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The Ploughboy · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter six 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 six, The plowboy, the crops,
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doing chores, the sights and sounds of winter road making, the spirit wrapping
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craze, tuberculosis among the settlers, a cruel brother, the rights of the
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Indians put to the plow at the age of twelve. In the harvest field
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over industry, among the settlers, running the breaking plow, digging a well,
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choke, damp, lining bees. At first, wheat, corn and
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potatoes were the principal crops. We raised wheat especially, but in four or
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five years the soil was so exhausted that only five or six bushels an acre,
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even in the better fields, was obtained, although when first plowed twenty
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and twenty five bushels was about the ordinary yield. More attention was then paid
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to corn, but without fertilizers, the corn crop also became very meager.
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At last, it was discovered that English clover would grow on even the exhausted
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fields, and that when plowed under and planted with corn or even wheat,
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wonderful crops were raised. This caused a complete change in farming methods. The
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farmers raised fertilizing clover, planted corn, and fed the crop to cattle and
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hogs. But no crop raised in our wilderness was so surprisingly rich and sweet
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and purely generous to us boys, and indeed to everybody as the watermelons and
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muskmelons. We planted a large patch on a sunny hill slope the very first
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spring, and it seemed miraculous that a few handfuls of little flat seeds should,
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in a few months send up a hundred wagon loads of crisp, sumptuous,
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red hearted and yellow hearted fruits, covering all the hill. We soon
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learned to know when they were in their prime and when over ripe. And
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Mealy also that if a second crop was taken from the same ground without fertilizing
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it, the melons would be small and what we called soapy, that is,
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soft and smooth, utterly uncrisp, and without a trace of the lively
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freshness and sweetness of those raised on virgin soil. Coming in from the farm
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work at noon, the half dozen or so of melons we had placed in
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our cold spring were a glorious luxury that only weary, barefooted farm boys can
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ever know. Spring was not very trying as to temperature, and refreshing rains
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fell at short intervals. The work of plowing commenced as soon as the frost
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was out of the ground. Corn and tato planting and the sowing of spring
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wheat were comparatively light work, while the nesting birds sang cheerily. Grass and
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flowers covered the marshes and meadows and all the wild, uncleared parts of the
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farm, and the trees put forth their new leaves, those of the oaks,
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forming beautiful purple masses, as if every leaf were a petal. And
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with all this we enjoyed the mild, soothing winds, the humming of innumerable
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small insects and hylas, and the freshness and fragrance of everything. Then too
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came the wonderful passenger pigeons streaming from the south, and flocks of geese and
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cranes filling all the sky with whistling wings. The summer work, on the
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contrary, was deadly heavy, especially harvesting and corn hoing. All the ground
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had to be hoed over for the first few years before father bought cultivators or
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small weed covering plows, and we were not allowed a moment's rest. Hose
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had to be kept working up and down as steadily as if they were moved
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by machinery. Plowing for winter wheat was comparatively easy when we walked barefooted in
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the furrows, while the fine autumn tints kindled in the woods and the hillsides
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were covered with golden pumpkins. In summer, the chores were grinding size,
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feeding the animals, chopping stove wood, and carrying water up the hill from
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the spring on the edge of the meadow, et cetera. Then breakfast and
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to the harvest or hayfield. I was foolishly ambitious to be first in mowing
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and cradling, and by the time I was sixteen led all the hired men.
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An hour was allowed at noon for dinner and more chores. We stayed
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in the field until dark, then supper, and still more chores, family
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worship and to bed making, altogether a hard, sweaty day of about sixteen
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or seventeen hours. Think of that, ye blessed eight hour day laborers in
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winter. Father came to the foot of the stairs and called us at six
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o'clock to feed the horses and cattle, grind axes, bring in wood,
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and do any other chores required. Then breakfast and out to work in the
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mealy, frosty snow by daybreak, chopping, fencing, et cetera. So
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in general, our winter work was about as restless and trying as that of
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the long day summer. No matter what the weather, there was always something
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to do. During heavy rains or snow storms, we worked in the barn
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shelling corn, fanning wheat, thrashing with the flail, making axe handles or
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ox yokes, mending things, or sprouting and sorting potatoes in the cellar.
