drifted about on the lake for hours, especially in lily time, getting
finest lessons and sermons from the water and flowers, ducks, fishes,
and muskrats. In particular we took Christ’s advice and devoutly
“considered the lilies”—how they grow up in beauty out of gray lime
mud, and ride gloriously among the breezy sun-spangles. On our way home
we gathered grand bouquets of them to be kept fresh all the week. No
flower was hailed with greater wonder and admiration by the European
settlers in general—Scotch, English, and Irish—than this white
water-lily (_Nymphæa odorata_). It is a magnificent plant, queen of the
inland waters, pure white, three or four inches in diameter, the most
beautiful, sumptuous, and deliciously fragrant of all our Wisconsin
flowers. No lily garden in civilization we had ever seen could compare
with our lake garden.
The next most admirable flower in the estimation of settlers in this
part of the new world was the pasque-flower or wind-flower (_Anemone
patens_ var. _Nuttalliana_). It is the very first to appear in the
spring, covering the cold gray-black ground with cheery blossoms.
Before the axe or plough had touched the “oak openings” of Wisconsin,
they were swept by running fires almost every autumn after the grass
became dry. If from any cause, such as early snowstorms or late rains,
they happened to escape the autumn fire besom, they were likely to be
burned in the spring after the snow melted. But whether burned in the
spring or fall, ashes and bits of charred twigs and grass stems made
the whole country look dismal. Then, before a single grass-blade had
sprouted, a hopeful multitude of large hairy, silky buds about as thick
as one’s thumb came to light, pushing up through the black and gray
ashes and cinders, and before these buds were fairly free from the
ground they opened wide and displayed purple blossoms about two inches
in diameter, giving beauty for ashes in glorious abundance. Instead of
remaining in the ground waiting for warm weather and companions, this
admirable plant seemed to be in haste to rise and cheer the desolate
landscape. Then at its leisure, after other plants had come to its
help, it spread its leaves and grew up to a height of about two or
three feet. The spreading leaves formed a whorl on the ground, and
another about the middle of the stem as an involucre, and on the top of
the stem the silky, hairy long-tailed seeds formed a head like a second
flower. A little church was established among the earlier settlers and
the meetings at first were held in our house. After working hard all
the week it was difficult for boys to sit still through long sermons
without falling asleep, especially in warm weather. In this drowsy
trouble the charming anemone came to our help. A pocketful of the
pungent seeds industriously nibbled while the discourses were at their
dullest kept us awake and filled our minds with flowers.
The next great flower wonders on which we lavished admiration, not only
for beauty of color and size, but for their curious shapes, were the
cypripediums, called “lady’s-slippers” or “Indian moccasins.” They were
so different from the familiar flowers of old Scotland. Several species
grew in our meadow and on shady hillsides,—yellow, rose-colored, and
some nearly white, an inch or more in diameter, and shaped exactly like
Indian moccasins. They caught the eye of all the European settlers and
made them gaze and wonder like children. And so did calopogon, pogonia,
spiranthes, and many other fine plant people that lived in our meadow.
The beautiful Turk’s-turban (_Lilium superbum_) growing on stream-banks
was rare in our neighborhood, but the orange lily grew in abundance on
dry ground beneath the bur-oaks and often brought Aunt Ray’s lily-bed
in Scotland to mind. The butterfly-weed, with its brilliant scarlet
flowers, attracted flocks of butterflies and made fine masses of color.
With autumn came a glorious abundance and variety of asters, those
beautiful plant stars, together with goldenrods, sunflowers, daisies,
and liatris of different species, while around the shady margin of the
meadow many ferns in beds and vaselike groups spread their beautiful
fronds, especially the osmundas (_O. claytoniana, regalis_, and
_cinnamomea_) and the sensitive and ostrich ferns.
