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A New World · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter two 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 two, A New World, Stories of
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America, Glorious News, crossing the Atlantic, the New Home, A Baptism
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in Nature, New Birds, The adventures of Watch Scotch Correction Marauding Indians.
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Our grammar school reader called I think Maclay's course of reading contained a few natural
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history sketches that excited me very much and left a deep impression, especially a
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fine description of the fish hawk and the bald eagle by the Scotch ornithologist Wilson,
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who had the good fortune to wander for years in the American woods while
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the country was yet mostly wild. I read his description over and over again
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till I got the vivid picture he drew by heart. The long winged hawk
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circling over the heaving waves, every motion watched by the eagle perched on the
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top of a crag or dead tree. The fish hawk poising for a moment
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to take aim at a fish, and plunging under the water. The eagle,
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with kindling eyes, spreading his wings ready for instant flight in case the
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attack should prove successful, the hawk emerging with a struggling fish in his talons
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and proud flight. The eagle launching himself in pursuit the wonderful wing work in
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the sky. The fish hawk, though encumbered with his preise, circling higher
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higher, striving hard to keep above the robber eagle, the eagle at length,
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soaring above him, compelling him with a cry of despair to drop his
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hard won prey. Then the eagle, steadying himself for a moment to take
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aim, descending swift as a lightning bolt, and seizing the falling fish before
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it reached the sea. Not less exciting and memorable was Audubon's wonderful story of
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the passenger pigeon, a beautiful bird flying in vast flocks that darkened the skylike
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clouds. Countless millions assembling to rest and sleep and rear their young in certain
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forests miles in length and breadth, fifty or a hundred nests on a single
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tree, the overloaded branches bending low and often breaking. The farmers gathering from
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far and near, beating down countless thousands of the young and old birds from
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their nests and roosts with long poles at night and in the morning, driving
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their bands of hogs, some of them brought from farms a hundred miles distant
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to fatten on the dead and wounded covering the ground. In another of our
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reading lessons, some of the American forests were described. The most interesting of
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the trees to us boys was the sugar maple. And soon after we had
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learned this sweet story, we heard everybody talking about the discovery of gold in
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the same wonder filled country. One night, when David and I were at
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grandfather's fireside, solemnly learning our lessons as usual, my father came in with
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news the most wonderful, most glorious that wild boys ever heard. Barns.
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He said, you needn't learn your lessons tonight, for we're going to America
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the morn. No more grammar, but boundless woods full of mysterious good things,
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trees full of sugar growing in ground, full of gold, hawks,
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eagles, pigeons filling the sky, millions of birds nests, and no gamekeepers
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to stop us. In all the wild, happy land. We were utterly,
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blindly glorious. After father left the room, Grandfather gave David and me
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a gold coin apiece for a keepsake, and looked very serious, for he
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was about to be deserted in his lonely old age. And when we,
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in fullness of young joy, spoke of what we were going to do of
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the wonderful birds in their nests, that we should find the sugar and gold
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exception, and promised to send him a big box full of that tree sugar
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packed in gold from the glorious paradise over the sea. Poor lonely grandfather,
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about to be forsaken, looked with downcast eyes on the floor, and said,
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in a low, trembling, troubled voice, Ah, poor laddies,
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poor laddies, you'll find something else o'er the sea. For by gold and
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sugar, birds nests and freedom, for lessons and schools, you'll find plenty
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hard hard work. And so we did. But nothing he could say could
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cloud our joy or abate the fire of youthful, hopeful, fearless adventure.
