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Knowledge and Inventions · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter seven 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 and
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Youth by John Muir, Chapter seven, Knowledge and Inventions. Hungry for knowledge,
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borrowing books, paternal opposition, snatched moments, Early rising proves a way
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out of difficulties, The cellar workshop, inventions and early rising machine novel clocks,
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hygrometers, et cetera. A neighbor's advice. I learned arithmetic in Scotland
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without understanding any of it, though I had the rules by heart. But
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when I was about fifteen or sixteen years of age, I began to grow
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hungry for real knowledge, and persuaded father, who was willing enough to have
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me study provided my farm work was kept up to buy me a higher arithmetic
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beginning at the beginning in one summer, I easily finished it without assistance in
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the short intervals between the end of dinner and the afternoon's start for the harvest
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and hayfields, accomplishing more without a teacher in a few scraps of time than
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in years in school before my mind was ready for such work. Then,
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in succession I took up algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and made some
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little progress in each, and reviewed grammar. I was fond of reading,
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but Father had brought only a few religious books from Scotland. Fortunately, several
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of our neighbors had brought a dozen or two of all sorts of books,
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which I borrowed and read, keeping all of them except the religious ones carefully
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hidden from Father's eye. Among these were Scott's novels, which, like all
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other novels, were strictly forbidden, but devoured with glorious pleasure in secret.
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Father was easily persuaded to buy Josephus's Wars of the Jews and Dioubignier's History of
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the Reformation, and I tried hard to get him to buy Plutarch's Lives,
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which, as I told him, everybody, even religious people, praised as
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a grand good book. But he would have nothing to do with the old
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pagan until the Graham bread and anti flesh doctrines came suddenly into our backwoods neighborhood,
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making a stir something like phrenology and spirit rappings, which were as mysterious
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in their attacks as influenza. He then thought it possible that Plutarch might be
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turned to account on the food question by revealing what those old Greeks and Romans
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ate to make them strong. And so at last we gained our glorious Plutarch
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Dick's Christianful Lifeilosopher, which I borrowed from a neighbor. I thought I might
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venture to read in the open, trusting that the word Christian would be proof
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against its cautious condemnation. But Father balked at the word philosopher, and quoted
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from the Bible a verse which spoke of philosophy falsely so called. I then
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ventured to speak in defense of the book, arguing that we could not do
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without at least a little of the most useful kinds of philosophy. Yes we
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can, he said, with enthusiasm. The Bible is the only book human
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beings can possibly require throughout all the journey from Earth to heaven. But how,
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I contended, can we find the way to Heaven without the Bible?
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And how after we grow old, can we read the Bible without a little
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helpful science. Just think, Father, you cannot read your Bible without spectacles,
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and millions of others are in the same fix. And spectacles cannot be
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made without some knowledge of the science of optics. Oh, he replied,
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perceiving the drift of the argument, there will always be plenty of worldly people
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to make spectacles. To this, I stubbornly replied with a quotation from the
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Bible with reference to the time coming when all shall know the Lord, from
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the least even to the greatest, and then who will make the spectacles?
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But he still objected to my reading that book, calling me a contumacious quibbler
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too fond of disputation, and ordered me to return it to the accommodating owner.
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I managed, however, to read it later. On the food question,
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Father insisted that those who argued for a vegetable diet were in the right,
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because our teeth showed plainly that they were made with reference to fruit and
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grain, and not for flesh, like those of dogs and wolves and tigers.
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He therefore promptly a adopted a vegetable diet and requested Mother to make the
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bread from graham flower instead of bolted flower. Mother put both kinds on the
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table, and meat also, to let all the family take their choice.