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No pains were taken to diminish or in any way soften the natural hardships of
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this pioneer farm life. Nor did any of the Europeans seem to know how
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to find reasonable ease and comfort if they would. The very best oak and
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hickory fuel was embarrassingly abundant and cost nothing but cutting and common sense. But
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instead of hauling great, heart cheering loads of it for wide open, all
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welcoming climate changing beauty, making godlike ingle fires, it was hauled with weary,
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heartbreaking industry into fences and waste places to get it out of the way
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of the plow and out of the way of doing good. The only fire
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for the whole house was the kitchen stove, with a fire box about eighteen
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inches long and eight inches wide and deep, scant space for three or four
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small sticks, around which, in hard zero weather all the family of ten
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persons shivered, and beneath which in the morning we found our socks and coarse,
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soggy boots frozen solid. We were not allowed to stop even this despicable
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little fire in its black box to thaw them. No, we had to
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squeeze our throbbing, aching chilblain feet into them, causing greater pain than toothache,
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and to hurry out to chores. Fortunately, the miserable chilblain pain began
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to abate as soon as the temperature of our feet approached the freezing point,
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enabling us, in spite of hard work and hard frost, to enjoy the
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winter beauty, the wonderful radiance of the snow when it was starry with crystals,
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and the dawns and the sunsets and white noons, and the cheery,
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enlivening company of the brave chickadees and nuthatches. The winter stars far surpassed those
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of our stormy Scotland in brightness, and we gazed and gazed, as though
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we had never seen stars before. Oftentimes, the heavens were made still more
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glorious by auroras, the long lance rays called merry dancers in Scotland, streaming
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with startling, tremulous motion to the zenith. Usually the electric aurora light is
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white or pale yellow, but in the third or fourth of our Wisconsin winters,
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there was a magnificently colored aurora that was seen and admired over nearly all
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the continent. The whole sky was draped in graceful purple and crimson folds,
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glorious beyond description. Father called us out into the yard in front of the
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house, where we had a wide view, crying, come, come,
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Mother, come barons, and see the glory of God. All the sky
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is clad in a robe of red light. Look straight up to the crown
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where the folds are gathered. Hush and wonder and adore, For surely this
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is the clothing of the Lord himself, and perhaps he will even now appear
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looking down from his high heaven. This celestial show was far more glorious than
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anything we had ever yet beheld, and throughout that wonderful winter, hardly anything
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else was spoken of. We even enjoyed the snow storms. The thronging crystals
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like daisies coming down separate and distinct, were very different from the tufted flakes
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we enjoyed so much in Scotland when we ran into the midst of the slow
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falling, feathery throng, shouting with enthusiasm, Jenny's plucking' her dews, Jenny's
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plucking' her dews doves. Nature has many ways of thinning and pruning and trimming
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her forests. Lightning strokes, heavy snow and storm winds to shatter and blow
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down whole trees here and there, or break off branches as required. The
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results of these methods I have observed in different forests, But only once have
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I seen pruning by rain. The rain froze on the trees as it fell
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and grew so thick and heavy that many of them lost a third or more
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of their branches. The view of the woods after the storm had passed and
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the sun shone forth was something never to be forgotten. Every twig and branch
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and rugged trunk was encased in pure crystal ice, and each oak and hickory
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and willow became a fairy crystal palace. Such dazzling brilliance, such effects of
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white light and iris light, glowing and flashing, I had never seen before,
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nor have I since. This sudden change of the leafless woods to glowing
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silver was like the great Aurora spoken of for years, and is one of
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the most beautiful of the many pictures that enriches my life. And besides the
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great shows, there were thousands of others, even in the coldest weather,
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manifesting the utmost fineness and tenderness of beauty and affording noble compensation for hardship and
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pain. One of the most striking of the winter sounds was the loud roaring
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and rumbling of the ice on our lake from its shrinking and expanding with the
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changes of the weather. The fishermen who were catching pickerels said that they had
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no luck when this roaring was going on above the fish. I remember how
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frightened we boys were when on one of our New Year holidays, we were
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taking a walk on the ice and heard for the first time the sudden rumbling
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roar beneath our feet and running on ahead of us, creaking and whooping,
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as if all the ice eighteen or twenty inches thick was breaking. In the
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neighborhood of our Wisconsin farm there were extensive swamps consisting in great part of a
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thick sod of very tough carrick's roots covering thin, watery lakes of mud.