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Nor could we, in the midst of such measureless excitement, see or feel
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the shadows and sorrows of his darkening old age. To my schoolmates met that
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night on the street, I shouted the glorious news I'm going to America the
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morn. None could believe it. I said, well, just you see
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if I'm at the school the morn. Next morning we went by rail to
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Glasgow, and thence joyfully sailed away from beloved Scotland, flying to our fortunes
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on the wings of the winds, carefree as thistle seeds. We could not
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then know what we were leaving, what we were to encounter in the new
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world, nor what our gains were likely to be. We were too young
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and full of hope for fear or regret, but not too young to look
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forward with eager enthusiasm to the wonderful, schoolless, bookless American wilderness. Even
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the natural heart pain of parting from grandfather and grandmother Guilry, who loved us
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so well, and from mother and sisters and brother was quickly quenched in young
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joy. Father took with him only my sister Sarah thirteen years of age,
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myself eleven, and brother David nine, leaving my eldest sister, Margaret,
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and the three youngest of the family, Daniel, Mary and Anna with mother
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to join us. After a farm had been found in the wilderness and a
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comfortable house made to receive them. In crossing the Atlantic before the days of
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steamships or even the American clippers, the voyages made in old fashioned sailing vessels
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were very long. Ours was six weeks and three days, But because we
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had no lessons to get that long voyage had not a dull moment for us
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boys, Father and sister Sarah, with most of the old folks, stayed
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below in rough weather, groaning in the miseries of sea sickness, many of
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the passengers wishing they had never ventured in the old rock and creole, as
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they called our bluff bowed, wave beating ship, and when the weather was
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moderately calm, singing songs in the evenings, the youthful sailor frank in bold,
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Oh, why left I my home? Why did I cross the deep?
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Et cetera. But no matter how much the old tub tossed about and
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battered the waves, we were on deck every day, not in the least
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seasick, watching the sailors at their rope hauling and climbing work, joining in
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their songs, learning the names of the ropes and sails, and helping them
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as far as they would let us. Playing games with other boys in calm
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weather when the deck was dry, and in stormy weather, rejoicing in sympathy
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with the big, curly topped waves. The captain occasionally called David and me
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into his cabin and asked us about our schools, handed us books to read,
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and seemed surprised to find that Scotch boys could read and pronounce English with
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perfect accent and knew so much Latin and French. In Scotch schools, only
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pure English was taught, although not a word of English was spoken out of
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school. All through life, however, well educated, the Scotch spoke Scotch
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among their own folk, except at times when unduly excited on the only two
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subjects on which scotchmen get much excited, namely religion and politics. So long
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as the controversy went on with fairly leveled temper, only good braid Scots was
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used. But if one became angry, as was likely to happen, then
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he immediately began speaking severely correct English, while his antagonists, drawing himself up,
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would say, well, there's no use pursuing this subject any further,
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for I see ye have gotten to your English. As we neared the shore
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of the Great New Land, with what eager wonder. We watched the whales
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and dolphins, and porpoises and sea birds, and made the good natured sailors
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teach us their names and tell us stories about them. There were quite a
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large number of emigrants aboard, many of them newly married couples, and the
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advantages of the different parts of the new world they expected to settle in were
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often discussed. My father started with the intention of going to the backwoods of
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Upper Canada. Before the end of the voyage, however, he was persuaded
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that the states offered superior advantages, especially Wisconsin and Michigan, where the land
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was said to be as good as in Canada and far more easily brought under
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cultivation. For in Canada the woods were so close and heavy that a man
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might wear out his life in getting a few acres cleared of trees and stumps.
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So he changed his mind and concluded to go to one of the western
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states. On our wavering westward way, a grain dealer in Buffalo told father
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that most of the wheat he handled came from Wisconsin, and this influential information
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finally determined my father's choice. At Milwaukee, a farmer who had come in
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from the country near Fort Winnebago with a load of wheat, agreed to haul
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us and our formidable load of stuff to a little town called Kingston for thirty
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dollars. On that hundred mile journey, just after the spring thaw, the
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roads over the prairies were heavy and miry, causing no end of lamentation,
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for we often got stuck in the mud, and the poor farmer sadly declared
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that never ever again would he be tempted to try to haul such a cruel,
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heart breaking, wagon breaking, horse killing load. No, not for
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a hundred dollars. In leaving Scotland, father, like many other home seekers,
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burdened himself with far too much luggage, as if all America were still
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a wilderness in which little or nothing could be bought. One of his big
