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Title: Wisconsin in Story and Song;
Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Badger State Writers
Author: Various
Editor: Charles R. Rounds
Henry Sherman Hippensteel
Release Date: November 11, 2012 [EBook #41344]
Language: English
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Wisconsin in Story and Song
SELECTIONS FROM THE PROSE AND
POETRY OF BADGER STATE
WRITERS
EDITED BY
CHARLES RALPH ROUNDS
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH OF THE
MILWAUKEE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL
AND
HENRY SHERMAN HIPPENSTEEL
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND DIRECTOR
OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER TRAINING OF THE
STEVENS POINT NORMAL SCHOOL
PUBLISHERS
THE PARKER EDUCATIONAL COMPANY
MADISON, WISCONSIN
COPYRIGHT, 1916
BY
THE PARKER EDUCATIONAL CO.,
MADISON, WISCONSIN
_To the authors of today and of former days,
whose genius and co-operation have made this
book possible, and to the young people who
may, by reading these pages, be inspired to
carry the banner of our state still farther
into the realm of literature,
WISCONSIN IN STORY AND SONG
is affectionately dedicated._
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
General Wisconsin Writers.
HAMLIN GARLAND 13-39
Haying Time, Among the Corn Rows, Ploughing, Ladrone, The
Toil of the Trail, The Blue Jay, Pom Pom Pull Away, The
Old-Fashioned Threshing in Green's Coolly.
GENERAL CHARLES KING 40-63
Ray's Ride for Life (from "Marion's Faith"), The Final Blow.
JOHN MUIR 64-71
Snow Banners.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX 72-84
The Two Glasses, The Kingdom of Love, The Tendril's Fate,
Three Friends, Ambitions' Trail, Morning Prayer, I Am, Which
Are You?
RAY STANNARD BAKER 85-98
Through the Air, Marconi and His Great Achievements--New
Experiments in Wireless Telegraphy, The Roping at Pasco's.
"DAVID GRAYSON" 99-113
An Argument with a Millionaire.
ZONA GALE 114-127
Why?, The Holy Place, Friendship Village.
EBEN EUGENE REXFORD 128-144
Watering Plants, Tea Roses for Beds, The Old Village Choir,
The Two Singers, The Unfruitful Tree, A Day in June, Silver
Threads Among the Gold, When Silver Threads Are Gold Again.
CARL SCHURZ 145-149
Selections from his Reminiscences, The True Americanism.
HONORÉ WILLSIE 150-162
The Forbidden North, A Story of a Great Dane Puppy.
EDNA FERBER 163-171
Steeped In German.
GEORGE L. TEEPLE 172-183
The Battle of Gray's Pasture.
GEORGE BYRON MERRICK 184-188
Old Times on the Upper Mississippi.
HATTIE TYNG GRISWOLD 189-192
John G. Whittier.
ALBERT H. SANFORD 193-195
The Story of Agriculture in the United States.
CHARLES D. STEWART 196-201
On a Moraine.
ELLIOTT FLOWER 202-208
The Impractical Man.
JENKIN LLOYD JONES 209-212
Nuggets from a Welsh Mine.
EVERETT McNEIL 213-218
Mother's Wolf Story.
The University Group.
PRESIDENT CHARLES R. VAN HISE 220-224
The Future of Man in America.
DEAN E. A. BIRGE 224-228
Milton.
RASMUS B. ANDERSON 228-230
Bjarne Herjulfson, 986.
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 230-234
The Discovery of Wisconsin.
FREDERICK J. TURNER 234-238
The Significance of the Frontier in American History.
PAUL S. REINSCH 238-241
The New Education of China.
GEORGE C. COMSTOCK 242-244
Astrology in Life and Literature.
J. F. A. PYRE 245-246
Byron in Our Day.
EDWARD A. ROSS 246-250
The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China.
GRANT SHOWERMAN 251-254
A Lad's Recollections of His Boyhood Haunts and Experiences
in the Earlier Days.
WILLIAM E. LEONARD 254-260
The Glory of the Morning, Love Afar, The Image of Delight, A
Dedication.
THOMAS H. DICKINSON 260-263
In Hospital.
WILLIAM J. NEIDIG 263-265
The Buoy-Bell.
BRALEY--WINSLOW--JONES 265-268
Sometimes, The Pioneers, A Little Book of Local Verse.
JOSEPH P. WEBSTER 269
Sweet Bye and Bye.
Writers of Local Distinction.
SHERIFF, BOND, THOMSON, WHITNEY, BAER, HENDERSON, ADAMS,
PLANTZ, CARLTON, MOORE, LATHROP, MANVILLE, BLAISDELL, NAGLE,
CHASE, DAVIDSON, BROWN, WHEELER 270-285
Other Wisconsin Writers and Their Works.
NAMES ONLY WITHOUT SELECTIONS 286
Wisconsin Humorists.
LUTE A. TAYLOR 288-290
"BILL" NYE 291-294
GEORGE W. PECK 294-297
WILLIAM F. KIRK 297-298
PREFACE.
In preparing this book the editors have had two main purposes in view.
Their first purpose has been to furnish some definite knowledge
concerning literary productions of Wisconsin people. They have been
surprised, and they feel that their readers will be surprised, to find
how many authors of national repute have been intimately associated
with Wisconsin life; and further, to find that many writers who have
not as yet gained fame outside the state have written things that are
beyond doubt highly creditable.
The second purpose has been to kindle the surprise just mentioned into
wholesome effort, particularly among our young people, to appreciate
what literature is and how it is produced, and to encourage these
readers to study the life round about them with a view to expressing
their observations in literary language. In other words, they hope
that this book may stimulate Wisconsin authors to still greater
literary activity.
The difficulties in the preparation of such a compilation as this may
be readily imagined. First, there is the problem of selection or
rejection on account of geographical eligibility. The editors have not
drawn the line at nativity or at present residence, but have rather
defined it thus: Anyone who, in his mature life, has become identified
with Wisconsin, both through residence and through literary,
educational, or other activity, is geographically eligible.
Literary eligibility is still more difficult to determine. In general,
the editors have been guided in their decisions by the judgment of the
reading public, which is, after all, in many ways one of the best
critics. There is, however, the problem of early writers who had
considerable vogue in their day; and likewise that of young authors
whose works are just now beginning to appear. They can scarcely hope
to have done exact justice in either one of these two fields. New
writers of promise are arising. Perhaps some that have held the center
of the stage will soon have to give place. Literary estimates are
inherently a changing quantity. Absolutely just criticism of today
will be warped judgment tomorrow.
Further, it is possible that there may be serious oversight in this
collection. For any such error the editors wish beforehand to make due
apology. It has not been their intention to discriminate against any
person or group or section. They will be placed under obligation by
any persons who will, upon reading the selections here noted, write
them with respect to other authors whose works, they feel, should have
been represented.
While this book, it is hoped, will have a general interest for all
Wisconsin readers, it is believed that it may prove of particular use
as supplementary reading in the seventh and eighth grades and the
early years of the high school. To the end that the selections may
prove available for this use, brief biographical and critical
explanations have been given with nearly every selection.
The editors acknowledge with gratitude the ready co-operation of both
authors and publishers in permitting the use of copyrighted material,
specific credit being given in each case in the proper connection.
Particular mention should also be made of the "Bibliography of
Wisconsin Authors," prepared in 1893 for the Wisconsin Historical
Society by Emma A. Hawley, under direction of Reuben Gold Thwaites;
and of "The So-called School of Wisconsin Authors," Miss Zona Gale's
thesis, under the same date.
C. R. R.
H. S. H.
GENERAL WRITERS.
HAMLIN GARLAND.
Hamlin Garland was born in the beautiful La Crosse valley,
September 16, 1860, and lived there until he was eight years
old. Twenty-three years ago he purchased the old homestead
near West Salem, La Crosse County, and to this he delights to
return each year for part of his summer. As one reads his
description of the trip to West Salem over the Northwestern
Line in his story, "Up the Cooley," he is compelled to see
how much Mr. Garland loves the scenes of Wisconsin.
Among the other states which may share in the right to claim
Hamlin Garland are Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, and South
Dakota. In Iowa he learned what the rural school, the
academy, and the farm could teach him. It was in the Boston
Public Library that he formed much of his literary style and
determined that the material for his future literary work
should be the western life that he knew so well. In Illinois
he began his work as a teacher and a lecturer. Here he met
the girl who was to become his wife, Miss Zulima Taft, sister
of the artist, Lorado Taft. Chicago is his present home. Mr.
Garland visited his parents in South Dakota in 1883 and took
up a claim there. Here he got material which he incorporated
into some of his stories, among which the Moccassin Ranch is
the most notable.
The experience in these several states gave Hamlin Garland an
excellent opportunity to understand all phases of country
life. He has expressed his observations in description of
boys' games, the labor on the farm, the work of the rural
school, and the varied activities of the rural community. He
knew that the work of the farm in an early day furnished as
much opportunity for the display of resistance and the
determination to use the last bit of strength to win as does
the game of the present. The work of binding the wheat after
a reaper became a game requiring honesty as well as skill and
rapidity. Perhaps no boy of today shoots a basket, makes a
touch-down, or hits out a home run with more pride than did
the youth of this pioneer life retire from the harvest field
at noon or night with the consciousness that he had bound all
his "tricks" without being caught once by the machine as it
made its successive rounds of the field.
Hamlin Garland knew the joys of these contests on the pioneer
farm, and he also knew the sordid side of the narrow and
cramped life of the early settler. He describes both with
equal vividness and sympathy. Wisconsin owes him much for the
work he has done in preserving pictures of her early pioneer
life. His hero and heroine are those ancestors who travelled
forth into the new regions in covered wagons, and by the use
of axe and plow conquered a seemingly unconquerable forest or
a stubborn prairie sod. In his book of short stories, "Main
Travelled Roads," he makes the dedication of it to his heroic
parents in these words:
"To my father and mother, whose half-century pilgrimage on
the main travelled road of life has brought them only toil
and deprivation, this book of stories is dedicated by a son
to whom every day brings a deepening sense of his parents'
silent heroism."
To illustrate Mr. Garland's ability to picture the joyous and
the irksome in the life of the pioneer two selections are
given at this place. The first sets forth the joy of farm
activity, the second, the disheartening influence of abject
toil.
[Illustration: HAMLIN GARLAND]
HAYING TIME
From "BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE." Published by permission of
Harper Bros.
Haying was the one season of farm work which the boys thoroughly
enjoyed. It usually began on the tame meadows about the twenty-fifth
of June, and lasted a week or so. It had always appealed to
Lincoln,[1] in a distinctly beautiful and poetic sense, which was not
true of the main business of farming. Most of the duties through which
he passed needed the lapse of years to seem beautiful in his eyes, but
haying had a charm and significance quite out of the common.
At this time the summer was at its most exuberant stage of vitality,
and it was not strange that even the faculties of toiling old men,
dulled and deadened with never ending drudgery, caught something of
exultation from the superabundant glow and throb of Nature's life.
The corn fields, dark green and sweet-smelling, rippled like a sea
with a multitudinous stir and sheen and swirl. Waves of dusk and green
and yellow circled across the level fields, while long leaves upthrust
at intervals like spears or shook like guidons. The trees were in
heavy leaf, insect life was at its height, and the air was filled
with buzzing, dancing forms and with the sheen of innumerable gauzy
wings.
The air was shaken by most ecstatic voices. The bobolinks sailed and
sang in the sensuous air, now sinking, now rising, their exquisite
notes ringing, filling the air like the chimes of tiny silver bells.
The kingbird, ever alert and aggressive, cried out sharply as he
launched from the top of a poplar tree upon some buzzing insect, and
the plover made the prairie sad with his wailing call. Vast
purple-and-white clouds moved like bellying sails before the lazy
wind, dark with rain, which they dropped momentarily like trailing
garments upon the earth, and so passed on in stately measure with a
roll of thunder.
The grasshoppers moved in clouds with snap and buzz, and out of the
luxurious stagnant marshes came the ever thickening chorus of the
toads and the frogs, while above them the kildees and the snipe
shuttled to and fro in sounding flight, and the blackbirds on the
cattails and willows swayed with lifted throats, uttering their subtle
liquid notes, made mad with delight of the sun and their own music.
And over all and through all moved the slow, soft west wind, laden
with the breath of the far-off prairie lands of the west, soothing and
hushing and filling the world with a slumbrous haze.
The weather in haying time was glorious, with only occasional showers
to accentuate the splendid sunlight. There were no old men and no
women in these fields. The men were young and vigorous, and their
action was swift and supple. Sometimes it was hot to the danger point,
especially on the windless side of the stack (no one had haybarns in
those days) and sometimes the pitcher complained of cold chills
running up his back. Sometimes Jack flung a pail full of water over
his head and shoulders before beginning to unload, and seemed the
better for it. Mr. Stewart kept plenty of "switchel" (which is
composed of ginger and water) for his hands to drink. He had a notion
that it was less injurious than water or beer, and no sun strokes
occurred among his men.
Once, one hot afternoon, the air took on an oppressive density, the
wind died away almost to a calm, blowing fitfully from the south,
while in the far west a vast dome of inky clouds, silent and
portentous, uplifted, filling the horizon, swelling like a great
bubble, yet seeming to have the weight of a mountain range in its
mass. The birds, bees, and all insects, hitherto vocal, suddenly sank
into silence, as if awed by the first deep mutter of the storm. The
mercury is touching one hundred degrees in the shade.
All hands hasten to get the hay in order, that it may shed rain. They
hurry without haste, as only adept workmen can. They roll up the
windrows by getting fork and shoulder under one end, tumbling it over
and over endwise, till it is large enough; then go back for the
scatterings, which are placed, with a deft turn of the fork, on the
top to cap the pile. The boys laugh and shout as they race across the
field. Every man is wet to the skin with sweat; hats are flung aside;
Lincoln, on the rake, puts his horse to the trot. The feeling of the
struggle, of racing with the thunder, exalts him.
Nearer and nearer comes the storm, silent no longer. The clouds are
breaking up. The boys stop to listen. Far away is heard the low,
steady, crescendo, grim roar; intermixed with crashing thunderbolts,
the rain streams aslant, but there is not yet a breath of air from the
west; the storm wind is still far away; the toads in the marsh, and
the fearless king-bird, alone cry out in the ominous gloom cast by the
rolling clouds of the tempest.
"Look out! here it comes!" calls the boss. The black cloud melts to
form the gray veil of the falling rain, which blots out the plain as
it sweeps on. Now it strikes the corn-field, sending a tidal wave
rushing across it. Now it reaches the wind-break, and the spire-like
poplars bow humbly to it. Now it touches the hay-field, and the caps
of the cocks go flying; the long grass streams in the wind like a
woman's hair. In an instant the day's work is undone and the hay is
opened to the drenching rain.
As all hands rush for the house, the roaring tempest rides upon them
like a regiment of demon cavalry. The lightning breaks forth from the
blinding gray clouds of rain. As Lincoln looks up he sees the streams
of fire go rushing across the sky like the branching of great red
trees. A moment more, and the solid sheets of water fall upon the
landscape, shutting it from view, and the thunder crashes out, sharp
and splitting, in the near distance, to go deepening and bellowing off
down the illimitable spaces of the sky and plain, enlarging, as it
goes, like the rumor of war.
In the east is still to be seen a faint crescent of the sunny sky,
rapidly being closed in as the rain sweeps eastward; but as that
diminishes to a gleam, a similar window, faint, watery, and gray,
appears in the west, as the clouds break away. It widens, grows
yellow, and then red; and at last blazes out into an inexpressible
glory of purple and crimson and gold, as the storm moves swiftly over.
The thunder grows deeper, dies to a retreating mutter, and is lost.
The clouds' dark presence passes away. The trees flame with light, the
robins take up their songs again, the air is deliciously cool. The
corn stands bent, as if still acknowledging the majesty of the wind.
Everything is new-washed, clean of dust, and a faint, moist odor of
green things fills the air.
Lincoln seizes the opportunity to take Owen's place in bringing the
cattle, and mounting his horse gallops away. The road is wet and
muddy, but the prairie is firm, and the pony is full of power. In full
flower, fragrant with green grass and radiant with wild roses,
sweet-williams, lilies, pinks, and pea-vines, the sward lies new
washed by the rain, while over it runs a strong, cool wind from the
west. The boy's heart swells with unutterable joy of life. The world
is exaltingly beautiful. It is good to be alone, good to be a boy, and
to be mounted on a swift horse.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The name of a boy in the story.
AMONG THE CORN ROWS
From "MAIN TRAVELLED ROADS." Printed by permission of Harper
Bros.
A corn-field in July is a sultry place. The soil is hot and dry; the
wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm,
sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of
the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzling light
upon the field over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat
seem the more intense.
Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was toiling back and forth between
the corn-rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn plow,
while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. Her heart was
full of bitterness, her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching
with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders,
and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon
mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, protected only by a calico
dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with
perspiration it soiled her till with a woman's instinctive
cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. What
matter to her that the king bird flitted jovially from the maple to
catch a wandering blue bottle fly, that the robin was feeding her
young, that the bobolink was singing. All these things, if she saw
them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief.
Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her
father--a big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian--at work also with
a plow. The corn must be plowed, and so she toiled on, the tears
dropping from the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she wore. Her shoes,
coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong,
were browned, or, more properly, burnt, on the backs by the sun. The
horse's harness "creak-cracked" as he swung steadily and patiently
forward, the moisture pouring from his hide, his nostrils distended.
The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road ran a
river--a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point--and the eyes of
the girl gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time
that she turned at the fence.
This same contrast is expressed by Hamlin Garland in two
poems presented here. The first, "Ploughing," sets forth the
irksome toll to which the undeveloped boy was subjected. The
second, "Ladrone," portrays the joy which the youth in the
country acquires from association with the animals of the
farm. These poems and all the following selections are taken
from "Boy Life on the Prairie," and are here published by
permission of the Macmillan Company.
PLOWING
A lonely task it is to plough!
All day the black and clinging soil
Rolls like a ribbon from the mould-board's
Glistening curve. All day the horses toil
Battling with the flies--and strain
Their creaking collars. All day
The crickets jeer from wind-blown shocks of grain.
October brings the frosty dawn,
The still, warm noon, the cold, clear night,
When torpid insects make no sound,
And wild-fowl in their southward flight
Go by in hosts--and still the boy
And tired team gnaw round by round,
At weather-beaten stubble, band by band,
Until at last, to their great joy,
The winter's snow seals up the unploughed land.
LADRONE
And, "What of Ladrone"--do you ask?
Oh! friend. I am sad at the name.
My splendid fleet roan!--The task
You require is a hard one at best.
Swift as the spectral coyote, as tame
To my voice as a sweetheart, an eye
Like a pool in the woodland asleep,
Brown, clear, and calm, with color down deep,
Where his brave, proud soul seemed to lie--
Ladrone! There's a spell in the word.
The city walls fade on my eye--the roar
Of its traffic grows dim
As the sound of the wind in a dream.
My spirit takes wing like a bird.
Once more I'm asleep on the plain,
The summer wind sings in my hair;
Once again I hear the wild crane
Crying out of the steaming air;
White clouds are adrift on the breeze,
The flowers nod under my feet,
And under my thighs, 'twixt my knees,
Again as of old I can feel
The roll of Ladrone's firm muscles, the reel
Of his chest--see the thrust of fore-limb
And hear the dull trample of heel.
We thunder behind the mad herd.
My singing whip swirls like a snake.
Hurrah! We swoop on like a bird.
With my pony's proud record at stake--
For the shaggy, swift leader has stride
Like the last of a long kingly line;
Her eyes flash fire through her hair;
She tosses her head in disdain;
Her mane streams wide on the air--
She leads the swift herd of the plain
As a wolf-leader leads his gaunt pack,
On the slot of the desperate deer--
Their exultant eyes savagely shine.
But down on her broad shining back
Stings my lash like a rill of red flame--
Huzzah, my wild beauty! Your best;
Will you teach my Ladrone a new pace?
Will you break his proud heart in a shame
By spurning the dust in his face?
The herd falls behind and is lost,
As we race neck and neck, stride and stride.
Again the long lash hisses hot
Along the gray mare's glassy hide--
Aha, she is lost! she does not respond.
Now I lean to the ear of my roan
And shout--letting fall the light rein.
Like a hound from the leash, my Ladrone
Swoops ahead.
We're alone on the plain!
Ah! how the thought at wild living comes back!
Alone on the wide, solemn prairie
I ride with my rifle in hand,
My eyes on the watch for the wary
And beautiful antelope band.
Or sleeping at night in the grasses, I hear
Ladrone grazing near in the gloom.
His listening head on the sky
I see etched complete to the ear.
From the river below comes the boom
Of the bittern, the thrill and the cry
Of frogs in the pool, and the shrill cricket's chime,
Making ceaseless and marvelous rhyme.
But what of his fate? Did he die
When the terrible tempest was done?
When he staggered with you to the light,
And your fight with the Norther was won,
Did he live a guest evermore?
No, friend, not so. I sold him--outright.
What! sold your preserver, your mate, he who
Through wind and wild snow and deep night
Brought you safe to a shelter at last?
Did you, when the danger had end,
Forget your dumb hero--your friend?
Forget! no, nor can I. Why, man,
It's little you know of such love
As I felt for him! You think that you feel
The same deep regard for your span,
Blanketed, shining, and clipped to the heel,
But my horse was companion and guard--
My playmate, my ship on the sea
Of dun grasses--in all kinds of weather,
Unhorsed and hungry and sometimes, he
Served me for love and needed no tether.
No, I do not forget; but who
Is the master of fortune and fate?
Who does as he wishes and not as he must?
When I sold my preserver, my mate,
My faithfulest friend--man, I wept.
Yes, I own it. His faithful eyes
Seemed to ask what it meant.
And he kept them fixed on me in startled surprise,
As another hand led him away.
And the last that I heard of my roan,
Was the sound of his shrill, pleading neigh!
Oh magic west wind of the mountain,
Oh steed with the stinging main,
In sleep I draw rein at the fountain,
And wake with a shiver of pain;
For the heart and the heat of the city
Are walls and prison's chain.
Lost my Ladrone--gone the wild living--
I dream, but my dreaming is vain.
Hamlin Garland's parents were of Scotch Presbyterian descent
and were strict in their management of their children, but
their lives were most wholesome and they were withal
companionable. Their sacrifice and toil have been rewarded by
the response their son has made to the opportunities they
could offer him.
Besides the rural school training at Burr Oak, Iowa, Mr.
Garland received additional education at Cedar Valley
Seminary at Osage, where he attended school during the winter
seasons. He graduated from this school in 1881 and then for a
year travelled through the eastern states. His people later
settled in Brown county, Dakota, and he visited them there in
1883.
In 1884 he went to Boston, where he came under the influence
of Professor Moses True Brown of the Boston School of
Oratory, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Dean Howells, Edward
Everett Hale, and Edwin Booth.
Mr. Garland began his career as an author with the
publication of his poem, "Lost in a Norther," in Harper's
Weekly. For this poem he received twenty-five dollars. His
work has been unusually remunerative. He has been a popular
contributor to the Century Magazine, the Youth's Companion,
the Arena, and other magazines. His first book was published
in 1890. Mr. Garland enjoys social life and outdoor sports
very much. He was the founder and is still the president of
the Cliff Dwellers' Club in Chicago. He is especially fond of
the outdoor sports of swimming, skating, and riding the trail
on the plains and the mountains. The joy in this last is
expressed in a poem which is given later.
Mr. Garland's publications include short stories, novels,
essays, and poems. These book publications began with the
short stories, Main Travelled Roads, in 1890. Since then have
appeared Jason Edwards, 1891; A Member of the Third House, an
exposure of political corruption, 1892; A Spoil of Office,
1892; Prairie Folks, Prairie Songs and Crumbling Idols, a
series of critical essays, 1893; Rose of Dutcher's Coolly, a
novel, 1895; Wayside Courtships, 1897; a Biography of Ulysses
S. Grant, 1898; the Trail of the Gold Seekers and Boy Life on
the Prairie, 1899; the Eagle's Heart, 1900; Her Mountain
Lover, a novel, 1901; The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop,
another novel, 1902; Hesper, 1903; The Tyranny of the Dark, a
study in psychic research, 1905; The Long Trail, 1907; the
Shadow World, another study in the psychic field, 1908; The
Moccassin Ranch, 1909; Cavanagh, Forest Ranger, a study in
forest preservation, 1911; Victor Olnee's Discipline, 1911;
The Forest Daughter, 1913; and They of the High Trails, 1916.
THE TOIL OF THE TRAIL
What have I gained by the toil of the trail?
I know and know well.
I have found once again the lore I had lost
In the loud cities' hell.
I have broadened my hand to the cinch and the axe,
I have laid my flesh to the rain;
I was hunter and trailer and guide;
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer,
No eagle is freer than I;
No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appall.
I defy the stern sky.
So long as I live these joys will remain,
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
THE BLUE JAY
His eyes are bright as burnished steel,
His note a quick, defiant cry;
Harsh as a hinge his grating squeal
Sounds from the keen wind sweeping by.
Rains never dim his smooth blue coat,
The cold winds never trouble him,
No fog puts hoarseness in his throat,
Or makes his merry eyes grow dim.
His call at dawning is a shout,
His wing is subject to his heart;
Of fear he knows not--doubt
Did not draw his sailing-chart.
He is an universal emigre,
His foot is set in every land;
He greets me by gray Casco Bay
And laughs across the Texas sand.
In heat or cold, in storm and sun,
He lives undauntedly; and when he dies,
He folds his feet up one by one
And turns his last look on the skies.
He is the true American. He fears
No journey and no wood or wall--
And in the desert, toiling voyagers
Take heart or courage from his jocund call.
POM-POM PULL-AWAY.
Out on the snow the boys are springing,
Shouting blithely at their play;
Through the night their voices ringing,
Sound the cry "Pom, pull-away!"
Up the sky the round moon stealing,
Trails a robe of shimmering white:
While the Great Bear slowly wheeling
Marks the pole-star's steady light.
The air with frost is keen and stinging,
Spite of cap and muffler gay;
Big boys whistle, girls are singing--
Loud rings out, "Pom, pull-away!"
Oh, the phrase has magic in it,
Sounding through the moon-lit air!
And in 'bout a half-a-minute
I am part and parcel there.
'Cross the pond I once more scurry
Through the thickest of the fray,
Sleeve ripped off by Andy Murray--
"Let her rip--Pom, pull-away!"
Mother'll mend it in the morning
(Dear old patient, smiling face!)
One more darn my sleeve adorning--
"Whoop her up!"--is no disgrace.
Moonbeams on the snow a-splinter,
Air that stirred the blood like wine--
What cared we for cold of winter?
What for maiden's soft eyes' shine?
Give us but a score of skaters
And the cry, "Pom, pull-away!"
We were always girl beraters--
Forgot them wholly, sooth to say!
O voices through the night air ringing!
O, thoughtless, happy, boist'rous play!
O silver clouds the keen wind winging;
At the cry, "Pom, pull-away!"
I pause and dream with keenest longing
For the starlit magic night,
For my noisy playmates thronging,
And the slow moon's trailing light.
THE OLD FASHIONED THRESHING IN GREEN'S COOLLY, WISCONSIN
From "BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE." Published by permission of
Harper Bros.
Life on a Wisconsin farm, even for the older lads, had its
compensations. There were times when the daily routine of lonely and
monotonous life gave place to an agreeable bustle for a few days, and
human intercourse lightened toil. In the midst of the dull, slow
progress of the fall's ploughing, the gathering of the threshing crew
was a most dramatic event.
There had been great changes in the methods of threshing since Mr.
Stewart had begun to farm, but it had not yet reached the point where
steam displaced the horse-power; and the grain, after being stacked
round the barn ready to be threshed, was allowed to remain until late
in the fall before calling in a machine.
Of course, some farmers got at it earlier, for all could not thresh at
the same time, and a good part of the fall's labor consisted in
"changing works" with the neighbors, thus laying up a stock of unpaid
labor ready for the home job. Day after day, therefore, Mr. Stewart
and the hired man shouldered their forks in the crisp and early dawn
and went to help their neighbors, while the boys ploughed the
stubble-land.
All through the months of October and November, the ceaseless ringing
hum and the bow-ouw, ouw-woo booee-oom of the great balance wheel of
the threshing-machine, and the deep bass hum of the whirling cylinder,
as its motion rose and fell, could be heard on every side like the
singing of some sullen and gigantic autumnal insect.
For weeks Lincoln had looked forward to the coming of the threshers
with the greatest eagerness, and during the whole of the day appointed,
Owen and he hung on the gate and gazed down the road to see if the
machine was coming. It did not come during the afternoon--still they
could not give it up, and at the falling of dusk still hoped to hear
the rattle of its machinery.
It was not uncommon for the men who attended to these machines to work
all day at one place and move to another setting at night. In that
way, they might not arrive until 9 o'clock at night, or they might
come at 4 o'clock in the morning, and the children were about starting
to "climb the wooden hill" when they heard the peculiar rattle of the
cylinder and the voices of the McTurgs, singing.
"There they are," said Mr. Stewart, getting the old square lantern and
lighting the candle within. The air was sharp, and the boys, having
taken off their boots, could only stand at the window and watch the
father as he went out to show the men where to set the "power," the
dim light throwing fantastic shadows here and there, lighting up a
face now and then, and bringing out the thresher, which seemed a
silent monster to the children, who flattened their noses against the
window-panes to be sure that nothing should escape them. The men's
voices sounded cheerfully in the still night, and the roused turkeys
in the oaks peered about on their perches, black silhouettes against
the sky. The children would gladly have stayed up to greet the
threshers, who were captains of industry in their eyes, but they were
ordered off to bed by Mrs. Stewart, who said, "You must go to sleep in
order to be up early in the morning." As they lay there in their beds
under the sloping rafter roof, they heard the[2] hand riding furiously
away to tell some of the neighbors that the threshers had come. They
could hear the cackle of the hens as Mr. Stewart assaulted them and
wrung their innocent necks. The crash of the "sweeps" being unloaded
sounded loud and clear in the night, and so watching the dance of the
lights and shadows cast by the lantern on the plastered wall, they
fell asleep.
They were awakened next morning by the ringing beat of the iron sledge
as the men drove stakes to hold the "power" to the ground. The rattle
of chains, the clang of iron bars, intermixed with laughter and
snatches of song, came sharply through the frosty air. The smell of
sausages being fried in the kitchen, the rapid tread of their busy
mother as she hurried the breakfast forward, warned the boys that it
was time to get up, although it was not yet dawn in the east, and they
had a sense of being awakened to a strange, new world. When they got
down to breakfast, the men had finished their coffee and were out in
the stock-yard completing preparations.
This morning experience was superb. Though shivery and cold in the
faint frosty light of the day, the children enjoyed every moment of
it. The frost lay white on every surface, the frozen ground rang like
iron under the steel-shod feet of the horses, the breath of the men
rose up in little white puffs while they sparred playfully or rolled
each other on the ground in jovial clinches of legs and arms.
The young men were anxiously waiting the first sound which should
rouse the countryside and proclaim that theirs was the first machine
to be at work. The older men stood in groups, talking politics or
speculating on the price of wheat, pausing occasionally to slap their
hands about their breasts.
Finally, just as the east began to bloom and long streamers of red
began to unroll along the vast gray dome of sky, Joe Gilman--"Shouting
Joe," as he was called--mounted one of the stacks, and throwing down
the cap-sheaf, lifted his voice in a "Chippewa warwhoop." On a still
morning like this his voice could be heard three miles. Long drawn and
musical, it sped away over the fields, announcing to all the world
that the McTurgs were ready for the race. Answers came back faintly
from the frosty fields, where the dim figures of laggard hands could
be seen hurrying over the ploughland; then David called "All right,"
and the machine began to hum.
In those days the machine was a J. I. Case or a "Buffalo Pits"
separator, and was moved by five pairs of horses attached to a power
staked to the ground, round which they travelled to the left, pulling
at the ends of long levers or sweeps. The power was planted some rods
away from the machine, to which the force was carried by means of
"tumbling rods," with "knuckle joints." The driver stood upon a
platform above the huge, savage, cog-wheels round which the horses
moved, and he was a great figure in the eyes of the boys.
Driving looked like an easy job, but it was not. It was very tiresome
to stand on that small platform all through the long day of the early
fall, and on cold November mornings when the cutting wind roared over
the plain, sweeping the dust and leaves along the road. It was far
pleasanter to sit on the south side of the stack, as Tommy did, and
watch the horses go round. It was necessary also for the driver to be
a man of good judgment, for the power must be kept just to the right
speed, and he should be able to gauge the motion of the cylinder by
the pitch of its deep bass hum. There were always three men who went
with the machine and were properly "the threshers." One acted as
driver; the others were respectively "feeder" and "tender"; one of
them fed the grain into the rolling cylinder, while the other, oil-can
in hand, "tended" the separator. The feeder's position was the high
place to which all boys aspired, and they used to stand in silent
admiration watching the easy, powerful swing of David McTurg as he
caught the bundles in the crook of his arm, and spread them out into a
broad, smooth band upon which the cylinder caught and tore like some
insatiate monster, and David was the ideal man in Lincoln's eyes, and
to be able to feed a threshing machine, the highest honor in the
world. The boy who was chosen to cut bands went to his post like a
soldier to dangerous picket duty.
Sometimes David would take one of the small boys upon his stand, where
he could see the cylinder whiz while flying wheat stung his face.
Sometimes the driver would invite Tommy on the power to watch the
horses go round, and when he became dizzy often took the youngster in
his arms and running out along the moving sweep, threw him with a
shout into David's arms.
The boys who were just old enough to hold sacks for the measurer, did
not enjoy threshing so well, but to Lincoln and his mates it was the
keenest joy. They wished it would never end.
The wind blew cold and the clouds were flying across the bright blue
sky, the straw glistened in the sun, the machine howled, the dust
flew, the whip cracked, and the men worked like beavers to get the
sheaves to the feeder, and to keep the straw and wheat away from the
tail-end of the machine. These fellows, wallowing to their waists in
the chaff, did so for the amusement of the boys, and for no other
reason.
They were always amused by the man who stood in the midst of the thick
dust and the flying chaff at the head of the stacker, who took and
threw away the endless cataract of straw as if it were all play. His
teeth shown like those of a negro out of his dust blackened face, and
his shirt was wet with sweat, but he motioned for more straw, and the
feeder, accepting the challenge, motioned for more speed, and so the
driver swung his lash and yelled at the straining horses, the pitchers
buckled to, the sleepy growl of the cylinder rose to a howl, the wheat
rushed out in a stream as "big as a stove-pipe," and the carriers were
forced to trot back and forth from the granary like mad, and to
generally "hump themselves" in order to keep the grain from piling up
around the measurer where Ellis stood disconsolately holding sacks for
old man Smith.
When the children got tired of wallowing in the straw, and with
turning somersaults therein, they went down to help Rover catch the
rats which were uncovered by the pitchers when they reached the stack
bottom. It was all play to Lincoln, just as it had once been to the
others. The horses, with their straining, outstretched necks, the loud
and cheery shouts, the whistling of the driver, the roar and hum of
the machinery, the flourishing of the forks, the supple movements of
the brawny arms, the shouts of the threshers to one another, all
blended with the wild sound of the wind overhead in the creaking
branches of the oaks, formed a splendid drama for his recording
brain.
But for the boy who was forced to stand with old Daddy Smith in the
flying dust beside the machine, it was a bad play. He was a part of
the machine--of the crew. His liberty to come and go was gone. When
Daddy was grinning at him out of the gray dust and the swirling chaff,
the wheat beards were crawling down his back, scratching and rasping.
His ears were stunned by the noise of the cylinder and the howl of the
balance-wheel, and it did not help him any to have the old man say in
a rasping voice, "Never mind the chaff, sonny--it ain't pizen."
Whirr--bang! Something had gone into the cylinder, making the feeder
dodge to escape the flying teeth, and the men seized the horses to
stop the machine. The men then hailed such accidents with delight, for
it afforded them a few minutes' rest while the crew put some new teeth
in the "concave." They had time to unbutton their shirts and get some
of the beards out of their necks, to take a drink of water, and to let
the deafness go out of their ears.
At such times also some of the young fellows were sure to have a
wrestling or a lifting match, and all kinds of jokes flew about. The
man at the straw-stack leaned indolently on his fork and asked the
feeder sarcastically if that was the best he could do, and remarked,
"It's gettin' chilly up here. Guess I'll have to go home and get my
kid gloves."
To this David laughingly responded, "I'll warm your carcass with a
rope if you don't shut up," all of which gave the boys infinite
delight.
But the work began again, and Ellis was forced to take his place as
regularly as the other men. As the sun neared the zenith, he looked
often up to it--so often in fact that Daddy, observing it, cackled in
great amusement, "Think you c'n hurry it along, sonny? The watched
pot never boils, remember!"--which made the boy so angry he nearly
kicked the old man on the shin.
But at last the call for dinner sounded, the driver began to shout,
"Whoa there, boys," to the teams and to hold his long whip before
their eyes in order to convince them that he really meant "Whoa." The
pitchers stuck their forks down in the stack and leaped to the ground;
Billy, the band-cutter, drew from his wrist the string of his big
knife; the men slid down from the straw-pile and a race began among
the teamsters to see who should be first unhitched and at the watering
trough and at the table.
It was always a splendid and dramatic moment to the boys as the men
crowded round the well to wash, shouting, joking, cuffing each other,
sloshing themselves with water, and accusing each other of having
blackened the towel by using it to wash with rather than to wipe with.
Mrs. Stewart and the hired girl, and generally some of the neighbors'
wives (who changed "works" also) stood ready to bring on the food as
soon as the men were seated. The table had been lengthened to its
utmost and pieced out with the kitchen table, which usually was not of
the same height, and planks had been laid for seats on stout kitchen
chairs at each side. The men came in with noisy rush and took seats
wherever they could find them, and their attack on "biled taters and
chicken" should have been appalling to the women, but it was not. They
smiled to see them eat. A single slash at a boiled potato, followed by
two motions, and it disappeared. Grimy fingers lifted a leg of chicken
to a wide mouth, and two snaps laid it bare as a slate pencil. To the
children standing in the corner waiting, it seemed that every smitch
of the dinner was going and that nothing would be left when the men
got through, but there was, for food was plentiful.
At last even the "gantest" of them filled up. Even Len had his limits,
and something remained for the children and the women, who sat down at
the second table, while David and William and Len returned to the
machine to put everything in order, to sew the belts, or take a bent
tooth out of the "concave." Len, however, managed to return two or
three times in order to have his jokes with the hired girl, who
enjoyed it quite as much as he did.
In the short days of October only a brief nooning was possible, and as
soon as the horses had finished their oats, the roar and hum of the
machine began again and continued steadily all afternoon. Owen and
Rover continued their campaign upon the rats which inhabited the
bottom of the stacks and great was their excitement as the men reached
the last dozen sheaves. Rover barked and Owen screamed half in fear
and half from a boy's savage delight in killing things, and very few
rats escaped their combined efforts.
To Ellis the afternoon seemed endless. His arms grew tired with
holding the sacks against the lip of the half bushel, and his fingers
grew sore with the rasp of the rough canvas out of which the sacks
were made. When he thought of the number of times he must repeat these
actions, his heart was numb with weariness.
All things have an end! By and by the sun grew big and red, night
began to fall and the wind to die down. Through the falling gloom the
machine boomed steadily with a new sound, a sort of solemn roar,
rising at intervals to a rattling yell as the cylinder ran empty. The
men were working silently, sullenly, moving dim and strange; the
pitchers on the stack, the feeder on the platform, and especially the
workers on the high straw-pile, seemed afar off to Lincoln's eyes. The
gray dust covered the faces of those near by, changing them into
something mysterious and sad. At last he heard the welcome cry, "Turn
out!" The men raised glad answer and threw aside their forks.
Again came the gradual slowing down of the motion, while the driver
called in a gentle, soothing voice: "Whoa, lads! Steady, boys, Whoa,
now!" But the horses had been going on so long and so steadily that
they checked their speed with difficulty. The men slid from the
stacks, and seizing the ends of the sweeps, held them; but even after
the power was still, the cylinder went on, until David, calling for a
last sheaf, threw it in its open maw, choking it into silence.
Then came the sound of dropping chains and iron rods, and the thud of
the hoofs as the horses walked with laggard gait and down-falling
heads to the barn. The men were more subdued than at dinner, washing
with greater care, brushing the dust from their beards and clothes.
The air was still and cool, the wind was gone, the sky deep, cloudless
blue.
The evening meal was more attractive to the boys than dinner. The
table was lighted with a kerosene lamp, and the clean white linen, the
fragrant dishes, the women flying about with steaming platters, all
seemed very dramatic, very cheering to Lincoln as well as to the men
who came into the light and warmth with aching muscles and empty
stomach.
There was always a good deal of talk at supper, but it was gentler
than at the dinner hour. The younger fellows had their jokes, of
course, and watched the hired girl attentively, while the old fellows
discussed the day's yield of grain and the matters of the township.
Ellis was now allowed a place at the first table like a first-class
hand.
The pie and the doughnuts and the coffee disappeared as fast as they
could be brought, which seemed to please Mrs. Stewart, who said,
"Goodness sakes, yes; eat all you want. They was made to eat."
The men were all, or nearly all, neighbors, or hands hired by the
month, and some were like members of the family. Mrs. Stewart treated
them all like visitors and not like hired help. No one feared a
genuine rudeness from the other.
After they had eaten their supper it was a great pleasure to the boys
to go out to the barn and shed (all wonderfully changed now to their
minds by the great new stack of straw), there to listen to the stories
or jolly remarks of the men as they curried their tired horses
munching busily at their hay, too weary to move a muscle otherwise,
but enjoying the rubbing down which the men gave them with wisps of
straws held in each hand.
The light from the kitchen was very welcome, and how bright and warm
it was with the mother's merry voice and smiling face where the women
were moving to and fro, and talking even more busily than they worked.
Sometimes in these old-fashioned days, after the supper table was
cleared out of the way, and the men returned to the house, an hour or
two of delicious merry making ended the day. Perhaps two or three of
the sisters of the young men had dropped in, and the boys themselves
were in no hurry to get home.
Around the fire the older men sat to tell stories while the girls
trudged in and out, finishing up the dishes and getting the materials
ready for breakfast. With speechless content Lincoln sat to listen to
stories of bears and Indians and logging on the Wisconsin, and other
tales of frontier life, and then at last, after beseeching, David
opened the violin box and played. Strange how those giant hands became
supple to the strings and bow. All day they had been handling the
fierce straw or were covered with the grease and dirt of the machine,
yet now they drew from the violin the wildest, weirdest strains,
thrilling Norse folk songs, Swedish dances and love ballads, mournful,
sensuous, and seductive.
Lincoln could not understand why those tunes had that sad, sweet
quality, but he could sit and listen to them all night long.
Oh, those rare days and rarer nights! How fine they were then--and how
mellow they are growing now as the slow-paced years drop a golden mist
upon them. From this distance they seem so near that my heart aches to
relive them, but they are so wholesome and so carefree that the world
is poorer for the change.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] The hired man.
GENERAL CHARLES KING.
General Charles King is no doubt Wisconsin's most voluminous
writer. He was born in Albany, New York, in 1844; was
graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1866:
was made captain of a company of cavalry engaged in Indian
warfare in 1879, and was retired on account of wounds in June
of that year. He came to Wisconsin in 1882 as inspector and
instructor of the Wisconsin National Guard.
Besides serving in Indian warfare, he has also seen action in
the Philippine Islands. His military life has been active
enough to consume the energies of most men, but not so with
this soldier. He is the author of more than fifty books, most
of which deal with exciting and dramatic episodes, which come
from his pen with the conviction and clarity that result only
from actual knowledge and observation.
Perhaps the best known of all his many books are "The
Colonel's Daughter" and its sequel, "Marion's Faith." The
first selection here given is one frequently quoted from the
latter book, but the second is from one of his more recent
volumes, entitled, "The Real Ulysses S. Grant," and it is
characterized by crisp, clear statement and by a feeling of
intense sincerity and conviction.
General King is a familiar figure both on the streets of
Milwaukee and in every town in Wisconsin that boasts a
company in the National Guard. His erect carriage and his
whole bearing indicate youth and strength. He is a delightful
lecturer, and a talk with him is an experience that one does
not readily forget. He practically never mentions his own
exploits, though they were many; but his accurate memory and
his excellent powers of description are brought into play
when the deeds of others are concerned.
[Illustration: GENERAL CHARLES KING]
RAY'S RIDE FOR LIFE
From "MARION'S FAITH." Chap. 14. By Gen. Charles King, U.S.A.
Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Lippincott Co.
Darkness has settled down in the shadowy Wyoming valley. By the light
of a tiny fire under the bank some twenty forms can be seen stretched
upon the sand,--they are wounded soldiers. A little distance away are
nine others, shrouded in blankets: they are the dead. Huddled in
confused and cowering group are a few score horses, many of them
sprawled upon the sand motionless; others occasionally struggle to
rise or plunge about in their misery. Crouching among the timber,
vigilant but weary, dispersed in a big, irregular circle around the
beleaguered bivouac, some sixty soldiers are still on the active list.
All around them, vigilant and vengeful, lurk the Cheyennes. Every now
and then the bark as of a coyote is heard,--a yelping, querulous
cry,--and it is answered far across the valley or down the stream.
There is no moon; the darkness is intense, though the starlight is
clear, and the air so still that the galloping hoofs of the Cheyenne
ponies far out on the prairie sound close at hand.
"That's what makes it hard," says Ray, who is bending over the
prostrate form of Captain Wayne. "If it were storming or blowing, or
something to deaden the hoof-beats, I could make it easier; but it's
the only chance."
The only chance of what?
When the sun went down upon Wayne's timber citadel, and the final
account of stock was taken for the day, it was found that with
one-fourth of the command, men and horses, killed and wounded, there
were left not more than three hundred cartridges, all told, to enable
some sixty men to hold out until relief could come against an enemy
who encircled them on every side, and who had only to send over to the
neighboring reservation--forty miles away--and get all the cartridges
they wanted. Mr. ---- would let their friends have them to kill
"buffalo," though Mr. ---- knew there wasn't a buffalo left within
four hundred miles.
They could cut through, of course, and race up the valley to find the
--th, but they would have to leave the wounded and the dismounted
behind,--to death by torture,--so that ended the matter. Only one
thing remained. In some way--by some means--word must be carried to
the regiment. The chances were ten to one against the couriers
slipping out. Up and down the valley, out on the prairie on both sides
of the stream, the Cheyennes kept vigilant watch. They had their hated
enemies in a death-grip, and only waited the coming of other warriors
and more ammunition to finish them--as the Sioux had finished Custer.
They knew, though the besieged did not, that, the very evening before,
the --th had marched away westward, and were far from their comrades.
All they had to do was to prevent any one's escaping to give warning
of the condition of things in Wayne's command. All, therefore, were on
the alert, and of this there was constant indication. The man or men
who made the attempt would have to run the gauntlet. The one remaining
scout who had been employed for such work refused the attempt as
simply madness. He had lived too long among the Indians to dare it,
yet Wayne and Ray and Dana and Hunter, and the whole command, for that
matter, knew that some one must try it. Who was it to be?
There was no long discussion. Wayne called the sulking scout a damned
coward, which consoled him somewhat, but didn't help matters. Ray had
been around the rifle-pits taking observations. Presently he returned,
leading Dandy up near the fire,--the one sheltered light that was
permitted.
"Looks fine as silk, don't he?" he said, smoothing his pet's glossy
neck and shoulder, for Ray's groom had no article of religion which
took precedence over the duty he owed the lieutenant's horse, and no
sooner was the sun down than he had been grooming him as though still
in garrison. "Give him all the oats you can steal, Hogan; some of the
men must have a hatful left."
Wayne looked up startled.
"Ray, I can't let you go!"
"There's no helping it. Some one must go, and who can you send?"
