The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
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THE STORY OF MY BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
by
JOHN MUIR
With Illustrations from Sketches by the Author
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1912 and 1913, by the Atlantic Monthly Company
Copyright, 1913, by John Muir
All Rights Reserved Including the Right to Reproduce
This Book or Parts Thereof in Any Form
Published March 1913
Fourteenth Impression
The Riverside Press
Cambridge . Massachusetts
Printed in the U.S.A.
Contents
I. A BOYHOOD IN SCOTLAND 1
Earliest Recollections--The "Dandy Doctor" Terror--Deeds
of Daring--The Savagery of Boys--School and
Fighting--Birds'-nesting.
II. A NEW WORLD 51
Stories of America--Glorious News--Crossing the
Atlantic--The New Home--A Baptism in Nature--New
Birds--The Adventures of Watch--Scotch
Correction--Marauding Indians.
III. LIFE ON A WISCONSIN FARM 90
Humanity in Oxen--Jack, the Pony--Learning to Ride--Nob
and Nell--Snakes--Mosquitoes and their Kin--Fish and
Fishing--Considering the Lilies--Learning to Swim--A
Narrow Escape from Drowning and a Victory--Accidents to
Animals.
IV. A PARADISE OF BIRDS 137
Bird Favorites--The Prairie Chickens--Water-Fowl--A Loon
on the Defensive--Passenger Pigeons.
V. YOUNG HUNTERS 168
American Head-Hunters--Deer--A Resurrected
Woodpecker--Muskrats--Foxes and Badgers--A Pet
Coon--Bathing--Squirrels--Gophers--A Burglarious Shrike.
VI. THE PLOUGHBOY 199
The Crops--Doing Chores--The Sights and Sounds of
Winter--Road-making--The Spirit-rapping
Craze--Tuberculosis among the Settlers--A Cruel
Brother--The Rights of the Indians--Put to the Plough at
the Age of Twelve--In the Harvest-Field--Over-Industry
among the Settlers--Running the Breaking-Plough--Digging
a Well--Choke-Damp--Lining Bees.
VII. KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS 240
Hungry for Knowledge--Borrowing Books--Paternal
Opposition--Snatched Moments--Early Rising proves a Way
out of Difficulties--The Cellar Workshop--Inventions--An
Early-Rising Machine--Novel Clocks--Hygrometers, etc.--A
Neighbor's Advice.
VIII. THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY 262
Leaving Home--Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville--A Ride
on a Locomotive--At the State Fair in Madison--Employment
in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien--Back to
Madison--Entering the University--Teaching School--First
Lesson in Botany--More Inventions--The University of the
Wilderness.
INDEX 289
Illustrations
JOHN MUIR _Frontispiece_
MUIR'S LAKE (FOUNTAIN LAKE) AND THE GARDEN MEADOW 62
OUR FIRST WISCONSIN HOME 100
CLOCK WITH HAND RISING AND SETTING WITH THE SUN, INVENTED
BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 132
BAROMETER INVENTED BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 164
COMBINED THERMOMETER, HYGROMETER, BAROMETER, AND
PYROMETER, INVENTED BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 196
THE HICKORY HILL HOUSE, BUILT IN 1857 230
THERMOMETER INVENTED BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 258
SELF-SETTING SAWMILL. MODEL BUILT IN CELLAR. INVENTED BY
THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 258
MY DESK, MADE AND USED AT THE WISCONSIN STATE UNIVERSITY 284
_The Story of My Boyhood and Youth_
I
A BOYHOOD IN SCOTLAND
Earliest Recollections--The "Dandy Doctor" Terror--Deeds of
Daring--The Savagery of Boys--School and
Fighting--Birds'-nesting.
When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild,
and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and
wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the
stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the
land lay in smooth cultivation. With red-blooded playmates, wild as
myself, I loved to wander in the fields to hear the birds sing, and
along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds,
eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low; and
best of all to watch the waves in awful storms thundering on the black
headlands and craggy ruins of the old Dunbar Castle when the sea and
the sky, the waves and the clouds, were mingled together as one. We
never thought of playing truant, but after I was five or six years old
I ran away to the seashore or the fields almost every Saturday, and
every day in the school vacations except Sundays, though solemnly
warned that I must play at home in the garden and back yard, lest I
should learn to think bad thoughts and say bad words. All in vain. In
spite of the sure sore punishments that followed like shadows, the
natural inherited wildness in our blood ran true on its glorious
course as invincible and unstoppable as stars.