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And while Father was insisting on the foolishness of eating flesh, I came to
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her help by calling Father's attention to the passage in the Bible which told the
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story of Elijah, the prophet, who, when he was pursued by enemies
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who wanted to take his life, was hidden by the Lord by the brook
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cherith and fed by ravens. And surely the Lord knew what was good to
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eat, whether bread or meat. And on what I asked, did the
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Lord feed Elijah on vegetables or graham bread? No, he directed the ravens
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to feed his prophet on flesh, the Bible being the sole rule. Father
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at once acknowledged that he was mistaken. The Lord never would have sent flesh
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to a lie by the ravens if graham bread were better. I remember as
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a great and sudden discovery that the poetry of the Bible, Shakespeare, and
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Milton, was a source of inspiring, exhilarating, uplifting pleasure. And I
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became anxious to know all the poets, and saved up small sums to buy
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as many of their books as possible. Within three or four years, I
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was the proud possessor of parts of Shakespeare's, Milton's, Cowper's, Henry kirky
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White's, Campbell's, and Akenside's works and quite a number of others seldom read
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nowadays. I think it was in my fifteenth year that I began to relish
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good literature with enthusiasm and smack my lips over favorite lines. But there was
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desperately little time for reading, even in the winter evenings, only a few
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stolen minutes now and then. Owother's strict rule was straight to bed immediately after
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family worship, which in winter was usually over by eight o'clock. I was
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in the habit of lingering in the kitchen with a book and candle after the
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rest of the family had retired, and considered myself fortunate if I got five
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minutes reading before Father noticed the light and ordered me to bed, and ordered
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that, of course, I immediately obeyed. But night after night I tried
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to steal minutes in the same lingering way, And how keenly precious those minutes
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were few nowadays can know? Father failed perhaps two or three times in a
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whole winter to notice my light for nearly ten minutes, magnificent golden blocks of
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time longed to be remembered like holidays or geological periods. One evening, when
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I was reading church history, Father was particularly irritable, and called out,
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with hope killing emphasis, John, go to bed. Must I give you
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a separate order every night to get you to go to bed? Now,
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I will have no irregularity in the family. You must go when the rest
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go, and without my having to tell you. Then, as an afterthought,
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as if judging that his words and tone of voice were too severe for
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so pardonable an offense as reading a religious book, he unwarily added, if
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you will read, get up in the morning and read, you may get
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up in the morning as early as you like. That night, I went
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to bed, wishing with all my heart and soul that somebody or something might
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call me out of sleep to avail myself of this wonderful indulgence. And next
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morning, to my joyful surprise, I awoke before father called me. A
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boy sleeped soundly after working all day in the snowy woods. But that frosty
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morning, I sprang out of bed as if called by a tree trumpet blast,
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rushed downstairs, scarce, feeling my chilblains, enormously eager to see how
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much time I had won. And when I held up my candle to a
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little clock that stood on a bracket in the kitchen, I found that it
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was only one o'clock. I had gained five hours, almost half a day.
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Five hours to myself, I said, five huge, solid hours.
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I can hardly think of any other event in my life, any discovery I
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ever made that gave birth to joy so transportingly glorious as the possession of these
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five frosty hours. In the glad tumultuous excitement of so much suddenly acquired time
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wealth, I hardly knew what to do with it. I first thought of
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going on with my reading, but the zero weather would make it fire necessary,
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and it occurred to me that Father might object to the cost of firewood
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that took time to chop. Therefore, I prudently decided to go down cellar
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and begin work on a model of a self setting sawmill I had invented.
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Next morning, I managed to get up at the same gloriously early hour,
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and though the temperature of the cellar was a little below the freezing point and
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my light was only a tallow candle, the millwork went joyfully on. There
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were a few tools in a corner of the cellar, a vice, files,
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a hammer, chisels, et cetera that Father had brought from Scotland,
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but no saw, excepting a coarse, crooked one that was unfit for sawing
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dry hickory or oak. So I made a fine tooth saw suitable for my
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work out of a strip of steel that had formed part of an old fashioned
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corset that cut the hardest wood smoothly. I also made my own braa,
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dolls, punches, and a pair of compasses out of wire and old files.
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My workshop was immediately under father's bed, and the filing and tapping in
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making cog wheels, journals, cams, et cetera, must, no doubt
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have annoyed him. But with the permission he had granted in his mind,
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and doubtless hoping that I would soon tire of getting up at one o'clock,
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he impatiently waited about two weeks before saying a word. I did not vary
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more than five minutes from one o'clock all winter, nor did I feel any
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bad effects whatever, nor did I think at all about the subject as to
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whether so little sleep might be in any way injurious. It was a grand
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triumph of will power over cold and common comfort and work weariness in abruptly cutting
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down my ten hours allowance of sleep to five. I simply felt that I
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was rich, beyond anything I could have dreamed of or hoped for. I
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was far more than happy, Like Amma Shanter. I was glorious over all
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the ills of life. Victorious. Father, as was customary in Scotland,
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gave thanks and asked a blessing before meals, not merely as a matter of
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form and decent Christian manners, for he regarded food as a gift derived directly
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from the hands of the Father in Heaven. Therefore, every meal to him
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was a sacrament, requiring conduct and attitude of mind. Not unlike that befitting
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the Lord's supper. No idle word was allowed to be spoken at our table,
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much less in a laughing or fun or story telling. When we were
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at the breakfast table about two weeks after the Great Golden Time discovery, Father
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cleared his throat preliminary, as we all knew, to saying something considered important.