Even there the captain noted the grammatical eccentricity. What was
surprising was that even there he made no comment thereon. He was
silent. Ray had spoken truth. There was no one whom he could order to
risk death in breaking his way out since the scout had said 'twas
useless. There were brave men there who would gladly try it had they
any skill in such matters, but that was lacking. "If any man in the
company could 'make it,' that man was Ray." He was cool, daring, keen;
he was their best and lightest rider, and no one so well knew the
country or better knew the Cheyennes. Wayne even wished that Ray might
volunteer. There was only this about it,--the men would lose much of
their grit with him away. They swore by him, and felt safe when he was
there to lead or encourage. But the matter was settled by Ray himself.
He was already stripping for the race.
"Get those shoes off," he said to the farrier, who came at his
bidding, and Dandy wonderingly looked up from the gunny-sack of oats
in which he had buried his nozzle. "What on earth could that
blacksmith mean by tugging out his shoe-nails?" was his reflection,
though, like the philosopher he was, he gave more thought to his
oats,--an unaccustomed luxury just then.
There seemed nothing to be said by anybody. Wayne rose painfully to
his feet. Hunter stood in silence by, and a few men grouped themselves
around the little knot of officers. Ray had taken off his belt and was
poking out the carbine cartridges from the loops,--there were not
over ten. Then he drew the revolver, carefully examined the chambers
to see that all were filled; motioned with his hand to those on the
ground, saying, quietly, "Pick those up. Y'all may need every one of
'em." The Blue Grass dialect seemed cropping out the stronger for his
preoccupation. "Got any spare Colts?" he continued, turning to Wayne.
"I only want another round." These he stowed as he got them in the
smaller loops on the right side of his belt. Then he bent forward to
examine Dandy's hoofs again.
"Smooth them off as well as you can. Get me a little of that sticky
mud there, one of you men. There! ram that into every hole and smooth
off the surface. Make it look just as much like a pony's as you know
how. They can't tell Dandy's tracks from their own then, don't you
see?"
Three or four pairs of hands worked assiduously to do his bidding.
Still, there was no talking. No one had anything he felt like saying
just then.
"Who's got the time?" he asked.
Wayne looked at his watch, bending down over the fire.
"Just nine fifteen."
"All right. I must be off in ten minutes. The moon will be up at
eleven."
Dandy had finished the last of his oats by this time, and was gazing
contentedly about him. Ever since quite early in the day he had been
in hiding down there under the bank. He had received only one trifling
clip, though for half an hour at least he had been springing around
where the bullets flew thickest. He was even pining for his customary
gallop over the springy turf, and wondering why it had been denied him
that day.
"Only a blanket and surcingle," said Ray, to his orderly, who was
coming up with the heavy saddle and bags. "We're riding to win
tonight, Dandy and I, and must travel light."
He flung aside his scouting hat, knotted the silk handkerchief he took
from his throat so as to confine the dark hair that came tumbling
almost into his eyes, buckled the holster-belt tightly round his
waist, looked doubtfully an instant at his spurs, but decided to keep
them on. Then he turned to Wayne.
"A word with you, captain."
The others fell back a short distance, and for a moment the two stood
alone speaking in low tones. All else was silent except the feverish
moan of some poor fellow lying sorely wounded in the hollow, or the
occasional pawing and stir among the horses. In the dim light of the
little fire the others stood watching them. They saw that Wayne was
talking earnestly, and presently extended his hand, and they heard
Ray, somewhat impatiently, say, "Never mind that now," and noted that
at first he did not take the hand; but finally they came back to the
group and Ray spoke:
"Now, fellows, just listen a minute. I've got to break out on the
south side. I know it better. Of course there are no end of Indians
out there, but most of the crowd are in the timber above and below.
There will be plenty on the watch, and it isn't possible that I can
gallop out through them without being heard. Dandy and I have got to
sneak for it until we're spotted, or clear of them, then away we go. I
hope to work well out towards the bluffs before they catch a glimpse
of me, then lie flat and go for all I'm worth to where we left the
regiment. Then you bet it won't be long before the old crowd will be
coming down just a humping. I'll have 'em here by six o'clock, if,
indeed, I don't find them coming ahead tonight. Just keep up your
grit, and we'll do our level best, Dandy and I; won't we, old boy?
Now, I want to see Dana a minute and the other wounded fellows," and
he went and bent down over them, saying a cheery word to each; and
rough, suffering men held out feeble hands to take a parting grip, and
looked up into his brave young eyes. He had long known how the rank
and file regarded him, but had been disposed to laugh it off. Tonight
as he stopped to say a cheering word to the wounded, and looked down
at some pale, bearded face that had stood at his shoulder in more than
one tight place in the old Apache days in Arizona, and caught the same
look of faith and trust in him, something like a quiver hovered for a
minute about his lips, and his own brave eyes grew moist. They knew he
was daring death to save them, but that was a view of the case that
did not seem to occur to him at all. At last he came to Dana lying
there a little apart. The news that Ray was going to "ride for them"
had been whispered all through the bivouac by this time, and Dana
turned and took Ray's hand in both his own.
"God speed you, old boy! If you make it all safe, get word to mother
that I didn't do so badly in my first square tussle, will you?"
"If I make it, you'll be writing it yourself this time tomorrow night.
Even if I don't make it, don't you worry, lad. The Colonel and
Stannard ain't the fellows to let us shift for ourselves with the
country full of Cheyennes. They'll be down here in two days, anyhow.
Good-by, Dana; keep your grip and we'll larrup 'em yet."
Then he turned back to Wayne, Hunter, and the doctor.
"One thing occurs to me, Hunter. You and six or eight men take your
carbines and go up-stream with a dozen horses until you come to the
rifle-pits. Be all ready. If I get clear through you won't hear any
row, but if they sight or hear me before I get through, then, of
course, there will be the biggest kind of an excitement, and you'll
hear the shooting. The moment it begins, give a yell; fire your guns,
go whooping up the stream with the horses as though the whole crowd
were trying to cut out that way, but get right back. The excitement
will distract them and help me. Now, good-by, and good luck to you,
crowd."
"Ray, will you have a nip before you try it? You must be nearly used
up after this day's work." And he held out his flask to him.
"No. I had some hot coffee just ten minutes ago, and I feel like a
four-year-old. I'm riding new colors; didn't you know it? By jove!" he
added, suddenly, "this is my first run under the Preakness blue." Even
then and there he thought too quickly to speak her name. "Now then,
some of you crawl out to the south edge of the timber with me, and lie
flat in the prairie and keep me in sight as long as you can." He took
one more look at his revolver. "I'm drawing to a bob-tail. If I fail,
I'll bluff; if I fill, I'll knock spots out of any threes in the
Cheyenne outfit."
Three minutes more and the watchers at the edge of the timber have
seen him, leading Dandy by the bridle, slowly, stealthily, creeping
out into the darkness; a moment the forms of man and horse are
outlined against the stars: then are swallowed up in the night. Hunter
and the sergeants with him grasp their carbines and lie prone upon the
turf, watching, waiting.
In the bivouac is the stillness of death. Ten soldiers--carbines in
hand--mounted on their unsaddled steeds are waiting in the darkness at
the upper rifle-pits for Hunter's signal. If he shouts, every man is
to yell and break for the front. Otherwise, all are to remain quiet.
Back at the watch-fire under the bank Wayne is squatting, watch in one
hand, pistol in the other. Near by lie the wounded, still as their
comrades just beyond,--the dead. All around among the trees and in the
sand pits up- and down-stream, fourscore men are listening to the
beating of their own hearts. In the distance, once in a while, is
heard the yelp of coyote or the neigh of Indian pony. In the distance,
too, are the gleams of Indian fires, but they are beyond the positions
occupied by the besieging warriors. Darkness shrouds them. Far aloft
the stars are twinkling through the cool and breezeless air. With
wind, or storm, or tempest, the gallant fellow whom all hearts are
following would have something to favor, something to aid; but in this
almost cruel stillness nothing under God can help him,--nothing but
darkness and his own brave spirit.
"If I get through this scrape in safety," mutters Wayne between his
set teeth, "the --th shall never hear the last of this work of Ray's."
"If I get through this night," mutters Ray to himself, far out on the
prairie now, where he can hear tramping hoofs and guttural voices, "it
will be the best run ever made for the Sanford blue, though I do make
it."
Nearly five minutes have passed, and the silence has been unbroken by
shot or shout. The suspense is becoming unbearable in the bivouac,
where every man is listening, hardly daring to draw breath. At last
Hunter, rising to his knees, which are all a-tremble with excitement,
mutters to Sergeant Roach, who is still crouching beside him,--
"By Heaven! I believe he'll slip through without being seen."
Hardly had he spoken when far, far out to the southwest two bright
flashes leap through the darkness. Before the report can reach them
there comes another, not so brilliant. Then, the ringing bang, bang of
two rifles, the answering crack of a revolver.
"Quick, men. Go!" yells Hunter, and darts headlong through the timber
back to the stream. There is a sudden burst of shots and yells and
soldier cheers; a mighty crash and sputter and thunder of hoofs up the
stream-bed; a few of the men at the west end, yelling like demons,
dash in support of the mounted charge in the bed of the stream. For a
minute or two the welkin rings with shouts, shots (mainly those of the
startled Indians), then there is as sudden a rush back to cover,
without a man or horse hurt or missing. In the excitement and darkness
the Cheyennes could only fire wild, but now the night air resounds
with taunts and yells and triumphant war-whoops. For full five minutes
there is a jubilee over the belief that they have penned in the white
soldiers after their dash for liberty. Then, little by little, the
yells and taunts subside. Something has happened to create discussion
in the Cheyenne camps, for the crouching soldiers can hear the
liveliest kind of a pow-wow far up-stream. What does it mean? Has Ray
slipped through, or--have they caught him?
Despite pain and weakness, Wayne hobbles out to where Sergeant Roach
is still watching and asks for tidings.
"I can't be sure, captain; one thing's certain, the lieutenant rode
like a gale. I could follow the shots a full half-mile up the valley,
where they seemed to grow thicker, and then stop all of a sudden in
the midst of the row that was made down here. They've either given it
up and have a big party out in chase, or else they've got him. God
knows which. If they've got him, there'll be a scalp-dance over there
in a few minutes, curse them!" And the sergeant choked.
Wayne watched some ten minutes without avail. Nothing further was seen
or heard that night to indicate what had happened to Ray except once.
Far up the valley he saw a couple of flashes among the bluffs; so did
Roach, and that gave him hope that Dandy had carried his master in
safety that far at least.
He crept back to the bank and cheered the wounded with the news of
what he had seen. Then another word came in ere long. An old sergeant
had crawled out to the front, and could hear something of the shouting
and talking of the Indians. He could understand a few words only,
though he had lived among the Cheyennes nearly five years. They can
barely understand one another in the dark, and use incessant
gesticulation to interpret their own speech; but the sergeant gathered
that they were upbraiding somebody for not guarding a coulee, and
inferred that someone had slipped past their pickets or they wouldn't
be making such a row.
That the Cheyennes did not propose to let the besieged derive much
comfort from their hopes was soon apparent. Out from the timber up the
stream came sonorous voices shouting taunt and challenge, intermingled
with the vilest expletives they had picked up from their cowboy
neighbors, and all the frontier slang in the Cheyenne vocabulary.
"Hullo! sogers; come out some more times. We no shoot. Stay there: we
come plenty quick. Hullo! white chief, come fight fair; soger heap
'fraid! Come, have scalp-dance plenty quick. Catch white soldier; eat
him heart bime by."
"Ah, go to your grandmother, the ould witch in hell, ye
musthard-sthriped convict!" sings out some irrepressible Paddy in
reply, and Wayne, who is disposed to serious thoughts, would order
silence, but it occurs to him that Mulligan's crude sallies have a
tendency to keep the men lively.
"I can't believe they've got him," he whispers to the doctor. "If they
had they would soon recognize him as an officer and come bawling out
their triumph at bagging a chief. His watch, his shoes, his spurs, his
underclothing, would all betray that he was an officer, though he
hasn't a vestige of uniform. Pray God he is safe!"
Will you follow Ray and see? Curiosity is what lures the fleetest deer
to death, and a more dangerous path than that which Ray has taken one
rarely follows. Will you try it, reader--just you and I? Come on,
then. We'll see what our Kentucky boy "got in the draw," as he would
put it.
Ray's footfall is soft as a kitten's as he creeps out upon the
prairie; Dandy stepping gingerly after him, wondering but obedient.
For over a hundred yards he goes, until both up- and down-stream he
can almost see the faint fires of the Indians in the timber. Farther
out he can hear hoof-beats and voices, so he edges along westward
until he comes suddenly to a depression, a little winding "cooley"
across the prairie, through which in the early spring the snows are
carried off from some ravine among the bluffs. Into this he
noiselessly feels his way and Dandy follows. He creeps along to his
left and finds that its general course is from the southwest. He knows
well that the best way to watch for objects in the darkness is to lie
flat on low ground so that everything approaching may be thrown
against the sky. His plain-craft tells him that by keeping in the
water-course he will be less apt to be seen, but will surely come
across some lurking Indians. That he expects. The thing is to get as
far through them as possible before being seen or heard, then mount
and away. After another two minutes' creeping he peers over the
western bank. Now the fires up-stream can be seen in the timber, and
dim, shadowy forms pass and repass. Then close at hand come voices and
hoof-beats. Dandy pricks up his ears and wants to neigh, but Ray grips
his nostrils like a vise, and Dandy desists. At rapid lope, within
twenty yards, a party of half a dozen warriors go bounding past on
their way down the valley, and no sooner have they crossed the gulley
than he rises and rapidly pushes on up the dry sandy bed. Thank
heaven! there are no stones. A minute more and right in front of him,
not a stone's throw away, he hears the deep tones of Indian voices in
conversation. Whoever they may be they are in the "cooley" and
watching the prairie. They can see nothing of him, nor he of them.
Pass them in the ten-foot-wide ravine he cannot. He must go back a
short distance, make a sweep to the east so as not to go between those
watchers and the guiding fires, then trust to luck. Turning stealthily
he brings Dandy around, leads back down the ravine for some thirty
yards, then turns to his horse, pats him gently one minute; "Do your
prettiest for your colors, my boy," he whispers; springs lightly,
noiselessly to his back, and at cautious walk comes up on the level
prairie, with the timber behind him three hundred yards away.
Southward he can see the dim outline of the bluffs. Westward--once
that little arroyo is crossed--he knows the prairie to be level and
unimpeded, fit for a race; but he needs to make a detour to pass the
Indians guarding it, get away beyond them, cross it to the west far
behind them, and then look out for stray parties. Dandy ambles lightly
along, eager for fun and little appreciating the danger. Ray bends
down on his neck, intent with eye and ear. He feels that he has got
well out east of the Indian picket unchallenged, when suddenly voices
and hoofs come bounding up the valley from below. He must cross their
front, reach the ravine before them, and strike the prairie beyond.
"Go, Dandy!" he mutters with gentle pressure of leg, and the sorrel
bounds lightly away, circling southwestward under the guiding rein.
Another minute and he is at the arroyo and cautiously descending, then
scrambling up the west bank, and then from the darkness comes savage
challenge, a sputter of pony hoofs. Ray bends low and gives Dandy one
vigorous prod with the spur, and with muttered prayer and clinched
teeth and fists he leaps into the wildest race for his life.
Bang! bang! go two shots close behind him. Crack! goes his pistol at a
dusky form closing in on his right. Then come yells, shots, the uproar
of hoofs, the distant cheer and charge at camp, a breathless dash for
and close along under the bluffs where his form is best concealed, a
whirl to the left into the first ravine that shows itself, and despite
shots and shouts and nimble ponies and vengeful foes, the Sanford
colors are riding far to the front, and all the racers of the
reservations cannot overhaul them.
THE FINAL BLOW
From "THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT." Chapter XXXVIII. Copyright,
1914, by J. B. Lippincott Co.
Long months before the melancholy failure of that ill-omened bank, the
General had told Badeau of the fabulous profits the firm was
realizing, and Badeau went to their old comrade of the war and White
House days--to Horace Porter--and asked that reticent but experienced
soldier-citizen his opinion, and Porter solemnly shook his head. Such
profits, he said, were impossible in a business honestly conducted.
But Grant saw on every side men by the dozen who had started with less
than his modest capital and had gathered fortunes in Wall Street. He
was so confident in the sagacity and judgment of Ulysses, Jr., that he
invested his every dollar with the firm and reinvested every penny of
the profits which he did not lavish on his loved ones or on his
followers and friends. Like Thackeray's most lovable hero, Colonel
Newcome, he thought to share his good fortune with many of his kith
and kin and urged their sending their savings to be invested for them
by brilliant young "Buck" and his sagacious partner--that wonderful
wizard of finance, Mr. Ward. Aside from the chagrin of seeing some of
his recommendations disregarded, and certain of his opponents regarded
first by Mr. Garfield and later by Mr. Arthur, General Grant was
living in those years a life of ease, luxury, and freedom from care as
never before he had enjoyed. Julia Dent was as ever first and foremost
in his world, but the children were the source of pride and joy
unmistakable. Devoted, dutiful, and loyal they unquestionably were,
but Grant believed of his first born that he was destined to become
renowned as a general, and of "Buck" and Jesse that they were born
financiers and business men. As for Princess Nellie, the father's love
and yearning for that one daughter of his house and name was beyond
all measure. No man ever loved home, wife, and children more tenderly,
more absorbingly.
Although widely scattered at the time, this heart-united household had
been anticipating a blithe and merry Christmas at the close of the
year 1883. When he was alighting from his carriage just before
midnight, with the welcoming chimes pealing on the frosty air, the
General's foot slipped on the icy pavement, he fell heavily, a muscle
snapped in the thigh, possibly one of those injured twenty years
earlier, the day of that fateful stumble at Carrollton, and he was
carried into the house, never thereafter to leave it in health or
strength.
Crutches again, and later a cane, long were necessary. In March, they
took him to Fortress Monroe so that he could hobble about in the soft
air and sunshine. In April he was back again in Gotham, able to drive
his favorite team, but not to walk. On Sunday, the 4th day of May, the
wizard partner, Ward, came into their home and quite casually
announced that the Marine Bank of New York, in which Grant & Ward had
large deposits, needed perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
to tide them over a temporary difficulty. If General Grant could
borrow that much over Monday, Grant & Ward would not have to lose a
cent; otherwise they stood to lose perhaps fifty or sixty thousand. Of
course the lender would lose nothing, said Ward, as there was a
million, at least, of securities in the vaults.
The world knows the rest--how unsuspiciously our General called on his
friend and fellow horseman, Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, said that he
needed one hundred and fifty thousand for a day or so, and came away
with a cheque for that amount. For no other man probably would Mr.
Vanderbilt have parted unsecured with such a sum. The cheque was
promptly endorsed and turned over to Mr. Ward, who took it
unconcernedly and then his leave.
Tuesday morning, May 6th, believing himself a millionaire and the
brief indebtedness to Vanderbilt already cancelled, Grant alighted at
the Wall Street office to find an ominous gathering. "Father, you had
better go home--the bank has failed," said Ulysses, Jr., with misery
in his eyes, but Grant stayed to investigate. Badeau, the faithful,
hastening in at noon, found the old chief seated in the rear office,
calm in the midst of stress and storm. "We are all ruined here," he
simply said. Ward had vanished, the key of the vaults with him, and
when they were finally opened, the boasted "securities" were found to
be but shadows. The ruin was complete.
Everything they had--all the beautiful gifts, trophies, souvenirs,
even the little houses owned by Mrs. Grant in Washington, and the
repurchased Dent property about St. Louis--had to be sold. Grant
insisted, though it left them, for the time at least, absolutely
penniless. It had dragged down others with them; it involved his
honored name in a whirlpool of censure, criticism, and calumny that
well-nigh crushed him. Fallen from such supremely high estate, the
insults and indignities that beset him now far outweighed the slights
and sneers that had been his portion in the days of his earlier
humiliation. Over the depths of the misery that had come to him in his
old and recently honored age let us draw the curtain. No man on earth
could know the suffering it cost him. Only one woman could faintly
see. Helping hands there were outstretched to him instanter, and money
to meet the immediate need. Then, as the storm subsided and the extent
of Ward's villainy and Grant's innocence became known, new measures
were taken to provide against absolute want. A trust fund had already
been raised. A measure was speedily set on foot to restore to Grant
the rank and pay which he had surrendered on assuming the presidency,
and a modest competence would thus be insured him and those he loved.
There was a home in which to live. They could even spend the summers
at the seashore. There were offers of congenial occupation that might
have proved mildly lucrative. There was measurable return to hope and
possible health. There had never been complaint or repining. To all
about him he had been gentleness, consideration, kindliness itself.
There was just one cause of new, yet slight anxiety:
All through that summer of '84, while at Long Branch, his throat had
been giving him pain, and a Philadelphia physician, examining it for
the first time late in September, advised, even urged, says Badeau,
his consulting a specialist on returning to town. For a time he took
no heed. He was writing now, long hours each day, but at last he
called, as further urged by his own physician, upon that distinguished
expert, Dr. J. H. Douglas, and that evening calmly admitted that the
trouble in his throat was cancerous in tendency. And that this was
true, the fact that he suddenly dropped the luxury of all the days
that had followed Donelson--his cigar--and the sufferings that
followed in November and December proved beyond possibility of
doubt....
And meanwhile a nation stood with bated breath and watched and prayed.
Crowds gathered about the house and importuned the physicians for
tidings. Congress had passed amid scenes of emphatic popular approval
a bill restoring him again to the generalship of old--almost the last
act signed by Mr. Arthur before leaving, as it was almost the first
commission signed by Mr. Cleveland after entering, the White House.
Then presently, for quiet and for better air, as all remember, they
bore him to the Drexel cottage at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga
Springs, and here, his voice utterly gone, compelled to make his
wishes known by signs, compelled to complete the pages of his Memoirs
with pad and pencil, our stricken soldier indomitably held to his
self-appointed task, once more "fighting it out on this line if it
took all summer." Never even at Shiloh, in front of Vicksburg, or in
the fire-flashing Wilderness was he more tenacious, determined,
heroic, for now intense suffering accompanied almost every move and
moment. Physicians were constantly at hand; Fred, the devoted son,
ever at his side. Here there came to see him and to sympathize old
comrades--even old enemies--of the war days, all thought of rancor
buried now. Here, just as thirty years earlier he had hastened to
offer aid, came Buckner (and this time unprotesting) in unconditional
surrender; for beneath the shadow of that hovering wing the last
vestige of sectional pride gave way to fond memories of the old and
firm friendship. Here, almost as the twilight deepened into the gloom
of night eternal, they bore him the tribute of honor and respect from
men whom he had vehemently opposed--foeman-in-chief to the Union,
Jefferson Davis, and soldier-candidate and political foe, Winfield S.
Hancock. Here they read him letters, telegrams, editorials from every
corner of the Union he had striven to weld and secure, every line
telling of worldwide sympathy, honor, and affection. Here, almost at
the last, he penciled those farewell pages of those fruitful volumes,
which, whatever his earlier defects in style, have been declared
classic in modern literature. Here, ere the light went out forever, he
wrote the pathetic missive, his final words of love, longing, and
devotion to the wife whom he held peerless among women, to the
children whom he loved with infinite tenderness, and for whose future
comfort, even in the face of such persistent torment and impending
death, he had labored to the very last.
And then, as he completed the final paragraph--the story of his
soldier-life and services--and with faltering hand signed the final
letter, he closed his wearied eyes upon the group that hovered ever
about him, eager to garner every look and whisper, and so the long
fight ended, even as it had begun, almost without a sigh. Apparently
without consciousness of pain, certainly without struggle or
suffering, surrounded by that devoted household--wife, sons, and only
daughter--the greatest of our warriors passed onward into the valley
of shadows, and to immortality.
Thirty years have passed since that which struck from our muster rolls
the name of our first and foremost general--thirty years, as these
pages are given to the light, since that summer day on which, with the
highest honors and the greatest retinue ever accorded to American
citizen or soldier, the flag-enshrouded casket was borne almost the
length of all Manhattan; Hancock, the superb on many a battlefield,
heading the league-long procession of soldiery, the world-garnered
dignitaries from every state and clime. Amidst the solemn thunder of
the guns of the warships moored along the Hudson, the farewell volleys
of the troops aligned along the heights, in the presence of the
President and cabinet, the supreme court and the diplomatic corps, the
governors of nearly every commonwealth, eminent soldiers, sailors,
veterans of the Civil War, the gray mingling with the blue, and all
engulfed in a vast multitude of mourners, the final prayers were said,
the last benediction spoken, and under the shadow of the beloved flag
he had served with such fidelity and to such eminent purpose, they
laid to rest the honored soldier whose valiant service had secured to
them and to their posterity the blessings of union, progress, and
tranquility, and whose crowning message to the nation he had restored
was the simple admonition, "Let us have peace."
And in those thirty years the people of our land have had abundant
time to study and to reflect. Each succeeding year adds to their
reverence for their greatest friend, leader, and statesman, Abraham
Lincoln. Each succeeding year seems to increase their appreciation of
their greatest soldier, Ulysses Grant, and yet it sometimes seems as
though in the magnitude of the obstacles overcome, the immensity of
the military problems solved, the supreme soldiership of the man has
blinded us for the time to the other virtues, less heroic, perhaps,
yet not less marked and true, virtues as son, as husband, father, and
friend, not often equalled in other men, if ever excelled....
And was not his a marvelous career? Cradled in the cottage, he spoke
for years from the seat of the mightiest. Chosen and trained for his
country's wars, he loved best the arts of peace. Schooled as a
regular, he to the fullest extent and from the very first believed in
the volunteer. Ignored by book and bureau soldiers at the start,
despite the fine record of the Mexican campaigns, indebted to a
Western governor for the opportunity refused him by the War
Department, he held his modest way, uncomplaining, asking only to be
made of use. One year had raised him from the twilight of a Western
town to the triumph of Donelson; two years made him the victor of
Vicksburg, the head of the armies of the West; three had set him in
supreme command, deferred to even by those who late as '62 had sought
to down him; four and the sword of the chivalric Lee was his to do
with as he would--the rebellion crushed, the war ended--and then, with
our martyred Lincoln lying in the grave ever watered by a nation's
tears, small wonder was it that twice the people held Grant long years
at their head, and when he had returned, from that globe-circling
triumphal progress, in large numbers would again have called him to
the White House, an uncrowned monarch, the chosen of sovereign
citizens. Was he greater then than in the chain of ills that followed?
Tricked by those he trusted, himself unskilled in guile, ruined
financially by those he had been taught to hold infallible, and
finally confronted by the dread conviction that, though barely beyond
the prime of life, his days were numbered--was he ever amid the
thunder of saluting cannon and the cheers of countless multitudes so
great as when, with the grim destroyer clutching at his throat, he
fought for life that through those matchless Memoirs he might earn the
means to wipe out every possible obligation and provide in modest
comfort, at least, for those he loved and must soon leave to mourn
him? In those last heroic days at Mt. McGregor he stood revealed in
his silent suffering, the ideal of devotion, endurance, and
determination, until, his great work done, his toil and trials ended,
his sword long since sheathed, his pen now dropping from the wearied,
nerveless hand, he could turn to the Peace Ineffable and sink to
rest--our greatest soldier--our honored President--our foremost
citizen. Aye, soldier, statesman, loyal citizen he was; and yet more,
for in purity of life, in love of home and wife and children, in
integrity unchallenged, in truth and honor unblemished, in manner
simplicity itself--though ever coupled with that quiet dignity that
made him peer among the princes of the earth--in speech so clean that
oath or execration never soiled his lips, unswerving in his faith, a
martyr to his friendships, merciful to the fallen, magnanimous to the
foe, magnificent in self-discipline, was he not also, and in all that
the grand old name implies, Grant--the gentleman?
JOHN MUIR.
John Muir was born at Dunbar, Scotland, April 21, 1838, and
died at Los Angeles, California, December 24, 1914. He
attended school before he had completed his third year of
age, but even before this time his grandfather had taught him
the letters of the alphabet upon the signs in the vicinity.
He remained in the Scotch schools until he was eleven and
made most valuable use of his time, as may be judged by his
progress, especially in Latin. At the age of eleven he had to
leave school to accompany his father to the new home in the
forests of Wisconsin.
Upon their arrival in America after a voyage which was to
John and his brother one constant round of happy experiences,
there was no further opportunity for elementary schooling.
His education became that of the toiler and he stored his
mind with knowledge acquired from the observation of the
plants and animals of the woods and lakes and from the
association and study of the animals of the farm. He found
opportunity to read the few books which came into his
possession, but the strict regulation of the home made him
read largely by snatches. His fertile brain was employed
almost constantly in the matter of inventions. His duties on
the farm comprised all activities from that of cultivating
the fields to the building of houses and barns and the
digging of wells. In his recent book "The Story of My Boyhood
and Youth," he has graphically described his work of digging
a well by chiselling for nearly eighty feet through the solid
granite.
Muir remained on the farm until he had attained his majority.
He then went to the capitol of the state to exhibit some of
his wonderful inventions at the State Fair. This experience
led to his employment in a shop in Prairie du Chien, where he
worked part of the year. He then went to the University,
where he earned his way during the four years of his course.
He completed his course of study there with the class of
1864, and then, according to his own statement, he plunged
immediately into the work of geologist, explorer, and
naturalist. His work was quite largely in the Yosemite region
of California and among the glaciers of the Sierras and
Alaska. In the latter region during the year of 1881 he
explored the glacier named after him. It was, however, his
description of the Yosemite Valley that first brought him
into prominence. He made an extended search for the De Long
Arctic exploring party, which was lost in its effort to reach
the far North. Later he travelled, part of the time in
company with John Burroughs, through Hawaii, Russia,
Siberia, Manchuria, India, Australasia, and South America.
No place, however, furnished him with such rich material
about which to tell his thoughts as did his adopted home,
California, and the newer Alaska. In the later years of his
life his residence was at Martinez, California. He was
married to Louise Strenzel in 1880. To them was born a
daughter, Helen, who still lives in California and who was
with her father at the time of his death.
While John Muir's experience as a pioneer in the forests of
Wisconsin, reveals the severe hardships of that life, it
reveals many of the joys as well, and shows that his active
brain was open to all the avenues of self education. Field,
forest, and lake were full of opportunities for him to
observe and study, and as a result John and his brother,
David, were fine naturalists, irrespective of books upon the
subject. John's home life was rich in the companionship of
brothers and sisters, and his mother was most sympathetic and
helpful to him in his aspirations to know and to become the
scholar.
The Scotch schools had given him such training as enabled him
to use books as tools throughout his life. The necessities of
the farm and home drove him to inventing means for getting
things done. The result was that he soon became known as a
genius, and this inventive work finally opened the way for
his entrance into the University. So keen was John's desire
to know and to invent that it became necessary for his father
to drive him to bed too frequently, so he told the boy that
if he wished to study, he should get up in the morning. John
took his father at his word and managed to rise at two
o'clock morning after morning to work upon his inventions. As
a result of such efforts there was made a model of
self-setting saw mill, a thermometer, clocks, an apparatus to
get him up at the time desired, and later at the University a
machine to make visible the growth of plants and the action
of sunlight, a barometer, and a desk which automatically
threw up, from a rack underneath, each book in the order of
his studies during the day and withdrew it again when the
time allotted for this study had expired. To accompany this
wonderful invention, he furnished his bed with an adjustment
that set him on his feet at the morning rising hour and at
the same instant lighted his lamp. These seemingly incredible
inventions are fully explained in "The Story of My Boyhood
and Youth," Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913. So eagerly did he
pursue knowledge for its own sake while he was in the
University that the old janitor was proud to point out Muir's
room to visitors many years after his departure.
So valuable has been the work of this investigating mind that
Wisconsin, Harvard, and Yale Universities have deemed it a
pleasure to confer upon John Muir honorary degrees. With his
entire life devoted to research, he may truthfully be said
to have been one of America's best educated men.
He contributed extensively to the organization of scientific
clubs and to scientific magazines. He was much interested in
forest reservation and did much towards the plans which the
government now employs. His work in connection with
government regulated parks has been invaluable.
As a writer Muir is one of the most interestingly instructive
we have had. His language is clear and lucid and he has a
message which he carries directly to the heart and mind of
his reader. Besides his many magazine articles he has written
the "Mountains of California," 1894; "Our National Parks,"
1901; "Stickeen, the Story of a Dog," 1909; "My First Summer
in the Sierra," 1911; "The Yosemite," 1912, and the "Story of
My Boyhood and Youth," 1913. This last is one of the most
interesting and inspiring books for young people that we have
today.
The Muir homestead is twelve miles from Portage, Wisconsin.
There were two farms, the Spring Fountain farm and the
Hickory Hill farm. It is upon the latter that is found the
well 90 feet deep, eighty feet of which John chiselled
through solid granite.
To illustrate Muir's interesting manner of presenting his
observations we are adding the following selections from "The
Mountains of California," published by the Century Co.
SNOW BANNERS
Copyrighted by the Century Co., 1894.
The most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever saw, surpassing in showy
grandeur the most imposing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches,
was the peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite Valley, decorated
with snow-banners. Many of the starry snow-flowers, out of which these
banners are made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those that
do attain perfect development as six-rayed crystals glint and chafe
against one another in their fall through the frosty air, and are
broken into fragments. This dry, fragmentary snow is still further
prepared for the formation of banners by the action of the wind. For,
instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the
tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten
against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders,
pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the
delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is
reduced to dust. And whenever storm-winds find this prepared snow-dust
in a loose condition on exposed slopes, where there is a free upward
sweep to leeward, it is tossed back into the sky, and borne onward
from peak to peak in the form of banners or cloudy drifts, according
to the velocity of the wind and the conformation of the slopes up or
around which it is driven. While thus flying through the air, a small
portion makes good its escape, and remains in the sky again as vapor.
But far the greater part, after being driven into the sky again and
again, is at length locked fast in bossy drifts, or in the wombs of
glaciers, some of it to remain silent and rigid for centuries before
it is finally melted and sent singing down the mountainsides to the
sea.
Yet, notwithstanding the abundance of winter snow-dust in the
mountains, and the frequency of high winds, and the length of time the
dust remains loose and exposed to their action, the occurrence of
well-formed banners is, for causes we shall hereafter note,
comparatively rare. I have seen only one display of this kind that
seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when the
snow-laden summits were swept by a wild "norther." I happened at the
time to be wintering in Yosemite Valley, that sublime Sierra temple
where every day one may see the grandest sights. Yet even here the
wild gala-day of the north seemed surpassingly glorious. I was
awakened in the morning by the rocking of my cabin and the beating of
pine-burs on the roof. Detached torrents and avalanches from the main
wind-flood overhead were rushing wildly down the narrow side canyons,
and over the precipitous walls, with loud resounding roar, rousing the
pines to enthusiastic action, and making the whole valley vibrate as
though it were an instrument being played.
But afar on the lofty exposed peaks of the range standing so high in
the sky, the storm was expressing itself in still grander characters,
which I was soon to see in all their glory. I had long been anxious to
study some points in the structure of the ice-cone that is formed
every winter at the foot of the upper Yosemite fall, but blinding
spray by which it is invested had hitherto prevented me from making a
sufficiently near approach. This morning the entire body of the fall
was torn into gauzy shreds, and blown horizontally along the face of
the cliff, leaving the cone dry; and while making my way to the top of
an overlooking ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to examine
the interior of the cone, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight
over the shoulder of the South Dome, each waving a resplendent banner
against the blue sky, as regular in form, and as firm in texture, as
if woven of fine silk. So rare and splendid a phenomenon, of course,
overbore all other considerations, and I at once let the ice-cone go,
and began to force my way out of the valley to some dome or ridge
sufficiently lofty to command a general view of the main summits,
feeling assured that I should find them bannered still more
gloriously; nor was I in the least disappointed. Indian Canon, through
which I climbed, was choked with snow that had been shot down in
avalanches from the high cliffs on either side, rendering the ascent
difficult; but inspired by the roaring storm, the tedious wallowing
brought no fatigue, and in four hours I gained the top of a ridge
above the valley, 8,000 feet high. And there in bold relief, like a
clear painting, appeared a most imposing scene. Innumerable peaks,
black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set
in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed with snow, like
ocean rocks with foam; and from every summit, all free and unconfused,
was streaming a beautiful, silky, silvery banner, from half a mile to
a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, then widening
gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1,000 or
1,500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster of
peaks called the "Crown of the Sierra," at the head of the Merced and
Tuolumne rivers,--Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, Lyell, Maclure, Ritter,
with their nameless compeers,--each had its own refulgent banner,
waving with a clearly visible motion in the sun glow, and there was
not a single cloud in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. Fancy
yourself standing on this Yosemite ridge looking eastward. You notice
a strange garish glitter in the air. The gale drives wildly overhead
with a fierce, tempestuous roar, but its violence is not felt, for you
are looking through a sheltered opening in the woods as through a
window. There, in the immediate foreground of your picture, rises a
majestic forest of silver fir blooming in eternal freshness, the
foliage yellow-green, and the snow beneath the trees strewn with their
beautiful plumes, plucked off by the wind. Beyond, and extending over
all the middle ground, are somber swaths of pine, interrupted by huge
swelling ridges and domes; and just beyond the dark forest you see the
monarchs of the High Sierra waving their magnificent banners. They are
twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for every
feature is distinct, and the whole glorious show is seen in its right
proportions. After this general view, mark how sharply the dark,
snowless ribs and buttresses and summits of the peaks are defined,
excepting the portions veiled by the banners, and how delicately their
sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow
flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the
wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached
to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead; how
smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading
fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they
are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward
the end, so that the peaks back of them are seen dimly, as though you
were looking through ground glass. Yet again, observe how some of the
longest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free all
the way across intervening notches and passes from peak to peak, while
others overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly
every particle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of
light. These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible
picture as seen from the forest window; and it would still be
surpassingly glorious were the fore and middle grounds obliterated
altogether, leaving only the black peaks, the white banners and the
blue sky.
Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we
find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of
those we have been contemplating were the favorable direction and
great force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar
conformation of the slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that
the wind should move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a
sufficiently copious and continuous stream of snow dust, but that it
should come from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the
Sierra peaks by a south wind. Had the gale that day blown from the
south, leaving other conditions unchanged, only a dull, confused,
fog-like drift would have been produced; for the snow, instead of
being spouted up over the tops of the peaks in concentrated currents
to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the
sides, and piled down into glacier wombs. The cause of the
concentrated action of the north wind is found in the peculiar form of
the north sides of the peaks, where the amphitheaters of the residual
glaciers are. In general, the south sides are convex and irregular,
while the north sides are concave both in their vertical and
horizontal sections; the wind in ascending these curves converges
toward the summits, carrying the snow in concentrating currents with
it, shooting it almost straight up into the air above the peaks, from
which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction.
This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peaks
was almost wholly produced by the difference in the kind and quantity
of the glaciation to which they have been subjected, the north sides
having been hollowed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never
existed on the sun-beaten sides.
It appears, therefore, that shadows in a great part determine not
only the forms of lofty icy mountains, but also those of the
snow-banners that the wild winds hang on them.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
"If you haven't what you like, try to like what you have."
In this quotation is found the philosophy of life during many
severe trials of one whose girlhood and early career as a
writer were spent entirely within the confines of Wisconsin.
Ella Wheeler was born at Johnstown Center, Wisconsin,
sometime in the '50's, and the family moved to a farm near
Madison when she was a year old. The discussion of her life
given here is derived quite largely from her own statements
in an article, "My Autobiography," published in the
Cosmopolitan magazine for August, 1901.
Mrs. Wheeler, Ella's mother, was a woman of some literary
inclinations and was very fond of reading. She loved not only
the good society of books, but she longed also for the
pleasures of the social life of a cultured community such as
she had known in her Vermont home. Pioneer life was
especially irksome to her, and she found herself unable to
meet patiently the many hardships that the change of fortune
had brought her, and her attitude in the home was not always
buoyant.
Some time after the home was established in Wisconsin, there
was born to these parents their fourth child, Ella, the
future poetess. It may not be too much to say, since Mrs.
Wilcox seems to think it herself, that from the struggles of
the father to meet the hardships that his new life brought
him, may have sprung that bit of wholesome philosophy which
stands at the head of this discussion. It is evident that she
found many opportunities to test it to the utmost. From the
suppressed literary desires of the mother may have come the
intense longing of the daughter to achieve helpfulness
through writing.
From the standpoint of language training this home was far
from limited, and Ella had opportunities here accorded to the
minority of children even at the present time. She says: "My
mother was a great reader of whatever came in her way, and
was possessed of a wonderful memory. The elder children were
excellent scholars, and a grammatical error was treated as a
cardinal sin in the household." That Ella profited from this
inheritance and training may be seen from the following
statements. At school she found the composition exercises the
most delightful of all her school duties. As early as eight
she was excelling in the expression of her thoughts in essay
form. By the age of fourteen she had become the neighborhood
celebrity because of her stories and her poetry. Naturally
these pioneer people would criticise the mother for allowing
Ella to scribble so much when she might have been doing
household or farm tasks; but their criticism was silenced,
and they learned to praise her efforts when they found that
there was a market with the magazines and papers for Ella's
"scribblings."
At the age of fourteen Ella Wheeler's education, "excellent
in grammar, spelling and reading, but wretched in
mathematics," was completed so far as the rural school was
concerned. Sometime later, through great sacrifice on the
part of her people, she was placed for one term in the
University of Wisconsin. Of this experience she says: "I was
not at all happy there; first, because I knew the strain it
put upon the home purse; second, because I felt the gulf
between myself and the town girls, whose gowns and privileges
revealed to me for the first time, the different classes in
American social life; and third, because I wanted to write
and did not want to study." Thus her school work ended and
her acquisition of knowledge necessary to furnish details for
her emotional poems has been made through her individual
study since the University experience.
Ella Wheeler's struggle to become a writer is one of the most
inspiring stories among Wisconsin writers. A weekly paper
came to the home and besides this there was an old red chest
in their upstairs wherein there was kept the often-read
copies of Arabian Nights, Gulliver's Travels, John Gilpin's
Ride, and a few of Shakespeare's plays. In addition to these,
friends had sent the family the New York Ledger and the New
York Mercury. The serial stories of these papers furnished
not only pleasing reading, but models of plots and of forms
of expression which became the guide to her in the art of
story writing.
When Ella was thirteen years old the Mercury ceased to come
to her home, and she regretted the loss of the stories so
much that she determined to write something for the paper
with the hope that the publisher would pay for her article
through subscription. After some delay this brought the much
coveted subscription and she says: "Perhaps the most
triumphant and dramatic hour of my life was when I set forth
and announced to the family that my literary work had
procured the coveted Mercury for our united enjoyment."
This experience led her to write extensively for the
magazines and papers, a list of which a University friend had
sent her. The articles which they accepted soon enabled her
to supply the home with many periodicals and books and other
articles of home use. She was not content with writing essays
very long, but soon undertook the production of verse. Her
first poem was rejected by the Mercury with some degree of
scorn, but she soon offered it to other papers and so
continued until she found a publisher. Very frequently some
of her articles would be returned as many as nine times
before she found a publisher.
The Wheeler family were enthusiastic advocates of total
abstinence, and Ella used her pen to advance this cause. Her
first collection of poems into book form was entitled "Drops
of Water." A poem with temperance as its theme is given as
the first illustration of her efforts in the collection
published here.
Ella Wheeler's training tended to make her the lyric rather
than the narrative poetess. She wrote largely of the emotion
that played through her passing experiences. "Everything in
life," she says, "was material for my own emotions, the
remarks or experiences of my comrades and associates,
sentences from books I read, and some phases of Nature." In
general three things may be said to characterize these short
poems and her own life as revealed by them, for her life
itself is a poem. First, she is convinced that the supreme
thing in life is love. In one poem she asserts that love is
the need of the world. In another, "The Kingdom of Love,"
which is given later, she truthfully proclaims that love is
the very essence of the home.
The second characteristic is her spirit of buoyancy which has
enabled her to surmount the many crushing deprivations and
disappointments in her life. She was born with an
unquenchable hope and an unfaltering trust in God and
guardian spirits. "I often wept myself to sleep after a day
of disappointment and worries," she says, "but woke in the
morning singing aloud with the joy of life." It was such
experiences as these that enabled her to say:
"Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone."
Her faith in the better things to be is well expressed in the
little poem, "The Tendril's Fate." Trials to her are
frequently the means by which the soul's true worth is
tested. This thought is expressed in the poem, "Three
Friends." She bears trials not merely for her own sake, but
for the sake of those about her. We are illustrating this
quality with the poem "Ambition's Trail." Her faith that life
has still much that is better than the present may be
illustrated by her Morning Prayer.
The third characteristic manifest in her poetry is that of
the spirit of helpfulness that manifests itself in every new
phase of life that she assumes. This attitude is illustrated
with respect to mankind in general and also with respect to
her own sex. The poems used are "I Am" and "Which Are You?"
With love and helpfulness as the bond which unite mankind,
Mrs. Wilcox feels there is no place for strife and warfare.
She assails war and expresses her conviction that womankind
shall have much to do with the final disarmament of nations.
She believes implicitly in the mutual helpfulness of man and
woman in solving the great problems of the world. Her own
home life is one of constant happiness and of constant useful
activity. When asked to express what life means to her she
wrote an article for the Cosmopolitan which began thus:
"Exhilaration, anticipation, realization, usefulness,
growth--these things life has always meant and is meaning to
me. I expected much of life; it has given, in all ways, more
than I expected. Love has been more loyal and lasting,
friendship sweeter and more comprehensive, work more
enjoyable, and fame, because of its aid to usefulness, more
satisfying than early imagination pictured." Of one whose
ideals of life are so high the state should be justly proud
and its people should delight to hear her sing:
"I know we are building our heaven
As we journey along by the way;
Each thought is a nail that is driven
In structures that cannot decay,
And the mansion at last shall be given
To us as we build it today."
It was not until after her return from the University that
Ella Wheeler discovered that her poems had a money value. She
sent Frank Leslie's Publishing House three little poems
written in one day. These were accepted and a check sent her
for ten dollars. She now bent every effort towards making her
literary efforts return substantial aid to herself and her
family. It was all her own effort and the worth of her
productions that brought her success, for she had no one to
aid her in securing publication. She sent her poems to
various magazines,--a practise she still continues. During
the years 1912 and 1913, she had poems and prose productions
listed in the following periodicals: Current Literature,
Everybody's, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal,
Collier's Magazine, New England Magazine, The Bookman,
Lippincott's, Forum, Cosmopolitan, Musician, Current Opinion,
and Hearst's magazine.
Mrs. Wilcox has attempted only one long narrative poem,
"Maurine." In this she endeavors to set forth the doctrine of
what she regards as the highest type of friendship. Her
collections of poems bear the following titles: Drops of
Water, Shells, Poems of Passion, Three Women, An Ambitious
Man, Everyday, Thought in Prose and Verse, Poems of Pleasure,
Kingdom of Love and Other Poems, An Erring Woman's Love, Men,
Women and Emotions, The Beautiful Land of Nod, Poems of
Power, The Heart of the New Thought, Sonnets of Abelard and
Heloise, Poems of Experience, Yesterday, Poems of Progress,
Maurine, and Poems of Problems.
Some time after a brief venture in editorial work, she was
married, 1884, to Robert M. Wilcox, a business man of New
York City. Their home life in the city and by the seashore at
Granite Bay, Short Beach, Connecticut, has been most
delightful to them. They have been able to travel extensively
and in this manner to realize many of Mrs. Wilcox's early
dreams. The following poems are from "The Kingdom of Love"
and "Poems of Power."
[Illustration: ELLA WHEELER WILCOX]
THE TWO GLASSES
The following poems of Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox are reprinted
here by permission of the publishers from her copyrighted
books, of which W. B. Conkey Co., Chicago, are the exclusive
American publishers.