My earliest recollections of the country were gained on short walks
with my grandfather when I was perhaps not over three years old. On
one of these walks grandfather took me to Lord Lauderdale's gardens,
where I saw figs growing against a sunny wall and tasted some of
them, and got as many apples to eat as I wished. On another memorable
walk in a hay-field, when we sat down to rest on one of the haycocks I
heard a sharp, prickly, stinging cry, and, jumping up eagerly, called
grandfather's attention to it. He said he heard only the wind, but I
insisted on digging into the hay and turning it over until we
discovered the source of the strange exciting sound,--a mother field
mouse with half a dozen naked young hanging to her teats. This to me
was a wonderful discovery. No hunter could have been more excited on
discovering a bear and her cubs in a wilderness den.
I was sent to school before I had completed my third year. The first
schoolday was doubtless full of wonders, but I am not able to recall
any of them. I remember the servant washing my face and getting soap
in my eyes, and mother hanging a little green bag with my first book
in it around my neck so I would not lose it, and its blowing back in
the sea-wind like a flag. But before I was sent to school my
grandfather, as I was told, had taught me my letters from shop signs
across the street. I can remember distinctly how proud I was when I
had spelled my way through the little first book into the second,
which seemed large and important, and so on to the third. Going from
one book to another formed a grand triumphal advancement, the memories
of which still stand out in clear relief.
The third book contained interesting stories as well as plain
reading-and spelling-lessons. To me the best story of all was
"Llewellyn's Dog," the first animal that comes to mind after the
needle-voiced field mouse. It so deeply interested and touched me and
some of my classmates that we read it over and over with aching
hearts, both in and out of school and shed bitter tears over the brave
faithful dog, Gelert, slain by his own master, who imagined that he
had devoured his son because he came to him all bloody when the boy
was lost, though he had saved the child's life by killing a big wolf.
We have to look far back to learn how great may be the capacity of a
child's heart for sorrow and sympathy with animals as well as with
human friends and neighbors. This auld-lang-syne story stands out in
the throng of old schoolday memories as clearly as if I had myself
been one of that Welsh hunting-party--heard the bugles blowing, seen
Gelert slain, joined in the search for the lost child, discovered it
at last happy and smiling among the grass and bushes beside the dead,
mangled wolf, and wept with Llewellyn over the sad fate of his noble,
faithful dog friend.
Another favorite in this book was Southey's poem "The Inchcape Bell,"
a story of a priest and a pirate. A good priest in order to warn
seamen in dark stormy weather hung a big bell on the dangerous
Inchcape Rock. The greater the storm and higher the waves, the louder
rang the warning bell, until it was cut off and sunk by wicked Ralph
the Rover. One fine day, as the story goes, when the bell was ringing
gently, the pirate put out to the rock, saying, "I'll sink that bell
and plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok." So he cut the rope, and down
went the bell "with a gurgling sound; the bubbles rose and burst
around," etc. Then "Ralph the Rover sailed away; he scoured the seas
for many a day; and now, grown rich with plundered store, he steers
his course for Scotland's shore." Then came a terrible storm with
cloud darkness and night darkness and high roaring waves, "Now where
we are," cried the pirate, "I cannot tell, but I wish I could hear the
Inchcape bell." And the story goes on to tell how the wretched rover
"tore his hair," and "curst himself in his despair," when "with a
shivering shock" the stout ship struck on the Inchcape Rock, and went
down with Ralph and his plunder beside the good priest's bell. The
story appealed to our love of kind deeds and of wildness and fair
play.
