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The Ploughboy who Became a Famous Naturalist · Stories of Grit

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  Chapter ten of Stories of Grit. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Marie Christian Stories of Grit by Archer Wallace,
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  Chapter ten, The Plowboy who became a famous naturalist. One evening in
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  the town of Dunbar, Scotland, an excited lad hurried through the streets shouting
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  to his schoolmates, I'm going to America the morn. When they refused to
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  believe him, he said, we'll just you see if I am at school
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  the morn. The lad was John Muir. That evening, as he and
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  his brother David sat by the fireside learning their lessons, his father walked in
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  and said, Bairns, you need to learn yer lessons the niche for we're
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  gone to America the morn. The boys were wild with joy, even the
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  natural heart pain of parting from their grandparents, whom they deeply loved, was
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  quickly quenched as they conjured up pictures of the life they were to lead across
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  the seas. Mister Muir decided to take with him John, who was eleven
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  years of age, David, a brother aged nine, Sarah who was thirteen,
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  Missus Muir and four children remained in Scotland until the new home was ready
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  for them. After a voyage of nearly seven weeks in a sailing ship,
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  the emigrants arrived in America and very soon after settled on their claim in Wisconsin.
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  With the help of some neighbors, mister Muir built a shanty in less
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  than a day after the materials for the roof and walls were ready. From
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  the first John Muir fell in love with his surroundings. To him, the
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  wilderness was a glorious place. He watched the birds and animals, the trees
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  and the flowers, the streams and lakes. Everything around him filled him with
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  delight. It was a backwoods farm, and the hard work of clearing the
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  farm began at once. John enjoyed piling up immense quantities of brushwood and making
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  huge fires. Mister Muir bought a yoke of oxen, and the task of
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  clearing the land began in earnest. The lads were up early and late,
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  doing their best to help their father get the place cleared and a frame house
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  built, so that the other members of the family who had been left behind
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  in Scotland could join them late in the fall, just before the winter snow
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  began to fall. The house was ready and missus Muir and the other four
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  children arrived. John was the eldest of the boys and his father looked to
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  him to do almost a man's work. The summer work was heavy, and
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  especially harvesting and corn hoeing. All the ground had to be hoed over the
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  first few years, and John had scarcely a minute to rest. They had
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  no proper farm implements to begin with, and the hoes had to be kept
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  moving up and down as if they were worked by machinery. John took great
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  pride in the amount of work he was able to do, and very often
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  worked sixteen and seventeen hours a day. In winter time, John and his
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  brothers arose early to feed the cattle, grind axes, bring in the wood,
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  and dozens of other jobs that needed to be done. No matter what
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  the weather was, there was work to be done. It was pioneer farming
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  and it was only by long and hard effort that it was possible to earn
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  a livelihood. John was put to work at the plow at twelve years of
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  age, when his head little more than reached the handles. For many years,
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  the bulk of the plowing on that hard backwoods farm fell to his lot.
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  From the first he determined to do as good plowing as though he were
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  a man, and in this he did not fail. None could draw a
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  straight or, for the work was made especially hard because of the tree stumps
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  which were everywhere on the half cleared land. To John's lot also felled the
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  task of splitting rails for the long lines of zigzag fences. Making rails was
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  hard work and required no little skill. Sometimes John would cut and split one
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  hundred rails a day from short, knotty oak timbers, swinging the heavy mallet
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  from early morning to late at night until his hands were sore. He was
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  proud of the amount of work that he was able to do, but the
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  heavy exertions of those days probably prevented his growth and earned for him the title
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  of the runt of the family. After eight years of very hard work,
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  the farm was at last cleared. John had worked as hard as any man,
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  often rising at four o'clock in the morning and toiling till late at night.
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  He made the rash vow that he would do a man's work and e
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  even when he was not well, he made good his pledge. Then,
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  when at last the land was cleared, his father bought half a section of
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  wild land four or five miles away, and the task of clearing, breaking
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  up, and fencing began all over again. Soon after, the entire family
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  moved to the new farm, which was known as Hickory Hill Farm. It
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  was high and dry and very good land, but there was no living water,
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  and so a well ninety feet deep had to be dug, with the
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  exception of the first ten feet of ground was hard, fine grained sandstone.