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They originated in glacier lakes that were gradually overgrown. This sod was so tough
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that oxen with loaded wagons could be driven over it without cutting down through it,
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although it was afloat. The carpenters who came to build our frame house,
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noticing how the sedges sunk beneath their feet, said that if they should
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break through, they would probably be well on their way to California before touching
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bottom. On the contrary, all these lake basins are shallow as compared with
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their width. When we went into the Wisconsin Woods, there was not a
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single wheel track or cattle track. The only man made road was an Indian
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trail along the Fox River between Portage and Pokwalkee Lake. Of course, the
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deer, foxes, badgers, coons, skunks, and even the squirrels had
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well beaten tracks from their dens and hiding places in thickets, hollow trees,
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and the ground. But they did not reach far, and but little noise
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was made by the soft footed travelers in passing over them, only a slight
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rustling and swishing among fallen leaves and grass corduroying. The swamps formed the principal
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part of road making among the early settlers. For many a day. At
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these annual road making gatherings, opportunity was offered for discussion of the news,
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politics, religion, war, the state of the crops, comparative advantages of
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the new country over the old, and so forth. But the principal opportunities
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recurring every week were the hours after Sunday church services. I remember hearing long
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talks on the wonderful beauty of the Indian corn, the wonderful melons, so
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wondrous, fine for slok in a body on hot days. Their contempt for
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tomatoes, so fine to look at with their sunny colors, and so disappointing
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in taste, the miserable cucumbers the Yankee bodies ate, though tasteless as rushes,
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the character of the Yankees, et cetera. Then there were long discussions
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about the Russian War, news of which was eagerly gleaned from Greeley's New York
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Tribune. The great battles of the Almah, the charges at Balaklava and Inkerman,
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the siege of Sebastopol, the military genius of Todleben, the character of
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Nicholas, the character of the Russian soldier, his stubborn bravery, who for
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the first time in history withstood the British bayonet charges, the probable outcome of
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the Terrible War, the fate of Turkey, and so forth. Very few
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of our old country neighbors gave much heed to what are called spirit rappings.
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On the contrary, they were regarded as a sort of sleight of hand humbug.
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Some of these spirits seemed to be stout able bodied fellows, judging by
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the weights they lift and the heavy furniture they bang about. But they do
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no good work that I know of. Never saw wood grind corn, cook,
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feed the hungry, or go to the help of poor anxious mothers at
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the bedsides of their sick children. I noticed, when I was a boy
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that it was not the strongest characters who followed so called mediums. When a
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wrapping storm was at its height in Wisconsin. One of our neighbors and old
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scotchmen remarked, their pure, silly, medium bodies may gain to the devil
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with their rapid spirits, for the dino good, and I think the devils
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their father. Although in the spring of eighteen forty nine there was no other
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settler with an a radius of four miles of our Fountain Lake farm, in
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three or four years almost every quarter section of government land was taken up,
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mostly by enthusiastic home seekers from Great Britain, with only here and there Yankee
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families from adjacent states who had come drifting indefinitely westward in covered wagons, seeking
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their fortunes. Like winged seeds all alike, striking root and gripping the glacial
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drift soil as naturally as oak and hickory trees, happy and hopeful, establishing
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homes and making wider and wider fields in the hospitable wilderness. The axe and
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plot were kept very busy. Cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs multiplied,
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barns and corn cribs were filled up, and man and beast were well
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fed. A schoolhouse was built, which was used also for a church,
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and in a very short time the new country began to look like an old
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one. Comparatively few of the first settlers suffered from serious accidents. One of
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our neighbors had a finger shot off, and on a bitter frosty night,
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had to be taken to a surgeon in Portage in a sledge drawn by slow
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plodding oxen to have the shattered stump dressed. Another fell from his wagon and
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was killed by the wheel passing over his body. An acre of ground was
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reserved and fenced for graves, and soon consumption came to fill it. One
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of the saddest instances was that of a Scotch family from Edinburgh, consisting of
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a father, son, and daughter, who settled on eighty acres of land
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within a half mile of our place. The daughter died of consumption the third
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year after their arrival, the son one or two years later, and at
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last the father followed his two children, thus sadly ended bright hopes and dreams
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of a happy home in rich and free America. Another neighbor I remember,
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after a lingering illness, died of the same disease in midwinter, and his
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funeral was attended by the neighbors and slaves. During a driving snowstorm, when
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the thermometer was fifteen or twenty degrees below zero, the great White plague carried
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off another of our near neighbors, a fine scotchman, the father of eight
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promising boys, when he was only about forty five years of age. Most
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of those who suffered from this disease seemed hopeful and cheerful up to a very
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short time before their death. But mister Reid, I remember, on one
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of his last visits to our house, said, with brave resignation, I
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know that never more in this world world can I be well. But I
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must submit. I must just submit. One of the saddest deaths from other
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causes than consumption was that of a poor, feeble minded man, whose brother,
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a sturdy blacksmith and preacher, et cetera, was a very hard taskmaster.
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Poor half witted Charlie was kept steadily at work, although he was not
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able to do much, for his body was about as feeble as his mind.
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He never could be taught the right use of an axe, and when
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he was set to chopping down trees for firewood, he feebly hacked and chipped
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round and round them. Sometimes spending several days in nibbling down a tree that
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a beaver might have gnawed down in half the time. Occasionally, when he
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had an extra large tree to chop, he would go home and report that
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the tree was too tough and strong for him, and that he could never
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make it fall. Then his brother, calling him a useless creature, would
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fell it with a few well directed st and leave Charley to nibble away at
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it for weeks, trying to make it into stovewood. The brawny blacksmith minister
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punished his feeble brother without any show of mercy, for every trivial offense or
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mistake, or pathetic little shortcoming. All the neighbors pitied him, especially the
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women, who never missed an opportunity to give him kind words, cookies,
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and pie. Above all, they bestowed natural sympathy on the poor imbecile,
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as if he were an unfortunate motherless child. In particular, his nearest neighbour's
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Scotch highlanders warmly welcomed him to their home and never wearied in doing everything that
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tender sympathy could suggest. To those friends, he ran away at every opportunity.
