys called exploring expeditions along
44:13
the south shore of Lake Mendota on Saturdays, sometimes alone, sometimes with another
44:17
amphibious explorer by the name of Fuller. My adventures in Fountain Lake called to
44:23
mind the story of a boy who, in climbing a tree to rob a
44:28
crow's nests, fell and broke his leg, but as soon as it healed,
44:31
compelled himself to climb to the top of the tree he had fallen from.
44:37
Like Scotch children in general, we were taught grim self denial in season
44:43
and out of season, to mortify the flesh, keep our bodies in subjection
44:47
to Bible laws, and mercilessly punish ourself for every fault imagined or committed.
44:54
A little boy, while helping his sister to drive home the cows, happened
44:59
to use a forbidden word. I'll have to tell father on ye said the
45:02
horrified sister. I'll tell him that YE said a bad word. Well,
45:07
the boy, by way of excuse, I couldn't help the word comin into
45:12
me an it's not war to speak at oot than to let it run through
45:15
ye. The Scotch fiddler playing at a wedding drank so much whisky that on
45:20
the way home he fell by the roadside. In the morning, he was
45:23
ashamed and angry, and determined to punish himself. Making haste to the house
45:29
of a friend, a game keeper, he called him out and requested the
45:31
loan of a gun. The alarmed gamekeeper, not liking the fiddler's looks and
45:37
voice, anxiously inquired what he was going to do with it. Surely,
45:40
he said, you're not gonna shoot yourself. N with characteristic candor, replied
45:45
the penitent fiddler, I didna think I was jest xactly kill myself. But
45:51
I's goin take a dander doom the burn brooke with the gun and give myself
45:55
a devil of a flag fright. One calm summer evening, a red headed
46:00
woodpecker was drowned in our lake. The accident happened at the south end,
46:05
opposite our memorable swimming hole, a few rods from the place where I came
46:08
so near being drowned years before. I had returned to the old home during
46:13
a summer vacation of the state university, and having made a beginning in botany,
46:17
I was of course full of enthusiasm and ran eagerly to my beloved Pagonia,
46:22
calopogan and cyprepedium gardens, osmoondaferneries and the lake lilies and pitcher plants.
46:29
A little before sundown, the day breeze died away, and the lake,
46:34
reflecting the wooded hills like a mirror, was dimpled and dotted and streaked.
46:37
Here and there where fishes and turtles were poking out their heads, and muskrats
46:43
were sculling themselves along with their flat tails, making glittering tracks. After lingering
46:49
a while, dreamily recalling the old hard half happy days, and watching my
46:52
favorite red headed woodpeckers pursuing maths like regular flycatchers, I swam out through the
46:59
rushes, up the middle of the lake to the north end, and back,
47:02
gliding slowly looking about me enjoying the scenery as I would in a saunter
47:07
along the shore, and studying the habits of the animals as they were explained
47:12
and recorded on the smooth, glassy water. On the way back, when
47:15
I was within a hundred rods or so of the end of my voyage,
47:20
I noticed a peculiar plashing disturbance that could not I thought be made by a
47:24
jumping fish or any other inhabitant of the lake. For instead of low,
47:29
regular out circling ripples such as are made by the popping up of a head,
47:34
or like those raised by the quick splash of a leaping fish or diving
47:37
loon or muskrant. A continuous struggle was kept up for several minutes ere the
47:43
outspreading, interfering ring waves began to die away. Swimming hastily to the spot
47:50
to try to discover what had happened, I found one of my woodpeckers floating
47:53
motionless with outspread wings. All was over. Had I been a minute or
47:59
two earlier, I might have saved him. He had glanced on the water,
48:02
I suppose, in pursuit of a moth, was unable to rise from
48:07
it, and died struggling, as I nearly did at this same spot.
48:12
Like me, he seemed to have lost his mind in blind confusion and fear.
48:15
The water was warm, and had he kept still with his head a
48:19
little above the surface, he would sooner or later have been wafted ashore.
48:23
The best aimed flights of birds and man gang aft angrily. But this was
48:29
the first case I had witnessed of a bird losing its life by drowning.
48:35
Doubtless, accidents to animals are far more common than is generally known. I
48:39
have seen quails killed by flying against our house when suddenly startled. Some birds
48:45
get entangled in hairs of their own nests and dye. Once I found a
48:49
poor snipe in our meadow that was unable to fly on account of difficult egg
48:53
berth. Pitying the poor mother, I picked her up out of the grass
48:57
and helped her as gently as I could, and as soon as the egg
49:00
was borne, she flew gladly away. Oftentimes I have thought it strange that
49:06
one could walk through the woods in mountains and plains for years without seeing a
49:09
single blood spot. Most wild animals get into the world and out of it
49:15
without being noticed. Nevertheless, we at last sadly learned that they are all
49:21
subject to the vicissitudes of fortune, like ourselves. Many birds lose their lives
49:27
in storms. I remember a particularly severe Wisconsin winter when the temperature was many
49:32
degrees below zero and the snow was deep, preventing the quail, which feed
49:37
on the ground, from getting anything like enough of food, as was pitifully
49:43
shown by a flock I found on our farm frozen solid in a thicket of
49:47
oak sprouts. They were in a circle about a foot wide, with their
49:52
heads outward, packed close together for warmth. Yet all had died without a
49:57
struggle, perhaps more from starvation than frost. Many small birds lose their lives
50:02
in the storms of early spring or even summer. One mild spring morning,
50:07
I picked up more than a score out of the grass and flowers, most
50:12
of them darling singers, that had perished in a sudden storm of sleety rain
50:15
and hail. In a hollow at the foot of an oak tree that I
50:20
had chopped down one cold winter day, I found a poor ground squirrel,
50:23
frozen solid in its snug grassy nests, in the middle of a store of
50:29
nearly a peck of wheat it had carefully gathered. I carried it home and
50:32
gradually thawed and warmed it in the kitchen, hoping it would come to life
50:37
like a pickerel I caught in our lake through a hole in the ice,
50:40
which, after being frozen as hard as a bone and thought at the fireside,
50:45
squirmed itself out of the grasp of the cook when she began to scrape
50:49
it, bounced off the table and danced about on the floor, making wonderful
50:53
springy jumps, as if trying to find its way back home to the lake.
50:58
But for the poor spermile nothing I could do in the way of revival,
51:01
was of any avail. Its life had passed away without the slightest struggle,
51:07
as it lay asleep, curled up like a ball, with its tail
51:12
wrapped about it. End of Chapter three,