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iron bound boxes must have weighed about four hundred pounds, for it contained an
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old fashioned beam scales with a complete set of cast iron counterweights, two of
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them fifty six pounds each, a twenty eight, and so on down to
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a single pound. Also a lot of iron wedges, carpenters, tools,
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and so forth. And at Buffalo, as if on the very edge of
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the wilderness, He gladly added to his burden a big cast iron stove with
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pots and pans, provisions enough for a long siege, and a scythe and
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cumbersome cradle for cutting wheat, all of which he succeeded in landing in the
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primeval Wisconsin woods. A land agent in Kingston gave Father a note to a
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farmer by the name of Alexander Gray, who lived on the border of the
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settled part of the country, knew the section lines and would probably help him
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find a good place for a farm. So Father went away to spy out
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the land, and in the meantime left us children in Kingston in a rented
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room. It took us less than an hour to get acquainted with some of
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the boys in the village. We challenged them to wrestle, run races,
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climb trees, et cetera, and in a day or two we felt at
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home, carefree and happy, notwithstanding our family was so widely divided. When
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Father returned, he told us that he had found fine land for a farm
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in sunny open woods on the side of a lake, and that a team
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of three yoke of oxen with a big wagon was coming to haulis to mister
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Gray's place. We enjoyed the strange ten mile ride through the woods very much,
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much wondering how the great Oxen could be so strong and wise and tame
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as to pull so heavy a load with no other harness than a chain and
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a crooked piece of wood on their necks, and how they could sway so
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obediently to right and left, passed roadside trees and stumps when the driver said,
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haw and gee at mister grey'shouse. Father again left us for a few
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days to build a shanty on the quarter section he had selected four or five
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miles to the westward. In the mean while, we enjoyed our freedom as
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usual, wandering in the fields and meadows, looking at the trees and flowers,
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snakes and birds and squirrels. With the help of the nearest neighbors,
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the little shanty was built in less than a day after the rough burr oak
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logs for the walls and the white oak boards for the floor and rough were
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got together to this charming hut in the sunny woods, overlooking a flowery glacier
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meadow and a lake rimmed with white water lilies. We were hauled by an
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ox team across trackless carricks, swamps and low rolling hills, sparsely dotted with
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round headed oaks. Just as we arrived at the shanty, before we had
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time to look at it or the scenery about it, David and I jumped
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down in a hurry, off the load of household goods, for we had
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discovered a blue jay's nest, and in a minute or so we were up
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the tree beside it, feasting our eyes on the beautiful green eggs and beautiful
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birds, our first memorable discovery. The handsome birds had not seen Scotch boys
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before and made a desperate screaming as if we were robbers like themselves. Though
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we left the eggs untouched, feeling that we were already beginning to get rich,
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and wondering how many more nests we should find in the grand sunny woods.
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Then we ran along the brow of the hill that the shanty stood on,
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and down to the meadow, searching the trees and grass tufts and bushes,
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and soon discovered a blue bird's and a woodpecker's nest, and began and
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acquaintance with the frogs and snakes and turtles in the creeks and springs. This
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sudden plash into pure wildness, baptism in nature's warm heart. How utterly happy
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it made us, Nature streaming into us, wooingly, teaching her wonderful,
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glowing lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into
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us. Here without knowing it, we were still at school. Every wild
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lesson, a love lesson, not whipped but charmed into us. Ah,
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that glorious Wisconsin wilderness, everything new and pure, in the very prime of
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the spring, when nature's pulses were beating highest and mysteriously keeping time with our
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own young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the
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streams, and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together. Next
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morning, when we climbed to the precious Jane to take another admiring look at
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the eggs, we found it empty. Not a shell fragment was left,
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and we wondered how in the world the birds were able to carry off their
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thin shelled eggs, either in their bills or in their feet, without breaking
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them, and how they could be kept warm while a new nest was being
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built. Well, I am still asking these questions. When I was on
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the harem and expedition. I asked Robert Ridgway, the eminent ornithologists, how
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these sudden flittings were accomplished, and he frankly confessed that he didn't know,
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but guess that jays and many other birds carried their eggs in their mouths.
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And when I objected that a jay's mouth seemed too small to hold its eggs,
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he replied that birds mouths were larger than the narrowness of their bills indicated.
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Then I asked him what he thought they did with the eggs while a
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new nest was being prepared. He didn't know, neither do I to this
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day. A specimen of the many puzzling problems presented to the naturalists, we
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soon found many more nests belonging to birds that were not half so suspicious.