There sat two glasses filled to the brim,
On a rich man's table, rim to rim.
One was ruddy and red as blood,
And one was clear as the crystal flood.
Said the glass of wine to his paler brother:
"Let us tell tales of the past to each other.
I can tell of a banquet, and revel, and mirth,
Where I was king, for I ruled in might;
For the proudest and grandest souls on earth
Fell under my touch, as though struck with blight.
From the heads of kings I have torn the crown;
From the heights of fame I have hurled men down.
I have blasted many an honored name;
I have taken virtue and given shame;
I have tempted the youth with a sip, a taste,
That has made his future a barren waste.
Far greater than any king am I
Or than any army beneath the sky.
I have made the arm of the driver fail,
And sent the train from the iron rail.
I have made good ships go down at sea,
And the shrieks of the lost were sweet to me.
Fame, strength, wealth, genius before me fall;
And my might and power are over all!
Ho, ho! pale brother," said the wine,
"Can you boast of deeds as great as mine?"
Said the water glass; "I can not boast
Of a king dethroned, or a murdered host,
But I can tell of hearts that were sad
By my crystal drops made bright and glad;
Of thirst I have quenched, and brows I have laved;
Of hands I have cooled, and souls I have saved.
I have leaped through the valley, and dashed down the mountain,
Slept in the sunshine and dripped from the fountain.
I have burst my cloud-fetters, and dropped from the sky,
And everywhere gladdened the prospects and eye;
I have eased the hot forehead of fever and pain;
I have made the parched meadows grow fertile with grain.
I can tell of the powerful wheel of the mill,
That ground out the flour, and turned at my will,
I can tell of manhood debased by you,
That I have uplifted and crowned anew.
I cheer, I help, I strengthen and aid;
I gladden the hearts of man and maid;
I set the wine-chained captive free,
And all are better for knowing me."
These are the tales they told each other,
The glass of wine and its paler brother,
As they sat together, filled to the brim,
On a rich man's table rim to rim.
THE KINGDOM OF LOVE
In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sun-rise above,
I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a poet I met on the way
Which cross-road would lead me aright.
And he said: "Follow me, and ere long you shall see
Its glittering turrets of light."
And soon in the distance the city shone fair.
"Look yonder," he said; "how it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the "Kingdom of Dreams."
Then the next man I asked was a gay cavalier,
And he said: "Follow me, follow me;"
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of Life's beautiful sea.
Then we came to a valley more tropical far
Than the wonderful vale of Cashmere,
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower
Smile out on the gay cavalier.
And he said: "We have come to humanity's goal:
Here love and delight are intense."
But alas and alas! for the hopes of my soul--
It was only the "Kingdom of Sense."
As I journeyed more slowly I met on the road
A coach with retainers behind.
And they said: "Follow me, for our lady's abode
Belongs in that realm, you will find."
'Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-made bride,
I followed encouraged and bold;
But my hopes died away like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the "Kingdom of Gold."
At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
"I have heard of that realm," she replied;
"But my feet never roam from the 'Kingdom of Home,'
So I know not the way," and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage; how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried:
"Why, home is the 'Kingdom of Love.'"
THE TENDRIL'S FATE
Under the snow in the dark and the cold,
A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mold,
Of the beautiful days that were coming.
"How foolish your songs," said a lump of clay,
"What is there," it asked, "to prove them?"
"Just look at the walls between you and the day,
Now have you the strength to move them?"
But under the ice and under the snow,
The pale little sprout kept singing,
"I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
I know what the days are bringing.
"Birds and blossoms and buzzing bees,
Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees,
And the great glad sun to love me."
A pebble spoke next. "You are quite absurd,"
It said, "with your songs' insistence;
For I never saw a tree or a bird,
So of course there are none in existence."
"But I know, I know," the tendril cried
In beautiful sweet unreason;
Till lo! from its prison, glorified,
It burst in the glad spring season.
THREE FRIENDS
Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,
Who masqueraded in the garb of foes
For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.
Yet fickle joy, like false, pretentious friends,
Has proved less worthy than this trio. First,
Want taught me labor, led me up the steep
And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,
Trod only by the feet that know fatigue,
And yet press on until the heights appear.
Then Loneliness and hunger of the heart
Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,
Till all the silences grew eloquent,
And all their loving forces hailed me friend.
Last, Pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff
Of close communion with the over-soul,
That I might lean upon it to the end,
And find myself made strong for any strife.
And then these three who had pursued my steps
Like stern, relentless foes, year after year,
Unmasked, and turned their faces full on me.
And lo! they were divinely beautiful,
For through them shown the lustrous eyes of Love.
AMBITION'S TRAIL
If all the end of this continuous striving
Were simply to attain,
How poor would seem the planning and contriving,
The endless urging and the hurried driving
Of body, heart and brain!
But ever in the wake of true achieving,
There shines this glowing trail--
Some other soul will be spurred on, conceiving
New strength and hope, in its own power believing,
Because thou didst not fail.
Not thine alone the glory, nor the sorrow,
If thou dost miss the goal;
Undreamed of lives in many a far to-morrow
From thee their weakness or their force shall borrow--
On, on! ambitious soul.
MORNING PRAYER
Let me today do something that shall take
A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favored as to make
Of joy's too scanty sum a little more.
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth
Let me give something that shall aid my kind,
A word of courage, or a thought of help,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me tonight look back across the span
'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say
Because of some good act to beast or man--
"The world is better that I lived today."
I AM
I know not whence I came,
I know not whither I go;
But the fact stands clear that I am here
In this world of pleasure and woe.
And out of the mist and murk
Another truth shines plain:
It is my power each day and hour
To add to its joy or its pain.
I know that the earth exists,
It is none of my business why;
I cannot find out what it's all about,
I would but waste time to try.
My life is a brief, brief thing,
I am here for a little space,
And while I stay I should like, if I may,
To brighten and better the place.
The trouble, I think, with us all
Is the lack of a high conceit.
If each man thought he was sent to this spot
To make it a bit more sweet,
How soon we could gladden the world,
How easily right all wrong,
If nobody shirked, and each one worked
To help his fellows along.
Cease wondering why you came--
Stop looking for faults and flaws,
Rise up today in your pride and say,
"I am a part of the First Great Cause!
However full the world,
There is room for an earnest man.
It had need of me or I would not be--
I am here to strengthen the plan."
WHICH ARE YOU?
There are two kinds of people on earth today;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the sinner and saint, for 'tis well understood,
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.
Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.
No; the kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.
Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses
Are always divided in just these two classes.
And, oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.
In which class are you? Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labor, and worry and care?
RAY STANNARD BAKER.
(David Grayson.)
Ray Stannard Baker was born in 1870 at Lansing, Michigan, and
came to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, with his parents at the
age of five. Here he spent his boyhood and youth. He returned
to the Agricultural College of his native state for study,
and received his degree from that institution, afterwards
attending the University for a short time. He then went into
business with his father at St. Croix Falls, but the desire
to write was strong upon him, and he began his career of
authorship. During recent years his residence has been in
Amherst, Massachusetts, but he visits Wisconsin every summer.
He is one of the state's most voluminous writers. He has the
habit of keen and sympathetic observation, and this quality,
when combined, as it has been in his case, with extensive and
judicious travel and reading, usually results in a
considerable literary output. Those of us who have read Mr.
Baker's magazine articles and books feel that the writer has
seen a great many things,--that he has seen them with his own
eyes, and that he has seen them intelligently. Aside from the
fact that nearly all of his works grow rather from
observation of men and things than from a study of philosophy
or metaphysics, Mr. Baker's range of interest has been
exceedingly wide. Perhaps he is best known as a writer on
social, political, and economic subjects, but the selections
given here from "The Boys' Book of Inventions," (I and II),
indicate a field of interest that is entirely apart from
politics.
The editors feel bound, in justice to Mr. Baker, to say that
he feared that our readers would think that we had erred in
choosing the accounts of inventions which have progressed so
immeasurably since his articles were written. The editors, on
the other hand, desired to do precisely the thing that Mr.
Baker feared to have them do. They desire to show what a
keen, well-trained observer saw in these inventions, which
now play so vital a part in our lives, when the inventions
were new. Further, it is our desire that the name of
Professor Langley, of Washington, D. C., should be properly
honored in connection with the advance of the science of
aviation. Indeed, but recently, when tried by an experienced
aviator, his machine flew successfully. Professor Langley
died as an indirect result of his untiring, unselfish, and
heroic efforts in this then new cause. In spite of ridicule
and contempt, in spite of lack of support, he went
courageously ahead; and it is right that the boys of
Wisconsin should know that a young man of their state has
given due credit in his book to this heroic soul.
[Illustration: RAY STANNARD BAKER]
THROUGH THE AIR
From "THE BOYS' BOOK OF INVENTIONS," Chapter IX, by Ray
Stannard Baker. Copyright, 1899, by Doubleday, Page & Co.
Probably no American inventor of flying machines is better known or
has been more successful in his experiments than Professor S. P.
Langley, the distinguished secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at
Washington. Professor Langley has built a machine with wings, driven
by a steam-engine, and wholly without gas or other lifting power
beyond its own internal energy. And this machine, to which has been
given the name Aerodrome (air-runner), actually flies for considerable
distances. So successful were Professor Langley's early tests, that
the United States Government recently made a considerable
appropriation to enable him to carry forward his experiments in the
hope of finally securing a practical flying machine. His work is,
therefore, the most significant and important of any now before the
public (1899).
The invention of the aerodrome was the result of long years of
persevering and exacting labor, with so many disappointments and
set-backs that one cannot help admiring the astonishing patience which
kept hope alive to the end. Early in his experiments, Professor
Langley had proved positively, by mathematical calculations, that a
machine could be made to fly, provided its structure were light enough
and the actuating power great enough. Therefore, he was not in pursuit
of a mere will-o'-the-wisp. It was a mechanical difficulty which he
had to surmount, and he surmounted it.
Professor Langley made his first experiments more than twelve years
ago at Allegheny, Pennsylvania.... Professor Langley formed the
general conclusion that by simply moving any given weight in plate
form fast enough in a horizontal path through the air it was possible
to sustain it with very little power. It was proved that, if
horizontal flight without friction could be insured, 200 pounds of
plates could be moved through the air and sustained upon it at the
speed of an express train, with the expenditure of only one
horse-power, and that, of course, without using any gas to lighten the
weight.
Every boy who has skated knows that when the ice is very thin he must
skate rapidly, else he may break through. In the same way, a stone may
be skipped over the water for considerable distances. If it stops in
any one place it sinks instantly. In exactly the same way, the plate
of brass, if left in any one place in the air, would instantly drop to
the earth; but if driven swiftly forward in a horizontal direction it
rests only an instant in any particular place, and the air under it at
any single moment does not have time to give way, so to speak, before
it has passed over a new area of air. In fact, Professor Langley came
to the conclusion that flight was theoretically possible with engines
he could then build, since he was satisfied that engines could be
constructed to weigh less than twenty pounds to the horse-power, and
that one horse-power would support two hundred pounds if the flight
was horizontal.
That was the beginning of the aerodrome. Professor Langley had worked
out its theory, and now came the much more difficult task of building
a machine in which theory should take form in fact. In the first
place, there was the vast problem of getting an engine light enough
to do the work. A few years ago an engine that developed one
horse-power weighed nearly as much as an actual horse. Professor
Langley wished to make one weighing only twenty pounds, a feat never
before accomplished. And then, having made his engine, how was he to
apply the power to obtain horizontal speed? Should it be by flapping
wings like a bird, or by a screw propeller like a ship? This question
led him into a close study of the bird compared with the man. He found
how wonderfully the two were alike in bony formation, how curiously
the skeleton of a bird's wing was like a man's arm, and yet he finally
decided that flapping wings would not make the best propeller for his
machine. Men have not adopted machinery legs for swift locomotion,
although legs are nature's models, but they have, rather, constructed
wheels--contrivances which practically do not exist in nature.
Therefore, while Professor Langley admits that successful flying
machines may one day be made with flapping wings, he began his
experiments with the screw propeller.
There were three great problems in building the flying machine. First,
an engine and boilers light enough and at the same time of sufficient
power. Second, a structure which should be rigid and very light.
Third, the enormously difficult problem of properly balancing the
machine, which, Professor Langley says, took years to solve....
Professor Langley established an experimental station in the Potomac
River, some miles below Washington. An old scow was obtained, and a
platform about twenty feet high was built on top of it. To this spot,
in 1893, the machine was taken, and here failure followed failure; the
machine would not fly properly, and yet every failure, costly as it
might be in time and money, brought some additional experience.
Professor Langley found out that the aerodrome must begin to fly
against the wind, just in the opposite way from a ship. He found that
he must get up full speed in his engine before the machine was allowed
to go, in the same way that a soaring bird must make an initial run on
the ground before it can mount into the air, and this was, for various
reasons, a difficult problem. And then there was the balancing.
"If the reader will look at the hawk or any soaring bird," says
Professor Langley, "he will see that as it sails through the air
without flapping the wing, there are hardly two consecutive seconds of
its flight in which it is not swaying a little from side to side,
lifting one wing or the other, or turning in a way that suggests an
acrobat on a tight-rope, only that the bird uses its widely
outstretched wings in place of the pole."
It must be remembered that air currents, unlike the Gulf Stream, do
not flow steadily in one direction. They are forever changing and
shifting, now fast, now slow, with something of the commotion and
restlessness of the rapids below Niagara.
All of these things Professor Langley had to meet as a part of the
difficult balancing problem, and it is hardly surprising that nearly
three years passed before the machine was actually made to fly--on
March 6, 1896.
"I had journeyed, perhaps for the twentieth time," says Professor
Langley, "to the distant river station, and recommenced the weary
routine of another launch, with very moderate expectation indeed; and
when, on that, to me, memorable afternoon the signal was given and the
aerodrome sprang into the air, I watched it from the shore with hardly
a hope that the long series of accidents had come to a close. And yet
it had, and for the first time the aerodrome swept continuously
through the air like a living thing, and as second after second passed
on the face of the stop-watch, until a minute had gone by, and it
still flew on, and as I heard the cheering of the few spectators, I
felt that something had been accomplished at last; for never in any
part of the world, or in any period, had any machine of man's
construction sustained itself in the air before for even half of this
brief time. Still the aerodrome went on in a rising course until, at
the end of a minute and a half (for which time only it was provided
with fuel and water), it had accomplished a little over half a mile,
and now it settled, rather than fell, into the river, with a gentle
descent. It was immediately taken out and flown again with equal
success, nor was there anything to indicate that it might not have
flown indefinitely, except for the limit put upon it."
MARCONI AND HIS GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS--NEW EXPERIMENTS IN WIRELESS
TELEGRAPHY
From "SECOND BOOK OF INVENTIONS," Chapter VII, by Ray
Stannard Baker. Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday, Page & Co.
At noon on Thursday (December 12, 1901), Marconi sat waiting, a
telephone receiver at his ear, in a room of the old barracks on Signal
Hill. To him it must have been a moment of painful stress and
expectation. Arranged on the table before him, all its parts within
easy reach of his hand, was the delicate receiving instrument, the
supreme product of years of the inventor's life, now to be submitted
to a decisive test. A wire ran out through the window, thence to a
pole, thence upward to the kite which could be seen swaying high
overhead. It was a bluff, raw day; at the base of the cliff 300 feet
below thundered a cold sea; oceanward through the mist rose dimly the
rude outlines of Cape Spear, the easternmost reach of the North
American Continent. Beyond that rolled the unbroken ocean, nearly
2,000 miles to the coast of the British Isles. Across the harbor the
city of St. John's lay on its hillside wrapped in fog; no one had
taken enough interest in the experiments to come up here through the
snow to Signal Hill. Even the ubiquitous reporter was absent. In Cabot
Tower, near at hand, the old signalman stood looking out to sea,
watching for ships, and little dreaming of the mysterious messages
coming that way from England. Standing on that bleak hill and gazing
out over the waste of water to the eastward, one finds it difficult
indeed to realize that this wonder could have become a reality. The
faith of the inventor in his creation, in the kite-wire, and in the
instruments which had grown under his hand, was unshaken.
"I believed from the first," he told me, "that I would be successful
in getting signals across the Atlantic."
Only two persons were present that Thursday afternoon in the room
where the instruments were set up--Mr. Marconi and Mr. Kemp.
Everything had been done that could be done. The receiving apparatus
was of unusual sensitiveness, so that it would catch even the faintest
evidence of the signals. A telephone receiver, which is no part of the
ordinary instrument, had been supplied, so that the slightest clicking
of the dots might be conveyed to the inventor's ear. For nearly half
an hour not a sound broke the silence of the room. Then quite suddenly
Mr. Kemp heard the sharp click of the tapper as it struck against the
coherer; this, of course, was not the signal, yet it was an indication
that something was coming. The inventor's face showed no evidence of
excitement. Presently he said:
"See if you can hear anything, Kemp."
Mr. Kemp took the receiver, and a moment later, faintly and yet
distinctly and unmistakably, came three little clicks--the dots of the
letter S, tapped out an instant before in England. At ten minutes past
one, more signals came, and both Mr. Marconi and Mr. Kemp assured
themselves again and again that there could be no mistake. During this
time the kite gyrated so wildly in the air that the receiving wire was
not maintained at the same height, as it should have been; but again,
at twenty minutes after two, other repetitions of the signal were
received. Thus the problem was solved. One of the great wonders of
science had been wrought.
THE ROPING AT PASCO'S
By Ray Stannard Baker, McClure's Magazine, VOL XIX. p. 152.
Copyright, 1902, by S. S. McClure Company.
... Little groups of people were drifting by to the grand stand. Here
and there, from the corner of his eye, as he bent to adjust the
saddle-cinches, Turk McGlory caught the glint of a white skirt or of a
flowing ribbon. Sometimes the girls stopped to discuss the
contestants; he heard them talking of Bud Oliver, and Mason, and
Buster Graham. Suddenly, as he tightened a latigo strap, a saucy,
smiling face looked up at him. Her sister was evidently trying to pull
her away, but she said, half teasingly:
"I'm wearing your colors, Mr. Texas. You must win."
He saw nothing but deep black eyes, and he felt the blood in his face.
He couldn't have spoken if he had known that it was to save his life,
and he knew that he was smiling foolishly....
"We're betting on you, Bud Oliver," came other shouts. The Texas men
were not over-popular in Arizona, and yet it was a sportsmanlike
crowd.
The babel of voices ceased sharply. A wiry little steer, red and
white, shot into the field as if catapulted. Turk McGlory observed how
like an antelope it ran--long-legged and as easily as the wind blows.
The flag fell, and Bud was off; the judges riding after him were
blurred in his dust. There was no roper like Bud. He waited long
before raising his rope, bending close to his saddle and riding hard;
then in what curious, loose, slow coils he swung it! Would he ride
clean over his steer? There! he had reached out as if to catch the
steer by the tail, and the rope had gone over his head like a hoop,
horns and all. Now he was paying out to trip up the steer. How they
were running! Turk McGlory rose suddenly in his saddle.
"Look out for the fence," he roared.
But Bud had seen it, too, and the little roan squatted like a rabbit.
The steer, reaching the rope's end, doubled up and fell--but fell
against the fence. There had not been quite room enough. Bud was off
saddle, and the little roan, knowing well what was going on, walked
away like a man, pulling hard on the rope to keep the steer down. If
it had been a larger steer or a fatter one, there would have been no
trouble; but this one fought like a cat, now on its knees, now on its
feet. Bud seized it by the tail, and with a single fierce toss he laid
it flat, then he tied--and arms up. Turk McGlory waited with hands
clenched to hear the time.
"Fifty seconds."
So Bud was beaten by a second, and beaten because he didn't have a
fair field. How the crowd howled for the Arizona champion. Bud came up
smiling and unconcerned.
"Now, McGlory," he said, "you must make a showing for Texas."
"What am I offered on Turk McGlory against the field?" shouted the
pool-seller. "Now's your last chance."
"Hurrah for the kid from Texas!" shouted other voices.
Turk McGlory was at the line, astonished to find himself coiling his
rope with so much ease. He felt that he wasn't doing it himself, but
that some one else was working in him. The sun blazed hot on the
field, but everything seemed dim and indistinct. To him all the voices
kept shouting:
"Turk McGlory, Turk McGlory, Turk McGlory."
"Hurrah for Texas and the calico horse," came a shout from the grand
stand.
"Wait till they see you run, Pinto," Turk said between his teeth, and
the pinto stirred nervously under him.
"Ready," called Turk McGlory, though not in Turk McGlory's voice. He
gave one glance behind him. The grand stand was a picture of a girl in
blue and white; she was the picture, all the rest was frame.
There was a clatter at the pen, and the steer shot past him. Instantly
he saw all its points--horns, legs, tail--and they spoke to him with
the meaning of familiarity. So might the old knight have looked for
the points of his adversary's armour. Now that he was off, Turk's
head cleared to his work. The steer ran with hind feet swinging
sideways, hog-like. He remembered a steer in the Lazy A outfit that
had the same habit, and a bad one it was, too. How strange that he
should think of such things at such a time! The steer was swerving
swiftly to the left. The pinto, nose forward and dilating, instantly
slackened pace, swerving in the same direction and cutting off
distance. It was much to have a horse, pinto though he be, that knew
his business. Turk's rope began to swing, but he was wholly
unconscious of it. He seemed now to see only the legless body of a
steer swimming on a billow of dust. The fence! He saw it with a throb,
and he was yet too far off to throw. And there was the grand stand
above it, the men rising, half in terror, and a color of women. The
steer had swung almost round. It was a low rail fence, and between it
and the grand stand lay the racing track. Dimly McGlory heard shouts
of warning. Would the steer plunge into the stand? Dimly, too,
glancing back, he saw the other cow-men charging after him to the
rescue. There was a crash; the steer had gone through the fence as if
it were pasteboard, and the pinto was now close behind. There was all
too little room here in the track. The steer would evidently plunge
full into the crowd. Turk McGlory's arm shot forward and the rope
sped. The pinto sat sharply back, throwing McGlory well over the
pommel. To those in the grand stand it seemed as if the steer, all
horns and eyes, was plucked out of their faces. When they looked
again, McGlory was tying, and the judges and the other punchers were
swarming through the gap in the fence. Hands up; and the pinto easing
away on the rope! It was all lost, McGlory felt. The fence had been in
the way. Why couldn't they provide an open field, as in Texas? These
Arizona men couldn't conduct a contest. The timer lifted his hand, and
the shouting stopped.
"Thirty-six seconds," he announced.
"What a fool of a timer," thought Turk McGlory. "It can't be so."
Then he saw Bud Oliver stride up with outstretched hand, and a lump
came in his throat.
"Good boy!" said Bud. "You've saved the day for Texas."
And then the crowd pounced on him and hooted and shouted, "McGlory!
McGlory!" until he was dizzy with it all. It was not as he thought it
would be. Two hundred dollars won! And he, Turk McGlory!
And then a saucy, flushed face looking up at him.
"I knew you would do it, Mr. Texas," she said.
And with that she pinned a blue and white ribbon on his vest, and he
looked off over her head, and trembled.
"DAVID GRAYSON."
Surprised as many of our readers will no doubt be to find how
wide has been the field of interest covered by Mr. Baker
under his own name, the surprise of most of them will be
still keener when they know that the delightful pastoral
sketches in prose which have appeared in our magazines from
time to time under the name of "David Grayson," are all
written by this same young son of Wisconsin. Who would have
thought that the author of "Adventures in Contentment,"
"Adventures in Friendship," "The Friendly Road," and the
novel called "Hempfield," was the same as the frequently
truculent writer of social and political exposures?
One likes Mr. Baker better knowing this fact. One sees that
his interests and ideals are wide, tolerant, and kindly. The
editors of this book are proud to be among the first to
introduce David Grayson and Ray Stannard Baker publicly as
one and the same man. Mr. Baker has also written under the
pen name of Sturgis B. Rand.
AN ARGUMENT WITH A MILLIONAIRE
From "ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT," Chapter VII, by David
Grayson. Doubleday, Page & Co.
An Argument With a Millionaire.
"Let the mighty and great
Roll in splendour and state,
I envy them not, I declare it.
I eat my own lamb,
My own chicken and ham,
I shear my own sheep and wear it.
I have lawns, I have bowers,
I have fruits, I have flowers,
The lark is my morning charmer;
So you jolly dogs now,
Here's God bless the plow--
Long life and content to the farmer."
--Rhyme on an old pitcher of English pottery.
I have been hearing of John Starkweather ever since I came here. He is
a most important personage in this community. He is rich. Horace
especially loves to talk about him. Give Horace half a chance, whether
the subject be pigs or churches, and he will break in somewhere with
the remark: "As I was saying to Mr. Starkweather--" or, "Mr.
Starkweather says to me--" How we love to shine by reflected glory!
Even Harriet has not gone by unscathed; she, too, has been affected by
the bacillus of admiration. She has wanted to know several times if I
saw John Starkweather drive by: "The finest span of horses in this
country," she says, and "did you see his daughter?" Much other
information concerning the Starkweather household, culinary and
otherwise, is current among our hills. We know accurately the number
of Mr. Starkweather's bedrooms, we can tell how much coal he uses in
winter and how many tons of ice in summer, and upon such important
premises we argue his riches.
Several times I have passed John Starkweather's home. It lies between
my farm and the town, though not on the direct road, and it is really
beautiful with the groomed and guided beauty possible to wealth. A
stately old house with a huge end chimney of red bricks stands with
dignity well back from the road; round about lie pleasant lawns that
once were cornfields; and there are drives and walks and exotic
shrubs. At first, loving my own hills so well, I was puzzled to
understand why I should also enjoy Starkweather's groomed
surroundings. But it came to me that after all, much as we may love
wildness, we are not wild, nor our works. What more artificial than a
house, or a barn, or a fence? And the greater and more formal the
house, the more formal indeed must be the nearer natural
environments. Perhaps the hand of man might well have been less
evident in developing the surroundings of the Starkweather home--for
art, dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished!
But I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the road, I
sometimes think to myself with satisfaction: "Here is this rich man
who has paid his thousands to make the beauty which I pass and take
for nothing--and having taken, leave as much behind." And I wonder
sometimes whether he, inside his fences, gets more joy of it than I,
who walk the roads outside. Anyway, I am grateful to him for using his
riches so much to my advantage.
On fine mornings John Starkweather sometimes comes out in his
slippers, bare-headed, his white vest gleaming in the sunshine, and
walks slowly around his garden. Charles Baxter says that on these
occasions he is asking his gardener the names of the vegetables.
However that may be, he has seemed to our community the very
incarnation of contentment and prosperity--his position the acme of
desirability.
What was my astonishment, then, the other morning to see John
Starkweather coming down the pasture lane through my farm. I knew him
afar off, though I had never met him. May I express the inexpressible
when I say he had a rich look; he walked rich, there was richness in
the confident crook of his elbow, and in the positive twitch of the
stick he carried: a man accustomed to having doors opened before he
knocked. I stood there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I
felt that profound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of
his life to know something of the inner impulses which stir his
nearest neighbor. I should have liked to know John Starkweather; but
I thought to myself as I have thought so many times how surely one
comes finally to imitate his surroundings. A farmer grows to be a part
of his farm; the sawdust on his coat is not the most distinctive
insignia of the carpenter; the poet writes his truest lines upon his
own countenance. People passing in my road take me to be a part of
this natural scene. I suppose I seem to them as a partridge squatting
among dry grasses and leaves, so like the grass and leaves as to be
invisible. We all come to be marked upon by nature and dismissed--how
carelessly!--as genera or species. And is it not the primal struggle
of man to escape classification, to form new differentiations?
Sometimes--I confess it--when I see one passing in my road, I feel
like hailing him and saying:
"Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person, I am different and
curious. I am full of red blood, I like people, all sorts of people;
if you are not interested in me, at least I am intensely interested in
you. Come over now and let's talk!"
So we are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable gulfs
which separate us even from our nearest friends!
Once or twice this feeling has been so real to me that I've been near
to the point of hailing utter strangers--only to be instantly overcome
with a sense of the humorous absurdity of such an enterprise. So I
laugh it off and I say to myself:
"Steady now: the man is going to town to sell a pig; he is coming back
with ten pounds of sugar, five of salt pork, a can of coffee and some
new blades for his mowing machine. He hasn't time for talk"--and so I
come down with a bump to my digging, or hoeing, or chopping, or
whatever it is.
Here I've left John Starkweather in my pasture while I remark to the
extent of a page or two that I didn't expect him to see me when he
went by.
I assumed that he was out for a walk, perhaps to enliven a worn
appetite (do you know, confidentially, I've had some pleasure in times
past in reflecting upon the jaded appetites of millionaires!), and
that he would pass out by my lane to the country road; but, instead of
that, what should he do but climb the yard fence and walk over toward
the barn where I was at work.
Perhaps I was not consumed with excitement: here was fresh adventure!
"A farmer," I said to myself with exultation, "has only to wait long
enough and all the world comes his way."
I had just begun to grease my farm wagon and was experiencing some
difficulty in lifting and steadying the heavy rear axle while I took
off the wheel. I kept busily at work, pretending (such is the
perversity of the human mind) that I did not see Mr. Starkweather. He
stood for a moment watching me; then he said:
"Good morning, sir."
I looked up and said: "Oh, good morning!"
"Nice little farm you have here."
"It's enough for me," I replied. I did not especially like the
"little." One is human.
Then I had an absurd inspiration: he stood there so trim and jaunty
and prosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He was dressed in a
woolen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggings; on his head he wore a
jaunty, cocky little Scotch cap; a man, I should judge, about fifty
years old, well-fed and hearty in appearance, with grayish hair and a
good-humored eye. I acted on my inspiration:
"You've arrived," I said, "at the psychological moment."
"How's that?"
"Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm having a
hard time of it."
The look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful to see.
For a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression said with
emphasis: "Perhaps you don't know who I am." But I looked at him with
the greatest good feeling and my expression said, or I meant it to
say: "To be sure I don't: and what difference does it make, anyway!"
"You take hold here," I said, without waiting for him to catch his
breath, "and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily get the wheel
off."
Without a word he set his cane against the barn and bent his back; up
came the axle and I propped it with a board.
"Now," I said, "you hang on there and steady it while I get the wheel
off"--though, indeed, it didn't really need much steadying.
As I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing stock
still in the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed with
horror. She had recognized John Starkweather and had heard at least
part of what I said to him, and the vision of that important man
bending his back to help lift the axle of my old wagon was too
terrible! She caught my eye and pointed and mouthed. When I smiled
and nodded, John Starkweather straightened up and looked around.
"Don't, on your life," I warned, "let go of that axle."
He held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. John
Starkweather's face was a study!
"Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially.
"Never," he said.
"There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and, as I
worked, I talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him
exactly how to put it on--neither too much nor too little, and so that
it would distribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.
"There's a right way of doing everything," I observed.
"That's so," said John Starkweather, "if I could only get workmen that
believed it."
By that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put
back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped
me with the other end of the axle with all good humor.
"Perhaps," I said, as engagingly as I knew how, "you'd like to try the
art yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady the
wagon."
"All right," he said, laughing, "I'm in for anything."
He took the grease box and the paddle--less gingerly than I thought he
would.
"Is that right?" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. And oh, it
was good to see Harriet in the doorway!
"Steady there," I said, "not so much at the end; now put the box down
on the reach."
And so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time in the
friendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a pretty good
time. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. He wasn't bored!
When he had finished, we both straightened our backs and looked at
each other. There was a twinkle in his eye; then we both laughed.
"He's all right," I said to myself. I held up my hands, then he held
up his; it was hardly necessary to prove that wagon-greasing was not a
delicate operation.
"It's a good, wholesome sign," I said, "but it'll come off. Do you
happen to remember a story of Tolstoi's called, 'Ivan the Fool?'"
("What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!" remarked his
countenance--though he said not a word.)
"In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember," I said, "it was the rule that
whoever had hard places on his hands came to table, but whoever had
not must eat what the others left."
Thus I led him up the back steps and poured him a basin of hot
water--which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet having
marvelously and completely disappeared. We both washed our hands,
talking with great good humor.
When we had finished I said: "Sit down, friend, if you've time, and
let's talk."
So he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid sort of man,
rather warm after his recent activities. He looked me over with some
interest and, I thought, friendliness.
"Why does a man like you," he asked finally, "waste himself on a
little farm back here in the country?"
For a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for
a long time. _Waste_ myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had
a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest
sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh, well," I
thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he doesn't know." So I said:
"What would you have me be--a millionaire?"
He smiled, but with a sort of sincerity.
"You might be," he said; "who can tell!"
I laughed outright; the humor of it struck me as delicious. Here I had
been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating
over him as a poor suffering millionaire (of course millionaires _are_
unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying
_me_ for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious,
this human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling!
So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs.
I felt as though I had set foot in a new country.
"Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a
millionaire?"
He chuckled: "Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to
a star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend.
When I began--"
He stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did not know
who he was.
"Of course," I said, "I understand that."
"A man must begin small"--he was on pleasant ground--"and anywhere he
likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must
save, he must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when
he was about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good
digestion. He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in
the city, a place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes.
He has so arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and
he draws the dividends--and all in a little more than twenty years. I
made every single cent--but, as I said, it's a penny business to start
with. The point is, I like to see young men ambitious."
"Ambitious," I asked, "for what?"
"Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead."
"I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross-examine
you, but I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean
by rising? And who am I to get ahead of?"
He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my
consummate stupidity.
"I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can of my
life. It's the only one I've got."
"See here," he said, "let us say you clear up five hundred a year from
this farm--"
"You exaggerate--" I interrupted.
"Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it
possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five
thousand or even fifty thousand a year?"
It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!
"I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any better off
or happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like
all these surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That
old green hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of
mine. I have a good corn-field in which every year I work miracles.
I've a cow and a horse and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My
appetite is perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep
every night like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to
disturb me. I enjoy the mornings here in the country; and the evenings
are pleasant. Some of my neighbors have come to be my good friends. I
like them and I am pretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I
have the best books ever written and I have time in the evenings to
read them--I mean _really_ read them. Now the question is, would I be
any better off, or any happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?"
John Starkweather laughed.
"Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a
philosopher."
"Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest twenty
years of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illustration,"
said John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can put it in the bank
and take it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and
other things. Now twenty years of my life--to me--is worth more than a
million dollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer
to invest it, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've
always had a liking for intangible properties."
"See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow view of
life. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a
man make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to
society?"
"Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of
personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me
ask you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be
plowed and cultivated?"
"Yes, but--"
"Isn't it honest and useful work?"
"Of course."
"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?"
"Certainly."
"It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer."
"But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied
to other things yield better and bigger results?"
"That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making once--in
a city--and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful
and happy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while
some millionaire drew the dividends." (I was cutting close, and I
didn't venture to look at him.) "No doubt he had his houses and yachts
and went to Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs--back--where
there wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill,
or a brook; only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be
thanked for my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a
silent conspiracy against Youth. Success holds up a single glittering
apple and bids Youth strip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success
still holds the apple."
John Starkweather said nothing.
"Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realize, we farmers, that we must
produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realize
that we are the foundation; we connect human life with the earth. We
dig and plant and produce, and, having eaten at the first table
ourselves, we pass what is left to the bakers and millionaires. Did
you ever think, stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been
fought for the control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought
that the surplus of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads
are struggling to carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and
mills; a little of it gathered in cash makes a millionaire. But we
farmers, we sit back comfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives
and play with our babies, and let the rest of you fight for the crumbs
that fall from our abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up
and shook ourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste
the crusts; gather 'em up and tomorrow we'll have a cottage pudding,'
where in the world would all the millionaires be?"
Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or
any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionaire is
better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of
the millionaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with
the symbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may
change; a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue
or a western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't
scattering as many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but
I've noticed that the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat)
and then what happens to your millionaire? Not knowing how to produce
anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not always,
somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table."
"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather.
"Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society
a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a
man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to
dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his
roots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the
earth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is
quenched by heaven itself--and there's no tax on sunshine."
I paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was laughing.
"When you commiserate me, therefore" ("I'm sure I shall never do it
again," said John Starkweather), "when you commiserate me, therefore,
and advise me to rise, you must give me really good reasons for
changing my occupation and becoming a millionaire. You must prove to
me that I can be more independent, more honest, more useful as a
millionaire, and that I shall have better and truer friends!"
John Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been absurdly
eager and I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his hand on my knee
(he has a wonderfully fine eye!).
"I don't believe," he said, "you'd have any truer friends."
"Anyway," I said repentantly, "I'll admit that millionaires have their
place--at present I wouldn't do entirely away with them, though I do
think they'd enjoy farming better. And if I were to select a
millionaire for all the best things I know, I should certainly choose
you, Mr. Starkweather."
He jumped up.
"You know who I am?" he asked.
I nodded.
"And you knew all the time?"
I nodded.
"Well, you're a good one!"
We both laughed and fell to talking with the greatest friendliness. I
led him down my garden to show him my prize pie-plant, of which I am
enormously proud, and I pulled for him some of the finest stalks I
could find.
"Take it home," I said, "it makes the best pies of any pie-plant in
this country."
He took it under his arm.
"I want you to come over and see me the first chance you get," he
said. "I'm going to prove to you by physical demonstration that it's
better sport to be a millionaire than a farmer--not that I am a
millionaire; I'm only accepting the reputation you give me."
So I walked with him down to the lane.
"Let me know when you grease up again," he said, "and I'll come over."
So we shook hands; and he set off sturdily down the road with the
pie-plant leaves waving cheerfully over his shoulder.
ZONA GALE.
Among the various types of literature, the short story has
become very popular in recent years. Numerous writers are
fond of the principles involved in its construction, and are
developing this form beyond many others. The short story is
not new, for it has been developed in many lands throughout
the past centuries. However, there has been a marked revival
in its production recently and Wisconsin writers have been
interested in developing this type. Among these we have
already noticed Hamlin Garland. There will be several others
mentioned in these selections, among whom the subject of this
sketch is one of the most notable.
Zona Gale, who has made her imaginative "Friendship Village"
one of the real places in Wisconsin life, was born at
Portage, Wisconsin, August 26, 1874. This city continues to
be her home; and the study of its home life, its school life,
its social, industrial, and religious life has afforded her
the basis for generalizing upon what is true of the life of
our time. Her characters are not necessarily Portage people,
for they are Wisconsin people and people of other states as
well. However, Portage and its life has furnished her many
interesting starting points for her comments upon life in
general. She has attempted to repay her community for this
material furnished her by becoming an integral part of its
community life. In its civic improvements, in its home life,
in its schools and in its churches, she has had her work and
has aspired to do her best towards making her home city
beautiful and wholesome.
Zona Gale remembers much of the play life and the school life
in her home town during the eighties and early nineties of
the last century. She has recently set forth her idealized
remembrance of these early experiences in her book entitled
"When I Was a Little Girl." One of these is chosen as an
illustration of her work.
Besides the school training afforded her by Portage, Zona
Gale attended Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and
later she entered the University of Wisconsin, from which
institution she received the Bachelor of Literature degree in
1895, and four years later the Master's degree.
After graduation Miss Gale was employed for a time on staffs
of Milwaukee and New York papers. Since 1904 she has devoted
herself to writing for magazines. She spends some time in New
York and the East, but most of her work is done at her
beautiful home, which overlooks the Wisconsin river at
Portage.
Miss Gale writes an occasional poem for some magazine. We
give "The Holy Place," published in the Bookman some years
ago, as an illustration of her poetry. However, it is not as
a poet, but rather as a short story writer that we are
remembering Zona Gale.
Miss Gale's stories have appeared in the Atlantic,
Appleton's, the Cosmopolitan, Everybody's, the Outlook, the
Bookman, and other magazines. Her first arrangement of
stories in book form, "Romance Island," appeared in 1906. A
year later she published "The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre."
The two characters mentioned are an old couple of seventy or
more, who, under the protecting care of an old servant,
Nichola, live a sort of child life. Their pranks, if such
they may be called, are the kindly deeds of making others
happy. The stories purport to be told by Etarre, who would
have us believe that there is quite as much romance in the
lives of two old people busily engaged in breaking the rules
of the crabbed old nurse as there is in the lives of much
younger people. They are constantly on the alert for the
romance in the lives of those about them, and it would seem
that no love match in their neighborhood could be a success
without their assistance. The spirit that pervades the book
is that of thoughtful helpfulness.
We are sure to lay aside these stories with the wish that the
kindly spirit and the rich enjoyment of Pelleas and Etarre
might be true for all old people. We wish every aged couple
might stand at the window at Christmas time and send such
telegrams of bequest as these which they send to the world:
"And from my spirit to yours I bequeath the hard-won
knowledge that you must be true from the beginning. But if by
any chance you have not been so, then you must be true from
the moment you know."
To this sentiment of Pelleas shall Etarre reply: "From my
spirit to your spirit, I bequeath some understanding of the
preciousness of love, and the need to keep it true."
Stories must happen somewhere, and the capital of Zona Gale's
character world is "Friendship Village." Here occur the loves
of her youthful romances, the gossips of the older worldly
wise. Here her clubs originate and accomplish their tasks. In
this village occur the struggles for social and industrial
reform in which Zona Gale is so much interested, and here,
too, takes place all that great conflict for civic
righteousness which brings "Friendship Village" slowly nearer
the goal of perfection as she understands it. "Friendship
Village" is probably located nowhere, but still Miss Gale has
been so successful in writing about it that we are most sure
it is our town, and some one has suggested that another good
name for this place would be "Our Home Town."
Two of Miss Gale's books derive their titles from this
village of hers. They are "Friendship Village" and
"Friendship Village Love Stories." A short description of her
"Friendship Village" will follow later. Another book based
upon the village life deals with the lesson of Christmas
time. It shows how the older people who have come to feel
that they could not afford the expense of Christmas are
brought to realize the real significance of Christmas giving.
Another series of stories is linked into book form through
the narrator, Calliope Marsh. It is entitled "Mothers to
Men," and is an account of life at "Friendship Village."
Miss Gale writes beautiful stories of how to make the better
community; but what is more, she does with her own hands many
things which bring about the realization of her plans.
Women's club of her own city and of many other cities enjoy
her aid in their plans for better conditions. Civic
federations of statewide influence have her help as member
and officer. Further, her own county fair has enjoyed her
presence and her efforts to advance civic improvement through
her friendly counsel to those who pause to talk with her.
Her writing is here illustrated in part from her recent book,
"When I Was a Little Girl." Two of the little girls of the
neighborhood had been shut up in their rooms one fine summer
day as punishment for the infraction of some home regulation,
whereupon a discussion among the free playmates arose as to
the reason for punishment. As the discussion waxed
perplexing, the little girls happened upon Grandmother Beers,
who took up the discussion and enlightened the children. What
she had heard of their conversation caused her to break in
with the statement, "Wicked? I didn't know you knew such a
word." The following discussion then takes place:
[Illustration: ZONA GALE]
WHY?
From "WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL." Copyright, 1913, by the
Macmillan Co.
"It's a word you learn at Sunday School," I explained importantly.
"Come over here and tell me about it," she invited, and led the way to
the Eating Apple tree. And she sat down in the swing! Of course,
whatever difference of condition exists between your grandmother and
yourself vanishes when she sits down casually in your swing.
Well, Grandmother Beers was one who knew how to play with us, and I
was always half expecting her to propose a new game. But that day, as
she sat in the swing, her eyes were not twinkling at the corners.
"What does it mean?" she asked us. "What does wicked mean?"
"It's what you aren't to be."
I took the brunt of the reply, because I was the relative of the
questioner.
"Why not?" asked grandmother.
"Why not?" Oh, we all knew that. We responded instantly, and out came
the results of the training of all the families.
"Because your Mother and your Father say you can't," said Betty
Rodman.
"Because it makes your mother feel bad," said Calista.
"Because God don't want us to," said I.
"Delie says," Betty added, "it's because, if you are, when you grow up
people won't think anything of you."
Grandmother Beers held her sweet-peas to her face.
"If," she said, after a moment, "you wanted to do something wicked
more than you ever wanted to do anything in the world--as much as
you'd want a drink tomorrow if you hadn't had one to-day--and if
nobody ever knew--would any of those reasons keep you from doing it?"
We consulted one another's look, and shifted. We knew how thirsty that
would be. Already we were thirsty, in thinking about it.
"If I were in your place," grandmother said, "I'm not sure those
reasons would keep me. I rather think they wouldn't--always."
We stared at her. It was true that they didn't always keep us. Were
not two of us "in our rooms" even now?
Grandmother leaned forward--I know how the shadows of the apple leaves
fell on her black lace cap and how the pink sweet-peas were reflected
in her delicate face.
"Suppose," she said, "that instead of any of those reasons somebody
gave you this reason: That the earth is a great flower--a flower that
has never really blossomed yet. And that, when it blossoms, life is
going to be more beautiful than we have ever dreamed, or than fairy
stories have ever pretended. And suppose our doing one way, and not
another, makes the flower come a little nearer to blossom. But our
doing the other way puts back the time when it can blossom. Then which
would you want to do?"
"Oh, make it grow, make it grow," we all cried; and I felt a secret
relief: Grandmother was playing a game with us, after all.
"And suppose that everything made a difference to it," she went on,
"every little thing--from telling a lie, on down to going to get a
drink for somebody and drinking first yourself out in the kitchen.
Suppose that everything made a difference, from hurting somebody on
purpose, down to making up the bed and pulling the bedspread tight so
that the wrinkles in the blanket won't show."
At this we looked at one another in some consternation. How did
grandmother know?
"Until after awhile," she said, "you should find out that
everything--loving, going to school, playing, working, bathing,
sleeping, were all just to make this flower grow. Wouldn't it be fun
to help?"
"Yes. Oh, yes." We were all agreed about that. It would be great fun
to help.
"Well, then suppose," said grandmother, "that as you helped, you found
out something else: that in each of you, say, where your heart is, or
where your breath is, there was a flower trying to blossom through!
And that only as you help the earth flower to blossom could your
flower blossom. And that your doing one way would make your flower
droop its head and grow dark and shrivel up. But your doing the other
way would make it grow, and turn beautiful colors--so that, bye and
bye, every one of your bodies would be just a sheath for this flower.
Which way then would you rather do?"
"Oh, make it grow, make it grow," we said again.
And Mary Elizabeth added longingly: "Wouldn't it be fun if it was
true?"
"It is true," said Grandmother Beers.
She sat there, softly smiling over her pink sweet-peas. We looked at
her silently. Then I remembered that her face had always seemed to me
to be somehow light within. May be it was her flower showing through!
"Grandmother!" I cried, "is it true--is it true?"
"It is true," she repeated. "And whether the earth flower and other
people's flowers and your flower are to bloom or not is what living is
about. And everything makes a difference. Isn't that a good reason for
not being wicked?"
We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to
what she said. And I know that we understood.
"Oh," Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, "hurry home and
tell Margaret Amelia. It'll make it so much easier when she comes out
to her supper."
That night, on the porch, alone with Mother and Father, I inquired
into something that still was not clear.
"But how can you tell which things are wicked? And which ones are
wrong and which things are right?"
Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with
a look that I knew--and his smile for me is like no other smile that I
have ever known.
"Something will tell you," he said, "always."
"Always?" I doubted.
"Always," he said. "There will be other voices. But if you listen,
something will tell you always. And it is all you need."
I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that
all this had been known about for a long time.
"That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us," she said, "not
just because we wanted her, but because--that said so."
In us all a flower--and something saying something! And the earth
flower trying to blossom ... I looked down the street: at Mr.
Branchett walking in his garden, at the light shining from windows, at
the folk sauntering on the sidewalk, and toward town where the band
was playing. We all knew about this together then. This was why
everything was! And there were years and years to make it come
through.
What if I, alone among them all, had never found out.