Early in summer we feasted on strawberries, that grew in rich beds
beneath the meadow grasses and sedges as well as in the dry sunny
woods. And in different bogs and marshes, and around their borders on
our own farm and along the Fox River, we found dewberries and
cranberries, and a glorious profusion of huckleberries, the
fountain-heads of pies of wondrous taste and size, colored in the heart
like sunsets. Nor were we slow to discover the value of the hickory
trees yielding both sugar and nuts. We carefully counted the different
kinds on our farm, and every morning when we could steal a few minutes
before breakfast after doing the chores, we visited the trees that had
been wounded by the axe, to scrape off and enjoy the thick white
delicious syrup that exuded from them, and gathered the nuts as they
fell in the mellow Indian summer, making haste to get a fair share with
the sapsuckers and squirrels. The hickory makes fine masses of color in
the fall, every leaf a flower, but it was the sweet sap and sweet nuts
that first interested us. No harvest in the Wisconsin woods was ever
gathered with more pleasure and care. Also, to our delight, we found
plenty of hazelnuts, and in a few places abundance of wild apples. They
were desperately sour, and we used to fill our pockets with them and
dare each other to eat one without making a face,—no easy feat.
One hot summer day father told us that we ought to learn to swim. This
was one of the most interesting suggestions he had ever offered, but
precious little time was allowed for trips to the lake, and he seldom
tried to show us how. “Go to the frogs,” he said, “and they will give
you all the lessons you need. Watch their arms and legs and see how
smoothly they kick themselves along and dive and come up. When you want
to dive, keep your arms by your side or over your head, and kick, and
when you want to come up, let your legs drag and paddle with your
hands.”
We found a little basin among the rushes at the south end of the lake,
about waist-deep and a rod or two wide, shaped like a sunfish’s nest.
Here we kicked and plashed for many a lesson, faithfully trying to
imitate frogs; but the smooth, comfortable sliding gait of our
amphibious teachers seemed hopelessly hard to learn. When we tried to
kick frog-fashion, down went our heads as if weighted with lead the
moment our feet left the ground. One day it occurred to me to hold my
breath as long as I could and let my head sink as far as it liked
without paying any attention to it, and try to swim under the water
instead of on the surface. This method was a great success, for at the
very first trial I managed to cross the basin without touching bottom,
and soon learned the use of my limbs. Then, of course, swimming with my
head above water soon became so easy that it seemed perfectly natural.
David tried the plan with the same success. Then we began to count the
number of times that we could swim around the basin without stopping to
rest, and after twenty or thirty rounds failed to tire us, we proudly
thought that a little more practice would make us about as amphibious
as frogs.
On the fourth of July of this swimming year one of the Lawson boys came
to visit us, and we went down to the lake to spend the great warm day
with the fishes and ducks and turtles. After gliding about on the
smooth mirror water, telling stories and enjoying the company of the
happy creatures about us, we rowed to our bathing-pool, and David and I
went in for a swim, while our companion fished from the boat a little
way out beyond the rushes. After a few turns in the pool, it occurred
to me that it was now about time to try deep water. Swimming through
the thick growth of rushes and lilies was somewhat dangerous,
especially for a beginner, because one’s arms and legs might be
entangled among the long, limber stems; nevertheless I ventured and
struck out boldly enough for the boat, where the water was twenty or
thirty feet deep. When I reached the end of the little skiff I raised
my right hand to take hold of it to surprise Lawson, whose back was
toward me and who was not aware of my approach; but I failed to reach
high enough, and, of course, the weight of my arm and the stroke
against the overleaning stern of the boat shoved me down and I sank,
struggling, frightened and confused. As soon as my feet touched the
bottom, I slowly rose to the surface, but before I could get breath
enough to call for help, sank back again and lost all control of
myself. After sinking and rising I don’t know how many times, some
water got into my lungs and I began to drown. Then suddenly my mind
seemed to clear. I remembered that I could swim under water, and,
making a desperate struggle toward the shore, I reached a point where
with my toes on the bottom I got my mouth above the surface, gasped for
help, and was pulled into the boat.
This humiliating accident spoiled the day, and we all agreed to keep it
a profound secret. My sister Sarah had heard my cry for help, and on
our arrival at the house inquired what had happened. “Were you
drowning, John? I heard you cry you couldna get oot.” Lawson made haste
to reply, “Oh, no! He was juist haverin (making fun).”