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The handsome and notorious blue jay plunders the nests of other birds, and of
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course he could not trust us. Almost all the others, brown thrushes,
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bluebirds, songs, sparrows, kingbirds, hen hawks, nighthawks, whipperwillls,
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woodpeckers, et cetera, simply tried to avoid being seen, to draw or
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drive us away, or paid no attention to us. We used to wonder
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how the woodpeckers could bore holes so perfectly round true mathematical circles. We ourselves
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could not have done it, even with gouges and chisels. We loved to
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watch them feeding their young and wondered how they could glean food enough for so
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many clamorous, hungry, unsatisfiable babies, and how they managed to give each
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one its share, for after the young grew strong, one would get its
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head out of the door hole and try to hold possession of it to meet
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the food laden parents. How hard they worked to support their families, especially
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the red headed and speckledy woodpeckers and flickers, digging, hammering on scaly bark,
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and decaying trunks and branches from dawn to dark, coming and going at
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intervals of a few minutes all the livelong day. We discovered a henhok's nest
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on the top of a tall oak thirty or forty rods from the shanty,
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and approached it cautiously. One of the pair always kept watch, soaring in
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wide circles high above the tree, and when we attempted to climate, the
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big, dangerous looking bird came swooping down at us and drove us away.
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We greatly admired the plucky kingbird. In Scotland, our great ambition was to
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be good fighters, and we admired this quality in the handsome little chattering flycatcher
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that whips all the other birds. He was particularly angry when plundering jays and
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hawks came near his home, and took pains to thrash them not only away
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from the nest tree, but out of the neighborhood. The nest was usually
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built on a burr oak near a meadow, where insects were abundant, and
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where no undesirable visitor could approach without being discovered. When a henhock hove in
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sight, the male immediately set off after him, and it was ridiculous to
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see that great strong bird hurrying away as fast as his clumsy wings would carry
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him as soon as he saw the little waspish kingbird coming. But the kingbird
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easily overtook him, flew just a few feet above him, and with a
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lot of chattering scolding notes, kept diving and striking him on the back of
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the head until tired. Then he alighted to rest on the hawk's broad shoulders,
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still scolding and chattering as he rode along like an angry boy, pouring
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out vials of wrath, then up and at him again with his sharp bill.
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And after he had thus driven and ridden his big enemy a mile or
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so from the nest, he went home to his mate, chuckling and bragging,
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as if trying to tell her what a wonderful fellow he was. This
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first spring, while some of the birds were still building their nests and very
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few young ones had yet tried to fly, Father hired a yankee to assist
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in clearing eight or ten acres of the best ground for a field. We
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found new wonders every day, and often had to call on this yankee to
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sell puzzling questions. We asked him one day if there was any bird in
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America that the Kingbird couldn't whip? What about the sand hill crane? Could
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he whip that long legged, long billed fellow. A crane never goes near
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kingbird's nests or notices so small a bird, he said, and therefore there
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could be no fighting between them. So we hastily concluded that our hero could
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whip every bird in the country, except perhaps the sand hill crane. We
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never tired listening to the wonderful whipper will. One came every night about dusk
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and sat on a log about twe twenty or thirty feet from our cabin door.
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Anne began shouting, whip ur Will, whip ur Will, with loud,
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emphatic earnestness. What's that? What's that? We cried when this startling
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visitor first announced himself. What do you call it? Why it's telling you
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its name? Said the yankee? Don't you hear it? And what he
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wants you to do? He says? His name is poor Will, and
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he wants you to whip him, and you may if you're able to catch
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him. Poor Will seemed the most wonderful of all the strange creatures we had
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seen. What a wild, strong, bold voice he had, unlike any
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other we had ever heard on sea or land. A near relative, the
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bull bat or night hawk, seemed hardly less wonderful. Towards evening, scattered
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flocks kept the sky lively as they circled around on their long wings a hundred
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feet or more above the ground, hunting moths and beetles, interrupting their rather
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slow but strong, regular wing beats at short intervals with quick quivering strokes while
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uttering keen squeaky cries something like fee fee, and every now and then diving
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nearly to the ground with a loud, ripping, bellowing sound like bull roaring,
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suggesting its name, then turning and gliding swiftly up again. These fine
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wild gray birds, about the size of a pigeon, lay their two eggs
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on bare ground, without anything like a nest, or even a concealing bush
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or grass tuft. Nevertheless, they are not easily seen, for they are
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colored like the ground. While sitting on their eggs. They depend so much
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upon not being noticed that if you are walking rapidly ahead, they allow you
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to step with an inch or two of them without flinching. But if they
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see by your looks that you have discovered them, they leave their eggs or
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young, and, like a good many other birds, pretend they are sorely
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wounded, fluttering and rolling over on the ground and gasping as if dying to
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draw you away. When pursued, we were surprised to find them just when
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we were at the point of overtaking them. They were always able to flutter
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a few yards further until they had led us a quarter of a mile away
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from the nest. Then suddenly getting well, they quietly flew home by a
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roundabout way to their precious babies or eggs. Over the ills of life.