THE HOLY PLACE
At silver of gray lines; at look of lace
About a woman's throat; at little feet,
Curled close in hand that clings; at stir of sweet
Old gardens; at the flow and dip and grace
Of sweeping fabric; at the phantom race of shadow ripples in
the tides of wheat,
Where great, still spirits murmur as they meet--
Souls see Their God as in a holy place.
What of the wrinkled face, the poor, coarse hands,
Dead leaves and ruined walls in fields that stand,
Rattling sharp husks? Of little feet that stray
From clinging hands, and never find the way?
He knows no holy place for whom the clod
Stands not an altar to the living God.
FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE
Published by Permission of The Macmillan Co., New York.
We are one long street, rambling from sun to sun, inheriting traits of
the parent country road which we unite. And we are cross streets,
members of the same family, properly imitative, proving our
ancestorship in a primeval genius for trees, or bursting out in
inexplicable weaknesses of Court-House, Engine-House, Town Hall, and
Telephone Office. Ultimately our stock dwindled out in a
slaughter-house and a few detached houses of milk men. The cemetery is
delicately put behind them, under a hill. There is nothing mediaeval
in all this, one would say. But then see how we wear our rue:
When one of us telephones, she will scrupulously ask for the number,
for it says so at the top of every page. "Give me 1-1," she will put
it, with an impersonality as fine as if she were calling for four
figures. And central will answer:
"Well, I just saw Mis' Holcomb go 'crost the street. I'll call you, if
you want, when she comes back."
Or, "I don't think you better ring the Helman's just now. They were
awake 'most all night with one o' Mis' Helman's attacks."
Or, "Doctor June's invited to Mis' Syke's for tea. Shall I give him to
you there?"
The telephone is modern enough. But in our use of it, is there not a
flavor as of an Elder Time, to be caught by Them of Many Years from
Now? And already we may catch this flavor, as our Britain
great-great-lady grandmothers, and more, may have been conscious of
the old fashion of sitting in bowers. If only they were conscious like
that! To be sure of it would be to touch their hands in the margin of
the ballad books.
Or we telephone to the Livery Barn and Boarding Stable for the little
blacks, celebrated for their self-control in encounters with the
Proudfits' motor car. The stable-boy answers that the little blacks
are at "the funeral." And after he has gone off to ask his employer,
who in his unofficial moments is our neighbor, our church choir bass,
our landlord even, comes and tells us that, after all, we may have the
little blacks, and he himself brings them round at once--the same
little blacks that we meant all along. And when, quite naturally, we
wonder at the boy's version, we learn: "Oh, why, the blacks was
standin' just acrost the street, waitin' at the church door, hitched
to the hearse. I took 'em out an' put in the bays. I says to myself:
'The corpse won't care.'" Some way the Proudfits' car and the stable
telephone must themselves have slipped from modernity to old fashioned
before that incident shall quite come into its own.
So it is with certain of our domestic ways. For example, Mis'
Postmaster Sykes--in Friendship Village every woman assumes for given
name the employment of her husband--has some fine modern china and
much solid silver in extremely good taste, so much, indeed, that she
is wont to confess to having cleaned forty, or sixty, or seventy-five
pieces--"seventy-five pieces of solid silver have I cleaned this
morning. You can say what you want to, nice things are a rill care."
Yet, surely this is the proper conjunction, Mis' Sykes is currently
reported to rise in the night preceding the day of her house cleaning,
and to take her carpets out in the back yard, and there softly to
sweep and sweep them so that, at their official cleaning next day, the
neighbors may witness how little dirt is whipped out on the line.
Ought she not to have old-fashioned silver and egg-shell china and
drop-leaf mahogany to fit the practice instead of dazzling and
wild-rose patterns in "solid and art curtains, and mission chairs and
a white-enameled refrigerator, and a gas range?"
We have the latest funeral equipment--black broadcloth-covered
supports, a coffin carriage for up-and-down the aisles, natural palms
to order, and the pulleys to "Let them down slow"; and yet our
individual funeral capacity has been such that we can tell what every
woman who has died in Friendship for years has "done without": Mis'
Grocer Stew, her of all folks, has done without new-style flat-irons;
Mis' Worth had used the bread pan to wash dishes in; Mis' Jeweler
Sprague--the first Mis' Sprague--had had only six bread and butter
knives, her, that could get wholesale, too ... and we have little
maid-servants who answer our bells in caps and trays, so to say; but
this savour of jestership is authentic, for any one of them is likely
to do as of late did Mis' Holcomb--that was Mame Bliss's maid--answer
at dinner-with-guests, that there were no more mashed potatoes, "or
else, there won't be any left to warm up for your breakfast."... And
though we have our daily newspaper, receiving Associated Press
service, yet, as Mis' Amandy Toplady observed, it is "only very lately
that they have mentioned in the Daily the birth of a child, or any
thing that had anything of a tang to it."
We put new wine in old bottles, but also we use new bottles to hold
our old wine. For, consider the name of our main street: is this Main
or Clark or Cook or Grand Street, according to the register of the
main streets of town? Instead, for its half-mile of village life, the
Plank Road, macadamized and arc-lighted, is called Daphne Street.
Daphne Street! I love to wonder why. Did our dear Doctor June's father
name it when he set the five hundred elms and oaks which glorify us?
Or did Daphne herself take this way on the day of her flight, so that
when they came to draught the town, they recognized that it was Daphne
Street, and so were spared the trouble of naming it? Or did the Future
anonymously toss us back the suggestion, thinking of some day of her
own when she might remember us and say, "Daphne Street!" Already some
of us smile with a secret nod at something when we direct a stranger,
"You will find the Telegraph and Cable Office two blocks down, on
Daphne Street." "The Commercial Travelers' House, the Abigail Arnold
Home Bakery, the Post Office and Armory are in the same block on
Daphne Street." Or, "The Electric Light Office is at the corner of
Dunn and Daphne." It is not wonderful that Daphne herself, at seeing
these things, did not stay, but lifted her laurels somewhat nearer
Tempe--although there are those of us who like to fancy that she is
here all the time in our Daphne-Street magic: the fire bell, the tulip
beds, and the twilight bonfires. For how else, in all reason, has the
name persisted?
Of late a new doctor has appeared--one may say, has abounded: a
surgeon who, such is his zeal, will almost perform an operation over
the telephone and, we have come somewhat cynically to believe, would
prefer doing so to not operating at all.
* * * * *
Thus the New shoulders the Old, and our transition is still swift
enough to be a spectacle, as was its earlier phase which gave our
Middle West to cabins and plough horses, with a tendency away from
wigwams and bob-whites. And in this local warfare between Old and New
a chief figure is Calliope Marsh. She is a little rosy, wrinkled
creature officially--though no other than officially--pertaining to
sixty years; mender of lace, seller of extracts, and music teacher,
but of the three she thinks of the last as her true vocation.
* * * * *
With us all the friendship idea prevails: we accept what Progress
sends, but we regard it in our own fashion. Our improvements, like our
entertainments, our funerals, our holidays, and our very loves, are
but Friendship-Village exponents of the modern spirit. Perhaps, in a
tenderer significance than she meant, Calliope characterized us when
she said:
"This town is more like a back door than a front--or, givin' it full
credit, anyhow--it's no more'n a side door, with no vines."
EBEN EUGENE REXFORD.
The subject of this sketch has lived in Wisconsin since the
seventh year of his life. He was born at Johnsburgh, New
York, on September 16, 1848. With his parents he removed to
Wisconsin, where he came to love the products of the soil and
the processes by which they might be made more and more
beautiful. Not merely plant growth has been of interest to
him; the development of Wisconsin institutions also,
especially its schools, has been of the most vital concern to
him. Few men have been more deeply interested in the schools
of any community than has Mr. Rexford in the schools of his
village, and few have more effectively encouraged the
teaching of agricultural facts in the schools than he.
Mr. Rexford's life has been spent quite largely at his
country home near Shiocton, where he has found much of the
material for the line of writing in which he has been
especially interested. The country home has furnished him
with opportunities for pleasurable development of which few
have even dreamed. His career is worth studying, if for no
other reason than to disprove the thought that rural life is
a life of toil and hardship devoid of the privilege of
acquiring that finer sense for the beautiful. Mr. Rexford's
life has been rich in the companionship of people and of
animals and plants. This last has given that training which
makes him an authority along the line of floriculture.
Mr. Rexford received his training beyond the rural schools at
Lawrence College, Appleton, where he pursued the college
course until his senior year. When he had gone thus far in
his course, the care of his home demanded his attention; and,
characteristic of the man, he sacrificed his own personal
interests for the greater good he might do. The city of
Appleton and its institutions, especially its college and its
churches, still possess strong bonds of interest for him. The
college, in turn, is justly proud of his attainments and
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Literature in
1908.
After his school career, Mr. Rexford took up his work at his
country home near Shiocton, where he has been actively
associated with all phases of the development of community
life. Good roads found a strong advocate in him; the
introduction and development of farm machinery and farm
improvements have found him a leader. For school programs and
for church exercises he has contributed much in providing
music, or in directing the musical part of the program.
Early in life Mr. Rexford conceived the notion of sharing his
best thoughts with his fellows through expressing them for
publication, and it is said that he has been a contributor to
the press since the age of fourteen. He has written
extensively for a large number of magazines. The Ladies' Home
Journal and Outing have published more of his articles,
perhaps, than any other magazines. These magazine
contributions comprise poems and articles upon gardening,
flower culture, and the making of the country home. While the
articles show extensive scientific knowledge, they are so
written as to be easily comprehended by the ordinary reader.
The various articles have been collected into book form and
the following discussions upon the garden and its plants were
listed in the 1912 catalogs: Flowers, How to Grow Them; Four
Seasons in the Garden; Home Floriculture; Home Garden; Indoor
Gardening. These discussions are made up largely of Mr.
Rexford's own experience in doing the things he writes about.
From among the flowers in his living room or the plants in
his garden you can easily imagine him in his quiet,
neighborly way telling you the things that will aid you in
successfully raising flowers or vegetables. We are closely
drawn to him, for there is no show about what he does, but
that simple kindliness of one who desires to help.
While extracts from books of the type above listed would not
generally form good selections for reading, yet so different
is the style of composition of Mr. Rexford that we feel that
a few illustrations here will be of great interest as showing
the qualities above mentioned. The first two selections are
taken from his "Home Floriculture," a book published by the
Orange Judd Company, and will illustrate Mr. Rexford's
intense interest in his plants as well as his simple style in
telling us the things of help to us.
[Illustration: EBEN E. REXFORD]
WATERING PLANTS
Printed by permission of Orange, Judd Co.
Some persons water their plants every day, without regard to the
season, and give about the same quantity one day that they do another.
The natural result is that in winter their plants are weak and
spindling, with yellow leaves, and few, if any, flowers. The owner
will tell you that she "don't see what ails her plants." She is sure
she gives them all the water they need, and she "never forgets to do
this." If she were to forget to do this occasionally it would be a
great deal better for the plants. In summer the evaporation of
moisture from the soil is rapid, because of warmth and wind, but in
winter this goes on slowly, and the amount of water given should be
regulated by the ability of the soil to dispose of it. Where too much
is given, as has been said in the chapter on planting, the soil is
reduced to a condition of muddiness, unless good drainage has been
provided, and those who give too much water generally neglect this
item.
Another woman will give water in little driblets, "whenever she
happens to think of it." The result is that her plants are chronic
sufferers from the lack of moisture at the roots. The wonder is that
they contrive to exist. Turn them out of their pots and you will
generally find that the upper portion of the soil is moist, and in
this what few roots there are have spread themselves, while below it,
the soil is almost as dry as dust, and no root could live there.
Plants grown under these conditions are almost always dwarf and sickly
specimens, with but few leaves and most of these yellow ones. You will
find that plants grown under either condition are much more subject to
attacks of insects than healthy plants are.
There is only one rule to be governed in watering plants that I have a
knowledge of and that is this: Never apply water to any plant until
the surface of the soil looks dry. When you do give water, give enough
of it to thoroughly saturate the soil. If some runs through at the
bottom of the pot, you can be sure that the whole ball of earth is
moist.
I follow this rule with good results. Of course, like all other rules,
it has exceptions. For instance, a calla, being a sort of aquatic
plant, requires very much more water than a geranium. A cactus, being
a native of hot, dry climates, requires but very little. The florist
who is interested in his plants will study their habits, in order to
understand the requirements of each, and will soon be able to treat
them intelligently. He will soon be able to tell at a glance when a
plant requires more water. He will know what kinds to give a good deal
to, and what kinds to water sparingly. Until he has acquired this
ability it is well for him to adhere to the rule given above, for if
he follows it, he cannot go very far wrong in either direction. Let
the water used be of about the same temperature as that of the room in
which the plants are. I am often asked which is best, hard or soft
water. I have tried both and see little difference.
Many persons fail to attain success with plants in baskets and window
boxes. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the failure is due to lack
of water. A basket is exposed to dry air on all sides, and is
suspended near the ceiling, as a general thing, where the air is much
warmer than below; consequently the evaporation takes place more
rapidly than from the pot on the window sill. Because it is somewhat
difficult to get at, water is not given as often as required, and then
generally in smaller quantities than is needed. The first thing you
know, your plants are turning yellow, and dropping their leaves, and
soon they are in such a condition that you throw them away in disgust,
and conclude that you haven't "the knack" of growing good basket
plants. All the trouble comes from an insufficient water supply.
There are two methods by which you may make it easier to attend to the
needs of the plants. One is, to have the baskets suspended by long
cords running over pulleys, by which you can lower them into a tub of
water, where they can be left until they are thoroughly soaked
through. The other is this: Take a tin can and punch a hole through
the bottom of it. Let this hole be large enough to allow the water to
escape, drop by drop. Set this on top of your basket and arrange the
foliage to cover it.
If the hole is not so large as it ought to be, the soil will not be
kept moist all through. In this case, make it larger. A little
observation will enable you to regulate matters in such a manner as to
secure just the flow of water needed. By the "tin-can method" of
watering basket plants, the trouble of watering in the ordinary way
will be done away with, and the results will be extremely
satisfactory.
Plants can be grown nearly as well in the window box as in the open
ground if enough water is given to keep the soil moist, all through,
at all times. The "little-and-often" plan, spoken of in this chapter,
will lead to dismal failure in the care of window boxes. Apply at
least a pailful of water every day, in warm weather. If this is done,
there need be no failure. If those who have failed heretofore will
bear this in mind, and follow the advice given, they may have window
boxes that will make their windows beautiful during the entire summer,
with very little trouble.
TEA ROSES FOR BEDS
No part of my garden affords me more pleasure than my bed of Tea
Roses. I cut dozens of flowers from it nearly every day from June to
the coming of cold weather, for buttonhole and corsage bouquets, and
for use on the table, and in the parlor. One fine rose and a bit of
foliage is a bouquet in itself. If I could have but one bed of
flowers, it should be a bed of Tea Roses--and yet, I should want a bed
of Pansies to supplement the Roses; therefore, a bed of each would be
a necessity.
If you want to give a friend a buttonhole nosegay that shall be "just
as pretty as it can be," you must have a bed of these Roses to draw
from. A half-blown flower of Meteor, with its velvety, crimson petals,
and a bud of Perle des Jardins, just showing its golden heart, with a
leaf or two of green to set off the flowers--what a lovely harmony of
rich color! Or, if your taste inclines you to more delicate colors,
take a bud of Luciole, and a Catherine Mermet when its petals are just
falling apart. Nothing can be lovelier, you think, till you have put
half open Perle des Jardins with a dark purple or azure-blue Pansy.
When you have done that, you are charmed with the manner in which the
two colors harmonize and intensify each other, and you are sure there
was never anything finer for a flower-lover to feast his eyes on. Put
a tawny Safrano or Sunset bud with a purple Pansy and see what a royal
combination of colors you have in the simple arrangement. Be sure to
have a bed of Tea Roses, and make combinations to suit yourself.
In order to make a success of your bed of Tea Roses--though perhaps I
ought to say ever-bloomers, for probably your selection will include
other varieties than the Tea--you must have a rich soil for them to
grow in. When a branch has borne flowers, it must be cut back to some
strong bud. This bud will, if your soil is rich enough to encourage
vigorous growth, soon become a branch, and produce flowers. It is by
constant cutting back that you secure new growth, if the soil is in a
condition to help it along, and only by securing this steady
production and development of new branches can you expect many
flowers. All depends on that. If proper treatment is given, you need
not be without flowers, unless you cut them all, from June to October.
If I were to name all the desirable varieties, I might fill several
pages with the list. Look over the catalogs of the florists and you
will see that the variety is almost endless. If you do not care to
invest money enough to secure the newer varieties, tell the dealer to
whom you give your patronage what you want the plants for, and he will
make a selection which will include some of the best kinds, and which
will be sure to give you as good satisfaction as you would get from a
selection of your own. Better, in most instances, for you make your
selection from the description in the catalog, while he would select
from his knowledge of the merits of the flower.
By all means have a bed of these most sweet and lovely Roses. If the
season happens to be a hot and dry one, mulch your rose bed with grass
clippings from the lawn. Spread them evenly about the plants, to a
depth of two or three inches, in such a manner as to cover the entire
bed. By so doing, you prevent rapid evaporation and the roots of the
plant are kept much cooler than when strong sunshine is allowed to
beat down upon the surface of the bed. When the mulch begins to decay,
remove it, and apply fresh clippings. About the middle of the season
give the soil a liberal dressing of fine bone meal, working it well
about the roots of the plants; or, if you can get it, use old cow
manure. Whatever you apply, be sure it gets where the roots can make
use of it.
While the above illustrations show Mr. Rexford's interests in
the affairs of home life and demonstrate his simple, direct
way of saying what he wishes us to know, yet they do not
manifest that finer literary sense of which he is possessed.
They are scientific thought, clearly and directly expressed,
but he has that sentiment of the heart and that keen
appreciation of the relation of sound to sense which marks
him as the poet and song writer.
His first book publication of a poetic nature is a long
narrative poem entitled "Brother and Lover." It is a story of
Civil War times and is rich in the sentiment of friendship
which, to his mind, endures not merely through this life, but
abides throughout all time. The plot of this story is very
simple, involving but three characters, a young woman, her
brother, and her lover.
Mr. Rexford's last collection of poems appeared in 1911 under
the title "Pansies and Rosemary." He explained this title in
the following quotation: "Pansies--for thoughts, and
Rosemary--that's for remembrance." Many of the thoughts in
these poems seem to be such as come to us at eventide, for
they reflect many sentiments concerning death. It would seem
that Mr. Rexford has cherished those occasions which bring a
community in humility and close sympathy, to point the
significance of the great lesson of hope, in the most
beautiful language that he commands.
In a few of these poems, dialect has been chosen as the form
of expression. One of this type has been selected for this
reading. It illustrates the fact that in these simple acts of
community effort to do the constructive, there always comes
more joy than can come from the polished product of practised
art.
Naturally we expect one who loved the beauty of the landscape
and the color of petal and the fragrance of flower to be more
or less of a Nature poet. To him Nature is the great teacher
of God's handiwork, and imparts to us solace and joy. Mr.
Rexford has also chosen to disregard the life of the city for
the life of the country village, where every individual to
the youngest school child may know him and reverence him for
his kindly helpfulness. He loves the humble worker in the
common walks of life. "The Two Singers" given later will
illustrate his theory of usefulness.
He does not conceal the presence of evil, nor does he condone
it, but he does show the great strength which may be attained
through resistance of it. The unfruitful tree illustrates
this point.
Mr. Rexford has always been a great lover of music. He has
led the village choir and he has played the organ at the
church service for many years. He has written not merely the
words that he sings, but he has also set many of his little
lyrics to music. When the village school has needed a song
for a special program, when the church service has been in
special need, or when the Memorial Day program could be
rendered more sacredly helpful by his music, Mr. Rexford has
always been ready to assist. He has kindly consented to our
publishing his famous song, "Silver Threads Among the Gold,"
and its sequel, "When Silver Threads are Gold Again."
THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR
All of these poems are reprinted with consent of the author
and the J. B. Lippincott Publishing Co.
I have be'n in city churches where the way-up singers sing,
Till their thousand'-dollar voices make the very rafters ring.
Seems as if the sound kep' clim'in' till it got lost in the spire,
But I all the time was wishin' 'twas our dear ol' village choir.
Somehow, highfallutin' singin' never seemed to touch the spot
Like the ol' religious singin' o' the times I hain't forgot;
Jest the ol' hymns over'n over--nothin' city folks desire,
But some heart was in the singin' of that same ol' village choir.
Nothin' airy 'bout the singers--land; they never tho't o' style,
But they made you think o' Heaven an' of good things all the while,
Made you feel as ef the angels couldn't help a comin' nigher
Jest to lis'en to the music made by that ol' village choir.
When they sung ol' Coronation, w'y--it somehow seemed to grip
An' to take your heart up with it on a sort o' 'scursion trip
To the place where God stays! Of'en heart an' soul seemed all afire
With the glory that they sung of in the dear ol' village choir.
Then they'd have us all a-cryin' when they sung, at funril-time,
Soft, an' low, an' sweet, an' sollum hymns that told about the clime
Where there's never death or partin', an' the mourners never'd tire
Lis'nen' to the words o' comfort sung by the ol' village choir.
You c'n have your city singin' if you think it fills the bill;--
Give me the ol'-fashioned music of the ol' church on the hill.
Music with no style about it--nothin' fine folks would admire,
But it makes me homesick, thinkin' o' the dear ol' village choir.
THE TWO SINGERS
I know two of this earth's singers; one longed to climb and stand
Upon the heights o'er looking the peaceful lower land,
"There where great souls have gathered, the few great souls of earth,
I'll sing my songs," he told us, "and they will own their worth.
"But if I sang them only to those who love the plain
They would not understand them, and I would sing in vain.
Oh, better far to sing them to earth's great souls, though few,
Than to sing them to the many who ne'er one great thought knew."
So he climbed the heights, and on them sang, and those who heard--
Earth's few great souls, ah, never they gave one longed-for word,
For the mighty thoughts within them filled each one's soul and brain,
And few among them listened to the music of his strain.
But the other singer sang to the toilers in the vale,
The patient, plodding many, who strive, and win, and fail.
His songs of faith and gladness, of hope and trust and cheer,
Were sweet with strength and comfort, and men were glad to hear.
Little this valley singer knew of the good he wrought;
He dreamed not of the courage that from his songs was caught--
Of the hearts that were made lighter, the hands that stronger grew,
As they listened to his singing to the many, not to few.
He who sang upon the mountains was forgotten long ago--
Not one song of his remembered as the swift years come and go.
But the dwellers in the valley sing the other's sweet songs o'er,
And as his grave grows greener they love them more and more.
THE UNFRUITFUL TREE
There stood in a beautiful garden
A tall and stately tree.
Crowned with its shining leafage
It was wondrous fair to see.
But alas! it was always fruitless;
Never a blossom grew
To brighten its spreading branches
The whole long season through.
The lord of the garden saw it,
And he said, when the leaves were sere,
"Cut down this tree so worthless,
And plant another here.
My garden is not for beauty
Alone, but for fruit, as well,
And no barren tree must cumber
The place in which I dwell."
The gardener heard in sorrow,
For he loved the barren tree
As we love some things about us
That are only fair to see.
"Leave it one season longer,
Only one more, I pray,"
He plead, but the lord of the garden
Was firm, and answered, "Nay."
Then the gardener dug about it,
And cut its roots apart,
And the fear of the fate before it
Struck home to the poor tree's heart.
Faithful and true to his master,
Yet loving the tree as well,
The gardener toiled in sorrow
Till the stormy evening fell.
"Tomorrow," he said, "I will finish
The task that I have begun."
But the morrow was wild with tempest,
And the work remained undone.
And through all the long, bleak winter
There stood the desolate tree,
With the cold white snow about it,--
A sorrowful thing to see.
At last, the sweet spring weather
Made glad the hearts of men,
And the trees in the lord's fair garden
Put forth their leaves again.
"I will finish my task tomorrow,"
The busy gardener said,
And thought, with a thrill of sorrow,
That the beautiful tree was dead.
The lord came into his garden
At an early hour next day,
And to the task unfinished
The gardener led the way.
And lo! all white with blossoms,
Fairer than ever to see,
In the promise of coming fruitage
Stood the sorely-chastened tree.
"It is well," said the lord of the garden.
And he and the gardener knew
That out of its loss and trial
Its promise of fruitfulness grew.
It is so with some lives that cumber
For a time the Lord's domain.
Out of trial and bitter sorrow
There cometh countless gain,
And fruit for the Master's harvest
Is borne of loss and pain.
A DAY IN JUNE
I could write such a beautiful poem
About this summer day
If my pen could catch the beauty
Of every leaf and spray,
And the music all about me
Of brooks, and winds, and birds,
But the greatest poet living
Cannot put them into words.
If I might, you would hear all through it
The whispering of the breeze,
Like a fine and far-off echo
Of the ocean's harmonies.
You would hear the song of the robin
A-swing in the appletree,
And the voice of the river going
On its search for the great gray sea.
You would breathe the fragrance of clover
In the words of every line,
And incense out of the censors
Of hillside larch and pine.
You would see through the words the roses
And deep in their hearts of gold
The sweets of a thousand summers,
But words are so weak, so cold!
If I only could write the color
Of the lilacs' tossing plume,
And make you feel in a sentence
The spell of its rare perfume:--
If my pen could catch the glory
Of the clouds and the sunset sky,
And the peace of the summer twilight
My poem would never die!
SILVER THREADS AMONG THE GOLD
Copyright, 1915, by Estate of Hamilton S. Gordon.
I.
Darling, I am growing old,--
Silver threads among the gold,
Shine upon my brow today;--
Life is fading fast away;
But, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me,
Yes! my darling, you will be--
Always young and fair to me.
II.
When your hair is silver-white,--
And your cheeks no longer bright
With the roses of the May,--
I will kiss your lips, and say:
Oh! my darling, mine alone,
You have never older grown,
Yes, my darling, mine alone,--
You have never older grown.
III.
Love can never-more grow old,
Locks may lose their brown and gold;
Cheeks may fade and hollow grow;
But the hearts that love, will know
Never, winter's frost and chill;
Summer warmth is in them still,
Never winter's frost and chill,
Summer warmth is in them still.
IV.
Love is always young and fair,--
What to us is silver hair,
Faded cheeks or steps grown slow,
To the hearts that beat below?
Since I kissed you, mine alone,
You have never older grown,
Since I kissed you, mine alone,
You have never older grown.
Chorus to last verse.
Darling, we are growing old,
Silver threads among the gold,
Shine upon my brow today;--
Life is fading fast away.
WHEN SILVER THREADS ARE GOLD AGAIN
Words by Eben E. Rexford; music by H. P. Danks. Copyright,
1915, by Estate of Hamilton S. Gordon.
You tell me we are growing old,
And show the silver in your hair,
Whence time has stolen all the gold,
That made your youthful tresses fair;
But years can never steal away
The love that never can grow old.
So what care we for tresses gray,--
Since love will always keep its gold.
Oh, darling, I can read today,
The question in your thoughtful eyes;
You wonder if I long for May,--
Beneath the autumn's frosty skies.
Oh, love of mine, be sure of this:
For me no face could be so fair
As this one that I stoop to kiss
Beneath its crown of silver hair.
Oh, darling, though your step grows slow,
And time has furrowed well your brow,
And all June's roses hide in snow,
You never were so dear as now.
Oh, truest, tend'rest heart of all,
Lean on me when you weary grow,
As days, like leaves of autumn, fall
About the feet that falter so.
Oh, darling, with your hand in mine,
We'll journey all life's pathway through,
With happy tears your dear eyes shine
Like sweet blue blossoms in the dew.
The sorrows of the passing years
Have made us love each other more,
And every day that disappears
I count you dearer than before.
Chorus.
Oh, love, I tell you with a kiss,
If heav'n gives back the youth we miss
Your face will be no fairer then
When silver threads are gold again.
CARL SCHURZ.
Carl Schurz was born at Liblar, Prussia, 1829. He was
educated in the gymnasium of Cologne, and the University of
Bonne. He entered the revolutionary army in 1848, and was
likewise the editor of a revolutionary paper. He was obliged
to flee to Switzerland, and his accounts of his narrow
escapes in getting across the border, as given in his
Reminiscences, are intensely thrilling. He came to America in
1852, and after three years' residence in Philadelphia, he
settled in Watertown, in our own state. Though he was later a
resident of Michigan, Missouri, and New York, and indeed
represented the second-named state in the Senate of the
United States, yet throughout his Reminiscences he frequently
speaks of Wisconsin in a manner that shows he thought of it
as his home.
His life as an American citizen was full of honor and
responsibility. He was made Minister to Spain by President
Lincoln, but soon resigned to come back home and serve in the
Civil War. He was a brigadier-general of volunteers and took
part in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and
Chattanooga. During all the rest of his life he was active in
the service of his country, both in and out of office. He was
strongly on the side of reconciliation with the South, and he
hoped and worked for a re-united country. His addresses and
his letters show his intense faith in Civil Service reform.
His Reminiscences indicate how thoroughly American this man
became, and how deeply he appreciated, and how jealously he
wished to guard, the freedom which he had failed to find in
his mother country, and which he had risked so much to obtain
here.
The first selection here given is from Volume I of his
Reminiscences. It relates the escape from the prison at
Spandau of his dear friend, Professor Kinkel, in which Schurz
played an important part. We see here how closely organized
this band of revolutionists was, and the intensity of their
love for each other, together with the sense of fun and
adventure in all they did.
The second selection is characteristic of the oratory of Mr.
Schurz during his later years. It shows an intense
patriotism, and emphasizes the fact that though he was not
born here, for him but one country had the slightest claim
upon his devotion.
THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
From Vol. I--1829-1852. Chapter X, p. 311. Copyright, 1907,
by the McClure Co.
Shortly before midnight I stood, equipped as on the night before, well
hidden in the dark recess of the house door opposite the penitentiary.
The street corners right and left were, according to agreement,
properly watched, but our friends kept themselves, as much as
possible, concealed. A few minutes later the night watchman shuffled
down the street, and, when immediately in front of me, swung his
rattle and called the hour of twelve. Then he slouched quietly on and
disappeared. What would I have given for a roaring storm and a
splashing rain! But the night was perfectly still. My eye was riveted
to the roof of the penitentiary building, the dormer windows of which
I could scarcely distinguish. The street lights flared dimly. Suddenly
there appeared a light above, by which I could observe the frame of
one of the dormer windows; it moved three times up and down; that was
the signal hoped for. With an eager glance I examined the street right
and left. Nothing stirred. Then on my part I gave the signal agreed
upon, striking sparks. A second later the light above disappeared and
I perceived a dark object slowly moving across the edge of the wall.
My heart beat violently and drops of perspiration stood upon my
forehead. Then the thing I had apprehended actually happened: tiles
and brick, loosened by the rubbing rope, rained down upon the pavement
with a loud clatter. "Now, good heaven, help us!" At the same moment
Hensel's carriage came rumbling over the cobblestones. The noise of
the falling tiles and brick was no longer audible. But would they not
strike Kinkel's head and benumb him? Now the dark object had almost
reached the ground. I jumped forward and touched him; it was indeed my
friend and there he stood alive and on his feet.
"This is a bold deed," were the first words he said to me.
"Thank God," I answered. "Now off with the rope and away."
I labored in vain to untie the rope that was wound around his body.
"I cannot help you," Kinkel whispered, "for the rope has fearfully
lacerated both my hands." I pulled out my dirk, and with great effort
I succeeded in cutting the rope, the long end of which, as soon as it
was free, was quickly pulled up. While I threw a cloak around Kinkel's
shoulders and helped him get into the rubber shoes, he looked
anxiously around. Hensel's carriage had turned and was coming slowly
back.
"What carriage is that?" Kinkel asked.
"Our carriage."
Dark figures showed themselves at the street corners and approached
us.
"For heaven's sake, what people are those?"
"Our friends."
At a little distance we heard male voices sing, "Here we sit gayly
together."
"What is that?" asked Kinkel, while we hurried through a side street
toward Kruger's hotel.
"Your jailers around a bowl of punch."
"Capital!" said Kinkel. We entered the hotel through a back door and
soon found ourselves in a room in which Kinkel was to put on the
clothes that we had bought for him--a black cloth suit, a big
bear-skin overcoat, and a cap like those worn by Prussian forest
officers. From a room near by sounded the voices of the revelers.
Kruger, who had stood a few minutes looking on while Kinkel was
exchanging his convict's garb for an honest man's dress, suddenly went
out with a peculiarly sly smile. When he returned carrying a few
filled glasses, he said, "Herr Professor, in a room near by some of
your jailers are sitting around a bowl of punch. I have just asked
them whether they would not permit me to take some for a few friends
of mine who have just arrived. They had no objection. Now, Herr
Professor, let us drink your health first out of the bowl of your
jailers." We found it difficult not to break out in loud laughter.
Kinkel was now in his citizen's clothes, and his lacerated hands were
washed and bandaged with handkerchiefs. He thanked his faithful
friends with a few words which brought tears to their eyes. Then we
jumped into Hensel's vehicle. The penitentiary officers were still
singing and laughing around their punch bowl.
THE TRUE AMERICANISM
By Carl Schurz. From "MODERN ELOQUENCE." Vol. IX, p. 1025.
Copyright, 1900, by The University Society.
(Address delivered in New York City at a meeting of the
Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, January 2,
1896, Mr. Schurz rising to second the resolutions embodied in
a report to the Chamber by its Committee on Foreign Commerce
and the Revenue Laws upon the then pending Venezuelan
question).
... What is the rule of honor to be observed by a power so strongly
and so advantageously situated as this Republic is? Of course I do not
expect it meekly to pocket real insults if they should be offered to
it. But, surely, it should not, as our boyish jingoes wish it to do,
swagger about among the nations of the world, with a chip on its
shoulder, shaking its fist in everybody's face. Of course, it should
not tamely submit to real encroachments upon its rights. But, surely,
it should not, whenever its own notions of right or interest collide
with the notions of others, fall into hysterics and act as if it
really feared for its own security and its very independence. As a
true gentleman, conscious of his strength and his dignity, it should
be slow to take offense. In its dealings with other nations it should
have scrupulous regard, not only for their rights, but also for their
self-respect. With all its latent resources for war, it should be the
great peace power of the world. It should never forget what a proud
privilege and what an inestimable blessing it is not to need and not
to have big armies or navies to support. It should seek to influence
mankind, not by heavy artillery, but by good example and wise counsel.
It should see its highest glory, not in battles won, but in wars
prevented. It should be so invariably just and fair, so trustworthy,
so good tempered, so conciliatory, that other nations would
instinctively turn to it as their mutual friend and the natural
adjuster of their differences, thus making it the greatest preserver
of the world's peace.
This is not a mere idealistic fancy. It is the natural position of
this great republic among the nations of the earth. It is its noblest
vocation, and it will be a glorious day for the United States when the
good sense and the self-respect of the American people see in this
their "manifest destiny." It all rests upon peace. Is not this peace
with honor? There has, of late, been much loose speech about
"Americanism." Is not this good Americanism? It is surely today the
Americanism of those who love their country most. And I fervently hope
that it will be and ever remain the Americanism of our children and
our children's children.
MRS. HONORÉ WILLSIE.
Mrs. Honoré McCue Willsie is a young woman who received her
collegiate training in the writing of English at the
University of Wisconsin, she being a graduate of that
institution with the class of 1902. Since her graduation she
has written many things that have claimed the attention of
readers in all parts of our country. She has traveled widely.
She writes intimately and understandingly of the Indians of
our Southwest, as well as of society folk of New York. Many
readers of this volume have, no doubt, read her story, "Still
Jim," recently published in Everybody's Magazine. Aside from
the story here published, perhaps the best-known work of Mrs.
Willsie is "We Die, We Die--There is No Hope," a plea for the
Indians of the Southwest.
The editors of this book are very proud to be permitted to
publish "The Forbidden North." It impresses them as being one
of the great dog stories of all time. No doubt Mrs. Willsie
got some of her inspiration in writing it from a Great Dane
puppy, Cedric, who was her constant companion during her
upper classman years at the University of Wisconsin. Indeed,
this pair--the tall, dark-haired girl and the great,
dun-colored dog--were a familiar sight to the students of the
University and the residents of Madison. The reader may be
sure that all the love expressed for Saxe Gotha is genuine.
[Illustration: HONORÉ WILLSIE]
THE FORBIDDEN NORTH--THE STORY OF A GREAT DANE PUPPY
Reprinted, by permission, from the Youth's Companion.
One hot morning, a year or so ago, an Uncle Tom's Cabin Company
arrived in a small Arizona town. On the platform of the blistered
station the members of the company learned that the hall in which they
were to play had just burned to the ground. That was the last straw
for the company. They were without money; they stood, disconsolately
staring at the train, which waited for half an hour while the tourists
ate breakfast in the lunchroom of the station.
The stage-manager held in leash three dogs--the dogs that the
bill-posters displayed as ferocious bloodhounds, pursuing Eliza across
the ice. As a matter of fact, Coburg and Hilda were two well-bred,
well-trained Great Danes. The third dog, Saxe Gotha, a puppy of ten
months, was their son.
A well-dressed tourist eyed the dogs intensely; finally, he came up
and felt them over with the hand of the dog-fancier.
"Give me fifty dollars for the three of them!" said the manager
suddenly.
The stranger stared at the manager suspiciously. Fifty dollars was a
low price for such dogs. The stranger did not believe that so poor a
company could have come by them honestly. However, he shrugged his
shoulders and drew a roll of bills from his pocket.
"All right," he said. "Only I don't want the pup. He's bad with
distemper. I haven't time to fuss with him."
The manager in turn shrugged his shoulders, took the fifty dollars,
and, while the new owner led Coburg and Hilda toward the baggage-car
of the train, the Uncle Tom's Cabin Company boarded the day coach.
Thus it happened that a thorough-bred Great Dane puppy, whose father
and mother had been born in the soft green dusk of a German forest--a
young boarhound--was left to fight for his sick life on the parching
sands of an alien desert.
There had been no need to tie Saxe Gotha. When the puppy had started
down the platform after his father and mother, the manager had given
him a hasty kick and a "Get back, you!" Saxe Gotha sat down on his
haunches, panting in the burning sun, and stared after the receding
train with the tragic look of understanding common to his kind. Yet,
in his eyes there was less regret than fear. The Dane is a "one-man
dog." If he is given freedom of choice, he chooses for master a man to
whom he gives his heart. Other men may own him; no other man except
this choice of his heart ever wins his love. Saxe Gotha had yet to
find his man.
The station-master started toward the dog, but Saxe Gotha did not heed
him. He rose and trotted toward the north, through the little town,
quite as if he had business in that direction. The pup was not
handsome at this period of his life. He was marked like a tiger with
tawny and gray stripes. His feet and his head looked too large for
him, and his long back seemed to sag with the weight of his stomach.
But, even to the most ignorant observer, he gave promise of
distinction, of superb size, and strength, and intelligence.
At the edge of the little town, Saxe Gotha buried his feverish head in
the watering-trough at the Wrenn rancho, drank till his sides swelled
visibly, then started on along the trail with his business-like puppy
trot. When he got out into the open desert, which stretched thirty
miles wide from the river range to the Hualpai, and one hundred miles
long from the railway to the Colorado River, he found the northern
trail with no apparent difficulty.... Saxe Gotha was headed for the
north, for the cool, sweet depth of forest that was his natural home.
He took fairly good care of himself. At intervals he dropped in the
shade of a joshua-tree, and, after struggling to bite the cholla
thorns from his feet, he would doze for a few minutes, then start on
again. His distemper was easier in the sun, although his fever and
the desert heat soon evaporated the moisture that he had absorbed at
the Wrenn's.
About three o'clock he stopped, wrinkled his black muzzle, and raised
his finely domed head. The trail now lay along the foot of the
Hualpai. He turned abruptly to the right, off the main trail, and
trotted into a little cañon. On the other side of a rock that hid it
from the main trail was Jim Baldwin's tent. Jim came to the door, at
the sound of Saxe Gotha drinking up his little spring. Jim was a lover
of dogs. He did not know Saxe Gotha's breed, but he did recognize his
promise of distinction.
"Howdy, old man!" said Jim. "Have a can of beef!"
Saxe Gotha responded to the greeting with a puppy gambol, and devoured
the beef with gusto. Jim went into the tent for a rope. When he
returned, the pup was a receding dot on the north trail.
* * * * *
About four o'clock, the tri-weekly stage from the Happy Luck camp met
Saxe Gotha. Dick Furman, the driver, stopped the panting horses and
invited the huge puppy to ride with him. Saxe Gotha wriggled, chased
his tail round once with a bark like the booming of a town clock, and
with this exchange of courtesies Dick drove on southward, and the pup
continued on his way to the north.
* * * * *
As darkness came on, he slowed his pace, paused and sniffed, and again
turned off the main trail to a rough path up the side of the mountain.
Before a silent hut of adobe, he found a half-barrel of water. Saxe
Gotha rose on his hind legs, thrust his nose into the barrel and drank
lustily. Then he stood rigid, with uncropped ears lifted and nose
thrust upward, sniffing. After a minute he whined. The business to the
north was pressing; the pup did not want to stop; yet he still stood,
listening, sniffing. At last, he started back to the main trail; when
he reached it, he stopped once more, and once more sniffed and
listened and whined; then he deliberately turned back to the silent
hut, and trotted along the narrow trail that led up behind it to the
west.
A short distance up the mountain, clear in the light of the Moon, a
tiny spring bubbled out of the ground, forming a pool the size of a
wash-basin. A man lay beside the pool. Saxe Gotha walked up to him,
whining, and then walked round and round him, sniffing him from head
to foot. He licked his face and pawed at his shoulder with his clumsy
paw. But the man lay in the heavy slumber of utter exhaustion. He was
a tall, lean, strong young fellow, in his early twenties. His empty
canteen, his pick and bar beside him, with a sack of ore, showed that
he was just back from a prospecting trip. He had evidently run short
of water and, after a forced march to the spring, where he had
relieved his thirst, had dropped asleep on the spot.
At last Saxe Gotha lay down with his nose on the young man's shoulder,
and his brown eyes were alert in the moonlight. Saxe Gotha had found
his man!
* * * * *
Saxe Gotha had found his man! A discovery as important as that, of
course, delayed the journey toward the north. All through the desert
night the Great Dane pup lay shivering beside his man. What he saw
beyond the silent desert, what vision of giant tree trunks, gray-green
against an age-old turf, lured his exiled heart we cannot know. To
understand what sudden fealty to the heedless form he guarded forbade
him his north would solve the riddle of love itself.
Little by little the stars faded. At last dawn lighted the face of the
sleeping man; he stirred, and suddenly sat up. Saxe Gotha bounded to
his feet with a bark of joy. Startled, the young man jumped up,
staggering with weakness, and scowled when he saw the big puppy
chasing his tail. Hunger and a guilty conscience are richly productive
of vicious moods. Saxe Gotha's man picked up a rock and hurled it at
him.
"Git! You blamed hound, you!"
In utter astonishment, Saxe Gotha paused in his joyous barking, and
stood staring at the young fellow's sullen face. It was unbelievable!
The young man did not in the least realize that he had been found! And
yet, despite the eyes inflamed by the glare of the desert, his face
was an intelligent one, with good features. He glared at the pup, and
then walked weakly down the trail to his hut. Saxe Gotha followed, and
sat on his haunches before the door, waiting. After a long time, the
young man came out, washed and shaved, and with fresh clothes. He
picked up his sack of ore, and as he did so, a haunted look came into
his gray eyes. Such a look on so young a face might have told Saxe
Gotha that the desert is bad for youth. But Saxe Gotha would not have
cared. He kept his distance warily and wagged his tail. When the young
man's glance fell on the dog, he saw him as something living on which
to vent his own sense of guilt. Again he threw a stone at Saxe Gotha.
"Get out! Go back where you belong!"
The pup dodged, and stood waiting. Strangely dense his man was! The
young man did not look at him again, but fell to sorting samples of
ore. Certain tiny pieces he gloated over as he found them, and he put
them in a sack that he hid behind the door.
Now, Saxe Gotha never meant to do it, but he was young, and his
distemper made him very ill, and he had not slept all night. When he
saw his man safely absorbed in his work, he curled up in the shade of
a rock and went off into the heavy sleep of a sick dog.
When he awoke, his man was gone! Saxe Gotha ran round and round
through the adobe. The house was thick with scents of him, but whither
he had gone was not to be told, for desert sands hold no scents. On
the door-step lay an old vest of the man's. The dog sat down on this,
and lifted his voice in a howl of anguish. There was only one thing to
do, of course--wait for the man's return.
* * * * *
All day Saxe Gotha waited. He drank deeply from the barrel of water,
but he went without food, although the remains of the young man's
breakfast lay on the table. It was not in Saxe Gotha's breed to steal.
All day and all night he waited. Now and again, he lifted his great
voice in grief. With his face to that north which he had forbidden
himself to seek, even though he was but a dog, he might have been
youth mourning its perennial discovery that duty and desire do not
always go hand in hand. Saxe Gotha might have been all the courage,
all the loneliness, all the grief of youth, disillusioned.
The morning of the second day, a man rode up the trail. He was not
Saxe Gotha's man. He dismounted, and called, "Hey, Evans!"
Saxe Gotha, a little unsteady on his legs, sat on his haunches and
growled.
"Where's your boss, pup?" asked the man. "I didn't know he had a dog."
Saxe Gotha growled.
"Humph!" said the man. "Off stealing ore again, I suppose."
The stranger prowled round the outside of the hut, and then came to
the door.
"Get out of the way, dog! I'm going to find out where this rich claim
is that he's finding free gold in. He's a thief, anyhow, not to report
it to his company."
As he put his foot on the door-step, Saxe Gotha snapped at him. The
stranger jumped back.
"You brute hound!" he cried. "What do you mean? If I had a gun, I'd
shoot you!"
Saxe Gotha's anger gave him strength to rise. He stood lurching; his
lips were drawn back over his fangs, his ears were flat to his head.
The stranger walked back a few steps.
"He must weigh nearly a hundred pounds!" he muttered. "Come on, old
pup. Here, have some of my snack! Here's a piece of corned beef! Come
on, old fellow!"
Cajolery and threats were alike futile. Saxe Gotha was guarding for
his man. After a while the dog's dumb fury maddened the stranger. He
began to hurl rocks at the pup. At first the shots were harmless; then
a jagged piece of ore caught the dog on the cheek and laid it open,
and another slashed his back. With the snarl of a tiger, Saxe Gotha
made a leap from the door at the stranger's throat. The man screamed,
and jumped for his horse so hastily that Saxe Gotha caught only the
shoulder of his coat and ripped the back out of the garment. Before
the pup could gather his weakened body for another charge, the
stranger was mounted. He whipped his snorting horse down the trail,
and disappeared.
Saxe Gotha feebly worried at the torn coat, then dragged himself back
to the door and lay down on the vest, too weak to lick his wounds. The
rest of the morning he lay quiet. At noon he suddenly opened his eyes.
His ears pricked forward, and his tail beat feebly on the floor. His
man rode up. He had a sack of fresh supplies thrown across his saddle.
He turned his horse into the corral, then came toward the hut. The
vicious mood seemed still to be with him.
"You still here?" he growled.
Then he caught sight of the piece of cloth, picked it up, and looked
at the mauled and blood-stained muck on it. He stared at Saxe Gotha
curiously.
"Johnson was here, eh? I'd know that check anywhere. The thief! What
happened?"
As Evans came up, Saxe Gotha tried to give the old gambol of joy, but
succeeded only in falling heavily. The young fellow strode into the
hut, and walked slowly about. The sack of nuggets was still behind the
door. The map that he had long ago prepared for the company for which
he was investigating mines still lay covered with dust. On the table
were the hunk of bacon, the fried potatoes, the dry bread. A number of
jagged rocks were scattered on the floor. The dog was bloody.