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I feared that it was to be on the subject of my early rising,
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and dreaded the withdrawal of the he had granted on account of the noise
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I made, but still hoping that as he had given his word, that
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I might get up as early as I wished. He would, as a
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scotchman, stand to it, even though it was given in an unguarded moment
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and taken in a sense unreasonably for reaching the solemn sacramental silence was broken by
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the dreaded question, John, what time is it when you get up in
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the morning? About one o'clock? I replied, in a low, meek,
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guilty tone of voice. And what kind of a time is that?
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Getting up in the middle of the night and disturbing the whole family. I
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simply reminded him of the permission he had freely granted me to get up as
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early as I wished. I know it, he said, in an almost
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agonized tone of voice. I know I gave you that miserable permission, but
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I never imagined that you would get up in the middle of the night.
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To this, I cautiously made no reply, but continued to listen for the
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heavenly one o'clock call, and it never failed. After completing myself setting sawmill,
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I dammed one of the streams in the meadow and put the mill in
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operation. This invention was speedily followed by a lot of others, water wheels,
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curious door locks and latches, thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks,
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a barometer and automatic contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a
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lamplighter and firelighter, an early or late rising machine, and so forth.
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After the saw mill was proved and discharged from my mind, I happened to
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think it would be a fine thing to make a timekeeper which would tell the
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day of the week and the day of the month, as well as strike
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like a common clock and point out the aca hours. Also to have an
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attachment whereby it could be connected with a bedstead, to set me on my
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feet at my hour in the morning, also to start fires, light lamps,
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et cetera. I had learned the time laws of the pendulum from a
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book, but with this exception I knew nothing of time keepers, for I
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had never seen the insight of any sort of clock or watch. After long
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brooding, the novel clock was at length completed in my mind, an was
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tried and found to be durable and to work well and look well. Before
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I had begun to build it in wood, I carried small parts of it
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in my pocket to whittle at when I was out at work on the farm.
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Using every spare or stolen moment within reach, without Father's knowing anything about
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it. In the middle of summer, when harvesting was in progress, the
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novel time machine was nearly completed. It was hidden upstairs in a spare bed
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room where some tools were kept. I did the making and mending on the
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farm. But one day at noon, when I happened to be away,
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Father went upstairs for a hammer or something and discovered the mysterious machine back of
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the bedstead. My sister Margaret saw him on his knees examining it, and
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at the first opportunity whispered in my ear, John, Father saw that thing
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you're making upstairs. None of the family knew what I was doing, but
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they knew very well that all such work was frowned on by Father, and
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kindly warned me of any danger that threatened my plans. The fine invention seemed
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doomed to destruction before its time ticking commenced. Though I thought it handsome,
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had so long carried it in my mind, and like the nest of Burne's
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wee mousey, it had cost me many a weary whittling nibble. When we
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were at dinner several days After the sad discovery, Father began to clear his
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throat to speak, and I feared the doom of martyrdom was about to be
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pronounced on my grand clock. John, he inquired, what is that thing
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you are making upstairs? I replied, in desperation that I didn't know what
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to call it. What you mean to say, you don't know what you
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are trying to do? Oh? Yes, I said, I know very
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well what I am doing. What then, is the thing for. It's
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for a lot of things, I replied, but getting people up early in
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the morning is one of the main things it is intended for. Therefore it
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might perhaps be called an early rising machine. After getting up so extravagantly early
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all the last memorable winter, to make a machine for getting up perhaps still
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earlier seemed so ridiculous that he very nearly laughed. But after control himself and
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getting command of a sufficiently solemn face and voice, he said severely, do
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you not think it is very wrong to waste your time on such nonsense?
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No, I said meekly, I don't think I'm doing any wrong. Well,
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he replied, I assure you I do. And if you were only
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half as zealous in the study of religion. As you are in contriving and
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whittling these useless, nonsensical things, it would be infinitely better for you.
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I want you to be like Paul, who said that he desired to know
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nothing among men but Christ, and him crucified to this. I made no
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reply, gloomily believing my fine machine was to be burned, but still taking
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what comfort I could in realizing that anyhow I had enjoyed inventing and making it.
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After a few days, finding that nothing more was to be said,
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and that Father after all had not had the heart to destroy it, all
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necessity for secrecy being ended, I finished it in the half hours that we
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had at noon, and set it in the parlor between two chairs, hung
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moraine boulders that had come from the direction of Lake Superior on it for weights,
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and set it running. We were then hauling grain into the barn.