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Victorious bad boys among the worst, the Yankee took particular pleasure in encouraging us
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to pursue them. Everything about us was so novel and wonderful that we could
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hardly believe our senses, except when hungry or while father was thrashing us.
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When we first saw a fountain lake meadow on a sultry evening, sprinkled with
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millions of lightning bugs throbbing with light, the effect was so strange and beautiful
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that it seemed far too marvelous to be real. Looking from our shanty on
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the hill, I thought that the whole wonderful fairy show must be in my
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eyes, for only in fighting, when my eyes were struck, had I
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ever seen anything in the least like it. But when I asked my brother
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if he saw anything strange in the meadow, he said, yes, it's
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all covered with shaky fire sparks. Then I guessed that it might be something
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outside of us. Anne applied to our all knowing Yankee to explain it.
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Oh, it's nothing but lightning bugs, he said, and kindly let us
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down the hill to the edge of the fiery meadow, caught a few of
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the wonderful bugs, dropped them into a cup, and carried them to the
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shanty, where we watched them throbbing and flashing out their mysterious light at regular
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intervals, as if each little passionate glow were caused by the beating of a
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heart. Once I saw a splendid display of glow worm light in the foothills
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of the Himalayas north of Calcutta. But glorious as it appeared in pure starry
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radiance, it was far less impressive than the extravagant, abounding, quivering,
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dancing fire on our Wisconsin meadow. Partridge drumming was another great marvel. When
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I first heard the low, soft, solemn sound, I thought it must
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be made by some strange disturbance in my head or stomach. But as all
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seemed serene within, I asked David whether he heard anything queer. Yes,
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he said, I hear something saying boomp, boomp, boomp, and I'm
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wondering at it. Then I was half satisfied that the source of the mysterious
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sound must be in something outside of us, coming perhaps from the ground,
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or from some ghost or bogey or woodland ferry. Only after long watching and
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listening did we at last discover it in the wings of the plump brown bird.
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The love song of the common jack snipe seemed not a whit less mysterious
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than the partridge drumming. It was usually heard on cloudy evenings, a strange,
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unearthly, winnowing, spirit like sound, yet easily heard at a distance
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of a third of a mile. Our sharp eyes soon detected the bird while
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making it as it circled high in the air over the meadow, with wonderfully
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strong and rapid wing beats, suddenly descending and rising again and again in deep,
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wide loops, the tones being very low and smooth at the beginning of
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the descent, rapidly increasing to a curious little whirling storm roar at the bottom,
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and gradually fading lower and lower until the top was reached. It was
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long, however, before we identified this mysterious wing singer as the little brown
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jack snipe that we knew so well and had so often marched as he silently
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probed the mud around the edges of our meadows, stream and spring holes,
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and made short zigzag flights over the grass, uttering only little short crisp quacks
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and chucks. The love songs of the frog seemed hardly less wonderful than those
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of the birds, their musical notes varying from the sweet, tranquil, soothing
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peeping and purring of the hylas to the awfully deep, low bass blunt bellowing
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of the bullfrogs. Some of the smaller species have wonderfully sharp, clear voices
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and told us their good Bible names in musical tones about as plenty as the
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whipper will Isaac Isaac Yacob Jacob Israel Israel shouted in sharp, ringing, far
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reaching tones, as if they had all been to school and severely drilled in
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elocution. In the still warm evenings, big bunchy bullfrogs bellowed lunk hunk,
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hunk, jugerum, jugerum, And early in the spring, countless thousands of
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the commonest species up to the throat in cold water sang in concert, making
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a mass of music such as it was loud enough to be heard at a
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distance of more than half a mile. Far far apart from this loud,
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marsh music is that of the many species of Hyla, a sort of soothing,
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immortal melody, filling the air like light. We reveled in the glory
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of the sky scenery, as well as that of the woods and meadows and
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rushy lily bordered lakes. The great thunder storms in particular interested us so unlike
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any scene in Scotland, exciting, awful, wondering, admiration, gazing,
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awe stricken. We watched the upbuilding of the sublime cloud mountains, glowing sun
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beaten pearl and alabaster cumuli, glorious in beauty and majesty, and looking so
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firm and lasting that birds we thought might build their nests amid their downy bosses.