* * * * *
Slowly young Evans turned his whole attention to Saxe Gotha, who lay
watching him with passionate intentness. Evans took a handful of raw
potato skins from the table and offered them to the pup. Saxe Gotha
snatched at them and swallowed them as if frenzied with hunger. Evans
looked at the food on the table, then at the famished, emaciated dog.
He stood gripping the edge of the table and staring out at the desert.
A slow red came up from his neck and crossed his face; it seemed a
magic red, for it wiped the vicious lines from his face and left it
boyish and shamed. Suddenly his lips trembled. He dropped down in the
doorway and ran his hand gently along the pup's sensitive back. His
bloodshot eyes were blinded with tears.
"Old man," he whispered to Saxe Gotha, "I wasn't worth it!"
The dog looked up into the young man's face with an expression eager
and questioning. And then, summoning all his feeble strength, he
crowded his long, awkward body into the young man's lap....
After a moment he set Saxe Gotha on the floor and fed him a can of
evaporated milk, carefully warmed, with bits of freshly fried bacon in
it. He washed out the dog's cuts, then put him to bed in his own bunk.
All that afternoon, while the dog slept, Evans paced the hut, fighting
his fight. And, like all solitary desert-dwellers, he talked aloud....
"They promised to pay me regularly, to raise me, to give me a job in
the home office after a year. It's been two years now. Yes, I know, I
made some promises. I was to report all finds and turn in all valuable
ore to them. But they haven't treated me right."
Then he turned to the sleeping dog, and his face softened.
"Wouldn't that beat you, his not eating the stuff on the table!
Goodness knows I'd treated him badly enough! It seems as if even a dog
might have a sense of honor; as if it didn't matter what I was, the
fool pup had to keep straight with himself; as if--"
Suddenly Evans stopped and gulped. Again came the slow, agonizing
blush. For a long time he stood in silence. Finally, he squared his
shoulders and moistened his lips.
"I can send the maps and what ore I have left by stage tomorrow. But
it will take another year to get the whole thing straightened up, and
get them paid back--another year of loneliness, and sand-storms, and
sweltering. No snowy Christmas or green spring or the smell of burning
leaves in the fall this year for me. I guess the pup will stay by me,
though."
As if he realized that there was need of him, Saxe Gotha woke, and
ambled over to the man's side. Evans sat down in the door, and the dog
squatted beside him. Evans turned, took the dog's great head between
his hands, and looked into the limpid eyes.
"I guess, old man, that there are more ways than one of making a
success of yourself, and money-making is the least of them."
In Evans's eyes were the loneliness and grief of disappointed youth.
But the rest of his face once more was clear and boyish with the
wonderful courage of the young.
Saxe Gotha pawed Evans's knee wistfully. Perhaps across the stillness
of the desert he caught the baying of the hunting pack in some
distant, rain-drenched woodland. Yet he would not go. The dog leaned
warmly against his man, who slid an arm across the tawny back. Then,
with faces to their forbidden north, man and dog watched the desert
night advance.
EDNA FERBER.
Among those who are striving for a permanent place among
short story writers is Edna Ferber, a young woman who makes
her stories interesting through her own keen observation of
character traits revealed in the everyday life about her.
Miss Ferber's work deserves mention among any group of
Wisconsin writers quite as much from the promise of what may
still come as from that already accomplished. Her ability to
see the real in character and the truth in real life is the
strong characteristic of her work. She has attempted to
follow somewhat closely the language of the everyday life she
portrays.
Edna Ferber's short stories, many of which have appeared in
various magazines, have been collected into books published
under the titles of "Buttered Side Down," "Dawn O'Hara,"
"Roast Beef Medium," and "Personality Plus." These stories
are unified through the two characters portrayed, Dawn O'Hara
and Mrs. Emma McChesney. It is probable that much of her own
struggle and much of her aspiration for women is portrayed in
these two characters. She hopes to show that women may make
an undisputed place for themselves in the professional and
business life.
The first of these characters is a young Irish woman who has
devoted her energies to the mastering of the city newspaper
reporter's work. Through the story of Dawn O'Hara's
struggles, Edna Ferber has been able to give many interesting
comments upon the toil and thrills of this nerve-racking
work. At the same time she has been able to paint the
struggle of the young writer to produce the first book, to
picture German Milwaukee in a most interesting manner, and to
make some interesting comments upon mutual helpfulness.
Emma McChesney is an example of the extraordinarily
successful business woman. Despite the most discouraging
conditions, she works her way from the beginning of a firm's
least inviting employment to the complete management of its
affairs. All the time she is inspired by the desire to give
her son the best education and the best start in life and to
assist him to the most manly character possible. The author
rewards Emma McChesney with the full realization of her
ambitions.
Edna Ferber was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Her home was a
humble one, but was able to provide her with the opportunity
for high school education and a very little work in Lawrence
College. After graduating from high school, she did work for
the Appleton Crescent in the capacity of news collector and
reporter. Through this work she began to realize her powers
and at the same time she trained herself to that keen
observation of character which constitutes one of the
greatest pleasures in her work. Appleton's stores, hotels,
newspapers, and working life in general became her laboratory
in which to study the characteristics, defects, and
aspirations of human life as she finds it. As she has
achieved greater success in her writing she has widened her
sphere of acquaintanceship and of helpfulness. Her present
home is Chicago.
The selection from her writings which we are permitted to
give here is chosen because it illustrates her style and at
the same time gives a vivid picture of one phase of the life
of Wisconsin's metropolis. It is a chapter taken from her
book, "Dawn O'Hara," and is entitled, "Steeped in German."
STEEPED IN GERMAN
From "DAWN O'HARA." Copyright, 1911, by Frederick Stokes
Publishing Co.
I am living in a little private hotel just across from the court house
square with its scarlet geraniums and its pretty fountain. The house
is filled with German civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and Herr
Professors from the German academy. On Sunday mornings we have
Pfannkuchen with currant jelly, and the Herr Professors come down to
breakfast in fearful flappy German slippers. I'm the only creature in
the place that isn't just over from Germany. Even the dog is a
dachshund. It is so unbelievable that every day or two I go down to
Wisconsin Street and gaze at the stars and stripes floating from the
government building, in order to convince myself that this is America.
It needs only a Kaiser or so, and a bit of Unter den Linden to be
quite complete.
The little private hotel is kept by Herr and Frau Knapf. After one has
seen them, one quite understands why the place is steeped in a German
atmosphere up to the eyebrows.
I never would have found it myself. It was Doctor von Gerhard who had
suggested Knapf's and who had paved the way for my coming here.
"You will find it quite unlike anything you have ever tried before,"
he had warned me. "Very German it is, and very, very clean, and most
inexpensive. Also I think you will find material there--how is it you
call it?--copy, yes? Well, there should be copy in plenty; and types!
But you shall see."
From the moment I rang the Knapf door-bell I saw. The dapper, cheerful
Herr Knapf, wearing a disappointed Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, opened the
door. I scarcely had begun to make my wishes known when he interrupted
with a large wave of the hand, and an elaborate German bow.
"Ach, yes! You would be the lady of whom the Herr Doktor has spoken.
Gewiss Frau Orme, not? But so a young lady I did not expect to see. A
room we have saved for you--aber wunderhübsch. It makes me much
pleasure to show. Folgen Sie mir, bitte."
"You--speak English?" I faltered with visions of my evenings spent in
expressing myself in the sign language.
"English? But yes. Here in Milwaukee it gives aber mostly German. And
then, too, I have been only twenty years in this country. And always
in Milwaukee. Here is it gemütlich--and mostly it gives German."
I tried not to look frightened, and followed him up to the--"but
wonderfully beautiful" room. To my joy I found it high-ceilinged,
airy, and huge, with a vault of a clothes closet bristling with hooks,
and boasting an unbelievable number of shelves. My trunk was swallowed
up in it. Never in all my boarding-house experience have I seen such a
room nor such a closet. The closet must have been built for a bride's
trousseau in the days of hoop-skirts and scuttle bonnets. There was a
separate and distinct hook for each and every one of my most obscure
garments. I tried to spread them out. I used two hooks to every
petticoat, and three for my kimono, and when I had finished there were
rows of hooks to spare. Tiers of shelves yawned for the hat-boxes
which I possessed not. Bluebeard's wives could have held a family
reunion in that closet and invited all of Solomon's spouses. Finally,
in desperation, I gathered all my poor garments together and hung them
in a social bunch on the hooks nearest the door. How I should have
loved to show that closet to a select circle of New York
boarding-house landladies!
After wrestling in vain with the forest of hooks, I turned my
attention to my room. I yanked a towel thing off the center table and
replaced it with a scarf that Peter had picked up in the Orient. I set
up my typewriter in a corner near a window and dug a gay cushion or
two and a chafing-dish out of my trunk. I distributed photographs of
Norah and Max and the Spalpeens separately, in couples, and in groups.
Then I bounced up and down in a huge yellow brocade chair and found it
unbelievably comfortable. Of course, I reflected, after the big
veranda, and the tree at Norah's, and the leather-cushioned comfort of
her library, and the charming tones of her Oriental rugs and
hangings--
"Oh, stop your carping, Dawn!" I told myself. "You can't expect
charming tones and Oriental doo-dads and apple trees in a German
boarding house. Anyhow there's running water in the room. For general
utility purposes that's better than a pink prayer rug."
There was a time when I thought that it was the luxuries that made
life worth living. That was in the old Bohemian days.
"Necessities!" I used to laugh, "Pooh! Who cares about necessities.
What if the dishpan does leak? It is the luxuries that count."
Bohemia and luxuries! Half a dozen lean, boarding-house years have
steered me safely past that. After such a course in common sense you
don't stand back and examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest of
purple bull-rushes, or complain because the bureau does not harmonize
with the wall paper. Neither do you criticize the blue and saffron
roses that form the rug pattern. 'Deedy not! Instead you warily punch
the mattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the
clothes closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath room, and
whether the payments are weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in
the room next door. Oh, there's nothing like living in a
boarding-house for cultivating the materialistic side.
But I was to find that here at Knapf's things were quite different.
Not only was Ernest von Gerhard right in saying it was "very German,
and very, very clean;" he recognized good copy when he saw it. Types!
I never dreamed that such faces existed outside of the old German
woodcuts that one sees illustrating time-yellowed books.
I had thought myself hardened to strange boarding-house dining rooms,
with their batteries of cold, critical women's eyes. I had learned to
walk unruffled in the face of the most carping, suspicious and the
fishiest of these batteries. Therefore, on my first day at Knapf's, I
went down to dinner in the evening, quite composed and secure in the
knowledge that my collar was clean and that there was no flaw to find
in the fit of my skirt in the back.
As I opened the door of my room I heard sounds as of a violent
altercation in progress downstairs. I leaned over the balusters and
listened. The sounds rose and fell, swelled and boomed. They were
German sounds that started in the throat, gutturally, and spluttered
their way up. They were sounds such as I had not heard since the night
I was sent to cover a Socialist meeting in New York. I tip-toed down
stairs, although I might have fallen down and landed with a thud
without being heard. The din came from the direction of the
dining-room. Well, come what might, I would not falter. After all, it
could not be worse than the awful time when I had helped cover the
teamsters' strike. I peered into the dining-room.
The thunder of conversation went on as before. But there was no blood
shed. Nothing but men and women sitting at small tables, eating and
talking. When I say eating and talking, I do not mean that those acts
were carried on separately. Not at all. The eating and talking went on
simultaneously, neither interrupting the other. A fork full of food
and a mouthful of ten-syllabled German words met, wrestled, and passed
one another, unscathed. I stood in the doorway, fascinated until Herr
Knapf spied me, took a nimble skip in my direction, twisted the
discouraged mustaches into temporary sprightliness, and waved me
toward a table in the center of the room.
Then a frightful thing happened. When I think of it now I turn cold.
The battery was not that of women's eyes, but that of men's. And
conversation ceased! The uproar and the booming of vowels was hushed.
The silence was appalling. I looked up in horror to find that what
seemed to be millions of staring blue eyes were fixed on me. The
stillness was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Such men!
Immediately I dubbed them the aborigines, and prayed that I might
find adjectives with which to describe their foreheads.
It appeared that the aborigines were especially favored in that they
were all placed at one long, untidy table at the head of the room. The
rest of us sat at small tables. Later I learned that they were all
engineers. At meals they discuss engineering problems in the most
awe-inspiring German. After supper they smoke impossible German pipes
and dozens of cigarettes. They have bulging, knobby foreheads and
bristling pompadours, and some of the rawest of them wear wild-looking
beards, and thick spectacles, and cravats and trousers that Lew Fields
never even dreamed of. They are all graduates of high-sounding foreign
universities and are horribly learned and brilliant, but they are the
worst mannered lot I ever saw.
In the silence that followed my entrance a red-cheeked maid approached
me and asked what I would have for supper. Supper? I asked. Was not
dinner served in the evening? The aborigines nudged each other and
sniggered like fiendish little school-boys.
The red-cheeked maid looked at me pityingly. Dinner was served in the
middle of the day, natürlich. For supper there was Wienerschnitzel and
kalter Aufschnitt, also Kartoffelsalat, and fresh Kaffeekuchen.
The room hung breathless on my decision. I wrestled with a horrible
desire to shriek and run. Instead I managed to mumble an order. The
aborigines turned to one another inquiringly.
"Was hat sie gesagt?" they asked. "What did she say?" Whereupon they
fell to discussing my hair and teeth and eyes and complexion in German
as crammed with adjectives as was the rye bread over which I was
choking, with caraway. The entire table watched me with wide-eyed,
unabashed interest while I ate, and I advanced by quick stages from
red-faced confusion to purple mirth. It appeared that my presence was
the ground for a heavy German joke in connection with the youngest of
the aborigines. He was a very plump and greasy looking aborigine with
a doll-like rosiness of cheek and a scared and bristling pompadour and
very small pig-eyes. The other aborigines clapped him on the back and
roared:
"Ai Fritz! Jetzt brauchst du nicht zu weinen! Deine Lena war aber
nicht so huebsch, eh?"
Later I learned that Fritz was the newest arrival and that since
coming to this country he had been rather low in spirits in
consequence of a certain flaxen-haired Lena whom he had left behind in
the Fatherland.
An examination of the dining room and its other occupants served to
keep my mind off the hateful long table. The dining room was a double
one, the floor carpetless and clean. There was a little platform at
one end with hardy-looking plants in pots near the windows. The wall
was ornamented with very German pictures of very plump, bare-armed
German girls being chucked under the chin by very dashing mustachioed
German lieutenants. It was all very bare, and strange and foreign to
my eyes and yet there was something bright and comfortable about it. I
felt that I was going to like it, aborigines and all.
After my first letter home Norah wrote frantically, demanding to know
if I was the only woman in the house. I calmed her fears by assuring
her that, while the men were interesting and ugly with the fascinating
ugliness of a bulldog, the women were crushed looking and
uninteresting and wore hopeless hats. I have written Norah and Max
reams about this household, from the aborigines to Minna, who tidies
my room and serves my meals, and admires my clothes. Minna is related
to Frau Knapf, whom I have never seen. Minna is inordinately fond of
dress, and her remarks anent my own garments are apt to be a trifle
disconcerting, especially when she intersperses her recital of dinner
dishes with admiring adjectives directed at my blouse or hat. Thus:
"Wir haben roast beef, und sparribs mit sauerkraut, und schicken--ach
wie schoen, Frau Orme! Aber ganz pracchtvoll?" Her eyes and hands are
raised toward heaven.
"What's prachtful?" I ask, startled. "The chicken?"
"Nein; your waist. Selbst gemacht?"
I am even becoming hardened to the manners of the aborigines. It used
to fuss me to death to meet one of them in the halls. They always
stopped short, brought heels together with a click, bent stiffly from
the waist, and thundered: "Nabben', Fräulein!"
I have learned to take the salutation quite calmly, and even the
wildest, most spectacled and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle
me. Nonchalantly I reply, "Nabben'," and wish Norah could but see me
in the act.
When I told Ernst von Gerhard about them, he laughed a little and
shrugged his shoulders and said:
"Na, you should not look so young, and so pretty, and so unmarried. In
Germany a married woman brushes her hair quite smoothly back, and pins
it in a hard knob. And she knows nothing of such bewildering collars
and fluffy frilled things in the front of the blouse. How do you call
them--jabots?"
GEORGE L. TEEPLE.
Mr. George L. Teeple was born in Champaign, Illinois, in
1864, and at the age of nine came to Whitewater to live with
his aunt and uncle. He was graduated from the old "Academic
Department" of the Whitewater Normal, about which school he
writes so charmingly in the sketch here given.
Mr. Teeple planned his collegiate career in preparation for
the profession of engineering. He was graduated from Cornell
University in 1889, and was engaged in active engineering
work and instructural duties in this line until 1895. But at
this time he felt the call to the field of English, and he
gave special study to this subject for two years at Harvard.
From 1897 to 1899 he was instructor in English in the State
Normal School at Stevens Point, but at this time the demands
of his health made it necessary that he resume active outdoor
work, so, since the latter date, he has been more or less
closely identified with his first-chosen profession. But in
all these years he has never lost his interest in creative
literary activities. He writes very slowly and carefully,
with infinite pains and almost endless revision. His work, as
represented in "The Battle of Gray's Pasture," fully repays
his effort, for, though the phrases seem to have come easily
and readily, they show the fitness and grace that are the
result of no other thing than rigorous care.
His home is in Whitewater, which, as will be noted, has
sheltered many Wisconsin writers, notably President Albert
Salisbury and Dr. Rollin Salisbury, George Steele and Julius
Birge. The selection here given is an account of a real
football battle. But "Gray's Pasture" has now been
transformed into a modern athletic field, and the "spreading
oak" has been replaced by a concrete grandstand.
THE BATTLE OF GRAY'S PASTURE
From the Century Magazine, September, 1903.
... You will find no such "Normalities" nowadays. The old breed is gone.
The greenest I see look quite correct and starched and tailor-made. No
originality of costume now. No "high-water pants," such as refreshed
the eye in the old days. No pitifully insufficient coat, stretching
its seams across some great fellow's back, button struggling with
buttonhole to hold in his expanding chest, showing by its very
insufficiency what a Hercules he was. You will see none of these now.
They have disappeared; the old sap and individuality quite, quite
gone.
* * * * *
There is no such spirit in the school today. They have a football
eleven, it is true, and it holds its head well up among its mates; a
little above 'em, too, most of the time; the old school's the old
school yet, I tell 'em; but, after all, it isn't the old game, nor the
old spirit. I go out sometimes to watch them, and think: "Well, it's a
queer game they play now, and call football!" They trot out in such
astonishing toggery; padded and guarded from shin to crown--welted,
belted, strapped, and buckled beyond recognition. And there's no
independence in the play; every move has to be told 'em. It's as if
they weren't big enough to run alone; and so they hire a big
stepmother of a university "coach," who stands around in a red
sweater, and yells, and berates them. Not a man answers back; he
doesn't dare to. They don't dare eat plain, Christian food, but have a
"training table," and diet like invalids. I've seen 'em at a game not
dare to take a plain drink of water; when they got thirsty they sucked
at a wet sponge, like babes at the bottle!
It was not so in our day. No apron strings of a university coach were
tied to us. We were free-born men. When we wanted to play we got
together and went down to the old pasture, to the big oak tree that
stood near the middle of it; and there we would "choose up," and take
off our coats and vests and neckgear, and pile them round the oak,
and walk out on the field and go at it--_everybody_--not a pitiful
dozen or so, while the rest stood with their hands in their pockets
and looked on--but _everybody_! And it was _football_: no playing half
an hour without seeing the ball in the air once; we kicked it all the
time--except when we missed it, and then we kicked the other fellow's
shins! And when we got thirsty we went down to the spring and took an
honest drink out of an honest tin cup.
And what a fine, free, open game it was--the old game! What art you
could put into its punting, and running, and dodging, and creeping,
and drop-kicking! And what a glorious tumult in the old-fashioned
scrimmage, especially the scrimmages in the old ditch. It was a rather
broad and shallow ditch, and into it the ball would often roll, a
dozen excited fellows dashing after it; and there in the ditch bottom,
in mad mêlee, frantic foot to foot, naked shin against sole leather,
we would fight to drive the ball through the opposing mob. There might
the rustic Normalite, with implacable cowhides, the bigger now the
better, sweeten his humiliation with revenge, and well I remember the
fearful devastation he sometimes wrought among our Academic shins!
But we were used to that. Indeed, we youngsters gloried in it. It was
a spot upon your honor not to have a spot upon your shin. We compared
them as soldiers brag of their wounds in battle, and he who could
exhibit the largest and most lurid specimen was the best man. Those
discolored patches were our "V. C.'s" and "Crosses of the Legion of
Honor"; seals attesting our spirit, stamped with a stamp of good,
stiff sole leather, painfully enough, it was true, but who cared for
that? We were only sorry we could not exhibit them in public. To be
obliged to carry such decorations under your trouser leg was hard.
* * * * *
Football Night at the "Lincolnian Literary," and Laury Thompson's
speech there I must tell about. If any of the old boys ever read
this--and it is for them I am writing it--they will wonder if I leave
that out. For it marked an epoch in the Normal preparation for the
game. And coming from Laury Thompson it was so unexpected. He always
looked so cheerful in his high-water pants. His clothes were such a
harmonious misfit. And he got off his absurdities with such a grave,
humorous-innocent face; only the veiled twinkling in the eyes to show
that it was not the most solemn matter in the world.
He "wore his pants high-water a-purpose," he told us; "had 'em made so
for hot weather; coolin', ye know; refreshin'; lets the air in; breeze
of heaven playin' up and down your pant-leg." And when one of the boys
cracked some joke on his big shoes, he gravely remonstrated, assuring
us that he "had those shoes made sort of _in memoriam_; hide of a
heifer calf of his'n that got killed by the cars: a rosebud of a
little critter; he kind o' wanted something to remember her by;
tarnation good leather, too." He had "writ a poem" on that calf, he
said, but refused to recite it; "felt delikit about exposin' his
feelin's."
The old Lincolnian Literary Society is dead now, and its room has been
turned into a shop for the Manual Training Department. It is a long,
narrow room on the third floor, and was crowded that night to the very
door. The meeting, called "to rouse public spirit in the matter of the
coming game," grew spirited and hilarious as the speaking proceeded,
and when Thompson was called on, and his tall, odd figure rose up in
the midst, there was great thundering of boots along the floor.
"Boys," he began, "our Academic friends, raised, most of 'em, in this
_proud metropolis_, seem to 'a' got the notion that because we haven't
just stepped out of a fashion plate we can't play football. They tell
us to 'thrash the hayseed out of our hair,' and to 'slack off on our
galluses, and see if we can't get some o' that high-water out of our
pants;' they've been 'tryin' to figure out our combined acreage o'
boot leather,' they say, 'and had to give it up; Arabic notation
wa'n't equal to it.'
"Well, let 'em laugh. I reckon we're duck-backed enough to shed whole
showers o' that kind o' stuff; and when the game comes off they'll
find that what wins a game o' football ain't pants, nor hair, nor
shoe-leather, but what's in and under 'em. They'll find _men's_ feet
in those shoes, and _men's_ legs in those trousers, and the brains o'
men under that hair!
"For I tell you, we're goin' to win that game; and we're goin' to win
it just because o' what gave us the hayseed an' the high-water and the
boot-leather; because we've got on our side the men with muscle
hardened on the old farm; men who've swung an axe from mornin' till
night in the wood-lot, and cradled two acres of oats a day, and who'll
go through 'em in a scrimmage like steers through standin' corn!
"Yes, boys, it's true; we're 'hayseeds' and 'country jakes.' All the
better for that. Grass don't grow down, and go where you will, you'll
find the hayseed at the top. Why, what was he?"--he turned and
extended a long arm and forefinger toward a picture of Daniel Webster
that hung behind him on the wall of the room,--"what was he? A
hayseed, and son of a hayseed!"
Yes, there's a hayseed in our hair;
Proud it's there!
And our boots are big an' square;
So they air!
And when you hear 'em thunderin'
On the Academic shin,
Back them cowhide boots to win!
Academs, beware!
Hooray then for hayseed hair!
It gits there!
And for cowhides big and square;
Every pair!
And when you hear 'em thunderin'
On the Academic shin,
Back them cowhide boots to win!
Academs, take care!
* * * * *
But the morning of the great day came with a broad, red sun rolling
and tumbling in mist, which blew away with rising wind and let the sun
in to dry the field.
* * * * *
And _we_ were the heroes; the great observed of all observers. We trod
the earth with a large, heroic tread. I, the smallest, last, and
youngest of the company, walked with the lordiest stride of all. The
season long I had fought for a "place on the team," and I had won, and
Annie was there to see. Never mind who Annie was. I am telling now
about a football team.
"Look at Banty, here," I heard a Normalite say, "captain o' the team,
ain't he? Hull thing, an' dog under the wagon."
Even Annie smiled, and just then my cousin Teddy came up.
"What are you lookin' so red an' savage about?" says Teddy.
"Achin' to jump into that Normal team," says I.
Under the big oak Rob Mackenzie and Tom Powell, with the big fellows
around them, were settling the last preliminaries. The referee pitched
the coin.
"Heads it is," called Tom quietly. "We'll take the north goal." The
wind by this time was stiff out of the north, and the Normals had won
the toss.
* * * * *
Now, too, we saw the meaning of the mysterious practice in Normal
Hall. Along the lower edge of the pasture, and forming the eastern
side-line, there ran a "tight board" fence, and next it, the entire
length of the pasture, the shallow ditch I have already spoken of. In
that ditch we used to fight half of our scrimmages, and in that ditch
the Normals concentrated their strategy and strength. In massive
formation, the ball in the midst, protected by the fence on one side
and by a moving stockade of stout legs and sturdy shoulders on the
other, down the ditch they would drive, sweeping away our lighter
fellows like leaves as they went, on and on, to what seemed an
inevitable goal.
But right there the weakness of the play developed. The goal posts
stood, as in the modern game, midway the ends of the field. No
"touch-downs" counted, only goals; and to make a goal they must leave
their ditch and protecting fence and come out into the open. And there
Rob Mackenzie gathered his heavy men for the defense. With Whitty, and
Nic, and Jim Greening, and the others, he would ram the Normal
formation until it broke; then unless someone had done it before him,
he would go in himself, capture the ball, and with Whitty, his
team-mate, rush away with it toward the Normal goal.
* * * * *
The second half began, and the Normal pace grew faster. Those endurin'
muscles, "hardened on the old farm," that "had cradled two acres of
oats a day, day in day out, under the July sun," were beginning to
tell. Like a sledge-hammer at a shaking door the Normal formation
pounded at our defence. When the door should fall seemed but a matter
of time. The Normalite roar along the side-line grew louder. Again and
again, while the scrimmage thickened, with John Hicks and Scott and
Simpson hurling into it, would burst out their thundering refrain:
Hooray for our hayseed hair;
It gits there!
An' our boots so big an' square;
Every pair!
And when you hear 'em thunderin'
On the Academic shin,
Back them cowhide boots to win!
Academs, beware!
And only for Rob Mackenzie we should again and again have gone down.
How through our darkening fortunes shone the unconquerable spirit and
energy of his play! Like that kind of ancient Bedouins who, "when Evil
bared before them his hindmost teeth, flew gaily to meet him, in
company or alone!" Again and again the Normal formation rolled along
the ditch sweeping our out-fighters before it, and again and again, as
it reached the critical point and swung out into the field to make the
goal, would Rob hurl against it his heavy attack,--Whitty, and Rhodes,
and Limp, and Jim Greening, and big Nic, and finally himself,--till
the Normal mass went into chaos; out of which, through some unguarded
gap, the ball would come tumbling, Rob and Whitty behind it; then down
the field together they would dart, the ball before them, we
youngsters yelling madly in the rear, the battle-fire in us, which had
flagged with fear, bursting up again in yells of exultation like a
flame.
Yet not to score; again neither side could score. The second half
approached its end, and it seemed as if the game would remain a tie.
As the two sides suddenly realized this, there came, as if by common
consent, a pause. The Babel-roar along the side-line dropped into a
hum. Then a voice called out,--it was Tom Powell; you could hear him
all over the field:
"How much more time?"
And the answer came clear and clean-cut through the dead silence:
"One minute and a half!"
The Academics yelled with joy; no hope now of winning, but in so short
a time the Normals cannot score; we escape defeat; it will be a drawn
battle. Then they stilled again, not so sure.
For the Normal "sledge-hammer" was uplifting for a last blow. One
chance remained, and Tom Powell staked all on a final cast. He left
only Van Lone to guard his goal. Every other man of his team he would
build into the breaks of his formation in a last determined attack.
Wave after wave he had hurled against us; now this last, "a ninth one,
gathering all the deep," he would hurl.
The attack came on, and our out-fighters as usual went down before it.
In practically perfect order, with Simpson and John Hicks in flank,
and Tom Powell himself at the centre, it turned out of the ditch for
the goal. Whitty and Jim Greening went down; then big Nic. The Normal
uproar gathered and swelled and burst, and swelled and burst again as
they swept on. In front, Rob Mackenzie, with a last handful, stood
yet. He spoke a few low, sharp words, and they went forward, not in
mass, but in _line_.
The cooler heads looked and wondered. What did it mean? What could a
thin line do against that massive-moving squad of men? but just wrap
round it like a shred of twine, and like twine again, break, while the
mass swept on.
So the line moved forward; but just as it was on point to strike, it
stumbled apparently, the whole line together, and went down. The
Normal yell rose again. But it rose too soon; the line was not down,
but crouching there, a barricade across the Normal path. The stroke of
strategy was too sudden to be met. Driven on by its very mass and the
blind momentum of the men in the rear, the Normal formation struck our
crouching line, toppled momentarily, as a wave topples over a wall of
rock; then, self-destroying, its van tumbling over the Academic line,
its rear plunging on over its broken front, it crumbled, broke, and
stopped.
Then, while the Academics along the side-line went mad with
exultation, the fallen chaos struggled to its feet, a wilder chaos
than ever, a score of boots slamming for the ball at once, which
bounded back and forth like a big leathern shuttlecock in the midst.
So, for a long-drawn moment, then it leaped out clear and free, and a
player after it like a cannon-flash, down the field toward the Normal
goal. Well may the Academics yell! It is Rob Mackenzie,--fastest man
on the ground, and away now with a free field! Hard after him John
Hicks, with every sinew at the stretch, and teeth grim-set, and the
whole Normal team streaming in a wild tail of pursuit behind. The
side-line, which, until now, had held the surge of spectators, burst
like a dam in flood, and poured a yelling torrent toward the Normal
goal.
There stood big Van Lone, sole guardian bulldog at that gate; an
honest bulldog, but terribly bewildered, all pandemonium storming in
on him at once. He started forward, but what could he do against Rob
Mackenzie? The ball rises over his head, hovers an instant at top
flight, or seems to; then shoots forward between the goal posts. The
game was won!
And who that was there will ever forget the celebration that followed?
Rob Mackenzie tossed skyward on a hundred shoulders, with mighty
shouts, till the old pasture rocked and swam; the great, ruddy face of
John Hicks, shining through the press, undimmed by defeat, as he came
to greet his victorious foe; the meeting and hand-grasp of the two
heroes, amid tremendous tumult, all lesser yells upborne on the
oceanic roar of Nic; the wild processional through the town, tramping
tumultuous to the roar of John Brown's Body, with Rob in triumphal
chariot, rolling on down Main Street toward the west, where the clouds
of sunset flamed into bonfires and the firey sun itself seemed a huge
cannon's mouth hurling a thunder salute in honor of the event.
Well, all that happened years ago. Those old days can never come back.
Even the old pasture I cannot see as I saw it then. It was only the
other day, drawn by old thoughts revived, that I walked out to see it,
through the still summer afternoon, down the old familiar road, so
well known but so strangely quiet now, with its few scattered old
white oaks and maples, that seem to nod sleepily in a kind of old
friendliness, till you come to the turn by the burr oak grove where
the pasture opens.
There they lay,--the long, tranquil slope, the green level that had
been one field, the ditch along the fence,--under the quiet sunshine,
in sleep and silence. Great, peaceful-looking white clouds, like great
white cattle asleep, lay along the blue heaven overhead. The old oak
where we were used to choose up stood motionless, as if it dreamed
over the old days. Could this be indeed the old pasture, scene of our
stormy uproar, this field asleep? I turned away with a half lonely
feeling.
The old boys are gone, too, most of them, scattered I don't know
where. Do they ever, I wonder, after the day's work is done, sit in
the evening by the warm firelight, while the soft pipe-smoke wraps
them in its tranquil cloud, and dream foolishly, as I do, over those
old days? I like to think they do.
GEORGE BYRON MERRICK
The editors of this volume have been struck many times with
the element of grouping that seems to have asserted itself in
Wisconsin literary efforts, as in those of America, or
England, or perhaps any country. Centers seem to be formed
from which radiate light and glow of literary activities.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the great literary center of
our country in the middle fifty years of the nineteenth
century. The Lake Region was such a center for English
production in the preceding fifty years. In Wisconsin,
naturally enough, the University has been the fountain from
which has flowed much that is most worth-while in the
literature of our state. It should be noted that not only
those who are formally grouped here with the University as
their center may justly be thought to be vitally indebted to
that institution for the impulse to write. Among the authors
first mentioned in this book, John Muir, Zona Gale, Mrs.
Willsie, and Professor Sanford all were students at the
University, and no doubt were profoundly influenced by their
Alma Mater.
The next most important source of inspiration to our authors
seems to have been our rivers. The beautiful bluffs bordering
the Mississippi; the charm and grace of the sweeping lines of
Lake Pepin; the tumbling, rushing waters of the Wisconsin,
with their thickly-wooded hills and their green slopes of
prairie and their October sunsets, seen through crimson oak
and maple leaves; or the numerous falls of the upper
Fox,--all have stirred the hearts of the fortunate people
privileged to live within their influence. Hence, at Stevens
Point, La Crosse, Appleton, and a few other cities in the
state with similar surroundings, we have a literature with
charming local flavor.
Elsewhere we quote Mr. Howard M. Jones's "When Shall We
Together," which faithfully depicts the "river feeling" of
those who love the Father of Waters.
We desire to acquaint our readers, at this point, however,
with a brief excerpt from what is perhaps the most careful
and faithful depiction of the Mississippi itself,--Mr.
Merrick's "Old Times on the Upper Mississippi." The author
lived for many years amid the scenes that he depicts, and for
nine years was a pilot on an upper Mississippi boat. The
romance and adventure of that life helped more to rouse and
challenge the imagination than any other single feature of
early pioneer days, and Mr. Merrick, though now what many
would consider "pretty well along in years," is still young
enough in the remembrance of those days. Like many another
hard-working pioneer, he caught the spirit of his work, and
he here has faithfully set down the most careful record of
river annals in existence, from a historical standpoint, and
at the same time one which grips the interest of the reader.
OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI
The recollections of a steamboat pilot from 1854 to 1863, by
George Byron Merrick. Copyright, 1909, by the author. From
Chapter XXX, pp. 241-247.
I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and doubted if
I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. I filed an
application for the first leave of absence I had ever asked for from
the railroad company, and it was granted. I found a man to assist the
"devil" in getting out my paper, he doing the editing for pure love of
editing, if not from love of the editor. We set our house in order,
packed our trunk and grips, and when the specified fortnight was
ended, we (my wife, my daughter, and myself) were comfortably bestowed
in adjoining staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary Morton," and
I was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things" as I had been
taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more.
The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers," driving them
with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting in the "last"
packages of freight, which never reached the last. Among the rest, in
that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork--a whole car load of it,
which the "nigger" engine was striking down into the hold. Shades of
Abraham! pork _out_ of St. Paul! Twenty years before, I had checked
out a whole barge load (three hundred barrels) through from
Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati was the great porkopolis of
the world, while Chicago was yet keeping its pigs in each back yard,
and every freeholder "made" his own winter's supply of pork for
himself. The steward in charge of the baggage was always in the way
with a big trunk on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers were
trying their steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the waste
cocks open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were coaxing
the beds of coal into the fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared the
tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers with the
reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best," to others who
had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels and boxes and
scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes to the last
receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the window ledge in
the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood by the big bell, and
listened for the "All ready, Sir!" of the mate. As the words were
spoken, the great bell boomed out one stroke, the lines slacked away
and were thrown off the snubbing posts. A wave of the captain's hand,
a pull at once of the knobs of the wheel-frame, the jingle of a bell
far below, the shiver of the boat as the great wheel began its work,
and the bow of the "Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple of pulls
at the bell-rope, and the wheel was revolving ahead; in a minute more
the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up," and with full steam
ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was again in the pilot
house with my old chief, who bade me "show us what sort of an
education you had when a youngster."
Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom Burns was the
critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his pipe alight, a
comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth and eyes, for all the
world like the teacher of old.
The very first minute I met the swing of the gangplank derrick (there
is no jack staff on the modern steamboat, more's the pity), with two
or three strokes when one would have been a plenty, yawing the boat
around "like a toad in a hailstorm," as I was advised. I could feel
the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, just as it did twenty years before
under similar provocation, when the eye of the master was upon me. I
turned around and found that Mr. Burns had taken it in, and we both
laughed like boys--as I fancy both of us were for the time.
But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it," and as the
"Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very respectable
wake; though Tom tried to puzzle me a good deal with questions as to
the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten save in a general way....
A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the surface of the
water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny Harris," on which I
had spent so many months of hard work, but which, looked back upon
through the haze of twenty years, now seemed to have been nothing but
holiday excursions.
At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into the attic
windows where with my brother I had so often in the night watches
studied the characteristics of boats landing at the levee. Going
ashore I met many old-time friends, among whom was Charles Barnes,
agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who had occupied the same office on the
levee since 1858, and had met every steam boat touching the landing
during all those years. He was the Nestor of the profession, and was
one of the very few agents still doing business on the water front who
had begun such work prior to 1860. Since then, within a few years
past, he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the
performance of duties connected with the steamboat business.
Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff without
stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and freight, and
afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, kicked up by the high
south wind that was still blowing. We landed under the lee of the
sandpit at Lake City, and after getting away spent the better part of
an hour in picking up a barge load of wheat, that was anchored out in
the lake....
I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, listening to
the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet above my face, and
translating the familiar sounds that reached me from the engine-room
and roof--the call for the draw at the railroad bridge, below the
landing; the signal for landing at Wabasha; the slow bell, the
stopping-bell, the backing bell, and a dozen or twenty unclassified
bells, before the landing was fully accomplished; the engineer trying
the water in the boilers; the rattle of the slice-bars on the sides of
the furnace doors as the firemen trimmed their fires; and one new and
unfamiliar sound from the engine-room--the rapid exhaust of the little
engine driving the electric generator, the only intruder among the
otherwise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses as a
lullaby.
MRS. HATTIE TYNG GRISWOLD.
Hattie Tyng was born in Boston in 1840, and came with her
parents to Columbus, Wisconsin, in 1850, where, in course of
time, she was married to Mr. Griswold, and it was in this
delightful village that much of her work as an author was
done. Here she died in 1909.
The books by which she is best-known are: "Apple Blossoms,"
"Waiting on Destiny," "Lucile and Her Friends," and "The Home
Life of Great Authors." It is from the last named book that
our selection is taken. As its title would indicate, the book
aimed to give a more personal and intimate view of men and
women well-known to fame than is to be found in most
reference works. The young readers of this volume will know
that mere dates and statistics do not enable them to know
people; they like to have some personal details as to the
habits and daily lives of the people about whom they read.
Mrs. Griswold was so filled with the true teaching instinct
that she realized this. She says in one of her works that
since she had such a hard time when she was a little girl
getting any picture in her mind of the great people about
whom she read, that she determined to make it easier for
other boys and girls to get these mental pictures; that is
why she wrote "The Home Life of Great Authors."
JOHN G. WHITTIER
From "HOME LIFE OF GREAT AUTHORS." Copyright, 1886, A. C.
McClurg & Co.
The poet Whittier always calls to mind the prophet-bards of the olden
time. There is much of the old Semetic fire about him, and ethical and
religious subjects seem to occupy his entire mind. Like his own
Tauler, he walks abroad, constantly
"Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life;
As one who, wandering in a starless night,
Feels momently the jar of unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea
Breaking along an unimagined shore."
His poems are so thoroughly imbued with this religious spirit that
they seem to us almost like the sacred writings of the different times
and nations of the world. They come to the lips upon all occasions of
deep feeling almost as naturally as the Scriptures do. They are
current coin with reformers the world over. They are the Alpha and
Omega of deep, strong religious faith. Whoever would best express his
entire confidence in the triumph of the right, and his reliance upon
God's power against the devices of men, finds the words of Whittier
upon his lips; and to those who mourn and seek for consolation, how
naturally and involuntarily come back lines from his poems they have
long treasured, but which perhaps never had a personal application
until now! To the wronged, the down-trodden, and the suffering they
appeal as strongly as the Psalms of David. He is the great High Priest
of Literature. But few priests at any time have had such an audience
and such influence as he. The moral and religious value of his work
can scarcely be overstated. Who can ever estimate the power which his
strong words have had throughout his whole career in freeing the minds
of other millions from the shackles of unworthy old beliefs? His blows
have been strong, steady, persistent. He has never had the fear of man
before his eyes. No man has done more for freedom, fellowship and
character in religion than he. Hypocrisy and falsehood and cant have
been his dearest foes, and he has ridden at them early and late with
his lance poised and his steed at full tilt. Indeed, for a Quaker, Mr.
Whittier must be said to have a great deal of the martial spirit. The
fiery, fighting zeal of the old reformers is in his blood. You can
imagine him as upon occasion enjoying the imprecatory Psalms. In his
anti-slavery poems there is a depth of passionate earnestness which
shows that he could have gone to the stake for his opinions had he
lived in an earlier age than ours. That he did risk his life for them,
even in our own day, is well known. During the intense heat of the
anti-slavery conflict he was mobbed once and again by excited crowds;
but he was not to be intimidated by all the powers of evil, and
continued to speak his strong words and to sing his inspiring songs,
whether men would hear or whether they would forbear. And those Voices
of Freedom, whatever may be thought of them by mere critics and
litterateurs, will outlast any poems of their day, and sound "down the
ringing grooves of Time" when much that is now honored has been
forgotten. He will be known as the Poet of a great Cause, the Bard of
Freedom, as long as the great anti-slavery conflict is remembered. He
is a part, and an important part, of the history of his country, a
central figure in the battalions of the brave. Those wild, stirring
bugle-calls of his cheered the little army, and held it together many
a time when the cause was only a forlorn hope, and they came with
their stern defiance into the camp of the enemy with such masterful
power that some gallant enemies deserted to his side. They were afraid
to be found fighting against God, as Whittier had convinced them they
were doing. There is the roll of drums and the clash of spears in
these stirring strains; there are echoes from Thermopylae and
Marathon, and the breath of the old Greek heroes is in the air; there
is a hint of the old Border battle-cries from Scotland's hills and
tarns; from Jura's rocky wall we can catch the cheers of Tell; and the
voice of Cromwell can often be distinguished in the strain.
There is also the sweep of the winds through the pine woods, and the
mountain blasts of New England, and the strong, fresh breath of the
salt sea; all tonic influences, in short, which braced up the minds of
the men of those days to a fixed and heroic purpose, from which they
never receded until their end was achieved. It has become the fashion
in these days of dilettanteism to say that earnestness and moral
purpose have no place in poetry, and small critics have arisen who
claim that Mr. Whittier has been spoiled as a poet by his moral
teachings. To these critics it is only necessary to point to the
estimation in which Mr. Whittier's poetry is held by the world, and to
the daily widening of his popularity among scholars and men of
letters, as well as among the people, to teach them that this ruined
poetry is likely to live when all the merely pretty poetry they so
much admire is forgotten forever. The small poets who are afraid of
touching a moral question for fear of ruining their poems would do
well to compare Poe, who is the leader of their school and its best
exponent, with Mr. Whittier, and to ask themselves which is the more
likely to survive the test of time. Let them also ponder the words of
Principal Shairp, one of the finest critics of the day, when he says
of the true mission of the poet, that "it is to awaken men to the
divine side of things; to bear witness to the beauty that clothes the
outer world, the nobility that lies hid, often obscured, in human
souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected truths, for noble and
oppressed persons, for down-trodden causes; and to make men feel that
through all outward beauty and all pure inward affection God himself
is addressing them." They would do well also to ponder the words of
Ruskin, who believes that only in as far as it has a distinct moral
purpose is a literary work of value to the world.
ALBERT H. SANFORD.
Professor Albert H. Sanford, of the La Crosse State Normal
School, is best known as an author of text books and
pamphlets on history and related subjects. But he is, like
all the other school men whose works are represented here,
interested in other fields besides his specialty.
Born in the southwestern part of Wisconsin, he naturally
became interested in farming, and in the development of
agriculture in the agricultural section. From this interest
and his natural bent toward anything historical grew his
desire to picture briefly and attractively the development of
this most important industry of our country from its early
beginnings in colonial times to the present day. His book is
filled with narratives and expositions which will hold the
interest of any boy or girl who likes to read stories of
adventure or trial, of hardship, and of final success.
The most noteworthy feature of Professor Sanford's style is
clarity, coupled with logical sequence and organization. The
brief selection here given illustrates these qualities, and
represents very fairly the remainder of the book.
THE STORY OF AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES
Copyright, 1916, by D. C. Heath & Co. From Chapter X.
When farms were scattered, life became lonely and monotonous; the
people therefore took advantage of every possible occasion to have
social gatherings. House raisings and log-rollings gave opportunity
for such meetings. The women met in sewing and quilting bees and
apple-parings; the men came for the evening meal and remained for the
country dance. The husking-bee was the most exciting of these events.
The long pile of corn was divided equally between two leaders, who
first "chose sides" for the contest. Then the men fell to the work
with a will, each side determined to finish its portion first.
Sometimes the rivalry ran into rough play and even fighting; but the
spirit of good nature prevailed at the supper that had been prepared
by the women in the meantime.
To these "frolics" were added, in later years, the spelling matches
and singing schools, attended by both old and young. The coming of the
backwoods "circuit rider" to hold a religious service in some log
cabin or in the schoolhouse was an event of importance. The summer
"camp meetings" were attended by hundreds of families, and here a
chance was given for those who had forgotten the ways of civilized
life in the midst of the rough frontier conditions to be "converted"
and to return to better ways. The preaching, singing, and praying were
all done by main strength, both of voice and of muscle.
The frontier farmer boy had no lack of occupation. He split the
kindling and the wood for the fire-place and gathered the chips used
for lighting the cabin when tallow dips were scarce. He fed and drove
the cows, but let his sister do the milking. He took part in the work
of washing and shearing the sheep. He helped in churning and
soap-making, and ran the melted tallow into the tin candle-molds. He
looked forward to butchering day as to a celebration. In the fall he
chopped the sausage meat and the various ingredients of mince pies. On
stormy days and winter evenings he might help his mother clean and
card the wool, wind the yarn, and hetchel flax. Later she might call
upon him for help in dyeing the homespun and bleaching the linen.
The boy was useful to his father when he searched the woods for good
trees from which special articles were to be made, such as ax-helves
and ox-yokes. From hickory saplings he could make splint brooms and
cut out the splints used in making chair bottoms and baskets. He
guarded the corn fields from squirrels and crows and set traps for
wolves. He went on horse-back to the grist mill, which was generally
some miles away, and waited there for his turn to have his sack of
corn ground into meal. Along with these duties were some pleasures,
such as going nutting and berrying and hunting for grapes. Bee-hunting
gave its rich reward in the hollow trunk full of honey. "Sugaring off"
twice in the spring was a special time of delight, though it brought
its tasks in the making of wooden spouts, the carrying of buckets of
sap and water, and the tending of fires.
CHARLES D. STEWART
Charles D. Stewart was born at Zanesville, Ohio, in 1868, and
came with his people to Wisconsin when but a young boy. He
received his elementary education in the public schools of
Milwaukee, after which he attended Wayland Academy at Beaver
Dam. Like many others of our authors, Mr. Stewart has had
considerable connection with newspapers, but it is as an
author of stories, poems, and critical articles, both in
magazines and in published volumes, that he is best known.