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But after years of suffering from overwork, and punishment. His feeble health
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failed, and he told his Scotch friends one day that he was not able
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to work any more or do anything that his brother wanted him to do,
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that he was beaten every day, and that he had come to thank them
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for their kindness and to bid them good bye, for he was going to
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drown himself in Meares Lake. Oh Charlie, charlie, they cried, you
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mustn't talk that way. Cheer up, You'll soon be stronger. We all
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love you. Cheer up, cheer up, and always come here whenever you
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need anything. Oh no, he pathetically replied, I know you love me,
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but I can't cheer up any more. My heart's gone and I want
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to die. Next day, when mister Anderson, a carpenter whose house was
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on the west shore of our Lake, was going to a spring, he
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saw a man wade out through the rushes and lily pads and throw himself forward
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into deep water. This was poor Charley. Fortunately, mister Anderson had a
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skiff close by, and as the distance was not great, he reached the
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broken hearted imbecile in time to save his life, and, after trying to
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cheer him, took him home to his brother but even this terrible proof of
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despair failed to soften the latter. He seemed to regard the attempt at suicide
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simply as a crime calculated to bring the reproach of the neighbors upon him.
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One morning, after receiving another beating, Charley was set to work chopping firewood
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in front of the house, and after feebly swinging his axe a few times,
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he pitched forward on his face and died on the wood pile. The
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unnatural brother then walked over to the neighbor who had saved Charlie from drowning,
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and, after talking on ordinary affairs crops the weather, et cetera, said
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in a careless tone, I have a little job a carpenter work for you,
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mister Anderson. What is it, mister? I want you to make
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a coffin. A coffin, said the startled carpenter. Who is dead,
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Charlie, he coolly replied. All the neighbors were in tears over the poor
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child man's fate. But strange to say, in all that excessively law abiding
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neighborhood, none was bold enough or kind enough to break the blacksmith's jaw.
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The mixed lot of settlers around us offered a favorable field for observation of the
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different kinds of people of our own race. We were swift to note the
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way they behaved, the differences in their religion and morals, and in their
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ways of drawing and living from the same kind of soil under the same general
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conditions, how they protected themselves from the weather, how they were influenced by
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new doctrines and old ones seen in new lights in preaching, lecturing, debating,
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bringing up their children, et cetera. And how they regarded the Indians,
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those first settlers and owners of the ground that was being made into farms.
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I well remember my father's discussing with a Scotch neighbor, a mister George
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Mayer, the Indian question as to the rightful ownership of the soil. Mister
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mar remarked one day that it was pitiful to see how the unfortunate Indians,
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children of nature, living on the natural products of the soil, hunting,
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fishing, and even cultivating small corn fields on the most fertile spots, were
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now being robbed of their lands and pushed ruthlessly back into narrower and narrower limits
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by alien races who were cutting off their means of livelihood. Father replied that
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surely it could never have been the intention of God to allow Indians to rove
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and hunt over so fertile a country and hold it forever in unproductive wilderness,
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while Scotch and Irish and English farmers could put it to so much better use.
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Where an Indian required thousands of acres for his family, those acres in
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the hands of industrious, god fearing farmers would support ten or a hundred times
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more people in a far worthier manner, while at the same time helping to
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spread the gospel. Mister Mayor urged that such farming as our first immigrants were
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practicing was in many ways rude and full of mistakes of ignorance. Yet rude
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as it was, and ill tilled as were most of our Wisconsin farms by
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unskilled, inexperienced settlers who had been merchants and mechanics and servants in the old
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countries, how should we like to have specially trained and educated farmers drive us
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out of our homes and farms such as they were. Making use of the
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same argument that God could never have intended such ignorant, unprofitable, devastating farmers
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as we were to occupy land upon which scientific farmers could raise five or ten
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times as much on each acre as we did, And I well remember thinking
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that mister Mayor had the better side of the argument. It then seemed to
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me that whatever the final outcome might be, it was at this stage of
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the fight only an example of the rule of might, with but little or
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no thought for the right or welfare of the other fellow, if he were
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the weaker. That they should take who had the power, and they should
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keep who can. As Wordsworth makes the marauding Scottish Highlanders say, many of
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our old neighbors toiled and sweated and grubbed themselves into their graves years before their
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natural dying days, in getting a living on a quarter section of land,
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and vaguely trying to get rich, while bread and raiment might have been serenely
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won on less than a fourth of this land, and time gained to get
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better acquainted with God. I was put to the plow at the age of
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twelve, when my head reached but little above the handles, and for many
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years I had to do the greater part of the plowing. It was hard
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work for so small a boy. Nevertheless, as good plowing was exacted from
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me as if I were a man, and very soon I had to become
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a good plowman, or rather plowboy. None could draw a straighter furrow.