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The black brown storm clouds marching in awful grandeur across the landscape, trailing
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broad gray sheets of hail and rain, like vast cataracts and ever and anon
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flashing down vivid zigzag lightning followed by terrible, crashing thunder. We saw several
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trees shattered, and one of them, a punky old oak, was set
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on fire, while we wondered why all the trees and everybody and everything did
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not share the same fate, For oftentimes the whole sky blazed After sultry storm
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days many of the nights were darkened by smooth, black, apparently structureless cloud
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mantles, which at short intervals were illumined with startling suddenness to a fiery glow
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by quick quivering lightning flashes, revealing the landscape in almost noonday brightness to be
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instantly quenched in solid blackness. But those first days and weeks of unmixed enjoyment
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and freedom, reveling in the wonderful wildness about us, were soon to be
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mingled with the hard work of making a farm. I was first put to
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burning brush in clearing land for the plow. Those magnificent brush fires with great
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white hearts and red flames, the first big wild outdoor fires I had ever
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seen, were wonderful sight for young eyes. Again and again when they were
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burning fiercest, so that we could hardly approach near enough to throw on another
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branch. Father put them to awfully practical use as warning lessons, comparing their
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heat with that of hell, and the branches with bad boys. Now,
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John, he would say, Now, John, just think what an awful
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thing it would be to be thrown into that fire, And then think of
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hell fire that is so many times hotter into that fire. All bad boys
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with sinners of every sort, who disobey God will be cast as we are
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casting branches into this brush fire. And although suffering so much, their sufferings
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will never never end, because neither the fire nor the sinners can die.
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But those terrible fire lessons quickly faded away in the blithe wilderness air, for
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no fire can be hotter than the heavenly fire of faith and hope that burns
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in every healthy boy's heart. Soon after our arrival in the woods, someone
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added a cat and puppy to the animal's father had brought. The cats soon
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had kittens, and it was interesting to watch her feeding, protecting, and
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training them. After they were able to leave their nest and play, she
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went out hunting and brought in many kinds of birds and squirrels for them,
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mostly ground squirrels spermophiles called gophers in Wisconsin. When she got within a dozen
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yards or so of the shanty, she announced her approach by a peculiar call,
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and the sleeping kittens immediately bounced up and ran to meet her, all
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racing for the first bite of They knew not what, and we too ran
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to see what she brought. She then laid down a few minutes to rest
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and enjoy the enjoyment of her feasting family, and again vanished in the grass
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and flowers, coming and going every half hour or so. Sometimes she brought
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in burn words that we had never seen before, and occasionally a flying squirrel,
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chipmunk, or big fox squirrel. We were just old enough, David
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and I to regard all these creatures as wonders, the strange inhabitants of our
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new world. The pup was a common cur though very uncommon to us,
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a black and white, short haired mongrel that we named Watch. We always
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gave him a pan of milk in the evening, just before we knelt in
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family worship, while daylight still lingered in the shanty, and instead of attending
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to the prayers, I too often studied the small wild creatures playing around us.