Perhaps the readers of this book are already familiar with
his "The Fugitive Blacksmith," "Partners of Providence,"
"Essays on the Spot," "The Wrong Woman," etc. He is now
executive clerk in Governor Philipp's office.
Mr. Stewart is an author with whom the reader frequently
finds himself in disagreement. This is particularly true of
his critical work, which has itself received severe criticism
at the hands of some other critics, while in the opinion of
still others Mr. Stewart has made distinct contributions to
the field of English criticism, particularly with respect to
Shakespeare. His style is rich and at times diffuse. He has a
wealth of illustrative material at hand, and one might be
inclined to say that at times Mr. Stewart allows himself to
stray too far from his main theme in drawing upon these
resources. On the other hand, the reader is constantly
interested and frequently challenged, so that his
intelligence is always brought into play in reading this
author's work; and it is well to remember, as Ruskin says,
that if we never read anything with which we disagreed we
should never grow. It is the author who makes us think who
does us the greatest service.
The selection here given is from "On a Moraine." It
illustrates all the points of which we have spoken. To the
editors it appeals as a piece of useful, patriotic Wisconsin
literature. The whole article will well repay reading for
anyone who loves the Badger state and wishes to know it
better. It shows a keen appreciation of the beautiful, and
ready imagination in making comparisons where one least
expects to find them, as in the suggestion of likeness
between the freshly exposed surfaces of a newly split rock,
on the one hand, and the wings of a moth on the other.
The article also well illustrates the treatment of a somewhat
technical and supposedly dry subject in a delightful and
imaginative manner.
ON A MORAINE
Upon the shoulder of a terminal moraine was a barley-field whose fence
was to furnish me with stone; and I prospected its beauties with a
six-pound sledge. "Hardheads" many of them [the stones] were called,
and they let fly enough sparks that summer to light the fire for a
thousand years. They were igneous rocks, and they responded in terms
of fire.
Such rocks! Rag-carpets woven in garnet and topaz; petrified Oriental
rugs; granites in endless designs of Scotch mixture, as if each
bowlder were wearing the plaid of its clan; big, uncouth, scabiose,
ignorant-looking hardheads that opened with a heart of rose,--each one
a separate album opening to a sample from a different quarry. I have
seen cloven field-stone that deserved a hinge and a gold clasp; I have
one in sight now which is such a delicate contrast of faintest rose
and mere spiritual green that it is like the first blush of dawn.
Imagine smiting a rock until the fragments sting you in the face, and
then seeing it calmly unfold the two wings of a moth! I have broken
into a rock which pleased me so well that I held it in mind in order
to match it; but though I had the pick of a hundred and sixty loads
that summer I never found another. There is "individuality" for you.
Some of them are "niggerheads." These are the hardest rock known to
practical experience. There are those that have refused to succumb to
the strongest hitters in the country. Some of them will break and
others will not; the only way is to try. Fortunately I had had some
early training as a blacksmith; but this was as if the smith were
trying to break his anvil. I have seen the steel face of a hammer chip
off without making a mark on one. And yet the glaciers wore them off
to make soil and left them rounded like big pebbles! I never realized
what ground is, till I became acquainted with the stones that did the
grinding.
My fence was eight to ten feet in thickness and shoulder high; and
similar windrows of rock ran over the moraine in all directions, like
a range upon a range. It is, of course, valuable land that warrants a
wall like that. The barley-field might easily have defied a siege-gun
on all four sides, for it had had so many bowlders on it that they had
been built up into more of a rampart than a windrow. On a near-by
field from which the timber had been removed, but which,
notwithstanding, was far from "cleared," it looked as if it had hailed
bowlders. You could have forded your way across it without putting a
foot to ground. I have seen places where the glaciers had deposited
rocks in surprising uniformity of size, and as thick as the heads of
an audience (a comparison that means no harm, I trust).
Because of my encounters with "niggerheads," and other layerless or
massive rock, I had difficulty in getting a handle which would not
give out. Not that I broke them with mislicks, but the sudden bounce
of the steel jolts the grain of the wood apart, and then a split
begins to work its way up the handle. After this happens a man will
not try to crack many bowlders, for the split hickory vibrates in a
way that hurts. That sudden sting and numbing of the arm is the only
sensation I ever came across that resembles the sting of a Texas
scorpion; and that is an injection of liquid lighting that suffuses
the membranes from hand to shoulder, and dwells a while and fades
away. I might say here that the sting of the dreaded scorpion is
harmless, like that of the tarantula, as any one with a few
experiences knows. A wrong-headed bowlder that has kept itself intact
for ages and spits fire at you, and then takes measures to protect
itself, is far more dangerous. One of them shot off a piece with such
force that it went through my clothing and made a respectable wound.
This, however, is just what is needed to rouse you up and make you hit
back; and when you have had success with this one you are sure to pass
on to another.
There is an enticement in their secret, locked-up beauty that lures
you on from rock to rock till nightfall. Thus you are kept at it, till
some day you find you have become a slave of the exercise habit; you
are addicted to sunshine and sweat and cool spring water; your nose,
so long a disadvantage to you, comes to life and discovers so many
varieties of fresh air that every breath has a different flavor to it.
As for myself, I rather prefer to take wild plum or clover in my
atmosphere--or a good whiff of must off the barley-field. Along in
July it is excellent to work somewhere in the jurisdiction of a
basswood tree. Compare this with the office-building or the
street-car, where the only obtainable breath is second-hand. Nobody
could now coax you back to where people have eyes that see not,
tongues that taste not, and noses that smell not unless they have to.
I _have_ experienced smells in a city that would make a baby cry....
And this reminds me to conclude--where possibly I should have
begun--with the remarkable pedigree of the state itself. Stretching
across Canada, north of the St. Lawrence, and ending in the regions
about the source of the Mississippi, is a range of low granite hills
called the Laurentian Highlands. These hills are really mountains that
are almost worn out, for they are the oldest land in America, and,
according to Agassiz, the oldest in the world. In the days when there
was nothing but water on the face of the globe, these mountains came
up--a long island of primitive rock with universal ocean chafing
against its shores. None of the other continents had put in their
appearance at the time America was thus looking up. The United States
began to come to light by the gradual uplifting of this land to the
north and the appearance of the tops of the Alleghanies, which were
the next in order. Later, the Rockies started up. The United States
grew southward from Wisconsin and westward from Blue Ridge. An early
view of the country would have shown a large island which is now
northern Wisconsin, and a long, thin tongue of this primitive rock
sticking down from Canada into Minnesota, and these two growing states
looking out over the waters at the mere beginnings of mountain-ranges
east and west. They were waiting for the rest of the United States to
appear.
As the heated interior of the earth continued to cool and contract,
and the water-covered crust sank in some places, and kept bulging up
higher in others, the island of northern Wisconsin continued to grow,
and the Alleghanies came up with quite a strip of territory at their
base. The western mountains made no progress whatever; it was as if
they had some doubt about the matter. A view at another stage of
progress would have shown Wisconsin and Minnesota entirely out, and
pulling up with them the edges of adjoining states, and a strip along
the Atlantic about half as wide as New York or Pennsylvania. Still no
United States. There was water between these two sections and some
islands scattered about in the south. The western mountains had not
been progressing at all; they lagged behind for aeons. These two
sections, beginning with Wisconsin and Minnesota in the west and the
Alleghanies in the east, kept reaching out till they made continuous
land; and thus Ohio and all those states between are some ages
younger. But they are much older than the west; for at a time when the
whole eastern half of the continent had long appeared, the Gulf Stream
was flowing across the west, and the waters were depositing the small
sea-shells which make the calcareous matter under Kansas loam. All
that country is much younger, and the western mountains are as big as
they are simply because they have not had time to become worn down. As
to Florida, it was a mere afterthought, an addition built on by coral
insects.
The whole story of those east-central and southern states--how
Pennsylvania and Ohio and Illinois got their coal, and Michigan her
salt--would make a lengthy narrative; I have mentioned just enough to
show the age of Wisconsin and the still greater age of some of that
glacial matter that came down from the direction of the Laurentian
Highlands. It is the oldest land in the world; and the other states, I
am sure, will not resent my taking out the state's pedigree and
showing it. Wisconsin took part with the east in what geologists call
the Appalachian Revolution,--is a veritable Daughter of the
Revolution. I mention it merely because I think it greatly to the
credit of a dairy state that, at a time so early in the world's
morning, she was up and doing.
ELLIOTT FLOWER
Elliott Flower is another of Wisconsin's writers who came
into the field of literature through newspaper work. He was
born at Madison in 1863, and after receiving a common school
education there, he went to Phillips Academy at
Massachusetts. He was editor of the Rambler in 1885 and 1886,
and after that he was for some years engaged in editorial
work on Chicago papers. Since 1899, however, most of his work
has been of a purely literary nature, and his residence has
been in Madison for some time. He is the author of "Policeman
Flynn," "The Spoilsman," "Nurse Norah," "Delightful Dog," and
other books.
The story from which we quote is "The Impractical Man." It is
fairly representative of a considerable portion of his work.
It shows a keen sense of humor, a skillful handling of
conversation, and considerable knowledge of human nature. Our
selection embraces the first and last portions of the story.
Between these selections many experiences fall to the lot of
the "impractical man." There is an adventure in the woods, in
which the men are lost, and there are many laughable
experiences in a canoe. In this story, as is frequently the
case in Mr. Flower's work, the unexpected happens, and the
character whom the reader has been inclined to pity because
of his inability to take care of himself suddenly proves to
be shrewd enough to outwit those with whom he is dealing.
THE IMPRACTICAL MAN
From the Century Magazine, Vol. 64, p. 549.
"I am sorry to inform you," said Shackelford, the lawyer, "that you
have been to some trouble and expense to secure a bit of worthless
paper. This--" and he held up the document he had been examining--"is
about as valuable as a copy of last week's newspaper."
It is possible that Shackelford really regretted the necessity of
conveying this unpleasant information to Peter J. Connorton, Cyrus
Talbot, and Samuel D. Peyton; but, if so, his looks belied him, for
he smiled very much as if he found something gratifying in the
situation.
Connorton was the first to recover from the shock.
"Then it's a swindle!" he declared hotly. "We'll get that fellow
Hartley! He's a crook! We'll make him--"
"Oh, no," interrupted Shackelford, quietly, "it's no swindle.
According to your own story, you prepared the paper yourself and paid
him for his signature to it."
"We paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his patent," asserted
Connorton.
"But you didn't get the patent," returned Shackelford. "He has
assigned to you, for a consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars,
all his rights, title, and interest in something or other, but the
assignment doesn't clearly show what. There are a thousand things that
it might be, but nothing that it definitely and positively _is_. Very
likely he doesn't know this, but very likely somebody will tell him.
Anyhow, you've got to clear an unquestioned title before you can do
anything with the patent without danger of unpleasant consequences."
Deeper gloom settled upon the faces of the three, and especially upon
the face of Connorton, who was primarily responsible for their present
predicament.
"What would you advise?" asked Connorton at last.
"Well," returned the lawyer, after a moment of thought, "you'd better
find him. As near as I can make out, he had no thought of tricking
you."
"Oh, no, I don't believe he had," confessed Connorton. "I spoke
hastily when I charged that. He's too impractical for anything of the
sort."
"Much too impractical, I should say," added Talbot, and Peyton nodded
approval.
"In that case," pursued the lawyer, "you can still clinch the deal
easily and quickly--if you get to him first. I see nothing
particularly disturbing in the situation, except the possibility that
somebody who _is_ practical may get hold of him before you do, or that
he may learn in some other way of the value of his invention. Do you
know where he is?"
"No," answered Connorton. "That's the trouble."
"Not so troublesome as it might be," returned the lawyer. "He is not
trying to hide, if we are correct in our surmise, and his
eccentricities of dress and deportment would attract attention to him
anywhere. I have a young man here in the office who will get track of
him in no time, if you have nothing better to suggest."
They had nothing better to suggest, so Byron Paulson was called in,
given a description of Ira Hartley, together with such information as
to his associates and haunts as it was possible to give, and sent in
quest of news of him.
"Meanwhile," observed the lawyer, "I'll prepare something for his
signature, when we find him, that will have no loopholes in it."
* * * * *
Connorton and Paulson had no difficulty in securing permission to talk
with Hartley, and they approached with considerable confidence the
cell in which he was detained. It had occurred to them, upon
reflection, that they were now in a most advantageous position in the
matter of their business relations with the inventor. He was
friendless in a strange city. He was believed to be of unsound mind,
and his actions had been erratic enough to give color to that belief.
He could hardly hope to secure his release without their help, and if
so, they could impose their own terms before extending that help.
To their surprise, they found him quite cheerful and apparently
indifferent or blind to the seriousness of his predicament.
"Hullo, Connorton!" he cried, when he saw them approaching. "Any other
proposition to make now?"
"Why, no, certainly not," replied Connorton. "We came to see about
you."
"Awfully good of you," laughed Hartley. "How you do love me,
Connorton!"
Connorton's face reddened, but he ignored the thrust. "You've got
yourself in a nice fix, Hartley," he remarked.
"Oh, it's of no consequence," exclaimed Paulson.
"Not to me," asserted Hartley. "It may be to you, of course."
The impractical man appeared to be able to take a very practical view
of some matters, and Connorton was the more perturbed and uneasy in
consequence.
"They say you're crazy," suggested Connorton.
"And I guess they can prove it, too," rejoined Hartley, cheerfully.
"You've said the same thing yourself, and I know you wouldn't lie
about a mere trifle like that. Then, the conductor, the engineer, and
the fireman of the train we came down on will swear to it ... not to
mention the cooper, the hotel clerk, a few bell-boys, and the
policeman who arrested me. Yes, I guess I'm crazy, Connorton. Too bad,
isn't it?"
"It's likely to be bad for you," said Connorton.
"Oh, no," returned Hartley, easily, "I'm not violent, you know, just
mentally defective; unable to transact business, as you might say.
They'll find that out and let me go; but there will be the taint, the
suspicion, the doubt. Very likely a conservator will be appointed when
I get back home--some shrewd, sharp fellow, with a practical mind."
Such a very impractical man was the inventor, and so very troublesome
in his impracticality! Connorton could only begin at the beginning
again, and go slow.
"Suppose we get you out," he ventured, "what would you be willing to
do?"
"What would you be willing to do?" retorted Hartley.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Connorton.
"I'm sure I don't know," replied Hartley, with an air of the utmost
frankness. "I seldom mean anything, of course, and it is such a lot of
trouble to find out what I do mean when I mean anything that I usually
give it up. But you are so deeply interested in me--so much more
interested in me than I am in myself--that I thought you might want to
keep me sane; that you might not like to feel that you had driven me
crazy."
Paulson was about to interrupt, but Connorton motioned to him to be
silent. Connorton was in the habit of handling his own business
matters, and he wanted his lawyer to speak only when a legal
proposition was put directly up to him. It may be admitted that he was
sorely perplexed now; but he found nothing in the inventor's face but
a bland smile, and he did not think Paulson could help him to
interpret that.
"Hartley," he said at last, "I'll get you out of here and add five
thousand to what you've already had the moment that patent is properly
transferred to me."
"Connorton," returned the inventor, "I believe I'm crazy. When I think
of the events of the last few days--of your more than brotherly
interest in me, which I have pleasurably exploited during our
delightful association--I believe I am crazy enough to say, come
again!"
Connorton drew a long breath and conceded another point. "Hartley," he
proposed, "you may keep the money I have already given you--"
"Thank you," said Hartley; "I shall."
"--and you may also have a quarter interest in the patent," concluded
Connorton.
"It's all mine now," suggested Hartley.
"If so," argued Connorton, who well knew that much of the money had
been spent, "you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars."
"If so," returned Hartley, the impractical man, "I infer from your
anxiety and extraordinary generosity that I can sell it for enough to
pay you and make a little margin for myself. Besides, you can't
collect from a crazy man, Connorton; and I'm getting crazier every
minute. Business always goes to my head, Connorton. You must have
noticed that up in the woods. I'm really becoming alarmed about
myself. But perhaps, you'd rather do business with a conservator,
Connorton."
"A half interest," urged Connorton, desperately, as he mentally
reviewed the weakness of his own position in view of the unsuspected
perspicacity of the inventor. "Consider that I have paid you
twenty-five thousand dollars for a half interest, and the other half
is yours. I'll defray whatever expense is incurred in marketing the
invention, too."
Hartley reflected, seeming in doubt. "Connorton," he said at last, "I
think I am still getting the worst of it somewhere, but an impractical
fellow like me deserves to get the worst of it. Go ahead! Have that
agreement put in legal form, and then you may get me out while there
is yet time to save my reason."
* * * * *
Connorton had finished his appeal for the release of Hartley. "Of
course," he was told, "if you and Mr. Paulson will assume the
responsibility and will immediately take him away, we shall be glad to
let you have him; but he is undoubtedly demented."
"Demented!" snorted Connorton. "Say! you try to do business with him,
and you'll think he's the sanest man that ever lived!"
JENKIN LLOYD JONES.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones is one of the best-known Wisconsin
ministers. We say "Wisconsin," for, though he is now a
resident of Chicago, his parents moved from South Wales to
Wisconsin in 1843 when Jenkin Lloyd Jones was an infant.
During his boyhood he worked on the home farm; then in 1862
he enlisted, and served for three years in the Sixth
Wisconsin Battery in the Civil War. He is a graduate of the
Meadville, Pennsylvania, theological seminary of the class of
1870. He holds an honorary degree of LL. D. granted by the
University of Wisconsin in 1909. He was pastor of All Souls
Church, Janesville, from 1871 to 1880. He established, with
others, "Unity," a weekly paper, now organ of the Congress of
Religion, and has been its editor since 1879. He organized
All Souls Church in Chicago, and has been its pastor since
1882. He is the author of almost countless pamphlets and
several books, among the latter being "Love and Loyalty,"
"What Does Christmas Really Mean," "On the Firing Line in the
Battle for Sobriety," and his creative instinct has shown
itself in the organization of many societies and institutions
for the uplift of mankind.
NUGGETS FROM A WELSH MINE
Copyrighted by Olive E. Weston, 1902.
THE HOME (Page 14).
Love is the only safe and justifiable basis for a home. All Bibles, as
well as all stories, all philosophy and all experience assert this.
Go to housekeeping, and, if possible, to house-building. Do not be
outdone by the beaver. Do not sink lower than the bird, who builds its
own nest, making it strong without and beautiful within.
That home alone is home where love generates generous impulses, noble
purposes. True love will breed heavenly plans, nurse world-redeeming
schemes, and enlist all the forces of earth in the interests of
heaven.
There is no home where there is no common toil.
The world is the larger home. The child must early learn to feel its
dependence on and its obligation to this larger home circle if it is
to grow noble.
There are no furnishings to a house that really convert it into a
home, which have not won their places, one by one, in the heart and
brain of the housewife.
Civilization rests, not primarily on the court-house, or the college,
or the public school building, or the post-office, or the railway
station, or yet in the club, but in the home.
The trouble with our young people is not that they are too poor in
material things to make for themselves a home, but that they are too
poor in spiritual things to confess the poverty which might enable
them to lay the foundations of a home, humble but altogether holy....
The beautiful heron, mad with a maternal love, blind to all dangers
from without, bent only on protecting her brood, giving her life to
her little ones, was killed by the woman who wears the graceful
aigrette--that marvel of Nature's embroidery woven for a nuptial robe
to the gracious bird. She, and none other, is responsible for that
life, for it was for her sake that the bloody deed was done.
THE SCHOOL (Page 29).
The highest task that life holds for men and women is the choosing of
an ideal to grow toward. It should be sufficiently far away to
require a whole lifetime to pursue it.
It has taken a hundred years of agony and study to prove even in
advanced America a man's right to his own body; a woman's right to her
old soul; and the child's right to the development of his mind as of
his muscle.
I plead for the true perspective in the training of your children. I
believe, of course, in good bodies, comfortable and beautiful
clothing, generous houses, and all the learning of the schools; I
believe in intellectual joy and all the powers of thought, but only
when they are subordinated to high affections and strong wills.
There is a power at work in the world that estimates gifts, not by the
amount, but by the purpose that dictated them.
The kindergarten contains the seed of the gospel for children in its
terminology when it seeks to develop the child by its "occupations."...
WORK (Page 111).
There can be no development, mental, spiritual, or physical, except by
exercise.
Through labor we became creators, co-workers with God. Labor can be
transfigured into a habit.
In the scales of the universe, a day's work will always weigh more
than the dollar that pays for that day's work.
The tradesman who strives to know all about his own business and
cares but little about any other, will not have much business of his
own to absorb his attention after a while.
Blessed word is that,--"occupation." The new education is bound up in
it. The health of the child is contained in it. The safety of the
saint is represented by it, and the progress of humanity is dependent
upon it.
When labor becomes the pride of the laborer, then he becomes fit
object for the envy of kings.
The most disordered explosions of pent-up passions and unreleased
power follow in the wake of enforced idleness.
There is no release from toil, and the only escape from the burdens of
labor must come, not by its cessation, but by its glorification.
There is an overwork that is killing, but the danger from work, any
work, all work, is trifling compared to the greater dangers of
indolence.
There is always a large physical element in distances. It is always
farther from the breakfast table to the field than it is from the
field to the dinner table.
When the wheels of life bear me down for the last time, I ask for no
higher compliment, I seek no truer statement of the work I have tried
to do, than that which the white-headed old negress gave the beardless
boy on the hot Corinth cornfield in 1862. Then, if I deserve it, let
some one who loves me say, "Here is a Linkum soldier who has done got
run over," one who, like his leader, tried to "pluck a thistle and
plant a flower wherever a flower would grow."
EVERETT McNEIL.
MOTHER'S WOLF STORY
By Everett McNeil, for many years a resident of Stoughton,
Wis., now living in New York. Taken from St. Nicholas, Vol.
XXX, p. 387. Copyright by The Century Co.
(For many years a resident of Stoughton; now living in New
York. Author of The Cave of Gold, In Texas with Davy
Crockett, The Totem of Black Hawk, Fighting with Fremont, The
Boy Forty-Niners, etc.)
When I was a boy there was one story which my sisters and brothers and
I were never tired of hearing mother tell; for our own mother was its
heroine and the scene of the thrilling chase was not more than a mile
and a half from our own door. Indeed, we often went coasting on the
very hill down which she took her fearful ride, and skated on the pond
which was the scene of her adventure. I can still distinctly remember
how, when the long winter evenings came and the snow lay deep on the
ground and the wind whistled stormily without, we children would
gather around the great sheet-iron stove in the sitting-room of the
old farm-house and beg mother to tell us stories of the perils and
hardships of her pioneer days; and how, invariably, before the evening
was over some one of us would ask: "Now, mother, please do tell us,
just once more, how you escaped from the wolves, when a girl, by
coasting down Peek's Hill."
Mother would pause in her knitting, and, with a smile, declare that
she had already told us the story "forty-eleven times"; but, just to
please so attentive an audience, she would tell it even once more.
Then, while we children crowded closer around her chair, she would
resume her knitting and begin:
"When your grandfather settled in this part of Wisconsin I was a
little girl thirteen years old. We moved into the log house father had
prepared for us early in the spring, and by fall we had things fixed
quite comfortable. The winter which followed was one of unusual
severity. The snow fell, early in November, to the depth of three feet
on the level; and the greater part of it remained on the ground all
winter. This, of course, made grand coasting. Father made for me a
sled with strong, hard, smooth hickory runners, and big enough for two
to ride on. I declare, I don't believe there ever was such another
sled for speed"; and mother's eyes would sparkle at the memories the
thought of her faithful sled recalled.
"At this time the country was very thinly populated. Our nearest
neighbor was Abner Jones, who lived some three miles away, over on the
other side of Peek's Hill. Abner Jones had a little girl, named
Amanda, about my own age, and we two children soon became great chums.
After a big snow-storm, Amanda and I would go coasting on Peek's Hill
whenever we could gain the permission of our parents. She would come
over to my house, or I would go over to her house, and together we
would go to the hill. Amanda had no sled; but we could both ride down
on my sled, and then take turns pulling it up the hill.
"The first week in January there was a two-days' thaw, followed by a
sharp freeze. This caused a thick, icy crust to form on top of the
remaining snow, which, by the next day, became so hard and strong that
it would bear the weight of a man. The water from the melted snow ran
into the hollow at the foot of Peek's Hill, and made a large, deep
pond, which was soon covered over with a sheet of gleaming ice. So,
you see, Peek's Hill had become an ideal coasting-place; for we could
slide down its steep side at lightning speed, and out upon the ice,
and even clear across the pond, a good three-quarters of a mile from
the top of the hill.
"On one Saturday afternoon following a thaw and a freeze-up, I secured
the permission of my parents to go over to Amanda's and get her to
come sliding with me down the hill. Father cautioned me to be sure and
be home early, because the wolves, which at that time infested all
this section of the country, were said to be getting very bold and
fierce, especially at night time; and they had been known, when driven
by hunger, to run down and kill horses and cattle and even human
beings. Doubtless the cold and the deep snow had forced many southward
from the great woods in the northern part of the State. But the
caution fell on idle ears. I considered all wolves cowards; besides, I
was not going to hunt wolves; I was bent upon coasting down-hill; and
I did not believe any wolf would be foolish enough to take the trouble
to run down a little girl when there were plenty of chickens and
cattle to be had.
"I bundled up warmly, and, drawing my sled behind me, started 'cross
lots over Peek's Hill to Amanda's house. Peek's Hill stood about
half-way between our two homes. I left the heavy sled at the top of
the hill to wait our return. When I reached the house I found Amanda
laid up with a bad cold, and of course her mother would not allow her
to go coasting; so I took off my things to stay in the house and play
with her. Amanda had two rubber dolls, and we had such a jolly time
playing with them that I did not notice how fast the time was passing
until Mrs. Jones said, 'Come, my dear; it is time you were going!'
Then she helped to bundle me up, gave me a doughnut hot from the
kettle, and saw me safely started on my way home.
"The sun was nearing the western horizon. I glanced at it and hurried
on. The first part of my way lay through heavy woods; then came an
opening, in the midst of which rose Peek's Hill. The brow of the hill
was perhaps forty rods from the edge of the woods, the steep incline
down which we coasted being on the opposite side. There was no road,
only a path worn through the snow by our neighborly feet.
"I had passed about half-way through the woods, when suddenly a great
shaggy wolf bounded out into the path in front of me. The wolf stopped
and glared hungrily at me for a moment, then dashed away into the
brush. A moment after, I heard him howling a few rods in the rear. To
my inexpressible horror, the howl was quickly answered by another, and
then another, and still another, until to my terrified ears the woods
seemed full of the ferocious beasts.
"There was no need of telling me what this meant. I was old enough and
familiar enough with wolf-nature to know that the first wolf was
calling to his mates to come and help him run down and kill his
quarry.
"For a moment I stood still in my tracks, listening in trembling
horror to the hideous howlings; then I gathered myself together and
ran. Fear lent me wings. My feet seemed hardly to touch the snow. And
yet it was but a minute before I heard the rapid pit-pat of the feet
of the wolves on the hard crust of the snow behind me, and knew that
they were drawing near. I reached the edge of the woods; and, as I
dashed into the opening, I cast a hurried glance to the rear. Several
great, gaunt wolves, running neck and neck, were not five rods behind
me. They ran with their heads outstretched, making great bounds over
the hard snow.
"At that time I was tall for my age, and could run like a deer. The
sight of the wolves, so close behind me, caused me to redouble my
efforts; but, in spite of my speed, as I reached the brow of the hill,
I could hear their panting breaths, so near had they come. With a
quick movement of my hands I threw off my heavy cloth cape and woolen
hood. At the same instant my eyes caught sight of the sled, which I
had left at the top of the hill. Fortunately it was standing facing
the steep incline. If I could reach it before the wolves caught me,
possibly I might yet escape! My hood and cape delayed the animals for
an instant; but they were again upon me just as I, without slacking my
speed in the least, caught the sled up into my hands and threw myself
upon it.
"I think the sudden change in my position, just as they were about to
spring on me, must have disconcerted the wolves for an instant; and
before they recovered I was sliding down the hill. The wolves came
tumbling and leaping after me, howling and snarling. At the start, the
hill was very steep, and the frozen snow was as smooth and as slippery
as ice. The sled kept going faster and faster, and soon I had the
inexpressible delight of seeing that I was beginning to leave the
wolves behind. Far below I saw the gleaming ice on the pond. About
half-way down the hill the incline was considerably less steep,
becoming nearly level just before reaching the pond. When I came to
this part of the hill I again glanced behind, and, to my horror, saw
that the wolves had begun to gain on me, and were now not more than
two rods away. Evidently the sled was slowing up. There was nothing I
could do to quicken its motion. My fate seemed certain. At last the
sled reached the pond, and, while still but a few feet from the bank,
I suddenly felt the ice bend and crack beneath me; but either my speed
was too rapid or my weight too light, or both, for I did not break
through, but sped swiftly on to stronger ice and to safety. For a
moment the slippery ice delayed the wolves, then they came on swifter
than ever, their sharp claws scratching the ice like knives. Finally I
heard a crash, and glancing back, I saw a struggling jumble of heads
and paws, and I knew in a moment that the combined weight of the
wolves had broken through the ice at the weak place that had cracked
as I passed over it.
"I left the sled at the margin of the pond, and hurried home, where,
girl-like, I fell fainting into my mother's arms.
"There, children; that is how your mother escaped from the wolves by
coasting down Peek's Hill; and that great wolfskin robe in the corner
is one of the very hides that father took from the six bodies after he
had dragged them out of the pond the next morning"; and mother, with a
flush on her dear face, would point to the familiar wolfskin robe.
Then we children would bring the great robe from its place, spread it
out on the floor before the fire, and, seating ourselves upon it, talk
in low voices of the terrible ride our dear mother took down Peek's
Hill when she was a girl and was chased by the wolves.
THE UNIVERSITY GROUP
The selections here placed together under the head, "The
University Group," are taken from the works of authors who
have taught or who are now teaching in the University of
Wisconsin, and who may, therefore, be said both to have
influenced it in its ideals and to have been influenced by
it. The work of the editors in this section of the volume has
been at once peculiarly pleasant and difficult. It has been
pleasant because, under the shadow of Wisconsin's greatest
institution of learning, there has come into birth a large
body of interesting, instructive, and thoroughly worth-while
literary material. The task has been difficult because the
line between technical and special material treated in a
literary way, and what may be styled pure literature, is very
hard to draw. The editors realize thoroughly their
fallibility in the making of these selections. So many books
have been written, and so many contributions to both popular
and technical magazines have been made by teachers in the
University, that it is a physical impossibility even to scan
them with any sure result of fairness or equity in the
selection of real literature from the great mass that has
been produced. The most that is claimed for the present
selections is that at least they are thoroughly worth-while.
No doubt a search covering sufficient time and dealing with a
sufficiently large portion of the output of the University
would reveal other works and other men worthy of
representation in this volume.
There is another consideration that should be mentioned as
rendering the task of the present editors peculiarly
difficult: All but one of the men whose works are mentioned
here are now living. Aside from the impossibility of wholly
pleasing any man by a selection from or a criticism of his
work, there is the inevitable fact that since most of these
men are young, their actual relative standing as producers of
literature is constantly and rapidly changing. As one reads
the selections in the following pages, he is impressed most
of all by the spirit of buoyancy and youth that pervades
them. Scarcely a single selection here, even those by the
older men, bears the imprint of satiety or completion. All
are pulsing with life, hopefulness, buoyancy, and promise.
Again, in a book of this nature, selections must necessarily
be brief. It is not possible to give really adequate
representation to any one of these men, since the laws of
space are inexorable.
Perhaps the one thing common to all sections in this
group--the thing which will most readily and profoundly
impress even the youngest reader--is a feeling of breadth of
experience, wide observation, earnest, keen, and insatiable
desire for truth,--in fact, all the opposites of narrowness,
prejudice, provincialism. One feels at once that the writers
here have read widely and well, that they have a fund of
facts gained both from books and at first hand through travel
and observation, and that their emotions and their judgments
spring from this well of truth as they see it.
PRESIDENT VAN HISE
Charles Richard Van Hise needs no introduction to Wisconsin
readers, nor indeed to readers in any part of America. He is
a man whom our state may proudly call her own. He was born in
Fulton in 1857, took his bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering at his own State University in 1879 and his Ph.
D. there in 1892, and throughout his whole life, since
receiving his first degree, he has been in the faculty of his
own Alma Mater. In 1903 he was made its president, which
position he now holds.
He is recognized by all as the peer of any man in our country
as an authority on geology. His face, through photographs
appearing from time to time in public prints, is familiar to
us all: while in Madison, and indeed in most cities of the
state, his slightly bent figure, with the face peering
forward as though seeking some new truth, would be readily
recognized by any schoolboy.
When at Madison one of his favorite diversions is riding
horseback, and no doubt in many of his geological trips
horses have been his most dependable friends.
Needless to say, his interests are wide and varied. Nothing
that affects the welfare of his country and its people is
outside the field of his attention. Through his membership in
many learned societies and his connection with various
educational bodies and institutions he wields an influence
for the spirit of truth and enlightenment second to almost
none in the United States.
We quote here a brief passage from his writings to indicate
something of the range of interests the mind and heart of
Wisconsin's most active citizen find time in which to
interest themselves. While President Van Hise's interests are
not primarily literary, any man of fine sensibilities and
intelligence, placed as he is, at the center of momentous
events, is bound to have a message of vital import; and any
such message, clearly and suitably delivered, is literature.
THE FUTURE OF MAN IN AMERICA
By Charles R. Van Hise, published in the World's Work, Vol.
XVIII, p. 11718.
... It is clear that the problem of the conservation of our natural
resources is an interlocking one. If the forests are conserved in the
rough lands and mountains, the streams will have an even flow, their
navigability will be easily maintained, they will give a uniform
water-power; the erosion of the soil will be lessened; the bottom
lands along the stream will not be flooded. If the water-powers are
developed, the consumption of coal will be lessened. If the elements
which are changed from ore to metals are carefully saved--not being
allowed to rust or to be lost--and thus utilized again and again, it
will not be necessary to take from the mines so large an amount of
ore, and thus less coal and power will be required for their
extraction. The conservation of one resource assists in the
conservation of all others. We should work with the agents of the
earth rather than reverse their work, as we have been doing since
American settlement began.
Intimately connected with the conservation of the natural resources is
the conservation of humanity itself. Just as we have been reckless in
the use of our natural resources, so as a nation have we been reckless
of human life. We now know enough in reference to the prevention and
cure of communicable diseases, we know enough in reference to
improving the conditions under which the industries are carried on, so
that, according to Professor Irving Fisher, the average human life
might be lengthened by a third.
So far as we permit human beings to be created, it is plainly our duty
to conserve them and, so far as possible, produce a happy environment
for them. This great problem of the conservation of humanity is
mentioned merely to put it in relation with the problems of the
conservation of our natural resources, rather than to discuss it.
How long shall this nation endure? Or, more exactly, how long shall
human beings occupy this land? It is only within the past two
centuries that the lands of the country have been subject to
agriculture upon an extensive scale, and the main drafts upon the soil
of this country have been within the last century. We should think,
not of a hundred years, or of a thousand years, but of hundreds of
thousands, or of millions of years of development of the human race.
There is no reason, from a geological point of view, why human beings
may not live upon this earth for millions of years to come, perhaps
many millions of years, and, so far as we are concerned, such periods
are practically infinite.
These considerations impose upon us as our most fundamental duty the
transmission of the heritage of our natural resources to our
descendants as nearly intact as possible. This is an individual
responsibility, as well as a state and a national responsibility.
There's a strongly developed opinion at the present time that the
owners of great wealth, and especially those who control great natural
resources, should act as trustees for the nation. This is easy to see;
but every man who owns a farm is equally a trustee to the nation for
his small property. If at the end of his life the farm goes to his son
depleted in richness, he is as truly faithless to his trust as are the
great interests, some of which think only of present gain, and
wastefully exploit the natural resources of the country. Each in
proportion to his own responsibility is a traitor to the nation. At
the present time, fortunately, this sense of stewardship is gaining
possession of those who control some of the great resources of the
nation. As yet, there is scarcely a glimmering of responsibility in
the case of the smaller holder of natural resources. But the future of
the nation is safe only when small and large holder alike, from the
man who owns forty acres of land to the groups of men who control the
anthracite of the nation, shall administer their trust primarily for
the benefit of the people now living and for succeeding generations
rather than for themselves.
I do not hesitate to assert that, from the point of view of our
descendants, this question of conservation of our natural resources is
more important than any political or social question, indeed, more
important than all political or social questions upon the solution of
which we are now engaged. Not only is it more important, but it is
more pressing, for already our unnecessary losses are irremediable,
and the situation is growing steadily worse.
It is necessary that a great campaign of education be inaugurated at
once with reference to the conservation of the soil, just as there has
been a campaign of education with reference to the conservation of the
forests. The task is an enormous one, indeed vastly greater than that
carried on with reference to our other resources, because of the fact
that the land holdings are so subdivided; but the campaign of
education must be carried on, and, as a part of it, the laws must be
developed, until we reach the situation where no man dares so to
handle his land as to decrease its fertility. If present methods are
allowed to continue, it is certain that in the not distant future this
country will be able to support only a relatively sparse population.
Only by the conservation of our soil, undiminished in its fertility,
can we hope to be able to provide for the hundreds of millions of
people who, in the near future in the United States, will be demanding
food and clothing. The conservation of the soil is the conservation of
the basal asset of the nation.
Similarly, the campaign of education in reference to the forests must
be continued, and that with reference to the coal and mineral
resources inaugurated; for only second in importance to the
conservation of the soil is the economic mining and use of coal, the
conservation of the forests, and the use of metals with the minimum
waste.
DEAN BIRGE
Edward Asahel Birge was born in Troy, New York, in 1851. He
received his collegiate training at Williams and Harvard and
was made instructor in natural history at the University of
Wisconsin in 1875, professor in 1879, and Dean of the College
of Letters and Science in 1891, which position he has held
down to the present time, except for three years when he
served as Acting President.
No one among all the professors is better known to the
students of the University of Wisconsin than Dean Birge. His
active figure, his firm step, his (now) white hair, which,
when the writer went to school, was but iron-gray, his keen
eye, have all come to be institutional and fundamental at the
University of Wisconsin. No undergraduate who has gone
tremblingly before Dean Birge to get his excuse for being
late to his first class after the Christmas holidays will
need a description of Dean Birge's eye. No one ever thinks of
trying to deceive the Dean.
But withal, nothing could be more unfair than to give the
notion that keenness is the only quality in that eye.
Kindness is there, too, and above all, justice. We who were
undergraduates at Madison, always think of Dean Birge as a
scholar in his chosen line and as a school administrator. It
will be a surprise to many to know of his keen interest in
literature. The writer ventures to say that one will look
some time before he finds, from the pen of the best-trained
specialist in English, a fairer estimate of Milton than the
one here given by this biologist.
MILTON
Introductory remarks at the celebration of the tercentenary
anniversary of Milton's birth, held at the University of
Wisconsin, December 9, 1908.
Perhaps I am wrong in permitting myself to say anything beyond the
formal words which belong to my office tonight. I am sure that I have
no right to join in the tribute which today the world offers to
Milton, beyond that which belongs to every one who did not need to
knock the dust from his copy of the poems when this tercentenary
anniversary approached. Yet if I had the power to praise, I should
attempt the task.
"If my inferior hand or voice could hint
Inimitable things"
I would add my words to those of more discriminating praise. But if I
speak at all, it must be as one of Milton's readers, not as his
critic, still less as his judge; not even as his eulogist. Perhaps I
may speak also as a descendant of the men and women who made up that
Puritan commonwealth from which he was born and to which at bottom he
belonged; as a descendant of men and women, stern, god-fearing,
theology-loving, yet very human; mostly commonplace people; not
sensitive to art or caring much about it, yet capable of being
profoundly moved by the greatest poetry. I may speak in the name of
those who for generations kept Milton second only to the Bible in
their knowledge and as belonging to a generation which today finds
Milton next beyond the Bible in its ignorance. I may represent in some
sort that public which long cherished him but which today leaves him
to the few lovers of poetry on the one side, and on the other, must
have converted him to a post-mortem belief in purgatory by condemning
him to a place among the authors assigned for "intensive study" in
secondary schools.
I cannot find it in my heart to blame my fellows severely for their
present neglect of Milton. When we read the introductory lines of the
Aeneid--for our small Latin extends so far as this--and the triumphant
final words: "_atque altae moenia Romae_" "burst out into sudden
blaze," then in that quick vision of the walls of lofty Rome we catch
some hint of that spirit which made the poem the bible of the Roman
state. And when we find the introduction to Paradise Lost closing with
the promise that the author will "justify the ways of God to man," we
feel that temper in the poem which made it at once the holier bible of
the Puritan and prevented it from becoming the bible of the English
speaking race for all time.
But we of the stock from which Milton came have not all deserted the
poet. Some of us still read his verse, though not for the poem so much
as for the poetry, which in his hands became the
"golden key
That opes the palace of eternity."
We do not find our Milton in his earlier poems; for, charming as they
are, they lack that note of strong personality and endless power which
our ear first catches in Lycidas:
"Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold--"
Here is the true music of Milton's verse; a deep, long-drawn note, a
solemn cadence; far from the "wanton heed and giddy cunning" of the
music which untwists the chains of harmony, and equally distant from
heaven's calm serenity of choral symphonies and "undisturbed song of
pure content." This music sounds in the Paradise Lost, less emotional
perhaps, but purer and higher; appealing to ear and soul in complex
and interwoven harmonies of thought and verse. We hear it still in the
Samson; austere, intellectualized; the scheme of music rather than
music itself; still resonant though not resounding. We have no skill
to compare this music with that of other poets; but this we know, that
while its harmonies linger in our ears all other verse rings poor and
thin. We hear no voice but Milton's which can bear the praise of his
own words: "_praesentem sonat vox ipsa Deum_"--its very note proclaims
the present God.
Nor is this all. Milton's verse moves us as does that of no other
poet. I do not mean that it moves us to laughter or even to tears. I
mean rather that it moves our souls bodily, if such a thing may be. As
we read it, we find ourselves committed to a power not so much buoyant
as illimitable. The verse bears us aloft and carries us forward; not
swiftly, slowly rather; advancing, to our increased happiness, not
directly, but with many a pause and turn; yet steadily and powerfully
pressing on toward a goal certain and far-seen. We know not whether
Milton's poetry accomplished
"Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme";
but at least we must confess for ourselves that it illumines our
darkness and raises and supports us as does no other verse.
And so we, who in some far off sense belong to Milton's people, join
tonight with you who have the right to praise his name. Yet it may be
that in so doing we are thinking rather of ourselves than of any
tribute that you or we can bring to him. We know that your
commemorative words will renew our knowledge and quicken our hearts.
We hope that, hearing them, we may feel the presence of those
"immortal shades
Of bright aerial spirits"
who ever attend Milton's verse; perhaps we even hope that our clearer
vision may catch some new glimpse of Milton himself--our poet--wearing
"the crown that Vertue gives" and sitting
"Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats."
RASMUS BJÖRNE ANDERSON
"Rasmus B. Anderson" is a name that has been familiar to all
University of Wisconsin students and to all people of
Scandinavian parentage throughout the Northwest for at least
two score years. This fine old man is a true son of
Wisconsin. He was born in Albion, Wisconsin, of Norwegian
parents, in 1846. He received an honorary A. B. from the
University of Wisconsin in 1885, and the title of L. L. D.
from the same institution in 1888. He was professor of
Scandinavian languages and literature here from 1875 to 1883,
when he resigned to serve as minister to Denmark. He has
translated scores of selections from Scandinavian languages
into English, and is the editor of almost countless articles
of an historical, linguistic, literary, and philosophical
nature. Now, at the age of seventy, his friends know him as a
kindly, busy man with an active and keen interest in all
about him. He is at present serving in an editorial capacity
on the boards of different journals and encyclopedias.
The selection here given was one of the earliest that he
published. It breathes the spirit of enthusiasm and love for
the land of his fathers, but at the same time shows his
careful citation of evidence to support his every assertion.
BJARNE HERJULFSON, 986
From "AMERICA, NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS." Chapter X. By
Rasmus B. Anderson. Copyright, 1883, by S. C. Griggs & Co.
In the year 986, the same year that he returned from Greenland, the
above-named Erik the Red moved from Iceland to Greenland, and among
his numerous friends, who accompanied him, was an Icelander by name
Herjulf.
Herjulf had a son by name Bjarne, who was a man of enterprise and fond
of going abroad, and who possessed a merchant-ship, with which he
gathered wealth and reputation. He used to be by turns a year abroad
and a year at home with his father. He chanced to be away in Norway
when his father moved over to Greenland, and on returning to Iceland
he was so much disappointed on hearing of his father's departure with
Erik, that he would not unload his ship, but resolved to follow his
old custom and take up his abode with his father. "Who will go with me
to Greenland?" he said to his men. "We will all go with you," replied
the men. "But we have none of us ever been on the Greenland Sea
before," said Bjarne. "We mind not that," said the men,--so away they
sailed for three days and lost sight of Iceland. Then the wind failed.
After that a north wind and fog set in, and they knew not where they
were sailing to. This lasted many days, until the sun at length
appeared again, so that they could determine the quarters of the sky,
and lo! in the horizon they saw, like a blue cloud, the outlines of an
unknown land. They approached it. They saw that it was without
mountains, was covered with wood, and that there were small hills
inland. Bjarne saw that this did not answer to the description of
Greenland; he knew he was too far south; so he left the land on the
larboard side and sailed northward two days, when they got sight of
land again. The men asked Bjarne if this was Greenland; but he said it
was not, "For in Greenland," he said, "there are great, snowy
mountains; but this land is flat and covered with trees." They did not
go ashore, but turning the bow from the land, they kept the sea with
a fine breeze from the southwest for three days, when a third land was
seen. Still Bjarne would not go ashore, for it was not like what had
been reported of Greenland. So they sailed on, driven by a violent
southwest wind, and after four days they reached a land which suited
the description of Greenland. Bjarne was not deceived, for it was
Greenland, and he happened to land close to the place where his father
had settled.
It cannot be determined with certainty what parts of the American
coast Bjarne saw; but from the circumstances of the voyage, the course
of the winds, the direction of the currents, and the presumed distance
between each sight of land, there is reason to believe that the first
land that Bjarne saw in the year 986 was the present Nantucket, one
degree south of Boston; the second Nova Scotia, and the third
Newfoundland. Thus Bjarne Herjulfson was the first European whose eyes
beheld any part of the present New England.
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES
Reuben Gold Thwaites was born in Massachusetts in 1853. When
twenty-three years of age he came to Madison, Wisconsin, to
act as editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. Just ten years
later he was made secretary and superintendent of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, in which capacity he served
until his death in 1913.
All students of history in the University of Wisconsin knew
Mr. Thwaites, for no doubt partly through his influence,
instructors in history impressed upon the young men and women
in their classes the conception of history as being always in
the making. To many a student who had always thought of
history as being something written in books this new
conception came as a great awakening. He urged upon all with
whom he came in contact the importance of recording local
events, and he had an extraordinarily keen sense of
tendencies and activities in his state that were really vital
and significant.
The State Historical Library at Madison contains thousands
of newspaper clippings, little pamphlets, letters by obscure
people, apparently unimportant legal or official documents
that were gathered by Reuben Gold Thwaites, and that now form
the priceless sources of the history of the state. The
services of such a man to his community cannot be reckoned
commercially. The state knows itself better, understands its
ideals more thoroughly, and furnishes to its students a fund
of incontrovertible facts on which to base their study,
because it possessed a citizen like Reuben Gold Thwaites.