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For the first few years the work was particularly hard on account of the tree
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stumps that had to be dodged. Later, the stumps were all dug and
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chopped out to make way for the McCormick reaper, and because I proved to
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be the best chopper and stump digger, I had nearly all of it to
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myself. It was dull, hard work, leaning over on my knees all
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day chopping out those tough oak and hickory stumps deep down below the crowns of
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the big roots. Some, though fortunately not many, were two feet or
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more in diameter. And as I was the eldest boy, the greater part
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of all the other hard work of the farm quite naturally fell on me.
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I had to split rails for long lines of zigzag fences. The trees that
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were tall enough and straight enough to afford one or two logs ten feet long
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were used for rails. The others, too, knotty or cross grained,
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were disposed of in log and cord fences. Making rails was hard work and
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required no little skill. I used to cut and split a hundred a day
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from our short, knotty oak timber, swinging the axe and heavy mallet,
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often with sore hands, from early morning to night. Father was not successful
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as a rail splitter. After trying to work with me a day or two,
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he, in despair, left it all to me. I rather liked
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it, for I was proud of my skill and tried to believe that I
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was as tough as the timber I mauled. Though this and other heavy jobs
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stopped my growth and earned for me the title runt of the family. In
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those early days, long before the great labor saving machines came to our help,
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almost everything connected with wheat raising abounded in trying work, cradling in the
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long, sweaty dog days, raking and binding, stacking, flashing, and
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it often seemed to me that our fierce, over industrious way of getting the
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grain from the ground was too closely connected with grave digging. The staff of
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life naturally beautiful, oftentimes suggested the grave digger's spade men and boys. In
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those days, even women and girls were cut down while cutting the wheat.
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The fat folk grew lean and the lean leaner, while the rosy cheeks brought
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from Scotland and other cool countries across the sea faded to yellow like the wheat.
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We were all made slaves through the vice of over industry. The same
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was in great part true in making hay to keep the cattle and horses through
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the long winters. We were called in the morning at four o'clock and seldom
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got to bed before nine, making a broiling, seething day seventeen hours long,
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loaded with heavy work. While I was only a small, stunted boy,
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and a few years later my brothers David and Daniel, and my older
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sisters had to endure about as much as I did in the harvest dog days
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and dog nights and dog mornings. When we arose from our clammy beds,
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our cotton shirts clung to our backs as wet with sweat as the bathing suits
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of swimmers, and remained so all the long sweltering days. In mowing and
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cradling, the most exhausting of all the farm work, I made matters worse
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by foolish ambition in keeping ahead of the hired men. Never a warning word
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was spoken of the dangers of overwork. On the contrary, even when sick,
29:37
we were held to our tasks as long as we could stand. Once,
29:41
in harvest time I had the mumps and was unable to swallow any food
29:45
except milk, but this was not allowed to make any difference. While I
29:51
staggered with weakness and sometimes fell headlong among the sheaves. Only once was I
29:56
allowed to leave the harvest field, when I was stricken down with pneumonia.
30:02
I lay gasping for weeks, but the Scotch are hard to kill, and
30:06
I pulled through. No physician was called for. Father was an enthusiast and
30:11
always said and believed that God and hard work were by far the best doctors.
30:18
None of our neighbors was so excessively industrious as Father, though nearly all
30:22
of the Scotch, English and Irish worked too hard, trying to make good
30:27
homes and to lay up money enough for comfortable independence. Excepting small garden patches,
30:34
few of them had owned land in the old country. Here, their
30:37
craving land hunger was satisfied, and they were naturally proud of their farms and
30:42
tried to keep them as neat and clean and well tilled as gardens to accomplish
30:48
this without the means for hiring help was impossible. Flowers were planted about the
30:53
neatly kept log or frame houses, barnyards, granaries, et cetera were kept
30:59
in about as neat order as the homes, and the fences and corn rows
31:03
were rigidly straight. But every uncut weed distressed them. So also did every
31:08
ungathered ear of grain, and all that was lost by birds and gophers.
31:14
And this over carefulness bred endless work and worry. As for money, for
31:21
many a year there was precious little of it in the country for anybody.
