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