THE DISCOVERY OF WISCONSIN
From "STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE," pp. 27-32. By Reuben Gold
Thwaites. Copyright, 1900, by the author.
Among the many queer stories brought [to Quebec] by these fierce,
painted barbarians [the Indians] was one which told of a certain
"Tribe of the Sea" dwelling far away on the western banks of the
"upper waters," a people who had come out of the West, no man knew
whence. In those early days, Europeans still clung to the notion which
Columbus had always held, that America was but an eastern projection
of Asia. This is the reason that our savages were called Indians, for
the discoverers of America thought they had merely reached an outlying
portion of India; they had no idea that this was a great and new
continent. Governor Champlain, and after him Governor Frontenac, and
the great explorer La Salle, all supposed that they could reach India
and China, already known to travelers to the east, by persistently
going westward. When, therefore, Champlain heard of these strange Men
of the Sea, he at once declared they must be the long-sought Chinese.
He engaged Nicolet, in whom he had great confidence, to go out and
find them, wherever they were, making a treaty of peace with them, and
secure their trade.
Upon the first day of July, 1634, Nicolet left Quebec, a passenger in
the second of two fleets of canoes containing Indians from the Ottawa
valley, who had come down to the white settlements to trade. Among
his fellow passengers were three adventurous Jesuit missionaries, who
were on their way to the country of the Huron tribe, east of Lake
Huron. Leaving the priests at Allumettes Island, he continued up the
Ottawa, then crossed over to Lake Nipissing, visited old friends among
the Indians there, and descended French Creek, which flows from Lake
Nipissing into Georgian Bay, a northeastern arm of Lake Huron. On the
shores of the great lake, he engaged seven Hurons to paddle his long
birch-bark canoe and guide him to the mysterious "Tribe of the Sea."
Slowly they felt their way along the northern shores of Lake Huron,
where the pine forests sweep majestically down to the water's edge, or
crown the bold cliffs, while southward the green waters of the inland
sea stretch away to the horizon. Storms too severe for their frail
craft frequently detained them on the shore, and daily they sought
food in the forest. The savage crew, tiring of exercise, and overcome
by superstitious fears, would fain have abandoned the voyage; but the
strong, energetic master bore down all opposition. At last they
reached the outlet of Lake Superior, the forest-girt Strait of St.
Mary, and paddled up as far as the falls, the Sault Ste. Marie, as it
came to be called by the Jesuit missionaries. Here there was a large
village of Algonkins, where the explorer tarried, refreshing his crew
and gathering information concerning the "Tribe of the Sea." The
explorers do not appear to have visited Lake Superior; but, bolder
than before, they set forth to the southwest, and passing gayly
through the island-dotted Straits of Mackinac, now one of the world's
greatest highways, were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Michigan,
of which Nicolet was probably the first white discoverer.
Clinging still to the northern shore, camping in the dense woods at
night or when threatened by storm, Nicolet rounded far-fetching Point
Detour and landed upon the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of
Green Bay. Another Algonkin tribe dwelt here, with whom the persistent
explorer smoked the pipe of peace, and they gave him further news of
the people he sought. Next he stopped at the mouth of the Menominee
River, now the northeast boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan,
where the Menominee tribe lived. Another council was held, more
tobacco was smoked, and one of Nicolet's Huron companions was sent
forward to notify the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the Fox River that
the great white chief was approaching; for the uncouth Winnebagoes
were the far-famed "Tribe of the Sea" whom Nicolet had traveled so far
to find....
By this time, Nicolet had his doubts about meeting Chinese at Green
Bay. As, however, he had brought with him "a grand robe of China
damask, all strewn with flowers, and birds of many colors," such as
Chinese mandarins are supposed to wear, he put it on; and when he
landed on the shore of Fox River, where is now the city of Green Bay,
strode forward into the group of waiting, skin-clad savages,
discharging the pistols which he held in either hand. Women and
children fled in terror to the wigwams; and the warriors fell down and
worshipped this Manitou (or spirit) who carried with him thunder and
lightning.
"The news of his coming," says the old Jesuit chronicler, "quickly
spread to the places round about, and there assembled four or five
thousand men. Each of the Chief men made a feast for him, and at one
of these banquets they served at least six-score Beavers."...
For various reasons, it was nearly thirty years before another visit
was made by white men to Wisconsin. Nicolet himself soon settled down
at the new town of Three Rivers, on the shores of the St. Lawrence,
between Quebec and Montreal, as the agent and interpreter there of the
great fur trade company. He was a very useful man both to the company
and to the missionaries; for he had great influence over the Indians,
who loved him sincerely, and he always exercised this influence for
the good of the colony and of religion. He was drowned in the month of
October, 1642, while on his way to release a poor savage prisoner who
was being maltreated by Indians in the neighborhood.
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
Born in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1861, Frederick J. Turner was
graduated from the State University in 1884, and six years
later he received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins. Meantime he
had spent some of the years in teaching in his Alma Mater. He
was made full professor of history in 1892, which position he
held until 1910, when Harvard University called him.
Few men on "The Hill" were more beloved by the students than
"Freddie" Turner. His courses were crowded, and his lectures
were exceedingly popular. Perhaps if his students had known
that from 1885 to 1888 he served as tutor in rhetoric and
oratory at Wisconsin, they would not have wondered so much at
the eloquence of his lectures.
But eloquence was not the main feature of his lectures, nor
yet the quality he most desired in the recitations of his
students. Woe betide the young man who had spent too little
time upon the "constitutional period," and who tried to give
this argus-eyed instructor the impression of deep and careful
study. The bubble was sure to be pricked, and the
discomfiture of the ambitious one was, while frequently
laughable, always unmistakable. One never knew when he was
going to be "quizzed" in "Freddie's" class. But one thing was
certain: that was that he would be asked a question, and when
that question came it was best, from every point of view, to
be able to do good, clear, straight thinking, based on a fund
of religiously acquired information. One quality that
Professor Turner exacted of himself and others was that
assertions must be backed up by evidence. Perhaps that is not
the least important reason why the article from which a
selection is here made created as profound a change in the
general attitude toward American history as any single word
on that subject that has ever been spoken.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY
From "THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL
ASSOCIATION" for 1893, pp. 199-227. By Professor Frederick J.
Turner, then of the University of Wisconsin.
In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890
appear these significant words: "Up to and including 1880, the country
had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has
been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can
hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent,
its westward movement, etc., it cannot, therefore, any longer have a
place in the census reports." This brief official statement marks the
closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American
history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of
the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous
recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain
American development.
Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie
the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet
changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is the
fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of
an expanding people--to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in
winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress
out of the primitive economical and political conditions of the frontier
into the complexity of city life. Said Calhoun in 1817, "We are great,
and rapidly--I was about to say fearfully--growing!" So saying, he
touched the distinguishing feature of American life. All peoples show
development; the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently
emphasized. In the case of most nations, however, the development has
occurred in a limited area; and if the nation has expanded, it has met
other growing peoples whom it has conquered. But in the case of the
United States we have a different phenomenon. Limiting our attention to
the Atlantic Coast, we have the familiar phenomenon of the evolution of
institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representative
government; the differentiation of simple colonial governments into
complex organs; the progress from primitive industrial society, without
division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization. But we have in
addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each
western area reached in the process of expansion. Thus American
development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a
return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line,
and a new development for that area. American social development has
been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial
rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with
its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of
primitive society, has furnished the forces dominating American
character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not
the Atlantic Coast, it is the Great West. Even the slavery struggle,
which is made so exclusive an object of attention by writers like
Professor von Holst, occupies its important place in American history
because of its relation to westward expansion.
In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave--the
meeting point between savagery and civilization. Much has been written
about the frontier from the point of view of border warfare and the
chase, but as a field for the serious study of the economist and the
historian it has been neglected.
The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European
frontier--a fortified boundary line running through dense populations.
The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it
lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is
treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or
more to the square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our
purposes does not need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole
frontier belt, including the Indian country and outer margin of the
"settled area," of the census reports. This paper will make no attempt
to treat the subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention
to the frontier as a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest
some of the problems which arise in connection with it....
The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons
to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also
there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each
frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of
escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence,
and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its
ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier.
What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of
custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and
activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to
the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more
remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at
the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the
frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of
American history.
PAUL SAMUEL REINSCH
Professor Reinsch was born in Milwaukee in 1869. He received
his A. B. from the University of Wisconsin in 1892 and his
doctorate in 1898. He had the advantage of studying at the
University of Berlin and at Rome and Paris. He was assistant
professor of political science at his Alma Mater from 1899 to
1901, and full professor from 1901 to 1913, except for two
years, 1911 and 1912, when he held the Roosevelt
professorship at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig.
Since 1913, he has been Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary to China. His present address is the American
Legation, Peking, China.
Few men have had the advantages both in study and experience
that have come to Dr. Reinsch, and few have met these
advantages with keener love for truth and desire for
knowledge. He is a member of several learned societies of law
and political science, and is the author of many books on
these and related subjects. Some of these books have been
translated into Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and German. The
selection given here is taken from "Intellectual Currents in
the Far East," and well illustrates the fact that deep
learning and perfect clearness of expression may well go
together in a literary production.
THE NEW EDUCATION OF CHINA
From "INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CURRENTS IN THE FAR EAST."
Chapter V. By Paul S. Reinsch. Copyright, 1911, by the
author.
... The zeal of the older teachers in trying to catch up with the
foreign-trained men is at times almost pathetic. In most towns a
"teachers' discussion class" has been organized. These classes were
established by the initiative of the teachers themselves, in order
that they might acquire the knowledge necessary for elementary
instruction in the new branches. With great eagerness these men,
varying in age from thirty-five to fifty-five years, will follow the
instruction given by some youngster in the early twenties who has been
fortunate enough to have had a course in Japan or the West. While the
necessary superficiality of such a system must be deplored, the mere
fact of this instruction being so eagerly sought by the teachers is
the best proof that the old order, recognizing its inevitable fate,
has abandoned the hope of regaining its former supremacy and is
hurrying to adapt itself to the new conditions.
This enthusiasm also finds expression in great individual sacrifices,
and even in martyrdom. Private gifts are made in large numbers, even
without the solicitation of officials or the hope of rewards. Within
the last few years, it has frequently happened that some person
desirous of founding a school, and lacking the means to do so, has in
truly Oriental fashion appealed to his or her townsmen by committing
suicide, after writing out a touching request for aid in the new
cause. A Tartar lady at Hankow who had founded a school for girls was
unable to secure sufficient money for carrying on the work of the
institution. In order to secure her object, she determined to commit
suicide. In her farewell letter, she stated that she felt the need of
the school so much that she would sacrifice her own life and thus
impress the need upon those who were able to give money. Her act had
the result desired, as after her death money came flowing in from many
sources. In most cases, fortunately, the appeals for assistance are
successful without going to such extremes. Thus, the wife of a
district magistrate in Honan, having decided to establish a school
for girls, wrote a circular setting forth that a girl, if uneducated,
brings six kinds of injury to herself and three kinds to her children.
The subtlety of her arguments fascinated the city folk, and sufficient
funds for her purpose were soon provided.
The introduction of female education, which militates against the most
deep-seated prejudices of the Chinese race, has called for greater
personal sacrifices than any other part of educational reform. Some
powerful patrons have indeed arisen. H. E. Tuan Fang urged the
importance of this reform upon the Empress herself, with the result
that, before her death, the great lady established a school for female
education in the capital. Educated women are making a strong plea for
the education of their sisters. Doctor King Ya-mei, herself educated
in the West, points out that those who lament the superficial nature
of the present reforms forget that "half the nation, whose special
function it is to put into practice the ideas governing the world in
which she lives, has not yet been touched; that the strong impressions
of childhood are the lasting ones, and that man is but an embodiment
of the ideas of the mother." But in the case of female education, it
is not primarily the provision of funds that causes difficulties. The
desire of women to share in the advantages of education is of itself
looked upon by the majority of the Chinese as scandalous and not at
all to be encouraged. Many heartrending tragedies have been brought
about by insoluble conflicts of duty toward the old and the new. A
short time ago, in an interior village in Kiang Su, a woman, ambitious
to become educated, killed herself after bad treatment from her
husband's relatives. Her farewell letter was everywhere copied by the
Chinese press. It has become a national document, and almost a charter
of the new movement. In it occur the following sentences: "I am about
to die today because my husband's parents, having found great fault
with me for having unbound my feet, and declaring that I have been
diffusing such an evil influence as to have injured the reputations of
my ancestors, have determined to put me to death. Maintaining that
they will be severely censured by their relatives, once I enter a
school and receive instruction, they have been trying hard to deprive
me of life, in order, as they say, to stop beforehand all the troubles
that I may cause. At first they intended to starve me, but now they
compel me to commit suicide by taking poison. I do not fear death at
all, but how can I part from my children who are so young? Indeed,
there should be no sympathy for me, but the mere thought of the
destruction of my ideals and of my young children, who will without
doubt be compelled to live in the old way, makes my heart almost
break."
The blood of such martyrs is beginning to make its impression upon the
Chinese people, and is turning them to favor more liberal popular
customs. A nation in which a spirit of such ruthless self-sacrifice is
still so common may bring forth things that will astonish the world.
It has been said that "China contains materials for a revolution, if
she should start one, to which the horrors of the French revolution
would be a mere squib;" but if turned into different channels, this
spirit of self-sacrifice may, as it did in the case of Japan, bring
about a quick regeneration of national life and national prestige,
through the establishment of new institutions, that correspond to the
currents of life thus striving to assert themselves.
GEORGE C. COMSTOCK
Professor George C. Comstock was born in Madison in 1855, and
after an education obtained at various colleges and
universities, including the institutions of Ann Arbor and
Madison, and after considerable and varied experience in
engineering and astronomical work, he became professor of
astronomy in our own University in 1887, and Director of
Washburn Observatory two years later. Since 1906 he has been
Director of the Graduate School. He is the member of many
learned societies, and has been highly honored in numerous
ways by institutions of learning. The stories that are told,
and truly told, of his mathematical prowess, such as
memorizing tables of logarithms, have excited wonder in the
heart of many a student at Madison. His lectures, even on the
most abstruse subjects, are notably clear. His illustrations
are timely, and his English is of the very purest. He is a
representative of the regular classical education that is now
comparatively rarely elected by university undergraduates.
ASTROLOGY IN LIFE AND LITERATURE
... The modern philosopher and historian alike deride and marvel at
astrology as the most persistent disease with which the minds of men
have ever been afflicted but from which they are now happily freed by
the advance of science. I must confess my inability to share this view
as to the patent folly of the art. The careful student of astrology
cannot fail to be impressed with the logical coherence of its
doctrines and their necessary relation to the fundamental postulates
from which they spring. While these postulates can no longer be
maintained they seem in no way inappropriate as stages in the
development of human knowledge and their wide spread acceptance is
sufficient evidence of their seeming reasonableness to nascent
society. Indeed it is only the upper strata of European civilization
that has now outgrown the beliefs above considered. Asia still teems
with them, from Seoul to Bagdad, and even in the heart of Europe
astrological calendars are current and find enormous circulation among
the lower classes. The practicing astrologer who seeks business
through advertising in the daily press is with us in America, and to
judge by the persistence of his advertisements they bring response. I
find upon the shelves of the principal scientific library of Chicago a
manual of applied astrology whose dirty and dog's eared leaves,
together with recent date upon its title page, are additional
testimony that American cultivation of the occult is not limited to
Boston. Even nearer home we all know people who will plant or sow, or
cut their hair only at the right phase of the moon or who have an
abiding faith that the planetary weather predictions of Mr. Hicks are
sound, in theory at least. I venture to assert that within range of
the reader's acquaintance there is a considerable number of persons
who firmly believe that in case of premature birth a seven months baby
has a better chance of life than one of eight months--an ancient
doctrine, for which excellent reasons were adduced by the Greek
astrologers but which seems to find little support in current medical
theory.
But assuredly our best memorial of the part astrology has played in
human affairs lies not in such paltry superstitions but in its
incorporation into the great literatures of Europe. Casual
illustrations of this fossilized relationship have been given in this
essay, but far more impressive than these instances are those cases in
which astrologic doctrine permeates and dominates the whole structure
of a great work. Chaucer's treatise on the Astrolabe was avowedly
written as an exposition of the astrologic art, and in Dante's Divine
Comedy the whole moral structure of the Paradiso, with its successive
heavens allotted to beatitudes of varying degrees, finds its key in
the astrology that Dante knew and followed. The sequence of these
heavens accords with that of the spheres allotted by astrologic
doctrine to the several planets, arranged in the order of their
increasing distance from the earth, the order of their altitude as
Dante would have said. The lowest heaven, that of the moon, is
allotted by the poet to virgins because forsooth they best typify
those qualities of cold and moist with which astrologic doctrine
endows the moon. They who have fought with fire and sword in defence
of the Church militant are placed in a higher heaven than are those
saints and theologians whose service has been intellectual in its
nature; an impropriety in our eyes and doubtless little congenial to
Dante's mode of thought. But astrologically it must be so, for Mars,
who typified the warrior, is higher, i. e., more distant from the
earth, than is the sun whose light and warmth are alike the symbol and
the source of intellect and spirituality. But ancient and modern ideas
are equally satisfied when the poet placed God and the Redeemer in the
empyrean, the region of the fixed stars, alike the most exalted and by
reason of its distance, the purest part of the universe.
Although far from extinct, the old faith in the influence of the
heavens is waning and it is hard to believe that any mutations of
human thought can ever restore it to a status comparable with that it
enjoyed in classical and mediaeval times. As a factor in the conduct
of life among enlightened people its power is gone, but the marks of
its old time influence are dyed in the social fabric, imprinted alike
upon language and literature and so long as that literature abides,
astrology cannot sink below the horizon of man's intellectual
interests.
JAMES FRANCIS AUGUSTINE PYRE
Professor Pyre is another teacher whom Wisconsin can claim as
wholly her own. He was born in 1871 in Rock County, and
graduated at our University in 1892. While teaching English
in his Alma Mater, he continued his graduate study, and was
given his Ph. D. in 1897. He continued to serve his
University, though for a brief space of time pursuing his
study elsewhere, and became associate professor in 1909,
which position he now holds.
No former student of the University reading this volume will
be content with this sketch of Mr. Pyre without reference to
his undergraduate football days, and to the nickname "Sunny,"
which will cling to him as long as he lives. Furthermore, no
one who has sat in his classes and been inspired by his
reading and his interpretation, and felt the optimism of his
philosophy will need to have it explained to him how Mr. Pyre
acquired his nickname.
The outstanding feature of his literary criticism, whether in
the form of magazine article, or lecture, or informal talk,
is clarity. In his class you could always understand what he
was getting at. The reader of this brief selection from
"Byron in Our Day," will sense that quality readily. The
sentences are crisp and well formed. Their structure is not
involved. The plan and organization are evident. At the same
time there is dignity and distinction in every paragraph.
BYRON IN OUR DAY
By J. F. A. Pyre. From the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XCIX, p.
547.
And with Byron passion was not merely a gift; it was a doctrine. In
one of his letters to Miss Milbanke, there is an observation which
comes very near to expressing the central principle of his existence.
"The great object of life is sensation--to feel that we exist--even
though in pain." To him, one of the chief curses of society was its
ennui, the futility of its conventional pursuits, which all recognize,
but most endure. He was for fanning the coal of life into a blaze. The
vitality of his emotions demanded this. Hence, when friendship
stagnated, when love lapsed into the inevitable mediocrity and torpor,
he fretted or fled. In ordinary terms, he was fundamentally and
abnormally impatient of being bored.
A being thus constituted, and cherishing so dangerous a doctrine,
naturally found no peace in this life, but was goaded on from pleasure
to pleasure, or from one violence to another. Passionate friendships,
savage quarrels, gaming, carousing, travel and adventure, hard
reading, hard riding, flirtations, and intrigues of varying intensity
and duration, playing the social and literary lion, parliament,
marriage, occupied but did not satisfy him. Avid of sensation, avid of
power, he threw himself impetuously into his pursuits, lavished his
life with the reckless waste of a cataract, and seemed as
inexhaustible. He was too clear-sighted not to perceive the triviality
of many of his occupations, and though too willful to change his ways,
or employ his ample will power in self-restraint, he was not sordid
enough to be happy so. Hence, he became a malcontent. Love soothed
him, nature appeased him for a time; and in the presence of either, he
soared into realms of serene delight and contemplation. But "he could
not keep his spirit at that height;" say, perhaps, he was not a
dreamer; his passion called for outlet in action, in enterprise; and
he became--a writer!
EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS
Edward Alsworth Ross is nationally one of the best-known men
here represented. He was born at Virden, Illinois, in 1866;
was graduated from Coe College, Iowa, in 1886; and then
continued his education in Berlin and Johns Hopkins. He has
been professor of economy, sociology, and kindred subjects at
many universities, including Indiana University, Cornell,
Leland Stanford, Junior, the University of Nebraska, and,
since 1906, the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of
many books and magazine articles, among the most noteworthy
of the former, perhaps, being "Sin and Society," "Social
Psychology," "Latter Day Sinners and Saints," and "The
Changing Chinese."
The selection here chosen is from the last named book. The
style is like the man, forceful, trenchant, and abounding in
life. Mr. Ross's tall, rugged, muscular figure and forceful
gestures are familiar to the lovers of lectures in Wisconsin,
and all who have been fortunate enough to hear him, whether
in regular classes at the University, or in extension or
other lecture work, will recall his striking appearance as
they read the clear, clean-cut statements in this selection.
THE CONFLICT OF ORIENTAL AND WESTERN CULTURES IN CHINA
From "THE CHANGING CHINESE." Chapter I. Copyright, 1911, by
the Century Co.
China is the European Middle Ages made visible. All the cities are
walled and the walls and gates have been kept in repair with an eye to
their effectiveness. The mandarin has his headquarters only in a
walled fortress-city and to its shelter he retires when a sudden
tempest of rebellion vexes the peace of his district.
The streets of the cities are narrow, crooked, poorly-paved, filthy,
and malodorous. In North China they admit the circulation of the heavy
springless carts by which alone passengers are carried; but, wherever
rice is cultivated, the mule is eliminated and the streets are adapted
only to the circulation of wheel-barrows and pedestrians. There is
little or no assertion of the public interest in the highway, and
hence private interests close in upon the street and well-nigh block
it. The shopkeeper builds his counter in front of his lot line; the
stalls line the streets with their crates and baskets; the artisans
overflow into it with their workbenches, and the final result is that
the traffic filters painfully through a six-foot passage which would
yet be more encroached on but for the fact that the officials insist
on there being room left for their sedan chairs to pass each other.
The straightened streets are always crowded and give the traveler the
impression of a high density and an enormous population. But the
buildings are chiefly one story in height, and, with the exception of
Peking, Chinese cities cover no very great area. For literary effect
their population has been recklessly exaggerated, and, in the absence
of reliable statistics, every traveler has felt at liberty to adopt
the highest guess.
Until recently there was no force in the cities to maintain public
order. Now, khaki-clad policemen, club in hand, patrol the streets,
but their efficiency in time of tumult is by no means vindicated. A
slouching, bare-foot, mild-faced _gendarme_ such as you see in Canton
is by no means an awe-inspiring embodiment of the majesty of the law.
There is no common supply of water. When a city lies by a river the
raw river water is borne about to the house by regular water-carriers,
and the livelong day the river-stairs are wet from the drip of
buckets. When the water is too thick it is partially clarified by
stirring it with a perforated joint of bamboo containing some piece of
alum.
There is no public lighting, and after nightfall the streets are dark,
forbidding, and little frequented. Until kerosene began to penetrate
the Empire the common source of light was a candle in a paper lantern
or cotton wick lighted in an open cup of peanut oil. Owing to the lack
of a good illuminant the bulk of the people retire with the fowls and
rise with the sun. By making the evening of some account for reading
or for family intercourse, kerosene has been a great boon to domestic
life.
Fuel is scarce and is sold in neat bundles of kindling size. Down the
West River ply innumerable boats corded high with firewood floating
down to Canton and Hong Kong. Higher and higher the tree destruction
extends, and farther and farther does the axman work his way from the
waterways. Chaff and straw, twigs and leaves and litter are burned in
the big brick bedsteads that warm the sleepers on winter nights, and
under the big, shallow copper vessels set in the low brick or mud
stoves. Fuel is economized and household economy simplified among the
poor by the custom of relying largely on the food cooked and vended in
the street. The portable restaurant is in high favor, for our
prejudice against food cooked outside the home is a luxury the common
people cannot afford to indulge in.
Proper chimneys are wanting and wherever cooking goes on the walls are
black with the smoke that is left to escape as it will. Chinese
interiors are apt to be dark for, in the absence of window glass, the
only means of letting in light without weather is by pasting paper on
lattice. The floors are dirt, brick, or tile, the roof tile or thatch.
To the passer-by private ease and luxury are little in evidence. If a
man has house and grounds of beauty, a high wall hides them from the
gaze of the public. Open lawns and gardens are never seen, and there
is no greenery accessible to the public unless it be the grove of an
occasional temple.
In the houses of the wealthy, although there is much beauty to be
seen, the standard of neatness is not ours. Cobwebs, dust, or
incipient dilapidation do not excite the servant or mortify the
proprietor. While a mansion may contain priceless porcelains and
display embroideries and furniture that would be pronounced beautiful
the world over, in general, the interiors wrought by the Chinese
artisan do not compare in finish with those of his Western
_confrere_....
No memory of China is more haunting than that of the everlasting blue
cotton garments. The common people wear coarse, deep-blue "nankeen."
The gala dress is a cotton gown of a delicate bird's-egg blue or a
silk jacket of rich hue. In cold weather the poor wear quilted cotton,
while the well-to-do keep themselves warm with fur-lined garments of
silk. A general adoption of Western dress would bring on an economic
crisis, for the Chinese are not ready to rear sheep on a great scale
and it will be long before they can supply themselves with wool. The
Chinese jacket is fortunate in opening at the side instead of at the
front. When the winter winds of Peking gnaw at you with Siberian
teeth, you realize how stupid is our Western way of cutting a notch in
front right down through overcoat, coat and vest, apparently in order
that the cold may do its worst to the tender throat and chest. On
seeing the sensible Chinaman bring his coat squarely across his front
and fasten it on his shoulder, you feel like an exposed
totem-worshipper.
Wherever stone is to be had, along or spanning the main roads are to
be seen the memorial arches known as _pailows_ erected by imperial
permission to commemorate some deed or life of extraordinary merit. It
is significant that when they proclaim achievement, it is that of the
scholar, not of the warrior. They enclose a central gateway, flanked
by two, and sometimes by four, smaller gateways, and conform closely
to a few standard types, all of real beauty. As a well-built _pailow_
lasts for centuries, and as the erection of such a memorial is one of
the first forms of outlay that occur to a philanthropic Chinaman, they
accumulate, and sometimes the road near cities is lined with those
structures until one wearies of so much repetition of the same thing,
however beautiful.
GRANT SHOWERMAN
Professor Showerman is another author-teacher whom Wisconsin
may claim as her own. He was born at Brookfield in 1870, was
graduated from the University in 1896, and took his doctorate
in 1900. He had the advantage of two years' study at Rome,
where he was Fellow of the Archaeological Institute of
America in the American School of Classical Studies. Since
returning, he has been Professor of Latin Literature at his
Alma Mater. He is member of many learned societies, and is
the author of "With the Professor" and "The Indian Stream
Republic and Luther Parker," besides many articles which are
familiar to readers of the Atlantic Monthly and other leading
periodicals.
His style will be noted at once by the careful reader as
being different from that of most other prose writers whose
works we quote here. It is more leisurely. He brings to the
common things about us in Nature the kindly, alert
intelligence of one who has seen many things in many lands,
but who has the memory to re-create truthfully the days of
youth.
A LAD'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS BOYHOOD HAUNTS AND EXPERIENCES IN THE
EARLIER DAYS
"IN OCTOBER." From the Sewanee Review.
... On a late October Saturday morning, after a week in school at the
village, you take your gun and a favorite play, whistle to already
eager Billy, and follow the path to the Brush. You traverse its quiet
length by the winding road that is always mysterious and full of
charm, however often you tread it, you cross the stubbled barley-field
that borders Lovers' Lane, and cross the lane itself and enter the
Woods. You feel the friendly book in your pocket, and pat the friendly
dog at your side, restfully conscious that you will spend neither
profitless nor companionless hours. To be sure, you have in the back
of your mind a thought or two about fox squirrels, or even red
squirrels, and of a stew-pie--the savor of it is in your sensitive
nostrils; but these thoughts are only vague. Your eyes are not
greedily watchful--only moderately so; you have already begun to
outgrow the barbarous boyhood delight of mere killing. Good will
reigns in your breast.
You advance cautiously, the breech-loader resting in the bend of your
left arm, every step causing pleasant murmurs among the autumn leaves.
When you pause, the sound of your heart-beats is audible. The genial
golden tone of Indian Summer pervades the air.
When you have penetrated to the heart of the Woods, you sit down on a
familiar log, the gun caressingly across your knees, and drink in the
fine wine of woodland enjoyment! Ah, the silence of the Woods! How
deep and how full of mystery! And how deeper whenever some note of
life emphasizes the stillness--the knocking of a woodpecker, the cry
of a sapsucker, the scream of a jay, the caw of a crow aloft on some
decayed topmost branch in the distance!
A distant barking note makes you start. There is a fox squirrel over
yonder somewhere, beyond the ruins of the old arch. You strain your
attention toward the sound. Billy sits bolt upright, with round eyes,
questioning ears, and suspended breath.
But just as you are thinking of getting up, a nut drops with a thump
on the log beside you and bounds lightly into the leaves at your feet.
You know what that means! You look up instantly and catch just a
glimpse of a sweeping foxy tail as it vanishes along a big branch and
around the thick stem of a tree. He goes up forty or fifty feet, and
then, far out on the big oak branch, lies close to the bark, out of
sight.
Billy whines uneasily; he shivers with excitement. You say: "Sit
still, Billy!"
There is only the least bit of the foxy tail visible. You tread softly
to one side and another, slowly circle the tree, and all the while the
owner of the tail subtly shifts his position so that you always just
fail to get a shot.
Finally, you resort to stratagem; you pick up a nut and throw it with
all your might to the other side of the tree. He hears it fall, and,
suddenly suspicious, shifts to your side of the branch. But you are
not quick enough; by the time you have raised the gun, he has become
satisfied that you are the greater danger of the two, and has shifted
back to safety.
And now you resort to more elaborate stratagem. You say: "Sit down,
Billy!" and Billy obeys, keeping his eye on you, and dropping his ears
from time to time, as he catches your glance, in token of good-will.
You circle the big tree again, and as you go the tail shifts
constantly.
Finally, when you are opposite Billy, you raise the gun with careful
calculation. You call out quietly but sharply to your ally: "Speak,
Billy, quick!"
Billy is tense with excitement at sight of the raised gun. He speaks
out sharply, at the same time giving a couple of little leaps. The
squirrel shifts again to your side, suddenly.
And now comes your opportunity! As he sits there a moment, his
attention divided between you and the new alarm, the breech-loader
belches its charge. A brownish-red body with waving tail comes
headlong to the ground with a crash among the leaves, which rustle and
crackle for a moment or two at your feet as you watch the blind kicks
of the death struggle. You pick him up, with no very great eagerness,
and go on your way--regretfully, for you are enjoying the life of the
Woods, and are enough of a philosopher and sentimentalist to wonder
what, after all, is your superior right to the enjoyment, and whether
the contribution to the sum total of happiness in the universe through
you is enough to compensate it for the loss through the squirrel.
You ask Billy about it and get no help. He simply says that whatever
you think best is bound to be all right, and leads the way toward the
old arch.
WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD
William Ellery Leonard was born in New Jersey in 1876. He has
been a professor of English in the University of Wisconsin
only since 1909, so he is not, as yet, so closely connected
with the state in the thought of the alumni of the University
as are most of the men whose works have just been discussed
and illustrated. But if what he has produced may fairly be
taken as an earnest of his future work, his name will be one
which all lovers of our University will be proud to associate
with that institution. One needs read scarcely more than a
paragraph at almost any point in his published works to
realize that Mr. Leonard is a man of keen and kindly interest
in all things that he hears and sees, and that he has
traveled and studied and lived widely and wisely. He has
published several volumes, both of poems and prose,--notable
among them being "Sonnets and Poems," "The Poet of Galilee,"
"Aesop and Hyssop," "The Vaunt of Man and Other Poems," and
"Glory of the Morning." The selections given are taken from
the last two volumes mentioned.
One acquainted with modern English poetry may sense a marked
likeness between Mr. Leonard's poems and those of Swinburne,
though the former says he is not conscious of any such
resemblance. There is a warmth of passion, a fluid quality in
the rhythm, markedly like those elements in the great English
poet. The selection from "Glory of the Morning" here given
begins at that point in the play where Half Moon, the
Chevalier, the white trapper, comes back to his Indian wife
to bid her farewell and to take their two children with him
to his home in France. The reader will feel, even in this
brief extract, the sweep toward a climax of emotion, and will
be impelled to read the whole play at his first opportunity.
(One of the most interesting features of the editorial work
of this volume has been the adjustment of the choice of
selections respectively of the editors and authors. The
editors' choice of the poems from Mr. Leonard's volume, "The
Vaunt of Man," was "Love Afar"; the author, on the other
hand, tells us that he thought so little of this poem that he
even considered omitting it from the volume. His preference
is "A Dedication." What does the reader say?)
GLORY OF THE MORNING
Copyright, 1912, by the author.
The Chevalier: I will take care of the children. They are both young.
They can learn.
Glory of the Morning: They can learn?
The Chevalier: Oak Leaf is already more than half a white girl; and
Red Wing is half white in blood, if not in manners--_ca ira_.
Glory of the Morning (Beginning to realize): No, no. They are mine!
The Chevalier (Reaching out his arms to take them): No.
Glory of the Morning: They are mine! They are mine!
The Chevalier: The Great King will give them presents.
Glory of the Morning: No, no!
The Chevalier: He will lay his hands on their heads.
Glory of the Morning: He shall not, he shall not!
The Chevalier: I have said that I will tell him you were their mother.
Glory of the Morning: I am their mother--I am their mother.
The Chevalier: And he will praise Glory of the Morning.
Glory of the Morning: They are mine, they are mine!
The Chevalier: I have come to take them back with me over the Big Sea
Water.
Glory of the Morning (The buckskin shirt falls from her hands as she
spreads her arms and steps between him and her children): No, no, no!
They are not yours! They are mine! The long pains were mine! Their
food at the breast was mine! Year after year while you were away so
long, long, long, I clothed them, I watched them, I taught them to
speak the tongue of my people. All that they are is mine, mine, mine!
The Chevalier (Drawing Oak Leaf to him and holding up her bare arm):
Is that an Indian's skin? Where did that color come from? I'm giving
you the white man's law.
Glory of the Morning (Struggling with the Chevalier): I do not know
the white man's law. And I do not know how their skin borrowed the
white man's color. But I know that their little bodies came out of my
own body--my own body. They must be mine, they shall be mine, they are
mine! (The Chevalier throws her aside so that she falls.)
The Chevalier: Glory of the Morning, the Great Spirit said long before
you were born that a man has a right to his own children. The Great
Spirit made woman so that she should bring him children. Black Wolf,
is it not so?
Black Wolf: It is so.
The Chevalier (To Glory of the Morning, standing apart): Black Wolf is
the wise man of your people.
Black Wolf: And knows the Great Spirit better than the white men.
The Chevalier: Indeed, I think so.
Black Wolf: And the Great Spirit made the man so that he should stay
with the squaw who brought him the children,--except when off hunting
meat for the wigwam or on the warpath for the tribe.
Glory of the Morning (With some spirit and dignity): The white man
Half Moon has said that he believes Black Wolf.
The Chevalier: The white man has not come to argue with the Red Skin,
but to take the white man's children.
Black Wolf (In his role of practical wisdom): The Half Moon will
listen to Black Wolf.
The Chevalier (With conciliation): If the Black Wolf speaks wisely....
Black Wolf: Neither Oak Leaf nor Red Wing is a mere papoose to be
snatched from the mother's back.
The Chevalier: The Half Moon shares Black Wolf's pride in the Half
Moon's children.
Black Wolf (Pointing to the discarded cradle-board): The mother long
since loosened the thongs that bound them to the cradle-board, propped
against the wigwam.
The Chevalier: And when she unbound the thongs of the cradle-board
they learned to run toward their father.
Black Wolf: But invisible thongs may now bind them round, which even
the Half Moon might not break, without rending the flesh from their
bones and preparing sorrows and cares for his head.
The Chevalier: Let us have done, Black Wolf.
Black Wolf: Thongs which none could break, unless Oak Leaf and Red
Wing themselves should first unbind them. (To the children.) Will Oak
Leaf, will Red Wing unbind the mystic thongs of clan and home? Let the
children decide.
The Chevalier: Black Wolf is wise. My children are babes no longer.
They can think and speak.
Black Wolf: Let them speak....
Glory of the Morning: Yes. Let the children decide.
Black Wolf: Oak Leaf, do you want to leave Black Wolf and Glory of the
Morning to go with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?
Oak Leaf (Looking up at her mother): O _do_ I, mother?
Glory of the Morning: I cannot tell. I love you, Oak Leaf.
Oak Leaf (Withdrawing toward her father): Mother, make father Half
Moon take you with us too.
Glory of the Morning: The Half Moon has told you that he no longer
needs Glory of the Morning.
The Chevalier (Taking Oak Leaf's hand caressingly): Oak Leaf, you are
too beautiful to wither and wrinkle here digging and grinding and
stitching, though the handsomest brave of the Winnebago bought you for
his squaw. Beyond the Big Sea Water you won't have to dig and grind
and stitch. And sometime a noble brave of my nation will come in a
blue suit with gold braid to the chateau and say: "I love Oak Leaf;
will you give Oak Leaf to me?"
Oak Leaf (Gladly): And you'll give me to him, father! ... (Oak Leaf
leans against her father, with a half frightened glance at Glory of
the Morning.)
The Chevalier: You see, Glory of the Morning.
Glory of the Morning (With restraint): I will say good-bye to Oak
Leaf.
Black Wolf: Red Wing, are you going with your sister and with Half
Moon over the Big Sea Water?
Red Wing: Sister, _are_ you really going?--You are always making
believe.
Oak Leaf: O, father,--tell him.
The Chevalier: She is going, Red Wing.
Red Wing: There is nothing for me beyond the Big Sea Water.
The Chevalier: Over there your father is a famous chief, and you might
wear a sword and fight beside the Great King.
Red Wing: I shall not fight beside the Great King; and I shall not
wear the white man's sword.
The Chevalier (Takes his arm, coaxingly): Little chief, why not? Why
not, my son?
Glory of the Morning (Coldly and firmly): Because he is _my_ son.
Red Wing (Standing off; to the Chevalier with boyish pride): Because I
am a Winnebago.
LOVE AFAR
From "THE VAUNT OF MAN AND OTHER POEMS," p. 75. Copyright,
1912, by B. W. Huebsch.
I dare not look, O Love, on thy dear grace,
On thine immortal eyes, nor hear thy song,
For O too sore I need thee and too long,
Too weak as yet to meet thee face to face.
Thy light would blind--for dark my dwelling place--
Thy voice would wake old thoughts of right and wrong,
And hopes which sleep, once beautiful and strong,
That would unman me with a dread disgrace:
Therefore, O Love, be as the evening star,
With amber light of land and sea between,
A high and gentle influence from afar,
Persuading from the common and the mean,
Still as the moon when full tides cross the bar
In the wide splendor of a night serene.
THE IMAGE OF DELIGHT
O how came I that loved stars, moon, and flame,
An unimaginable wind and sea,
All inner shrines and temples of the free,
Legends and hopes and golden books of fame;
I that upon the mountain carved my name
With cliffs and clouds and eagles over me,
O how came I to stoop to loving thee--
I that had never stooped before to shame?
O 'twas not Thee! Too eager of a white,
Far beauty and a voice to answer mine,
Myself I built an image of delight,
Which all one purple day I deemed divine--
And when it vanished in the fiery night,
I lost not thee, nor any shape of thine.
A DEDICATION
(For a privately printed collection of verse.)
Ye gave me life for life to crave:
Desires for mighty suns, or high, or low,
For moons mysterious over cliffs of snow,
For the wild foam upon the midsea wave;
Swift joy in freeman, swift contempt for slave;
Thought which would bind and name the stars and know;
Passion that chastened in mine overthrow;
And speech, to justify my life, ye gave.
Life of my life, this late return of song
I give to you before the close of day;
Life of your life! which everlasting wrong
Shall have no power to baffle or betray,
O father, mother!--for ye watched so long,
Ye loved so long, and I was far away.
THOMAS HERBERT DICKINSON
Thomas Herbert Dickinson was born in Virginia in 1877, and
after a wide and thorough scholastic preparation was made
associate professor of English in the University of Wisconsin
in 1909. Mr. Dickinson is known to thousands of the citizens
of Wisconsin as a friend of the drama. He believes that the
drama is one of the most legitimate and natural means for
the expression of the sentiments, tendencies, activities, and
ideals of any people. No doubt he has done much to raise the
standard of dramatic judgment and criticism among the
citizens of Wisconsin. However, he would not want it said
that he is trying primarily "to raise people's dramatic
ideals." His mission rather has been to encourage communities
to express themselves legitimately and wholesomely through
their own dramatic productions. He has won much distinction
both as an editor and an author of plays, but perhaps his
greatest service to Wisconsin in this direction is his work
in editing the little volume, "Wisconsin Plays," containing
one play each by Zona Gale, Professor Leonard, and himself.
The following selection is taken from his play, "In
Hospital," in the volume just mentioned. It depicts just such
a scene as takes place in our hospitals every day of the
year. The wife is about to undergo a serious operation. The
husband is trying to keep cheerful in anticipation of the
ordeal. That is the sort of scene which, Mr. Dickinson wants
us to realize, can be wholesomely and pleasantly represented
by the drama.
IN HOSPITAL
Copyright, 1909, by the author.
A Wife.
A Husband.
A Surgeon.
An Interne.
A Nurse.
Wife: Tell me about the children.
Husband: Oh, they are getting on--so, so.
Wife: I know they will.
Husband: But you should see them! (Turning toward her. She nods
without speaking.) They're trying hard to be good, but it's a stiff
pull for the little rascals. Well, I don't blame them. Freddie put me
in quite a hole the other day. "What's the use of being good when
mother's away?" he asked. (She smiles.) For the life of me I couldn't
think of an answer. What would you say?
Wife: I'd be as bad off as you were.
Husband: But Robert wasn't. He had an answer. "So mother will be
happy when she comes back," he said. Wasn't that good?
Wife: Just like Robert.
Husband: I don't know what we should have done without Robert. He
serves at the table. He answers the door and the telephone. He ties
the baby's bib. How he thinks of everything I don't know. I--I'm so
helpless. Why didn't you ever teach me to take charge of the house?
Wife: Fancy teaching you anything you didn't want to learn.
Husband (After a moment's deep silence): All the kiddies send you
their love.
Wife: Even Freddie?
Husband: Oh, Freddie, to be sure. Guess you know about what he's
doing. Upstairs and downstairs. Outdoors and in.
Wife: I hope he won't get hurt.
Husband: Trust him for that. But how do you keep him in aprons?
They're all dirty already. Yesterday he got all scratched up trying to
put Kitty to bed and make him say his prayers. He has fallen in the
flour bin, put the telephone out of commission, pulled the table-cloth
and dishes off the table. There isn't anything he hasn't done. Freddie
will welcome you back with a dish-pan band, when you come home.
Wife (Closing her eyes): Yes--
Husband (Pretending not to notice, though it is clear that he does):
Did I tell you about night before last?
Wife: No.
Husband: Well, that night he slept over at Cousin, Ruthie's house. All
his nightgowns were dirty so Aunt Ella made him wear one of Ruthie's.
But she had the hardest time making him wear it. The next morning he
said to me, "I'm glad I ain't a woman, ain't you, Paw?" "Yes, I
suppose so," said I. "Why?" "Oh, they're all right, I guess," he said,
"but before I'll wear another of those women's nightgowns, I'll go to
bed raw."
Wife (Smiling): Little man. Does he ask for me much?
Husband: Just this morning he said, "Pop, you tell mamma to come back
quick or I'll elope with the ice man."... Well, they're good children.
I don't think any one ever had better. And that's something, isn't it?
Wife: That's everything. They make me very happy.... You know, dear, I
have been doing a good deal of thinking since I came here. I've seen
things very clearly, clearer than even at home. I think I've been able
to tell why I've been so happy. You find out what's really worth while
in a time like this, don't you? (Husband nods.)
Wife: I won't say anything about you. You know. But the children. (She
smiles.) Yes, I know why I've been happy.
WILLIAM J. NEIDIG
Iowa and Illinois may rightly contest the claim of Wisconsin
for a proprietary interest in Mr. William Jonathan Neidig. He
was born in the first-named state, and is at present living
in Chicago, where he is engaged in business, though he still
finds time for an occasional story or poem. He was a member
of the faculty in the English Department of the University of
Wisconsin from 1905 to 1911, and it was during approximately
this period of his life that his literary activity was
greatest. "The First Wardens," which was nominated for the
Nobel prize in idealistic literature, was published in 1905,
and several critical works that attracted wide attention came
from his pen during his Wisconsin residence.
The one poem which we quote here shows an evenness of power
and an assurance of touch that mark real poetry. It also
would be generally recognized, the editors feel, as having
been written by a University man.
THE BUOY-BELL
From "THE FIRST WARDENS." Copyright, 1905, The Macmillan Co.
Bell! Bell!
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
Bell of the shallows, tell, O tell:
The swell and fall of foam on the sand,
Storm in the face from sea to land,
Roar of gray tempest: these, O bell,
What say these of the West?
Tell! O tell!
Bell! Bell!
Crowding the night with cries, O tell:
What of the moorings in the silt?
What of the blooms that drift and wilt?
What of the sea-chest wrenched wide?
Is it safe harbor by thy side?
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
What say these of the West?
Tell! O tell!
Bell! Bell!
It is a dirge the bell is tolling,
A dirge for the silent dead,--
With the cold sea rolling, rolling, rolling,
Rolling each restless head.
Bell that rideth the breakers' crest,
O, when will they lie all quietly,
Untossed by the slow sea-swell:
Nor breakers brave on the great sea-beach,
Nor ceaseless crash of the cresting sea,
Nor booming headland's sullen knell,
Nor bell, for elegy?
When is the last tide out of the West,
And the last restless dream for each?
Tell! O tell!
Toll! toll! toll!
Toll for the ebbing tide:
Toll for the lives that outward ride:
Toll for the deep-delved cold sea-seat:
Night in the West at every beat!
Toll! toll!
BRAYLEY--WINSLOW--JONES.
In this group of young writers, the editors present what
seems to them to be the best work done by students or young
graduates of the University while unquestionably under her
influence. They wish there were work by more such writers to
present. Possibly there is more that has not yet been brought
to their attention.
Berton Brayley has written extensively for newspapers. He has
facility in rhyme and the knack of "hitting off" a verse that
well fits an occasion. One has the feeling, however, that
there is a power and seriousness to the man that have not yet
found adequate expression. Perhaps in the next ten years the
qualities of ease, leisureliness, and reflection will assert
themselves more in his poetry. But from the first there has
been a wholesome tone about his work.
Horatio Winslow, son of Chief Justice J. B. Winslow, showed
marked ability while an undergraduate. He was a collaborator
in the writing of a play which was presented by University
students. As with Mr. Brayley, we would say of him that his
best work has not yet been published. There is power and
strength and grace latent in him that have not yet found
expression, but that are unmistakably foretold in the things
he has already produced.
Howard Mumford Jones is the youngest of these three men, and
comes from the spirit-haunted region of the Mississippi.