31:25
Eggs sold at six cents a dozen in trade, and five cent calico was
31:29
exchanged at twenty five cents a yard. Wheat brought fifty cents a bushel in
31:33
trade. To get cash for it, before the portage railroad was built,
31:38
it had to be hauled to Milwaukee, a hundred miles away. On the
31:44
other hand, food was abundant, eggs, chickens, pigs, cattle,
31:48
wheat, corn, potatoes, garden vegetables of the best and wonderful melons as
31:52
luxuries. No other wild country I have ever known extended a kinder welcome to
31:57
poor emigrants on the arrival in the spring, a log house could be built,
32:04
a few acres plowed, the virgin sod planted with corn, potatoes,
32:07
et cetera, and enough rays to keep a family comfortably the very first year,
32:14
and wild hay for cows and oxen grew in abundance on the numerous meadows.
32:19
The American settlers were wisely content with smaller fields and less of everything.
32:23
Kept in doors during excessively hot or cold weather, rested when tired when off
32:30
fishing and hunting at the most favorable times and seasons of the day and year,
32:34
gathered nuts and berries, and in general tranquility accepted all the good things
32:38
the fertile wilderness offered. After eight years of this dreary work of clearing the
32:45
fountain like farm, fencing it, and getting it in perfect order, building
32:50
a frame house and the necessary out buildings for the cattle and horses, after
32:54
all this had been victoriously accomplished, and we had made out to a skip
33:00
with life, Father bought a half section of wild land about four or five
33:06
miles to the eastward, and began all over again to clear and fence and
33:12
break up other fields for a new farm, doubling all the stunting heart breaking,
33:17
chopping, grubbing, stump digging, rails, splitting, fence building,
33:22
barn building, house building, and so forth. By this time I had
33:27
learned to run the breaking plow. Most of these plows were very large,
33:30
turning furrows from eighteen inches to two feet wide, and were drawn by four
33:37
or five yoke of oxen. They were used only for the first plowing in
33:42
breaking up the wild sod woven into a tough mass, chiefly by the cord
33:46
like roots of perennial grasses, reinforced by the tap roots of oak and hickory
33:52
bushes called grubs, some of which were more than a century old and four
33:57
or five inches in diameter. In the hardest plowing on the most difficult ground,
34:01
the grubs were said to be as thick as the hair on a dog's
34:06
back. If in good trim, the plow cut through and turned over these
34:10
grubs as if the sentry old wood were soft, like the flesh of carrots
34:15
and turnips. But if not in good trim, the grubs promptly tossed the
34:21
plow out of the ground. A stout Highland scott our neighbor whose plow was
34:28
in bad order, and who did not know how to trim. It was
34:31
vainly trying to keep it in the ground by main strength, while his son,
34:36
who was driving and merrily whipping up the cattle, would cry encouragingly,
34:40
hold her in, Father, hold her in, But how in the devil
34:45
can I hold her in when she'll not stop in? His perspiring father would
34:50
reply, gasping for breath between each word. On the contrary, with the
34:54
share and colter sharp and nicely adjusted the plow in stea stead of shine at
35:00
every grub, and jumping out, ran straight ahead without need of steering or
35:06
holding, and gripping the ground so firmly that it could hardly be thrown out.
35:09
At the end of the furrow, our breaker turned a furrow two feet
35:15
wide, and on our best land, where the sawd was toughest, held
35:19
so firm a grip that at the end of the field, my brother,
35:22
who was driving the oxen, had to come to my assistance in throwing it
35:25
over on its side to be drawn around the end of the landing. And
35:30
it was all I could do to set it up again. But I learned
35:35
to keep that plow in such trim that after I got started on a new
35:38
furrow, I used to ride on the cross bar between the handles, with
35:42
my feet resting comfortably on the beam, without having to steady or steer it
35:46
in any way on the whole length of the field, unless we had to
35:50
go around a stump, for it sawed through the biggest grubs without flinching.
