O there were three jolly youngsters;
And a-hunting they did go,
With a setter-dog and a pointer-dog
And a yaller-dog also.
Looky there!
And they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the first thing they did find
Was a dingling-dangling hornets' nest
A-swinging in the wind.
Looky there!
And the first one said, "What is it?"
Said the next, "Let's punch and see,"
And the third one said, a mile from there,
"I wish we'd let it be!"
Looky there! (Showing the back of his neck.)
And they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the next thing they did raise
Was a bobbin bunnie cotton-tail
That vanished from their gaze.
Looky there!
One said it was a hot baseball,
Zippt thru the brambly thatch,
But the others said 'twas a note by post
Or a telergraph dispatch.
Looky there!
So they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the next thing they did sight,
Was a great big bull-dog chasing them,
And a farmer hollering "Skite!"
Looky there!
And the first one said "Hi-jinktum!"
And the next, "Hi-jinktum-jee!"
And the last one said, "Them very words
Has just occurred to me!"
Looky there! (Showing the tattered seat of his pants.)
This is the hunting song of the American Bander-log[B], and this kind
of hunting is better than the kind that needs a gun. To one who falls
into the habit of it, the gun is indeed a useless tool. I am reminded
of a day I spent with a gun at a remote place in the Rocky Mountains,
where, during the 25 days I have camped there on four different trips,
I have seen as many as 150 of the wildest of North American animals,
the Rocky Mountain sheep. I lay in ambush for three hours waiting for
sheep, and the sheep came; but they were out of range again before I
saw them because I had become so interested in killing mosquitoes! I
timed myself at intervals, and 80 per minute for three solid hours
makes an honest estimate of 14,400. And I was hungry, too. I fancy the
sheep were not frightened but wished the good work to go on
undisturbed.
Do you, perhaps, like candy? Did you ever consider that the only
sweetmeat our forefathers had for thousands of years was wild honey?
And those sour times--if I may call them such--before the days of
sugar and candy, come much nearer to us than you realize, for I can
remember my own grandfather's tales of bee-hunting in Tennessee. Just
imagine how exciting it must have been in the days of long-ago to find
a tree loaded with--candy! A bee tree! If Bill were to go back with me
to the wild woods of Tennessee, some thrill of that old excitement would
well up from the depths of his soul at finding such a tree. You may
wonder what I am driving at, so I will tell you, that one of the most
exciting experiences of my boyhood was a battle with a colony of
bumble bees. I was led into it by an older companion and the ardor
and excitement of that battle, as I even now remember it, are wholly
inexplicable to me except I think of it as a representation through
inherited instinct of a ten-thousand-years' search for wild honey.
My schooling grew out of instinctive reactions toward natural things;
hunting and fishing, digging and planting in the Spring, nutting in
the Fall, and the thousands of variations which these things involve,
and I believe that the play of instinct is the only solid basis of
growth of a boy or girl. I believe, furthermore, that the very
essence of boy humor is bound up with the amazing incongruity of his
instincts. Was there ever a boy whose instincts (many of them mere
fatuity like his digestive appendix) have not led him time and again
into just thin air, to say nothing of water and mud! For my part I
have never known anything more supremely funny than learning what a
hopeless mess of wood pulp and worms a bumble-bee's nest really is,
except, perhaps, seeing another boy learn the same stinging lesson.
The use of formulas, too, is unquestionably instinctive, and we all
know how apt a boy is to indulge in formulas of the hocus-pocus sort,
like Tom Sawyer's recipe for removing warts by the combined charm of
black midnight and a black cat, dead. And a boy arrives only late
in his boyhood, if ever, to some sense of the distinction between
formulas of this kind and such as are vital and rational. I think that
there is much instruction and a great deal of humor connected with the
play of this instinctive tendency. I remember a great big boy, a hired
man on my grandfather's farm, in fact, who was led into a fight with a
nest of hornets with the expectation that he would bear a charmed skin
if he shouted in loud repetition the words, "Jew's-harp, jew's-harp."
Talk about catching birds by putting salt on their tails! Once, as
I rowed around a bend on a small stream, I saw a sand-hill crane
stalking along the shore. Into the water I went with the suddenly
conceived idea that I could catch that crane, and, swimming low, I
reached the shore, about 20 feet from the bird, jumped quickly out
of the water, made a sudden dash and the bird was captured! Once I
saw a catfish, gasping for air at the surface of water that had been
muddied by the opening of a sluice-way in a dam. Swimming up behind
the fish, I jambed a hand into each gill, and, helped by the fish's
tail, I pushed it ashore; and it weighed 36 pounds! A friend of mine,
by the name of Stebbins, once followed his dog in a chase after a jack
rabbit. The rabbit made a wide circle and came back to its own trail
some distance ahead of the dog, then it made a big sidewise jump,
and sat looking at the dog as it passed by; so intently indeed that
Stebbins walked up behind the rabbit and took it up with his hands.
I think you will agree with me that my outdoor school was a wonderful
thing. The Land of Out-of-Doors! To young people the best school and
play-house, and to older people an endless asylum of delight.
"The grass so little has to do,
A sphere of simple green
With only butterflies to brood
And bees to entertain.
"And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow--to everything.
"And thread the dew all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine,
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.
"And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.
"And then to dwell in sovereign barns
And dream the days away,
The grass so little has to do--
I wish I were the hay."
* * * * *
The most important thing, I should say, for the success of Bill's fine
school is that ample opportunity be given to Bill for every variety of
play including swimming and skating, and wherever possible, boating.
It is ridiculous to attempt to teach Bill anything without the
substantial results of play to build upon. Playgrounds are the
cheapest and, in many respects, the best of schools, but they are
almost entirely lacking in many of our towns which have grown to
cities in a generation in this great nation of villagers. The Boroughs
of the Bethlehems, for example, have no playground connected with a
Public School, nor any other public place where boys can play ball.