While his poems have not yet attained absolute surety of
touch and evenness of movement, yet of those presented in
this group they probably evince the most grace and music,
together with the highest and warmest poetic feeling. "When
Shall We Together" has real sweep and atmosphere and glow. It
is the production of a poet who loved the subject he was
writing about.
SOMETIMES
Sometimes I long for a lazy isle,
Ten thousand miles from home,
Where the warm sun shines and the blue skies smile
And the milk-white breakers foam--
A coral island, bravely set
In the midst of the Southern sea,
Away from the hurry and noise and fret
Forever surrounding me!
For I tire of labor and care and fight,
And I weary of plan and scheme,
And ever and ever my thoughts take flight
To the island of my dream;
And I fancy drowsing the whole day long
In a hammock that gently swings--
Away from the clamorous, toiling throng,
Away from the swirl of things!
And yet I know, in a little while,
When the first glad hours were spent,
I'd sicken and tire of my lazy isle
And cease to be content!
I'd hear the call of the world's great game--
And battle with gold and men--
And I'd sail once more, with a heart of flame,
Back to the game again!
--Berton Braley.
Saturday Evening Post, January 15, 1916.
THE PIONEERS
Current Opinion. Volume LIV. Page 497. (First published in
The Coming Nation.)
We're the men that always march a bit before
Tho we cannot tell the reason for the same;
We're the fools that pick the lock that holds the door--
Play and lose and pay the candle for the game.
There's no blaze nor trail nor roadway where we go;
There's no painted post to point the right-of-way,
But we swing our sweat-grained helves, and we chop a path ourselves
To Tomorrow from the land of Yesterday.
It's infrequent that we're popular at home,
(Like King David we're not built for tending sheep,)
And we scoff at living a la metronome,
And quite commonly we're cynical and cheap.
True--we cannot hold a job to save our lives;
We're a dreamy lot and steady work's a bore--
'Til the luring of the Quest routs us out from sleep and rest
And we rope and tie the world and call for more.
Well, they try to hold us back by foolish words--
But we go ahead and do the thing we've planned;
Then they drive us out to shelter with the birds--
And the ravens bring our breakfast to our hand.
So they jail us and we lecture to the guards;
They beat us--we make sermons of their whips;
They feed us melted lead and behold the Word is said.
That shall burn upon a million living lips.
Are we fighters?......By our fellows we are fanged.
Are we workers?......Paid with blows we never earned.
Are we doctors?......Other doctors see us hanged.
Are we teachers?......Brother teachers have us burned.
But through all a Something somehow holds us fast
'Spite of every beast-hung brake and steaming fen;
And we keep the torch on high till a comrade presses by
When we pass it on and die--and live again!
A LITTLE BOOK OF LOCAL VERSE
Author of "The Masque of Marsh and River." Copyright, 1915,
by the Author. Pages 13-14.
When shall we together
Tramp beneath the sky,
Thrusting through the weather
As swimmers strive together,
You and I?
How we ranged the valleys,
Panted up the road,
Sang in sudden sallies
Of mirth that woke the valleys
Where we strode!
Glad and free as birds are,
Laughter in your eyes,
Wild as poets' words are,
You were as the birds are,
Very wise.
Not for you the prison
Of the stupid town;
When the winds were risen,
You went forth from prison,
You went down,
Down along the river
Dimpling in the rain,
Where the poplars shiver
By the dancing river,
And again
Climbed the hills behind you
When the rains were done;
Only God could find you
With the town behind you
In the sun!
Don't you hear them calling,
Blackbirds in the grain,
Silver raindrops falling
Where the larks are calling
You in vain?
Comrade, when together
Shall we tramp again
In the summer weather,
You and I together,
Now as then?
JOSEPH P. WEBSTER.
No one who reads this book is unfamiliar with "The Sweet Bye
and Bye." But how many of us, as we sang that song, realized
that both its words and music were written by a Wisconsin
man,--Joseph P. Webster?
He was born in New Hampshire in 1819, but he lived most of
his life at Elkhorn, where he died in 1875. He was a member
of many musical societies, and was the composer of many other
songs, the best known of the latter being "Lorena."
SWEET BYE AND BYE
Composed by Joseph Philbrick Webster, February, 1868.
I.
There's a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar,
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
Chorus.
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
II.
We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blest,
And our spirits shall sorrow no more--
Not a sigh for the blessings of rest.
III.
To our bountiful Father above,
We will offer the tribute of praise,
For the glorious gifts of His love,
And the blessings that hallow our days.
WRITERS OF LOCAL DISTINCTION
The greatest difficulty confronting the compilers of any
anthology is involved in the necessary exclusion, through
lack of space, or else, in some instances, through lack of
unmistakable manifestation of literary merit, of some authors
and selections that would no doubt be welcomed by many
readers of the volume. In the present work it has been the
main purpose to set forth in due prominence the works of
those writers of our state who have displayed unmistakable
literary merit, and who have, beyond doubt, possessed both a
message and a marked facility in giving it to the world. We
now come to those who, usually despite the rigorous exactions
of hurried and anxious frontier lives, have sensed the
essential elements of poetry or story in their workaday
lives, and have had the courage and optimism necessary to
write and publish.
To show just what courage it took and just what spirit
impelled these writers, let us quote from the preface to
A COUNTRY GIRL'S FATE
BY C. F. SHERIFF.
... "When Ed. Coe, of Whitewater, Wisconsin, began some twelve years ago
publishing Cold Spring items, signed by 'Greenhorn,' he published the
first lines I ever wrote, at which time some spirit (or some unseen
thing) seemed to be always whispering in my ear that I must write a
book.
"Never could I drive from me these thoughts, and situated as I was,
with plenty of farm work to do, no education at all, no knowledge of
such business, no friends to help me, but lots to kick me down, I can
tell you I was pretty well discouraged, and if I had not had lots of
courage, the contents of this book would not have been written.
"This work is the only kind of work that I can get interested in, and
should I pass to the mysterious beyond without gaining any name in
this way, I would declare with my last breath that my life, as far as
myself was concerned, had been a failure."
DEW DROPS
Something of the same impulse is found in this dedication of
the volume "Dew Drops," by Leda Bond (Mrs. Feldsmith).
"This little book is fondly dedicated to Raymond and Leotta, my two
beloved children, who, when the shades of sorrow closed around me,
stretched forth their baby fingers, and parting the curtains of gloom,
revealed once more the gladsome light of a happier day."
We feel that the names of some of these courageous and happy
pioneers should be given in this volume, together with brief
selections from some of their works. Some of the verses here
given will show sure sense of rhyme and pleasing balance and
reserve. Some have, it is true, little to commend them but
the evident longing to express the song that was in the soul
rather than on the lips. But who can say how much the more
successful ones, who have won deserved fame and plaudits, owe
to the more obscure who sought, with more meagre measure of
success, to show that there is poetry and song and story in
Wisconsin?
POEMS OF A DAY.
A Collection of Fugitive Poems Written Among the Cares and
Labors of Daily Journalism. By A. M. THOMSON. (Then Editor of
the Sentinel), Milwaukee, 1873.
DEATH OF GOVERNOR HARVEY
Bow down thy head, O Commonwealth,
'Tis fitting now for thee to weep;
Thy hopes lie buried in the grave,
In which our chieftain is asleep.
The flags at half mast sadly droop,
The bells toll out a solemn wail,
As on the southern breeze there comes,
With lightning speed, the sick'ning tale!
O, dreadful night! O, fatal step!
O, rushing river's angry tide!
Was there no quick, omniscient arm
To save a life so true and tried?
Breathe, lofty Pines, his requiem;
Sing paeans in thy forest gloom;
And ye, ye Prairies, that he loved,
Bring Flora's gems to deck his tomb.
O, State, bereft of him you loved,
O, Mother, from thy loving breast,
Our friend and brother, statesman, chief,
At noon, sinks calmly to his rest!
We cannot hide these scalding tears,
But kiss in trust this chast'ning rod;
Though reason sleeps, faith is not blind,
But sees in all the hand of God.
BALLADS OF WAR AND PEACE.
By J. H. WHITNEY, Baraboo, Wisconsin.
THE MUSTER ROLLS
When treason, veiled in fair disguise,
And clad in robes of state,
Invoked the sword to cut the ties
That made a nation great,
Wisconsin sounded the alarm,
And beat the battle-drum:
Men heard from office, mill and farm,
And answered, "Lo! we come."
Down from the rugged northern pines,
Up from the eastern coast;
From riverside and southern mines,
Comes forth the loyal host.
From Gainesville thru the wilderness
They march with fearless tread,
And leave behind, as on they press,
An army of the dead.
* * *
Beneath the blue--above the green,
Mid flowers of fairest hue,
We honor now with reverent mien,
The men who wore the blue.
The story of the rolls is told.
The records, worn and gray,
Like veterans, are growing old,
And soon shall pass away.
But deeds of valor for a cause
So just, shall ever shine,
And loyalty to righteous laws
Shall live, because divine.
IN THE LAND OF FANCY, AND OTHER POEMS.
By MRS. LIBBIE C. BAER. (Appleton, Wisconsin. Copyright,
1902, by the Author.)
IN THE LAND OF FANCY
Never a cloud to darken the blue,
Never a flower to lose its hue,
Never a friend to prove untrue
In the beautiful land of fancy.
Never a joy to turn to pain,
Never a hope to die or wane,
Never a boon we may not gain
In the beautiful land of fancy.
Never a heart turns false or cold,
Never a face grows gray or old,
Never a love we may not hold
In the beautiful land of fancy.
All of life that we crave or miss,
(The world denies us half its bliss),
Free, untrammelled, we have in this--
In the beautiful land of fancy.
A COLLECTION OF POEMS.
By J. R. HENDERSON, Riley, Wisconsin.
Copyright, 1896, by the Author.
We give here a selection of "Neighborhood Verse," such as may
achieve much local fame and really may make life more worth
living.
A NUPTIAL SALUTATION
Neighbors and friends, we have met today,
At the home of Jimmie Clow,
To see his daughter Mary give her hand away,
And take the marriage vow.
To see Willie Goodwin get a wife,
And start on the matrimonial sea.
Long life, health and happiness to him and his,
Is the wish of this whole company.
Now, Willie, lad, here's a pipe for you,
It's a present from old Joe;
And when you take your evening smoke
You'll remember him, I know.
And, Mary, lass, here's a gift for you--
Ah, you'll need it yet; you'll see.
Take it now, and hide it away
From this laughing company.
SONGS AND SONNETS.
By MARY M. ADAMS.
Copyright, 1901, by the Author (wife of Charles Kendall
Adams, then President of the University of Wisconsin).
WISCONSIN
Sound her praise! our noble State,
All her strength to deeds translate,
Prove her shield when danger's nigh,
Read her banner in the sky,
Tell of her in song and story,
All her past with love illume,
Show her present robed in glory,
Promise of a larger bloom.
Morning maid! whose day began
With the nobler life in man,
Sun-crowned souls reveal thy fame,
Sacred hopes thy laws proclaim.
O Father! hear for her our prayer,
Bid her voice Thine own decree,
Let all her growth Thyself declare,
Guard the light supplied by Thee!
MY BEST POEM.
You ask of mine the poem I love best,
And promise it shall have the larger light;
Alas, alas! far, far beyond the rest
I love the poem that I mean to write!
THE RICHEST TIME OF LIFE
MYRA GOODWIN PLANTZ. 1856-1914.
From SONGS OF QUIET HOURS. Copyright, by Pres. Samuel Plantz
and reprinted by permission of The Methodist Book Concern.
This poem was written to her mother on her seventy-seventh
birthday.
The spring is fair; it has its flowers,
Its happy time of sun and showers;
Then summer cometh as a queen,
With roses on her robe of green;
But autumn brings the crimson leaves
And wealth of golden, garnered sheaves,
And grapes that purple on the vine,
With spring and summer in their wine.
The morning comes with rosy light
That dims the candles of the night,
And wakes the nestling birds to song,
And sends to toil the brave and strong.
Mid-day and afternoon are spent
In search of gold or heart-content;
Then comes the sunset's glow and rest,
And this of all the days is best.
The baby comes with Paradise
Still shining in his smiling eyes,
And childhood passes like a dream,
As lilies float upon a stream.
Then youth comes with its restless heat,
And manhood, womanhood, replete
With care and pleasure, joy and strife,
Lead to the richest part of life.
And it has reached these, mother dear,
The sunny, mellow time of year;
Though with a climate of thine own,
In constant sun thy soul has grown.
Time counts not helpful, happy years--
He only numbers sighs and tears;
So rich in blessings, strong in truth,
Thou hast not age, but richer youth.
WAYSIDE FLOWERS.
By CARRIE CARLTON.
(Mrs. M. H. Chamberlain.)
A SPELL IS ON MY SPIRIT
A spell is on my spirit
And I cannot, cannot write,
All the teeming thoughts of glory
That crowd my soul tonight.
They come in quick succession,
Like the phantoms in a dream;
And they surge in shadowy billows,
Like the mist upon a stream.
Oh! had I but the language,
I would give these visions birth;
I would shadow their glorious meaning,
And their untold, hidden worth.
They were raised by wild thanksgiving,
For a blessed answered prayer;
And their fleeting, changing beauty,
Held my spirit breathless there.
I had pleaded, oh, how earnest
For one precious, precious boon;
For one gift to cheer this bosom,
That was desolate so soon.
Now I know my prayer is answered,
And my soul would fain adore,
Him whose promise is forever,
And is faithful evermore.
UNDER THE PINES.
By ADA F. MOORE. Published by West and Co., Milwaukee, 1875.
LINES FOR THE TIMES
There's a certain class of people
In this sublunary sphere--
(And if I'm not mistaken,
You'll find them even here),
Who think the rare old precept
To the old Athenians given,
And esteemed so full of wisdom
That they deemed it came from Heaven,--
In this glorious age of progress
Has become quite obsolete;
So they choose another motto,
For these latter times more meet.
It is "know thyself" no longer--
So they say, and who can doubt them--
But "Mortal, know thy neighbors,
And everything about them!"
To attain this worthy object,
All other cares forego;
To gain this glorious knowledge,
You cannot stoop too low.
Heed not the ancient croakers,
Who ask, with solemn phiz--
"Is it anybody's business
What another's business is?"
No! we'd join the glorious party,
That to giant size has grown,
To mind our neighbor's business,
And "Know nothing" of our own,
Hurrah! for the Rights of Meddlers!
For the freedom of our day!
For the glorious Age of Progress!
And for Young America!
MEMORIES OF THE WISCONSIN AND OTHER POEMS.
By HARRY LATHROP. Published by Review Print, Flint, Mich., in
1903.
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
He loves to make another laugh
And laugh himself as well,
Nor any one around one-half
So good a joke can tell.
The less of pain a man can give,
The more of joy he scatters;
The more excuse for him to live--
Apart from weightier matters.
Then emulate the men who laugh,
Good health and mirth are catching,
The wine of joy is ours to quaff,
Life's duties while despatching.
OVER THE DIVIDE.
And other Verses. By MARION MANVILLE. Copyright, 1887, by the
Author.
PRELUDE
But one of a thousand voices,
Oh, how can one voice be heard,
When ninety and nine and nine hundred
Are chanting the same old word?
But one of a thousand singers,
What song can I sing, oh pray,
That is not sung over and over,
And over again today?
VISIONS OF A CITIZEN.
By PROFESSOR J. J. BLAISDELL, (1827-1896), Beloit College.
Copyright, 1897. J. A. Blaisdell.
EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS (p. 10).
One cannot be a good citizen of Wisconsin without being a good citizen
of America. One cannot be a good citizen of America without being a
good citizen of the Commonwealth of all nations. One cannot be a good
citizen of the world Commonwealth without being a good citizen of the
Universal Kingdom of God's moral order. Wisconsin citizenship,
magnificent lesson to be learned!
JOHN NAGLE'S PHILOSOPHY.
Complied by SYDNEY T. PRATT, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Entered
according to the act of Congress, in the year 1901, in the
office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, by Sydney
T. Pratt.
AUTUMN
There is something in the approach of autumn, the border land of
summer, that is depressing, just as if the shadow of death were
brooding over the future. There are dark clouds in the sky which cut
off the sunshine; there is a gloom in the heart which darkens hope and
makes life "scarcely worth living." The wind has a mournful cadence,
and the trees saw as if the motion were a sigh of sorrow. Everything
seems to harmonize with the prevailing spirit of sadness, and animate
nature moans forth a dirge. Dew drops seem like tears, and the evening
breeze is a sigh. The moon itself seems to wear a garb of grief and
floats among the clouds, a tear-stained Diana. It is a season for men
to grow mad, for anguish to gnaw at the heart, and for melancholy to
usurp the throne of reason. The retina only receives dark impressions,
the tympanum transmits none but doleful sounds. One is feasted on
dismal thoughts on every hand until it becomes a regular symposium of
sorrow. Those imps, the Blues, that feed one on dejection, are in
their heyday, implacable as a Nemesis, persistent as a Devil. They
revel in gloom and drag one down to the Slough of Despond. Work is
performed mechanically, and what in its nature is amusement, is now a
bore. One "sucks melancholy from a song as a weasel sucks eggs," and
longs for night that he may seek forgetfulness in sleep--the
twin-sister of Death. A miserable world this, when the year is falling
"into the sear and yellow leaf;" and there is a lingering wish that
the shadows which come from the West would bring that icy breath that
gives forgetfulness and rest.
POEMS.
By WILFRID EARL CHASE, Madison. Copyright, 1913, by the
Author.
FAITH
Maze of antinomies and miracles!
Bewildered, purblind we are led along
This rock-strewn, flower-decked, mystic, wondrous way.
Whence came? What are we? Whither are we led?
Wherefore journey we? Why such fickle path?
And Nature's myriad answers, voiced in the storm's
Wild tumult, fringed on the gentian's azure cup,
Or limned on human brow, we would descry,--
And some we darkly guess, and some we almost know.
BOOK OF THE GREEN LAKE MANSE.
A SEQUEL TO THE RHYMED STORY OF WISCONSIN. By J. N. DAVIDSON.
MY NEIGHBOR'S CHICKENS
(The following verses express no grievance of my own. I could
not ask for more considerate neighbors. But all gardeners are
not so fortunate, and it is for their sake and at the
suggestions of one of them that these lines were written.)
Sometimes I say "The Dickens!
There are my neighbor's chickens!"
My neighbor I like well
But--let me grievance tell--
I do not like his chickens;--
Save when he bids me to a roast
And plays the part of kindly host.
My garden is most dear to me
From carrot bed to apple tree,
And so my patience sickens
When I behold the chickens
In it and scratching merrily.
Dark gloom grows darker, thickens,
In looking at those chickens.
A certain scientific man
Once called the hen "A feeble bird."
It is, I'm sure, on no such plan
My neighbor's hens are built; the word
"Feeble" to them does not apply.
I wish Professor would stand by
And see those hens make mulching fly.
Or let him watch them as they eat
My cauliflower choice and sweet,
Or gorge themselves on berries fine;
The way they always do with mine.
They run on their destructive feet
From stalk to stalk, from vine to vine,
Or scratch as if they dug a mine.
And so, my neighbor, won't you please,
My cares dispel, my troubles ease,
By keeping all your hens at home?
Soon, soon the very earth will freeze
And then the fowls at large may roam.
So I'll not need the pen of Dickens
To tell my horror of your chickens!
TO MY NEIGHBORS AT HILL CREST
Shall I do dear Sam a wrong
If I write no little song
Telling how he pleases Grace,
Brings the light to Tompie's face,
Shares their play or runs a race,
Merry all about the place?
No: I'd do the duck no wrong
If I failed to make the song.
He'll not care for verse or rhyme.
But this pleasant summer-time
I have seen my little neighbors,
Happy in their kindly labors
Making Sam and others glad,
So I say, "God bless the lad;
Bless the lassie"; and I know
That the love to Sam they show
Makes their own hearts richer, truer;
Makes the sky seem brighter, bluer;
Makes them to us all a joy
(I mean duck, and girl, and boy).
So I'd surely do a wrong
If I did not say in song
To loved Tompie and Miss Grace
(Merry all about the place)
That their duck's important, quite,
With his new-grown feathers white;
But the more important thing
Is their love; of this I sing!
IN THE LIMESTONE VALLEY.
PEN PICTURES OF EARLY DAYS IN WESTERN WISCONSIN. By S. W.
BROWN. Copyright, 1900, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
FROM CHAPTER II, pp. 37-38.
Such was Neoshone, as the Indians who frequently camped there called
it when the first white man stood on the bank of the river and watched
the rushing waters flow swiftly by. They had borne the red man in his
canoe, and around this very spot the Winnebago hunter had secured fine
strings of ducks, and for generations had trapped for mink and
gathered in abundance the fish that swarmed in every eddy and pool.
The hill at the north was crowned with a beautiful grove of young oak
trees, and, standing on its slope, the early pioneer beheld before his
eyes a magnificent panorama. In the distance the everlasting hills
seemed to stand guard round and about it as did the walls of the
Jewish capitol encircle its sacred precincts.
Valley, hillside, prairie, and plain, stretched away from the
spectator's feet in varying lines and curves, while down the center
rolled the grand old river. It seemed like a second Canaan, waiting
for the coming of the chosen people, its soil ready to be waked by the
share of the settler's plow, when crops would come forth as if touched
by the magician's wand.
From
"ON GROWING OLD."
By NEAL BROWN.
Read before the Phantom Club, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, April
15, 1913.
... Growing old has many stages. You can remember the time when, in
reading your favorite author, you were disgusted to find that he had
made his hero forty years old, and you wondered how he could be guilty
of imputing romance to such an unconscionable age. By and by, even
though you found forty years to be the old age of youth, you were
solaced by the thought that it was the youth of old age, and still
later you will wonder where youth ends and old age begins.
In many assemblages you once found yourself the youngest man, or among
the youngest. But with swift-flying years, you finally found yourself
equal in age to most of those in all assemblies; but the time comes
when only younger men are crowding around you. And when you try to
evade the thought that you are growing old, along comes some kindly
friend with the greeting, "How young you are looking."
You grow to regard as babes, wild, young blades of forty or fifty. You
may comfort yourself with the thought expressed by Holmes. He says
that he could feel fairly immune from death as long as older men whom
he knew, still remained, especially if they were of a much greater age
than himself. They were farther out on the skirmish line, and must be
taken first.
MY ALLEGIANCE.
By CORA KELLEY WHEELER, Marshfield, Wisconsin. Copyright,
1896, The Editor Publishing Company.
FROM "MY LADY ELEANOR," pp. 119-20.
I was wounded at Acre. My strong right arm will never strike another
blow for the glory of the Cross. I started sadly out, in spite of our
victory, for my western home.
I thought to look in Eleanor's face once more, and see if the years
had brought any tender thoughts of me into her heart. If not, I should
never trouble her with any claim of mine. I knew she passed her time
in works of charity, and that the house of Savoy had never held the
love and reverence of the people before as it held it today, under the
rule of my Lady Eleanor.
We reached Savoy. In the old days I carried to the lady of my heart a
reprieve from death; but to me she brought now a reprieve that took
all the grief and sorrow out of my life, as she laid her sweet face on
my breast and whispered, "I have loved you ever since the night you
brought me home; why did you ever leave me?" With the love of the
Duchess of Savoy began a new life; but to me she will ever be, as when
I loved her first, "My Lady Eleanor."
OTHER WISCONSIN WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS.
ALBERTINE W. MOORE, Echoes from Mistland, Norway Music Album.
MARION V. DUDLEY, Poems.
ELLA A. GILES, Maiden Rachael, Out from the Shadows, Bachelor Ben,
Flowers of the Spirit.
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL, Percival's Poems.
CHARLES NOBLE GREGORY, Poems.
JULIA AND MEDORA CLARK, Driftwood.
CHARLOTTA PERRY, (pseud.) Carlotta Perry's Poems, 1888.
JOHN GOADBY GREGORY, A Beauty of Thebes and Other Verses.
FLORENCE C. REID, Jack's Afire, Survival of the Fittest.
KENT KENNAN, Sketches.
MYRON E. BAKER, Vacation Thoughts.
JOSEPH V. COLLINS, of Stevens Point, Sketches.
MYRA EMMONS, of Stevens Point, Short Stories.
JULIA M. TASCHER, of Stevens Point, Arbutus and Dandelions, a Novel.
ADA F. MOORE, (Mrs. John Phillips, of Stevens Point), Under the Pines.
MRS. E. M. TASCHER, (Mother of Julia M. Tascher), The Story of Stevens
Point.
JOHN HICKS, of Oshkosh, lately Minister Plenipotentiary of the United
States to Peru, The Man from Oshkosh.
JULIUS TAYLOR CLARK, formerly of Madison, The Ojibue Conquest.
GEORGE GRIMM, of Milwaukee, Pluck, a Story of a Little Immigrant Boy.
GENESSEE RICHARDSON, of Oconomowoc, My Castle In the Air.
CHESTER L. SAXBY, of Superior, A Captain of the King.
MISS L. J. DICKINSON, of Superior, John O'Dreams.
GEORGE STEELE, of Whitewater, Deidre.
JULIUS C. BIRGE, (the first white child born in Whitewater.) The
Awakening of the Desert.
JOSEPH P. DYSART, Milwaukee, Grace Porter, a Jewel Lost and Found.
MARGARET ASHMUN, Poems and Short Stories.
WISCONSIN HUMORISTS
Among the many purposes authors have for producing literature
is that of pure fun or humor. If the writer attempts to
reform by laughing at his people, we designate his work as
satire. With this type of literature we have nothing to do
here, but much literature has been produced within the state
that has for its purpose the laughing with the readers. It
attempts to amuse through affording a pleasing surprise. The
unexpected which engenders this surprise may be that of
situation, of ignorance, or of the mingling of sense and
nonsense in a perplexing manner.
This last means of engendering surprise and the resulting
humor grew up quite largely among writers of the Middle West
during and since the Civil War. It is often spoken of as
American humor. It may be illustrated by a short selection
from Edgar Wilson Nye's Comic History of the United States,
which will show the point of mingling real historical facts
with statements quite ridiculous in many instances. Let the
reader attempt to determine which statements are historical
sense and which are smart or even pure nonsense.
"On December 16, 1773, occurred the tea-party at Boston,
which must have been a good deal livelier than those of
today. The historian regrets that he was not there; he would
have tried to be the life of the party.
"England had finally so arranged the price of tea that,
including the tax, it was cheaper in America than in the old
country. This exasperated the patriots, who claimed that they
were confronted by a theory and not a condition. At
Charleston this tea was stored in damp cellars, where it
spoiled. New York and Philadelphia returned their ship, but
the British would not allow any shenanagin, as George III. so
tersely termed it, in Boston.
"Therefore a large party met in Faneuil Hall and decided that
the tea should not be landed. A party made up as Indians and,
going on board, threw the tea overboard. Boston Harbor, as
far out as the Bug Light, even today, is said to be carpeted
with tea-grounds."
Wisconsin writers have attempted this type of humor. Two of
these whose lives have been more or less connected with the
history of River Falls, are mentioned here. The first of
these labored quite as earnestly to cultivate the serious
side of literature as he did the humorous. As a result his
little volume entitled "Lute Taylor's Chip Basket," is filled
with even more of the quite serious of life's lessons
expressed in poems and essays than of the ludicrous. He
mingled both in his book as a real manifestation of his
philosophy of life. This is the way he puts it: "Fun is
cousin to Common Sense. They live pleasantly together, and
none but fools try to divorce them."
Lute A. Taylor was born at Norfolk, New York, September 14,
1863. He came to River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1856, where he
became editor of the River Falls Journal in June, 1857. He
removed his paper to Prescott in 1861 and called it the
Prescott Journal. In 1869 he became one of the publishers and
editor-in-chief of the La Crosse Morning Leader. In addition
to his newspaper work he held the appointive offices of
assistant assessor of internal revenues, assessor of the
sixth congressional district of Wisconsin, and surveyor of
the port of entry at La Crosse. He died at the latter place
November 11, 1875.
When Lute was eight years old his father died, and the boy
was thrown upon his own resources quite largely from this
early age. The resulting struggle limited his opportunities
for school and academy somewhat, but it revealed to him the
blessings of persistent effort and gave him a sympathy for
the sufferings of mankind. His genial disposition and keen
wit made him see the joyous in life, so that between trial
and joy he may be said to have been a veritable "vibration
between a smile and a tear."
Since so much of his effort in a literary way was serious, it
is thought best to illustrate this as well as his humor. Two
selections are chosen, both from the Chip Basket, which in
its turn is a selection from his newspaper articles. He had
not only the ability to write the extended article, but also
the much more rare ability of boiling down into concentrated
comparisons some of his richest observations. Out of twenty
such quotations just these two are given as illustrations:
"There is a thread in our thought as there is a pulse in our
heart; he who can hold the one knows how to think; and he who
can move the other, knows how to feel."
"A man may be successful as a loafer, and invest less capital
and brains than are required to succeed in any other line."
To illustrate a bit of his humor due to the mingling of
nonsense and facts a few paragraphs from a letter to the St.
Paul Pioneer concerning the city of Chicago are given.
LUTE A. TAYLOR.
CHICAGO
I like Chicago. Chicago is a large city. I have noticed there are
always many people in a large city. A city doesn't do well without
them. Some of your readers may not have been to Chicago. Shall I tell
them about it?
There are many groceries here, where they sell tea, cod-fish, whiskey,
flour, molasses, saleratus and such things, and other groceries where
they sell cloth, women's clothes, and fancy 'fixin's' generally.
Field, Leiter and Co. have one of the latter. It is in cube form--a
block long, a block high, and a block thick. It is bigger than a barn,
and tall as a light-house. There are more than forty clerks in it.
There are lots of ships here, and horse-cars, but the horses don't
ride in them, though, and the water-works. I must tell you about the
water-works. They are a big thing. Much water is used in Chicago.
Fastidious people sometimes wash in it. Chicago has first-class water
now, and plenty of it. She has built a tunnel two miles long, and
tapped Lake Michigan that distance from the shore. The water runs down
to the home station, and is then lifted up high by steam engines and
distributed over the city. The hoisting of it is a good deal like
work. I like to see these engines work. Any body would. Clean,
polished, shining monsters, they seem to take a conscious pride in
their performance, and the tireless movement of their mighty arms
seems almost as resistless as the will of God. But they cost scrips,
these piles of polished machinery and throbbing life do; and with that
regard for economy which has always characterized me, I think I have
discovered a plan by which this work can be done at nearly nominal
expense. I only wonder that Chicago, with her accredited 'git' and
'gumption,' has not accepted my plan before. My plan is this: At the
shore end of the tunnel build a large tank or reservoir, put two
first-class whales in it, and let them spout the water up. Simple,
isn't it? And feasible too, and cheap. You see the whales would
furnish their own clothes and lodging, and all the oil they would
need for lighting to work nights by, and the city would really be out
nothing but their board. Whales have always been in the water
elevating business, so this would be right in their line. They would
work and think it was fun--just as a boy sometimes, but not most
always, does--and there is no good reason why their sporting instinct
should not be turned to practical.
I am confident of the final success of my plan, but the prejudices of
people against innovations may retard its operation for some time yet.
Speaking of water makes me think that Chicago, like St. Paul, has a
river, only not so much so. Rivers most always run by large cities,
they seem to like to, some way. But this is a brigandish sort of
river, black, foul, and murky, and in the dark night it steals
sullenly through the city like a prowling fiend.
Two paragraphs will serve to illustrate Lute Taylor's ability
to meditate upon the common-place and draw therefrom the
wholesome lesson. We are choosing his comments upon a
"nickname," where he says:
The man who has won a nickname and wears it gracefully, has the
elements of popularity about him. The same instinct which leads a
mother to apply diminutive phrases of endearment to her little ones is
a universal instinct, one which we never outgrow, and which
continually manifests itself in our form of addressing or speaking of
those we love, trust or admire.
The man who is known in his neighborhood as "Uncle" is never a cold,
crabbed or selfish character. He is sure to have a generous heart, and
wear a cheerful smile--there is integrity in him which men trust, and
warmth around him which little children love to gather, and the term
is a title of honor--more to be desired than that of honorable.
"BILL" NYE.
Edgar Wilson Nye, known to his readers as "Bill Nye," was
born in Shirley, Maine, August 25, 1850. He removed with his
parents to Wisconsin in 1854. As a mere school boy, he loved
to say those things which afforded amusement to his
associates and his family. In an article in Collier's for
April 10, 1915[3], his mother tells the following anecdote
concerning him when a boy working on the Wisconsin farm:
The two boys, Edgar (Bill) and his brother Frank had been
working in the field, but were separated on their return to
the house at noon time. They met again at the pump, when the
following conversation ensued:
"Edgar looked at Frank as if surprised, and inquired: 'Your
name Nye?'
'Yes,' replied Frank, with perfect gravity in order to lead
his brother on.
'That's funny; my name's Nye, too,' observed Edgar. 'Where
were you born?'
'In Maine,' answered Frank.
'I was born in Maine myself,' said Edgar. 'I wouldn't doubt
at all if we were some relation. Got any brothers?'
'Yes, I have two brothers.'
'Well, well, this is growing interesting. I've got two
brothers myself. I'll bet if the thing were all traced out,
there would be some family relationship found. Are your
brothers older or younger than you?'
'I have one brother older and one younger,' replied Frank.
'Oh, well, then we can't be any relation after all,' declared
Edgar with a look of disappointment; 'my brothers are both
older.'"
While a young man he went to the then territory of Wyoming,
where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876. He
later returned to River Falls, Wisconsin, where he engaged in
newspaper work. Some years later he traveled with James
Whitcomb Riley and gave entertainments in which mirth was the
essential feature. He later removed from Wisconsin and made
his home in New York City. He died at Asheville, N. C., Feb.
22, 1896.
His writings appeared under the following titles:
Bill Nye and Boomerang, in 1881; Forty Liars, in 1883;
Remarks, in 1886; Baled Hay and Fun, Wit and Humor, with J.
W. Riley, in 1889; Comic History of the United States, in
1894; Comic History of England, in 1896.
To illustrate his humor due to the mingling of fact and
nonsense, we reproduce here a portion of his chapter upon
Franklin as published in his Comic History of the United
States.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Reprinted through permission of J. B. Lippincott Co.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
It is considered advisable by the historian at this time to say a word
regarding Dr. Franklin, our fellow-townsman, and a journalist who was
the Charles A. Dana of his time. Franklin's memory will remain green
when the names of millionaires of to-day are forgotten.
But let us proceed to more fully work out the life and labors of this
remarkable man.
Benjamin Franklin, formerly of Boston, came very near being an only
child. If seventeen children had not come to bless the home of
Benjamin's parents, they would have been childless. Think of getting
up in the morning and picking out your shoes and stockings from among
seventeen pairs of them!
And yet Benjamin Franklin never murmured or repined. He decided to go
to sea, and to avoid this he was apprenticed to his brother James, who
was a printer.
His paper was called the New England Courant. It was edited jointly by
James and Benjamin Franklin, and was started to supply a long-felt
want.
Benjamin edited it a part of the time, and James a part of the time.
The idea of having two editors was not for the purpose of giving
volume to the editorial page, but it was necessary for one to run the
paper while the other was in jail.
In those days you could not sass the king, and then, when the king
came in the office the next day and stopped his paper and took out his
ad, put it off on 'our informant' and go right along with the paper.
You had to go to jail, while your subscribers wondered why their paper
did not come, and the paste soured in the tin dippers in the sanctum,
and the circus passed by on the other side.
How many of us today, fellow-journalists, would be willing to stay in
jail while the lawn festival and the kangaroo came and went? Who of
all our company would go to a prison-cell for the cause of freedom
while a double-column ad of sixteen aggregated circuses, and eleven
congresses of ferocious beasts, fierce and fragrant from their native
lair, went by us?
At the age of seventeen Ben got disgusted with his brother, and went
to Philadelphia and New York, where he got a chance to 'sub' for a few
weeks and then got a regular job.
Franklin was a good printer and finally got to be a foreman. He made
an excellent foreman. He knew just how to conduct himself as a foreman
so that strangers would think he owned the paper.
In 1730, at the age of twenty-four, Franklin married, and established
the Pennsylvania Gazette. He was then regarded as a great man, and
almost every one took his paper.
Franklin grew to be a great journalist, and spelled hard words with
great fluency. He never tried to be a humorist in any of his newspaper
work, and everybody respected him.
Along about 1746 he began to study the habits and construction of
lightning, and inserted a local in his paper in which he said that he
would be obliged to any of his readers who might notice any new odd
specimens of lightning, if they would send them to the Gazette office
for examination.
Every time there was a thunderstorm Frank would tell the foreman to
edit the paper, and, armed with a string and an old doorkey, he would
go out on the hills and get enough lightning for a mess.
In 1753 Franklin was made postmaster of the colonies. He made a good
Postmaster-General, and people say there were fewer mistakes in
distributing their mail then than there have ever been since. If a man
mailed a letter in those days, Ben Franklin saw that it went to where
it was addressed.
Franklin frequently went over to England in those days, partly on
business and partly to shock the king. He liked to go to the castle
with his breeches tucked in his boots, figuratively speaking, and
attract a great deal of attention. Franklin never put on any frills,
but he was not afraid of crowned heads.
He did his best to prevent the Revolutionary War, but he couldn't do
it. Patrick Henry had said that war was inevitable, and had given it
permission to come, and it came.
He also went to Paris, and got acquainted with a few crowned heads
there. They thought a good deal of him in Paris, and offered him a
corner lot if he would build there and start a paper. They also
offered him the county printing; but he said, no, he would have to go
back to America or his wife might get uneasy about him. Franklin wrote
'Poor Richard's Almanac' in 1732 to 1757, and it was republished in
England.
Dr. Franklin entered Philadelphia eating a loaf of bread and carrying
a loaf under each arm, passing beneath the window of the girl whom he
afterward gave his hand in marriage.
GEORGE W. PECK
One section of this book might be devoted wholly to the work
of newspaper men in furthering the progress of literature in
the state. Several names would deserve mention in such
connection,--among them E. D. Coe, of Whitewater; Colonel
Robert M. Crawford, of Mineral Point; John Nagle, of
Manitowoc; Major Atkinson, of Eau Claire; Horace Rublee and
A. M. Thomson, of the Milwaukee Sentinel; Bruce Pomeroy, of
La Crosse; Amos P. Wilder, of the State Journal, Madison; E.
P. Petherick, of Milwaukee; Colonel A. J. Watrous, of
Milwaukee, and two former Governors of Wisconsin,--W. D.
Hoard, of Fort Atkinson, and George W. Peck, of Milwaukee,
besides Mr. Nye and Mr. Taylor, mentioned above.
Mr. Peck was born in New York in 1840, but he has lived in
Wisconsin since 1843. He has been connected with newspapers
at Whitewater, Jefferson, La Crosse, and Milwaukee. He
founded the "Sun" at La Crosse in 1874, and later removed it
to Milwaukee, where he called it "Peck's Sun." At one time he
was unquestionably the best-known writer in Wisconsin, and
the best-known Wisconsin writer throughout the country, which
fame came to him through his "Peck's Bad Boy" sketches. He
was also the author of "Peck's Compendium of Fun," "Peck's
Sunshine," together with almost countless sketches which
usually were in some way connected with the mischief-loving,
mirth-provoking "Bad Boy." Neighbors of the Pecks in
Whitewater tend, by their recollection of the former
Governor, to confirm the suspicion that not all of "Peck's
Bad Boy" was fiction, and that the author himself may have
played a not inconsiderable part in the scenes therein
depicted.
Mr. Peck's fellow-citizens in Milwaukee honored him with the
mayoralty, and the citizens of the state made him Governor
from 1891 to 1895. He is now, January, 1916, a familiar
figure to Milwaukee citizens. He has a keen memory for his
old friends, and citizens, both young and old, who can remind
him of some of his old neighbors in Whitewater or Jefferson
are always sure of a pleasant chat with him.
TROUBLE ABOUT READING A NEWSPAPER
From "PECK'S BOSS BOOK," p. 42. Copyright, 1900, by W. B.
Conkey Co.
A man came into the "Sun" office on Tuesday with a black eye, a strip
of court plaster across his cheek, one arm in a sling, and as he
leaned on a crutch and wiped the perspiration away from around a lump
on his forehead, with a red cotton handkerchief, he asked if the
editor was in. We noticed that there was quite a healthy smell of
stock-yards about the visitor, but thinking that in his crippled
condition we could probably whip him, if worst came to worst, we
admitted that we were in.
"Well, I want to stop my paper," said he, as he sat down on one edge
of a chair, as though it might hurt. "Scratch my name right off. You
are responsible for my condition."
Thinking the man might have been taking our advice to deaf men, to
always walk on a railroad track if they could find one, we were
preparing to scratch him off without any argument, believing that he
was a man who knew when he had enough, when he spoke up as follows:
"The amount of it is this. I live out in Jefferson county, and I come
in on the new Northwestern road, just to get recreation. I am a
farmer, and keep cows. I recently read an article in your paper about
a dairymen's convention, where one of the mottoes over the door was,
'Treat your cow as you would a lady,' and the article said it was
contended by our best dairymen that a cow, treated in a polite,
gentlemanly manner, as though she was a companion, would give twice as
much milk. The plan seemed feasible to me. I had been a hard man with
stock, and thought maybe that was one reason my cows always dried up
when butter was forty cents a pound, and gave plenty of milk when
butter was only worth fifteen cents a pound. I decided to adopt your
plan, and treat a cow as I would a lady. I had a brindle cow that
never had been very much mashed on me, and I decided to commence on
her, and the next morning after I read your devilish paper, I put on
my Sunday suit and a white plug hat that I bought the year Greeley ran
for President, and went to the barn to milk. I noticed the old cow
seemed to be bashful and frightened, but taking off my hat and bowing
politely, I said, 'Madame, excuse the seeming impropriety of the
request, but will you do me the favor to hoist?' At the same time I
tapped her gently on the flank with my plug hat, and putting the tin
pail on the floor under her, I sat down on the milking stool."
"Did she hoist?" said we, rather anxious to know how the advice of
President Smith, of Sheboygan, the great dairyman, had worked.
"Did she hoist? Well, look at me, and see if you think she hoisted.
Say, I tell you now in confidence, and I don't want it repeated, but
that cow raised right up and kicked me with all four feet, switched me
with her tail, and hooked me with both horns, all at once; and when I
got up out of the bedding in the stall, and dug my hat out of the
manger, and the milking-stool out from under me, and began to maul
that cow, I forgot all about the proper treatment of horned cattle.
Why, she fairly galloped over me, and I never want to read your old
paper again."
We tried to explain to him that the advice did not apply to brindle
cows at all, but he hobbled out, the maddest man that ever asked a cow
to hoist in diplomatic language.
WILLIAM F. KIRK
William F. Kirk is no longer a resident of Milwaukee, he
having been called to a larger sphere of work on New York
papers. But for a period of some eight or ten years he
endeared himself to the readers of the Milwaukee Sentinel by
his daily column. In it he had many quips which reminded one
of Eugene Field in his "Sharps and Flats." But perhaps the
most popular type of his work appeared in his "Norsk
Nightingale" sketches, of which one is here given.
A PSALM OF LIFE
From the "NORSK NIGHTINGALE, BEING THE LYRICS OF A 'LUMBER
YACK'," by William F. Kirk. Copyright, 1905, by Small,
Maynard & Co. (Inc.).
Tal me not, yu knocking fallers,
Life ban only empty dream;
Dar ban planty fun, ay tal yu,
Ef yu try Yohn Yohnson's scheme.
Yohn ban yust a section foreman,
Vorking hard vay up on Soo;
He ban yust so glad in morning
As ven all his vork ban tru.
"Vork," says Yohn, "ban vat yu mak it,
Ef yu tenk das vork ban hard,
Yu skol having planty headaches,--
Yes, yu bet yure life, old pard;
But ay alvays yerk my coat off,
Grab my shovel and my pick,
And dis yob ant seem lak hard von
Ef ay du it purty qvick."
Yohn ban foreman over fallers.
He ant have to vork, yu see;
But, yu bet, he ant no loafer,
And he yust digs in, by yee!
"Listen, Olaf," he skol tal me,
"Making living ant no trick,
And the hardest yob ban easy
Ef you only du it qvick!"
Let us den be op and yumping,
Always glad to plow tru drift;
Ven our vork ban done, den let us
Give some oder faller lift.
Den, ay bet yu, old Saint Peter,
He skol tenk ve're purty slick;
Ve can go tru gates, ay bet yu,
Ef ve only du it qvick!
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND GROUPS.
Adams, Mary M. 275
Anderson, Rasmus B. 228
Baer, Libbie C. 273
Baker, Ray Stannard 85-99
Birge, E. A. 224
Blaisdell, J. A. 279
Bond, Leda 271
Brayley, Berton 265
Brown, Neal 284
Brown, S. W. 283
Carlton, Carrie 276
Centers of Literary Activity 172, 184, 219
Chamberlain, Mrs. 276
Chase, Wilfred E. 281
Coe, E. D. 270
Comstock, George C. 242
Davidson, J. N. 281
Thomas, Herbert Dickinson 260
Ferber, Edna 163
Flower, Elliott 202
Gale, Zona 114
Garland, Hamlin 13
Grayson, David 99
Griswold, Hattie T. 189
Henderson, J. R. 274
Hoard, W. D. 295
Humorists 287
Jones, Howard M. 265
Jones, Jenkin Lloyd 209
King, General Charles 40
Kirk, William F. 297
Lathrop, Harry 278
Leonard, William E. 254
Manville, Marion 279
Merrick, George B. 184
McNeil, Everett 213
Moore, Ada F. 277
Muir, John 64
Nagle, John 280
Neidig, William J. 263
Newspaper Men 294
Nye, Edgar W. (Bill) 291
Peck, George W. 294
Plantz, Myra G. 275
Pyre, J. F. A. 245
Reinsch, Paul S. 238
Rexford, Eben E. 128
Ross, Edward A. 246
Salisbury, Albert and Rollin 172
Sanford, Albert H. 193
Schurz, Carl 146
Sheriff, C. F. 270
Showerman, Grant 251
Stevens Point as a Center 184
Stewart, Charles D. 196
Taylor, Lute 288
Teeple, George L. 172
Thompson, A. M. 271
Thwaites, Reuben Gold 230
Turner, Frederick J. 234
University as a Center, The 184, 219
University Group, The 219
Van Hise, Charles R. 220
Webster, Joseph P. 269
Wheeler, Cora K. 285
Whitewater as a Center 172, 295
Whitney, J. H. 272
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler 72
Willsie, Honoré 150
Winslow, Horatio 265
Writers of Local Distinction 270
Writers not represented 286
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious typographical errors were repaired. Otherwise, period
spellings, grammatical uses and hyphenation inconsistencies were
retained.
Formatting varied throughout the original. This was standardized.
Author portraits have been relocated between their biographical
introductions and the beginning of their writings.
Some poetry stanza breaks were inconsistent in the original (for
example, "In the Land of Fancy"); retained.
Old style ellipses (* * *) have been converted to standard ellipses.
P. 84, "Which Are You?" replaced ending period with question mark.
P. 156, "clear in the light of the moon"; original reads "noon."
P. 221, "p. 11718"; verified elsewhere and retained. Some sources
reference "p. 117-18."
P. 273, a shorter than normal thought break was in the original;
retained.
P. 286, Under "Other Wisconsin Writers"; Both "Charlotta Perry" and
"Carlotta Perry's" are present in the original; retained.
P. 291, "Bill" Nye; original had no footnote marker. The marker for
footnote 3 was added by the transcriber.
P. 297, "Nightingale sketches, of which one is here given,"
originally was placed between "eight or ten years he en-" and "deared
himself to the readers." The misplaced line has been repositioned
correctly.
P. 299, index; "Thomas, Herbert Dickinson" was listed in the "D"s in
the original; retained.
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