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Father at this period devoted himself entirely to the Bible and did no farm work
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whatever. The clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it
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strike, one of my sisters told me that he left his study when to
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the parlor, got down on his knees, and carefully examined the machinery,
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which was all in plain sight, not being enclosed in a case. This
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he did repeatedly, and evidently seemed a little proud of my ability to invent
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and whittle such a thing, though careful to get no encouragement for anything more
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of the kind in future. But somehow it seemed impossible to stop inventing and
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whittling faster than ever. I made another hickory clock, shaped like a scythe,
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to symbolize the scythe of Father time. The pendulum is a bunch of
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arrows symbolizing the flight of time. It hangs on a leafless, mossy oak
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snag, showing the effect of time, and on the snath is written all
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flesh is grass. This, especially the inscription, rather pleased Father, and
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of course Mother and all my sisters and brothers admired it. Like the first.
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It indicates the days of the week and month, starts fires and beds
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at any given hour and minute, and though made more than fifty years ago,
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is still a good timekeeper. My mind still running on clocks, I
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invented a big one, like a town clock, which with four dials,
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with the time figures so large they could be read by all our immediate neighbors,
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as well as ourselves when at work in the fields, and on the
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side next the house, the days of the week and month were indicated.
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It was to be placed on the peak of the barn roof, but just
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as it was all but finished Father stopped me, saying that it would bring
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too many people around the barn. I then asked permission to put it on
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the top of a black oak tree near the house. Studying the large main
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branches, I thought I could secure a sufficiently rigid foundation for it, while
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the trimmed sprays and leaves would conceal the angles of the cabin required to shelter
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the works from the weather, and the two second pendulum, fourteen feet long,
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could be snugly encased on the side of the trunk. Nothing about the
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grand useful time keeper, I argued, would disfigure the tree, for it
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would look something like a big hock's nest, But that he objected, would
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draw still bigger bother some trampling crowds about the place, for whoever heard of
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anything so queer as a big clock on the top of a tree. So
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I had to lay aside its big wheels and cams and rest content with the
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pleasure of inventing it and looking at it in my mind, and listening to
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the deep, solemn throbbing of its long two second pendulum with its two old
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axes back to back for the Bob. One of my inventions was a large
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thermometer made of an iron rod about three feet long and five eighths of an
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inch in diameter that had formed part of a wagon box. The expansion and
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contraction of this rod was multiplied by a series of levers made of strips of
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hoop iron. The pressure of the rod against the levers was kept constant by
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a small counterweight, so that the slightest change in the length of the rod
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was instantly shown on a dot about three feet wide, multiplied about thirty two
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thousand times. The zero point was gained by packing the rod in wet snow.
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The scale was so large that the big black hand on the white painted
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dial could be seen distinctly, and the temperature red. While we were plowing
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in the field below the house, the extremes of heat and coal caused the
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hand to make several revolutions. The number of these revolutions was indicated on a
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small dial marked on the larger one. The thermometer was fastened on the side
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of the house and was so sensitive that when anyone approached it within four or
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five feet, the heat radiated from the observer's body caused the hand of the
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dial to move so fast that the motion was plainly visible, and when he
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stepped back, the hand moved slowly back to its normal position. It was
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regarded as a great wonder by the neighbors, and even by my own All
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Bible father boys are fond of the books of Travelers, and I remember that
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one day, after I had been reading Mungo Park's travels in Africa, Mother
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said, well, John, maybe you will travel like Park and Humboldt some
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day. Father overheard her and cried out in solemn deprecation, Oh Anne,
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don't put such notions in the laddie's head. But at this time there was
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precious little need of such prayers. My brothers left the farm when they came
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of age, but I stayed a year longer, loath to leave home.
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Mother hoped I might be a minister some day, my sisters that I would
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be a great inventor. I often thought I should like to be a physician,
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but I saw no way of making money and getting the necessary education,
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excepting as an inventor. So as ag I decided to try to get into
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a big shop or factory and live a while among machines. But I was
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naturally extremely shy and had been taught to have a poor opinion of myself as
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of no account, though all our neighbors encouragingly called me a genius sure to
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rise in the world. When I was talking over plans one day with a
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friendly neighbor, he said, now, John, if you wish to get
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into a machine shop, just take some of your inventions to the state fair,
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and you may be sure that as soon as they are seen, they
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will open the door of any shop in the country for you. You will
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be welcomed everywhere. And when I doubtingly asked if people would care to look
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at things made of wood, he said, made of wood, made of
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wood? What does it matter what they're made of? When they are so
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out and out original, there's nothing else like them in the world. That
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is what will attract attention. And besides, there mighty handsome things anyway to
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come from the backwoods. So I was encouraged to leave home and go at
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his direction to the State Fair when it was being held in Madison, end
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of Chapter seven,