I was very much ashamed of myself, and at night, after calmly reviewing
the affair, concluded that there had been no reasonable cause for the
accident, and that I ought to punish myself for so nearly losing my
life from unmanly fear. Accordingly at the very first opportunity, I
stole away to the lake by myself, got into my boat, and instead of
going back to the old swimming-bowl for further practice, or to try to
do sanely and well what I had so ignominiously failed to do in my first
adventure, that is, to swim out through the rushes and lilies, I rowed
directly out to the middle of the lake, stripped, stood up on the seat
in the stern, and with grim deliberation took a header and dove
straight down thirty or forty feet, turned easily, and, letting my feet
drag, paddled straight to the surface with my hands as father had at
first directed me to do. I then swam round the boat, glorying in my
suddenly acquired confidence and victory over myself, climbed into it,
and dived again, with the same triumphant success. I think I went down
four or five times, and each time as I made the dive-spring shouted
aloud, “Take that!” feeling that I was getting most gloriously even
with myself.
Never again from that day to this have I lost control of myself in
water. If suddenly thrown overboard at sea in the dark, or even while
asleep, I think I would immediately right myself in a way some would
call “instinct,” rise among the waves, catch my breath, and try to plan
what would better be done. Never was victory over self more complete. I
have been a good swimmer ever since. At a slow gait I think I could
swim all day in smooth water moderate in temperature. When I was a
student at Madison, I used to go on long swimming-journeys, called
exploring expeditions, along the south shore of Lake Mendota, on
Saturdays, sometimes alone, sometimes with another amphibious explorer
by the name of Fuller.
My adventures in Fountain Lake call to mind the story of a boy who in
climbing a tree to rob a crow’s nest fell and broke his leg, but as
soon as it healed compelled himself to climb to the top of the tree he
had fallen from.
Like Scotch children in general we were taught grim self-denial, in
season and out of season, to mortify the flesh, keep our bodies in
subjection to Bible laws, and mercilessly punish ourselves for every
fault imagined or committed. A little boy, while helping his sister to
drive home the cows, happened to use a forbidden word. “I’ll have to
tell fayther on ye,” said the horrified sister. “I’ll tell him that ye
said a bad word.” “Weel,” said the boy, by way of excuse, “I couldna
help the word comin’ into me, and it’s na waur to speak it oot than to
let it rin through ye.”
A Scotch fiddler playing at a wedding drank so much whiskey that on the
way home he fell by the roadside. In the morning he was ashamed and
angry and determined to punish himself. Making haste to the house of a
friend, a gamekeeper, he called him out, and requested the loan of a
gun. The alarmed gamekeeper, not liking the fiddler’s looks and voice,
anxiously inquired what he was going to do with it. “Surely,” said he,
“you’re no gan to shoot yoursel.” “No-o,” with characteristic candor
replied the penitent fiddler, “I dinna think that I’ll juist exactly
kill mysel, but I’m gaun to tak a dander doon the burn (brook) wi’ the
gun and gie mysel a deevil o’ a fleg (fright).”
One calm summer evening a red-headed woodpecker was drowned in our
lake. The accident happened at the south end, opposite our memorable
swimming-hole, a few rods from the place where I came so near being
drowned years before. I had returned to the old home during a summer
vacation of the State University, and, having made a beginning in
botany, I was, of course, full of enthusiasm and ran eagerly to my
beloved pogonia, calopogon, and cypripedium gardens, osmunda ferneries,
and the lake lilies and pitcher-plants. A little before sundown the
day-breeze died away, and the lake, reflecting the wooded hills like a
mirror, was dimpled and dotted and streaked here and there where fishes
and turtles were poking out their heads and muskrats were sculling
themselves along with their flat tails making glittering tracks. After
lingering a while, dreamily recalling the old, hard, half-happy days,
and watching my favorite red-headed woodpeckers pursuing moths like
regular flycatchers, I swam out through the rushes and up the middle of
the lake to the north end and back, gliding slowly, looking about me,
enjoying the scenery as I would in a saunter along the shore, and
studying the habits of the animals as they were explained and recorded
on the smooth glassy water.