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Field mice scampered about the cabin as though it had been built for them
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alone, and their performances were very amusing. About dusk on one of the
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calm, sultry nights, so grateful to moths and beetles, when the puppy
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was lapping his milk and we were on our knees in through the door,
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came a heavy, broad shouldered beetle about as big as a mouse, And
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after it had droned and boomed around the cabin two or three times, the
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pan of milk, showing white in the gloaming, caught its eyes, and
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taking good aim, it alighted with a slanting, glinting flash in the middle
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of the pan, like a duck alighting in a lake. Baby Watch,
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having never before seen anything like that, beetle started back gazing in dumb astonishment
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and fear at the black, sprawling monster trying to swim. Recovering somewhat from
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his fright, he began to bark at the creature and ran around and round
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his milk pan or woofing, gurring, growling, like an old dog barking
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at a wild cat or a bear. The natural astonishment and curiosity of that
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boy dog getting his first entomological lesson in this wonderful world was so immoderately funny
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that I had great difficulty in keeping from laughing out loud. Snapping turtles were
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common throughout the woods, and we were delighted to find that they would snap
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at a stick and hang on like bulldogs. And we amused ourselves by introducing
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Watch to them, enjoying his curious behavior and theirs in getting acquainted with each
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other. One day, we assisted one of the smallest of the turtles to
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get a good grip of poor Watch's ear. Then away he rushed, holding
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his head sidewise, yelping and terror stricken with a strange bug like reptile,
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biting hard and clinging fast. A shameful amusement even for wild boys. As
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a playmate, Watch was too serious, though he learned more than any stranger
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would judge him capable of. Was a bold, faithful watch dog, and
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in his prime a grand fighter, able to whip all the other dogs in
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the neighborhood. Comparing him with ourselves, we soon learned that although he could
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not read books, he could read faces, was a good judge of character,
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always knew what was going on and what we were about to do,
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and liked to help us. We could run nearly as fast as he could,
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see about as far, and perhaps here as well, But in sense
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of smell, his nose was incomparably better than ours. One sharp winter morning,
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when the ground was covered with snow, I noticed that when he was
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yawning and stretching himself, after leaving his bed, he suddenly caught the scent
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of something that excited him, went round the corner of the house and looked
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intently to the westward across a tongue of land that we called West Bank,
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eagerly questioning the air with quivering nostrils and bristling up as though he felt sure
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that there was something dangerous in that direction and had actually caught sight of it.
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Then he ran toward the bank, and I followed him, curious to
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see what his nose had discovered. The top of the bank commanded a view
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of the north end of our lake and meadow, and when we got there
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we saw an Indian hunter with a long spear going from one muskrat cabin to
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another, approaching cautiously, careful to make no noise, and then suddenly thrusting
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his spear down through the house. If well aimed, the spear went through
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the poor beaver rat as it lay cuddled up in the snug nest it had
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made for itself in the fall with so much far seeing care. And when
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the hunter felt the spear quivering, he dug down the mossy hut with his
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tomahawk and secured his prey, the flesh for food, and the skin to
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sell for a dime or so. This was a clear object lesson on dog's
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keenness of scent. That Indian was more than half a mile away across a
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wooded ridge. Had the hunter been a white man, I suppose Watch would
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not have noticed him. When he was about six or seven years old,
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he not only became cross so that he would do only what he liked,
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but he fell on evil ways and was accused by the neighbors who had settled
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around us, of catching and devouring whole broods of chickens, some of them
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only a day or two out of the shell. We never imagined he would
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do anything so grossly on doglike he never did at home. But several of
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the neighbors declared over and over again that they had caught him in the act,
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and insisted that he must be shot. At last. In spite of
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tearful protest, he was condemned and executed. Father examined the poor fellow's stomach
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in search of sure evidence, and discovered the heads of eight chickens that he
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had devoured at his last meal. So poor Watch was killed simply because his
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taste for chickens was too much like our own. Think of the millions of
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squabs that preaching praying men and women kill and eat with all sorts of other
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animals, great and small, young and old, while eloquently discoursing on the
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coming of the blessed, peaceful, bloodless millennium. Think of the passenger pigeons
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that fifty or sixty years ago filled the woods and sky over half the continent,
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now exterminated by beating down the young from the nests, together with the
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brooding parents before they could try their wonderful wings, by trapping them and nets
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feeding them to hogs, et cetera. None of our fellow mortals is safe.
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Who eats what we eat, who in any way interferes with our pleasures,
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or who may be used for work or food, clothing or ornament,
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or mere cruel sportish amusement. Fortunately, many are too small to be seen,
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and therefore enjoy life beyond our reach. And in looking through God's great
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stone books, made up of records reaching back millions and millions of years,
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it is a great comfort to learn that vast multitudes of creatures, great and
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small and infinite in number, lived and had a good time in God's love.
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Before man was created, the old Scotch fashion of whipping for every act
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of disobedience or of simple playful forgetfulness was still kept up in the wilderness,
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and of course many of those whippings fell upon me. Most of them were
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outrageously severe and utterly barren of fun. But here is one that was nearly
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all fun. Father was busy hauling lumber for the frame house that was to
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be got ready for the arrival of my mother, sisters and brother left behind
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in Scotland. One morning, when he was ready to start for another load,
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his ox whip was not to be found. He asked me if I
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knew anything about it. I told him I didn't know where it was.