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  Mister Muir tried to blast the sandstone but failed, and he decided to have
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  John do all the work with Mason's chisels. This was a long, hard
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  job with a good deal of danger in it. He had to sit cramped
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  in a place about three feet in diameter and chip chip away day after day
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  for months. In the morning, mister Muir and David lowered John in a
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  wind lass, then went away to the farm work, and returned at noon
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  to haul him up for dinner. After dinner, he was promptly lowered again
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  and left there until evening. One day, he was almost suffocated by carbonic
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  acid gas which had settled at the bottom during the night. He was almost
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  overcome as soon as he had been let down, but managed to shout take
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  me out. He was hauled up, almost more dead than alive. Water
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  was thrown down to absorb the gas, and a bundle of hay attached to
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  a light rope was dropped and used to carry down pure air to stir up
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  the poison. At last, water was secured and two iron bound buckets swung,
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  which drew water from the well for many a long year. It was
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  fortunate for John that he had made good progress at school before he left Scotland,
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  for he had few opportunitiesities to study after he arrived on the backwoods farm.
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  For many years, nearly every waking moment was spent in doing some kind
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  of manual work. However, he was hungry for knowledge and eagerly read the
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  few books which came his way. Among these were the Bible, parts of
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  Shakespeare's poems and selections from Milton Cowper, and others not often read by boys
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  of his age. When he was twenty three, he decided to attend the
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  State University. His father told him that he would have to support himself by
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  his own efforts. This he did first by living very simply, and then
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  by seizing every opportunity to earn a dollar. He taught school and worked in
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  the harvest fields during the long summer vacations. When in college, he lived
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  so frugally that sometimes he did not spend more than half a dollar a week.
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  The greatest interest of John Muir's life had always been the things he found
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  in nature. From the day's when as a little fellow he played around the
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  fields and streams near Dunbar in Scotland, he had loved the open air and
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  the hundreds of things which lived and grew there. When he did finish his
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  course at college, he suffered from eye trouble and was even threatened with blindness.
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  He there and then decided to live in the open and see as much
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  of the world as possible. He set out on a walking tour through several
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  states. He visited Cuba, then the isthmus of Panama, and then went
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  straight to San Francisco, where he arrived with less than a dollar in his
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  pocket. This distance was all covered on foot. He slept in the open
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  most of the time and gathered biological specimens as he went. Sometimes he ran
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  completely out of money, and when this happened, he secured work until he
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  had sufficient to proceed. Soon after he arrived in San Francisco, he visited
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  the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from then until the time of his death,
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  he found these great hills a source of never ending joy. He tramped among
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  them until he knew them thoroughly. It was chiefly through his efforts that Congress
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  set Aside Yosemite as a national park. He was often called Father of the
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  Yosemite. In eighteen seventy six, he was appointed a member of the United
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  States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and he saw Alaska, where he traveled hundreds
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  of miles alone. Later he visited Siberia, Norway, and Switzerland. He
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  did not hurry through those lands as many tourists do, but wherever he went
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  he studied with much care the flowers and the animals that lived in the great
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  open spaces, things which others passed with only a glance he closely observed.
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  His passion to study these things led him to visit India, Russia, Australia,
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  New Zealand, Brazil, and many other countries. He traveled thousands of
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  miles on foot, and generally slept in camps and tents. He wrote several
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  books and a great many articles, which appeared in the big magazines. He
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  wrote about animals, insects, and flowers, and his information was gained at
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  first hand. He knew these things because he lived among them and loved them.
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  His knowledge was recognized and appreciated. Harvard and several other universities conferred honorary
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  degrees upon him, but he cared little for these things. From his travels
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  abroad, he returned to the Sierra Mountains, which he loved so passionately.
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  Several universities invited him to become professor, but he preferred to live his simple
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  life among the mountains. After his death in nineteen fourteen, these beautiful lines
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  were written about him by Odell Shepherd, the prayer of John Muir. Let
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  me sleep among the shadows of the mountain when I die, in the murmur
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  of the pines and gliding streams, where the long day loiters by like a
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  cloud across the sky, and the night is calm and musical with dreams.
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  Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away, in a
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  valley filled with dim and rosy light. Let me hear the streams at play
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  through the vivid golden day, and a voice of many waters in the night.
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  Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanting blade under bending alders,
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  garrulous and cool, where the sycamores have made leafy shrines of shifting shade.
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  Tremulous about the ferned and pebbled pool. End of chapter ten. Ye