CLOCK. THE STAR HAND RISING AND SETTING WITH THE SUN ALL THE YEAR
CLOCK. THE STAR HAND RISING AND SETTING WITH THE SUN ALL THE YEAR
Invented by the author in his boyhoodToList
On the way back, when I was within a hundred rods or so of the end of
my voyage, I noticed a peculiar plashing disturbance that could not, I
thought, be made by a jumping fish or any other inhabitant of the lake;
for instead of low regular out-circling ripples such as are made by the
popping up of a head, or like those raised by the quick splash of a
leaping fish, or diving loon or muskrat, a continuous struggle was kept
up for several minutes ere the outspreading, interfering ring-waves
began to die away. Swimming hastily to the spot to try to discover what
had happened, I found one of my woodpeckers floating motionless with
outspread wings. All was over. Had I been a minute or two earlier, I
might have saved him. He had glanced on the water I suppose in pursuit
of a moth, was unable to rise from it, and died struggling, as I nearly
did at this same spot. Like me he seemed to have lost his mind in blind
confusion and fear. The water was warm, and had he kept still with his
head a little above the surface, he would sooner or later have been
wafted ashore. The best aimed flights of birds and man “gang aft
agley,” but this was the first case I had witnessed of a bird losing
its life by drowning.
Doubtless accidents to animals are far more common than is generally
known. I have seen quails killed by flying against our house when
suddenly startled. Some birds get entangled in hairs of their own nests
and die. Once I found a poor snipe in our meadow that was unable to fly
on account of difficult egg-birth. Pitying the poor mother, I picked
her up out of the grass and helped her as gently as I could, and as
soon as the egg was born she flew gladly away. Oftentimes I have
thought it strange that one could walk through the woods and mountains
and plains for years without seeing a single blood-spot. Most wild
animals get into the world and out of it without being noticed.
Nevertheless we at last sadly learn that they are all subject to the
vicissitudes of fortune like ourselves. Many birds lose their lives in
storms. I remember a particularly severe Wisconsin winter, when the
temperature was many degrees below zero and the snow was deep,
preventing the quail, which feed on the ground, from getting anything
like enough of food, as was pitifully shown by a flock I found on our
farm frozen solid in a thicket of oak sprouts. They were in a circle
about a foot wide, with their heads outward, packed close together for
warmth. Yet all had died without a struggle, perhaps more from
starvation than frost. Many small birds lose their lives in the storms
of early spring, or even summer. One mild spring morning I picked up
more than a score out of the grass and flowers, most of them darling
singers that had perished in a sudden storm of sleety rain and hail.
In a hollow at the foot of an oak tree that I had chopped down one cold
winter day, I found a poor ground squirrel frozen solid in its snug
grassy nest, in the middle of a store of nearly a peck of wheat it had
carefully gathered. I carried it home and gradually thawed and warmed
it in the kitchen, hoping it would come to life like a pickerel I
caught in our lake through a hole in the ice, which, after being frozen
as hard as a bone and thawed at the fireside, squirmed itself out of
the grasp of the cook when she began to scrape it, bounced off the
table, and danced about on the floor, making wonderful springy jumps as
if trying to find its way back home to the lake. But for the poor
spermophile nothing I could do in the way of revival was of any avail.
Its life had passed away without the slightest struggle, as it lay
asleep curled up like a ball, with its tail wrapped about it.
IVToC
A PARADISE OF BIRDS
Bird Favorites—The Prairie Chickens—Water-Fowl—A Loon on the
Defensive—Passenger Pigeons.
The Wisconsin oak openings were a summer paradise for song birds, and a
fine place to get acquainted with them; for the trees stood wide apart,
allowing one to see the happy homeseekers as they arrived in the
spring, their mating, nest-building, the brooding and feeding of the
young, and, after they were full-fledged and strong, to see all the
families of the neighborhood gathering and getting ready to leave in
the fall. Excepting the geese and ducks and pigeons nearly all our
summer birds arrived singly or in small draggled flocks, but when frost
and falling leaves brought their winter homes to mind they assembled in
large flocks on dead or leafless trees by the side of a meadow or
field, perhaps to get acquainted and talk the thing over. Some species
held regular daily meetings for several weeks before finally setting
forth on their long southern journeys. Strange to say, we never saw
them start. Some morning we would find them gone. Doubtless they
migrated in the night time. Comparatively few species remained all
winter, the nuthatch, chickadee, owl, prairie chicken, quail, and a few
stragglers from the main flocks of ducks, jays, hawks, and bluebirds.
Only after the country was settled did either jays or bluebirds winter
with us.
The brave, frost-defying chickadees and nuthatches stayed all the year
wholly independent of farms and man’s food and affairs.