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But Scotch conscience compelled me to confess that when I was playing with it,
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I had tied it to watch his tail, and that he ran away dragging
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it through the grass and came back without it. It must have slipped off
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his tail, I said, and so I didn't know where it was.
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This honest, straightforward little story made Father so angry that he exclaimed, with
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heavy foreboding emphasis, the very devils in that boy David, who had been
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playing with me and was perhaps about as responsible for the loss of the whip
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as I was said never a word, for he was always prudent to hold
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his tongue when the parental weather was stormy, and so escaped nearly all punishment,
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and strange to say, this time I also escaped all except a terrible
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scolding. Though the thrashing weather seemed darker than ever, as if unwilling to
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let the sun see the shameful job, Father took me into the cabin where
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the storm was to fall, and sent David to the woods for a switch.
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While he was out selecting the switch, Father put in the spare time
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sketching my play wickedness in awful colors, and of course referred again and again
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to the place prepared for bad boys. In the midst of this terrible word
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storm, dreading most the impending thrashing, I whimpered that I was only playing
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because I couldn't help it, didn't know I was doing wrong, wouldn't do
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it again, and so forth after this miserable dialog was about Exhausted, Father
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became impatient at my brother for taking so long to find the switch, and
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so was I, for I wanted to have the thing over and done with.
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At last, in came David, a picture of open hearted innocence,
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solemnly dragging a young burr oak sapling, and handed the end of it to
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Father, saying it was the best switch he could find. It was an
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awfully heavy one, about two and a half inches thick at the butt and
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ten feet long, almost big enough for a fence pole. There wasn't room
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enough in the cabin to swing it, and the moment I saw it,
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I burst out laughing in the midst of my fears. But Father failed to
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see the fun and was very angry at David. Heaved the burr oak outside
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and passionately demanded his reason for fetching such a muckle rail like that instead of
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a switch? Do you call that a switch? I've a good mind to
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thrash you instead of John David, with demure, downcast eyes, looked preternaturally
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righteous, but as usual, prudently answered never a word. It was a
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hard job in those days to bring up Scotch boys in the way they should
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go, and poor overworked Father was determined to do it if enough of the
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right kind of switches could be found. But this time, as the sun
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was getting high, he hitched up Old Tom and Jerry and made haste to
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the Kingston lumber Yard, leaving me unscathed and as innocently wicked as ever.
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For hardly had Father got fairly out of sight among the oaks and hickoryes.
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Ere all our troubles, health threatenings, and exhortations were forgotten in the fun
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we had last suing a stubborn old sow and laboriously trying to teach her to
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go reasonably steady in rope harness. She was the first hog that father bought
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to stalk the farm, and we boys regarded her as a very wonderful beast.
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In a few weeks she had a lot of pigs, and of all
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the queer, funny animal children we had yet seen, none amused us more.
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They were so comic in size and shape, in their gait and gestures,
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their merry sham fights, and the false alarms they got up for the
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fun of scampering back to their mother and begging her in most persuasive little squeals
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to lie down and give them a drink. After her darling short snouted babies
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were about a month old, she took them out to the woods and gradually
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roam further and further from the shanty in search of acorns and roots. One
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afternoon we heard a rifle shot, a very noticeable thing, as we had
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no near neighbors as yet, we thought it must have been fired by an
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Indian on the trail that followed the right bank of the Fox River between Portage
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and Packwalking Lake and passed our shandy at the distance of about three quarters of
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a mile. Just a few minutes after that shot was heard, along came
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the poor mother rushing up to the shandy for protection, with her pigs all
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out of breath and terror stricken. One of them was missing, and we
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supposed, of course, that an Indian had shot it for food. Next
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day I discovered a blood puddle where the Indian trail crossed the outlet of our
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lake. One of father's hired men told us that the Indians thought nothing of
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lovying this sort of blackmail whenever they were hungry. The solemn awe and fear
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in the eyes of that old mother and those little pigs I never can forget.
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It was as unmistakable and deadly a fear as I ever saw expressed by
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any human eye, and corroborates in no uncertain way the oneness of all of
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us. End of Chapter two