35:55
The growth of these grubs was interesting to me. When an acorn or hickory
36:00
nut had sent up its first season sprout a few inches long, it was
36:05
burned off in the autumn grass fires, but the root continued to hold on
36:09
to life, forming a callous over the wound, and sent up one or
36:14
more shoots the next spring. Next autumn, these new shoots were burned off,
36:19
but the root and calloused head, about level with the surface of the
36:22
ground, continued to grow and send up more new shoots, and so on
36:29
almost every year until very old, probably far more than a century, while
36:35
the tops, which would naturally have become tall, broad headed trees were only
36:39
mere sprouts, seldom more than two years old. Thus the ground was kept
36:45
open like a prairie, with only five or six trees to the acre,
36:50
which had escaped the fire by having the good fortune to grow on a bare
36:52
spot at the door of a fox or badger den, or between straggling grass
36:58
tufts wide apart on the poorest sandy soil. The uniformly rich soil of the
37:04
Illinois and Wisconsin prairies produced so close and tall a growth of grasses for fires
37:10
that no tree could live on it. Had there been no fires, these
37:15
fine prairies so marked a feature of the country would have been covered by the
37:19
heaviest forests. As soon as the oak openings in our neighborhood were settled and
37:24
the farmers had prevented running grass fires, the grubs grew up into trees and
37:29
formed tall thickets so dense that it was difficult to walk through them, and
37:35
every trace of the sunny openings vanished. We called our second farm Hickory Hill
37:42
from its many fine hickory trees and the long, gentle slope leading up to
37:46
it. Compared with Fountain Lake Farm, it lay high and dry. The
37:52
land was better, but it had no living water, no spring or stream
37:55
or meadow or lake. A well ninety feet deep had to be dug all
38:01
except the first ten feet or so in fine grained sandstone. When the sandstone
38:08
was struck, my father, on the advice of a man who had worked
38:12
in mines, tried to blast the rock, but from lack of skill,
38:16
the blasting went on very slowly, and Father decided to have me do all
38:21
the work with Mason's chisels, a long, hard job with a good deal
38:25
of danger in it. I had to sit cramped in a space about three
38:30
feet in diameter and wearily chip chip with heavy hammer and chisels from early morning
38:37
until dark, day after day for weeks and months. In the morning,
38:44
Father and David lowered me in a wooden bucket by a windlass, hauled up
38:49
what chips were left from the night before, then went away to the farm
38:52
work and left me until noon, when they hoisted me out for dinner.
38:58
After dinner, I was prompted lay lowered again. The forenoon's accumulation of chips
39:04
hoisted out of the way, and I was left until night. One morning,
39:09
after the dreary boar was about eighty feet deep, my life was all
39:15
but lost in deadly choke damp carbonic acid gas that had settled at the bottom
39:21
during the night. Instead of clearing away the chips as usual, when I
39:24
was lowered to the bottom, I swayed back and forth and began to sink
39:30
under the poison. Father, alarmed that I did not make any noise,
39:34
shouted, what's keeping you so still, to which he got no reply.
39:39
Just as I was settling down against the side of the wall, I happened
39:45
to catch a glimpse of a branch of a burr oak tree which leaned out
39:49
over the mouth of the shaft. This suddenly awakened me, and to father's
39:52
excited shouting, I feebly murmured take me out. But when he began to
39:58
hoist, he found I was not in the bucket, and in wild alarm,
40:01
shouted, get in, Get in the bucket, and hold on,
40:05
hold on. Somehow I managed to get into the bucket, and that is
40:09
all I remembered until I was dragged out, violently gasping for breath. One
40:15
of our near neighbors, a stonemason and miner by the name of William Duncan,
40:20
came to see me, and after hearing the particulars of the accident,
40:23
he solemnly said, well, Johnny, it's God's mercy that you're alive.
40:30
Many a companion of mine I have seen dead with choke damp, but none
40:32
that I ever saw or heard of was so near to death in it as
40:37
you were, and escaped without help. Mister Duncan taught Father to throw water
40:43
down the shaft to absorb the gas, and also to drop a bundle or
40:46
brush of hay attached to a light rope, dropping it again and again to
40:52
carry down pure air and stir up the poison. When after a day or
40:57
two I had recovered from the shock, Father lowered me again to my work,
41:01
after taking the precaution to test the air with a candle, and stirred
41:06
up well with a brush and hay bundle. The weary hammer and chisel chipping
41:10
went on as before, only more slowly, until ninety feet down, when
41:15
at last I struck a fine, hearty gush of water. Constant dropping wears
41:22
away stone, so does constant chipping, while at the same time wearing away
41:28
the chipper. Father never spent an hour in that well. He trusted me
41:34
to sink it straight and plumb, and I did, and built a fine
41:37
covered top for it, and swung two iron bound buckets in it, from
41:43
which we all drank for many a day. The honey bee arrived in America
41:47
long before we boys did, but several years passed ere we noticed any on
41:52
our farm. The introduction of the honey bee into floury America formed a grand
42:00
epoch in bee history. This sweet humming creature, companion and friend of the
42:05
flowers, is now distributed over the greater part of the continent, filling countless
42:10
hollows in rocks and trees with honey, as well as the millions of hives
42:15
prepared for them by honey farmers who keep and tend their flocks of sweet winged
42:20
cattle as shepherds keep sheep, a charming employment like directing sunbeams as the rosas.