With the first hints of spring came the brave little bluebirds, darling
singers as blue as the best sky, and of course we all loved them. Their
rich, crispy warbling is perfectly delightful, soothing and cheering,
sweet and whisperingly low, Nature’s fine love touches, every note
going straight home into one’s heart. And withal they are hardy and
brave, fearless fighters in defense of home. When we boys approached
their knot-hole nests, the bold little fellows kept scolding and diving
at us and tried to strike us in the face, and oftentimes we were afraid
they would prick our eyes. But the boldness of the little housekeepers
only made us love them the more.
None of the bird people of Wisconsin welcomed us more heartily than the
common robin. Far from showing alarm at the coming of settlers into
their native woods, they reared their young around our gardens as if
they liked us, and how heartily we admired the beauty and fine manners
of these graceful birds and their loud cheery song of _Fear not, fear
not, cheer up, cheer up_. It was easy to love them for they reminded us
of the robin redbreast of Scotland. Like the bluebirds they dared every
danger in defense of home, and we often wondered that birds so gentle
could be so bold and that sweet-voiced singers could so fiercely fight
and scold.
Of all the great singers that sweeten Wisconsin one of the best known
and best loved is the brown thrush or thrasher, strong and able without
being familiar, and easily seen and heard. Rosy purple evenings after
thundershowers are the favorite song-times, when the winds have died
away and the steaming ground and the leaves and flowers fill the air
with fragrance. Then the male makes haste to the topmost spray of an
oak tree and sings loud and clear with delightful enthusiasm until
sundown, mostly I suppose for his mate sitting on the precious eggs in
a brush heap. And how faithful and watchful and daring he is! Woe to
the snake or squirrel that ventured to go nigh the nest! We often saw
him diving on them, pecking them about the head and driving them away
as bravely as the kingbird drives away hawks. Their rich and varied
strains make the air fairly quiver. We boys often tried to interpret
the wild ringing melody and put it into words.
After the arrival of the thrushes came the bobolinks, gushing,
gurgling, inexhaustible fountains of song, pouring forth floods of
sweet notes over the broad Fox River meadows in wonderful variety and
volume, crowded and mixed beyond description, as they hovered on
quivering wings above their hidden nests in the grass. It seemed
marvelous to us that birds so moderate in size could hold so much of
this wonderful song stuff. Each one of them poured forth music enough
for a whole flock, singing as if its whole body, feathers and all, were
made up of music, flowing, glowing, bubbling melody interpenetrated
here and there with small scintillating prickles and spicules. We never
became so intimately acquainted with the bobolinks as with the
thrushes, for they lived far out on the broad Fox River meadows, while
the thrushes sang on the tree-tops around every home. The bobolinks
were among the first of our great singers to leave us in the fall,
going apparently direct to the rice-fields of the Southern States,
where they grew fat and were slaughtered in countless numbers for food.
Sad fate for singers so purely divine.
One of the gayest of the singers is the redwing blackbird. In the
spring, when his scarlet epaulets shine brightest, and his little
modest gray wife is sitting on the nest, built on rushes in a swamp, he
sits on a nearby oak and devotedly sings almost all day. His rich
simple strain is _baumpalee_, _baumpalee_, or _bobalee_ as interpreted
by some. In summer, after nesting cares are over, they assemble in
flocks of hundreds and thousands to feast on Indian corn when it is in
the milk. Scattering over a field, each selects an ear, strips the husk
down far enough to lay bare an inch or two of the end of it, enjoys an
exhilarating feast, and after all are full they rise simultaneously
with a quick birr of wings like an old-fashioned church congregation
fluttering to their feet when the minister after giving out the hymn
says, “Let the congregation arise and sing.” Alighting on nearby trees,
they sing with a hearty vengeance, bursting out without any puttering
prelude in gloriously glad concert, hundreds or thousands of exulting
voices with sweet gurgling _baumpalees_ mingled with chippy vibrant and
exploding globules of musical notes, making a most enthusiastic,
indescribable joy-song, a combination unlike anything to be heard
elsewhere in the bird kingdom; something like bagpipes, flutes,
violins, pianos, and human-like voices all bursting and bubbling at
once. Then suddenly some one of the joyful congregation shouts Chirr!
Chirr! and all stop as if shot.