42:28
The Indians call the honey bee the white man's fly. And though they
42:31
had been long acquainted with several species of bumble bees that yielded more or less
42:37
honey, how gladly surprised they must have been when they discovered that in the
42:42
hollow trees, where before they had found only coons or squirrels, they found
42:46
swarms of brown flies with fifty or even a hundred pounds of honey sealed up
42:52
in beautiful cells. With their keen hunting senses, they of course were not
42:58
slow to learn the habits of the little brown on immigrants, and the best
43:00
methods of tracing them to their sweet homes. However, well hidden. During
43:06
the first few years, none were seen on our farm. Though we sometimes
43:10
heard Father's hired men talking about lining bees. None of us boys ever found
43:15
a bee tree, or tried to find any, until about ten years after
43:21
our arrival. In the woods on the Hickory Hill farm, there is a
43:24
ridge of moraine material, rather dry but floury, with golden rods and asters
43:30
of many species, upon which we saw bees feeding in the late autumn,
43:35
just when their hives were fullest of honey. And it occurred to me one
43:38
day that I was of age and my own master, that I must try
43:43
to find a bee tree. I made a little box about six inches long
43:46
and four inches deep and wide, bought half a pound of honey when to
43:52
the golden rod hill, swept a bee into the box and closed it.
43:55
The lid had a pane of glass in it, so I could see when
43:59
the bee had sucked its fill and was ready to go home. At first
44:02
it groped around, trying to get out, but smelling the honey, it
44:06
seemed to forget everything else, and while it was feasting. I carried the
44:09
box and a small sharp pointed stake to an open spot where I could see
44:15
about me, fixed the stake in the ground, and placed the box on
44:19
the flat top of it. When I thought that the little feaster must be
44:22
about full, I opened the box, but it was in no hurry to
44:25
fly. It slowly crawled up to the edge of the box, lingered a
44:30
minute or two cleaning its legs that had become sticky with honey, and when
44:35
it took wing, instead of making what is called a bee line for home,
44:38
it buzzed around the box and minutely examined it, as if trying to
44:44
fix a clear picture of it in its mind so as to be able to
44:47
recognize it when it returned for another load. Then circled around at a little
44:52
distance, as if looking for something to locate it by. I was the
44:57
nearest object, and the thoughtful work ger buzzed in front of my face and
45:00
took a good stare at me, and then flew up to the top of
45:05
an oak on the side of the open spot in the center of which the
45:07
honey box was keeping a keen watch. After a minute or two of rest
45:13
or wing cleaning, I saw it fly in wide circles round the tops of
45:17
the trees nearest the honey box, and after apparently satisfying itself, make a
45:22
bee line for the hive. Looking and wise on the line of flight,
45:28
I saw that what is called a bee line is not an absolutely straight line,
45:32
but a line in general straight made of many slight wavering lateral curves.
45:38
After taking as too a bearing as I could, I waited and watched.
45:44
In a few minutes, probably ten, I was surprised to see that bee
45:47
arrive at the end of the outlining limb of the oak mentioned above, as
45:52
though that was the first point it had fixed in its memory to be depended
45:55
on in retracing the way back to the honey box from the tree top.
46:00
It came straight to my head, then straight to the box, entered without
46:05
the least hesitation, filled up, and started off after the same preparatory dressing
46:09
and taking of bearings as before. Then, I took particular pains to lay
46:15
down the exact course so I would be able to trace it to the hive.
46:19
Before doing so, however, I made an experiment to test the worth
46:22
of the impression I had that the little insect found the way back to the
46:27
box by fixing telling points in its mind. While it was away. I
46:31
picked up the honey box and set it on the stake, a few rods
46:36
from the position it had thus far occupied, and stood there watching. In
46:40
a few minutes I saw the bee arrive at its guide mark, the overleaning
46:45
branch on the tree top, and thence came bouncing down right to the spaces
46:50
in the air which had been occupied by my head and the honey box.
46:53
And when the cunning little honey gleaner found nothing there but empty air, it
46:59
whirled round and round, as if confused and lost. And although I was
47:02
standing with the open honey box within fifty or sixty feet of the former feasting
47:08
spot, it could not or at least did not find it. Now that
47:14
I had learned the general direction of the hive, I pushed on in search
47:16
of it. I had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when I caught
47:21
another bee, which, after getting loaded, went through the same performance of
47:24
circling round and round the honey box, buzzing in front of me and staring
47:29
me in the face to be able to recognize me. But as if the
47:32
adjacent trees and bushes were sufficiently well known, it simply looked around at them
47:37
and bolted off. Without much dressing, indicating I thought that the distance to
47:44
the hive was not great. I followed on and very soon discovered it in
47:47
the bottom log of a corn field fence. But some lucky fellow had discovered
47:52
it before me and robbed it. The robbers had chopped a large hole in
47:57
the log, taken out most of the honey, and left the poor bees
48:00
late in the fall, when winter was approaching, to make haste to gather
48:05
all the honey they could from the latest flowers to avoid starvation in the winter.
48:13
End of Chapter six