A lot of terrifying experiences connected with these first schooldays
grew out of crimes committed by the keeper of a low lodging-house in
Edinburgh, who allowed poor homeless wretches to sleep on benches or
the floor for a penny or so a night, and, when kind Death came to
their relief, sold the bodies for dissection to Dr. Hare of the
medical school. None of us children ever heard anything like the
original story. The servant girls told us that "Dandy Doctors," clad
in long black cloaks and supplied with a store of sticking-plaster of
wondrous adhesiveness, prowled at night about the country lanes and
even the town streets, watching for children to choke and sell. The
Dandy Doctor's business method, as the servants explained it, was with
lightning quickness to clap a sticking-plaster on the face of a
scholar, covering mouth and nose, preventing breathing or crying for
help, then pop us under his long black cloak and carry us to Edinburgh
to be sold and sliced into small pieces for folk to learn how we were
made. We always mentioned the name "Dandy Doctor" in a fearful
whisper, and never dared venture out of doors after dark. In the short
winter days it got dark before school closed, and in cloudy weather
we sometimes had difficulty in finding our way home unless a servant
with a lantern was sent for us; but during the Dandy Doctor period the
school was closed earlier, for if detained until the usual hour the
teacher could not get us to leave the schoolroom. We would rather stay
all night supperless than dare the mysterious doctors supposed to be
lying in wait for us. We had to go up a hill called the Davel Brae
that lay between the schoolhouse and the main street. One evening just
before dark, as we were running up the hill, one of the boys shouted,
"A Dandy Doctor! A Dandy Doctor!" and we all fled pellmell back into
the schoolhouse to the astonishment of Mungo Siddons, the teacher. I
can remember to this day the amused look on the good dominie's face as
he stared and tried to guess what had got into us, until one of the
older boys breathlessly explained that there was an awful big Dandy
Doctor on the Brae and we couldna gang hame. Others corroborated the
dreadful news. "Yes! We saw him, plain as onything, with his lang
black cloak to hide us in, and some of us thought we saw a
sticken-plaister ready in his hand." We were in such a state of fear
and trembling that the teacher saw he wasn't going to get rid of us
without going himself as leader. He went only a short distance,
however, and turned us over to the care of the two biggest scholars,
who led us to the top of the Brae and then left us to scurry home and
dash into the door like pursued squirrels diving into their holes.
Just before school skaled (closed), we all arose and sang the fine
hymn "Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing." In the spring when the
swallows were coming back from their winter homes we sang--
"Welcome, welcome, little stranger,
Welcome from a foreign shore;
Safe escaped from many a danger ..."
and while singing we all swayed in rhythm with the music. "The
Cuckoo," that always told his name in the spring of the year, was
another favorite song, and when there was nothing in particular to
call to mind any special bird or animal, the songs we sang were widely
varied, such as
"The whale, the whale is the beast for me,
Plunging along through the deep, deep sea."
But the best of all was "Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing," though
at that time the most significant part I fear was the first three
words.
With my school lessons father made me learn hymns and Bible verses.
For learning "Rock of Ages" he gave me a penny, and I thus became
suddenly rich. Scotch boys are seldom spoiled with money. We thought
more of a penny those economical days than the poorest American
schoolboy thinks of a dollar. To decide what to do with that first
penny was an extravagantly serious affair. I ran in great excitement
up and down the street, examining the tempting goodies in the shop
windows before venturing on so important an investment. My playmates
also became excited when the wonderful news got abroad that Johnnie
Muir had a penny, hoping to obtain a taste of the orange, apple, or
candy it was likely to bring forth.
At this time infants were baptized and vaccinated a few days after
birth. I remember very well a fight with the doctor when my brother
David was vaccinated. This happened, I think, before I was sent to
school. I couldn't imagine what the doctor, a tall, severe-looking man
in black, was doing to my brother, but as mother, who was holding him
in her arms, offered no objection, I looked on quietly while he
scratched the arm until I saw blood. Then, unable to trust even my
mother, I managed to spring up high enough to grab and bite the
doctor's arm, yelling that I wasna gan to let him hurt my bonnie
brither, while to my utter astonishment mother and the doctor only
laughed at me. So far from complete at times is sympathy between
parents and children, and so much like wild beasts are baby boys,
little fighting, biting, climbing pagans.
Father was proud of his garden and seemed always to be trying to make
it as much like Eden as possible, and in a corner of it he gave each
of us a little bit of ground for our very own in which we planted what
we best liked, wondering how the hard dry seeds could change into soft
leaves and flowers and find their way out to the light; and, to see
how they were coming on, we used to dig up the larger ones, such as
peas and beans, every day. My aunt had a corner assigned to her in our
garden which she filled with lilies, and we all looked with the utmost
respect and admiration at that precious lily-bed and wondered whether
when we grew up we should ever be rich enough to own one anything like
so grand. We imagined that each lily was worth an enormous sum of
money and never dared to touch a single leaf or petal of them. We
really stood in awe of them. Far, far was I then from the wild lily
gardens of California that I was destined to see in their glory.
When I was a little boy at Mungo Siddons's school a flower-show was
held in Dunbar, and I saw a number of the exhibitors carrying large
handfuls of dahlias, the first I had ever seen. I thought them
marvelous in size and beauty and, as in the case of my aunt's lilies,
wondered if I should ever be rich enough to own some of them.
Although I never dared to touch my aunt's sacred lilies, I have good
cause to remember stealing some common flowers from an apothecary,
Peter Lawson, who also answered the purpose of a regular physician to
most of the poor people of the town and adjacent country. He had a
pony which was considered very wild and dangerous, and when he was
called out of town he mounted this wonderful beast, which, after
standing long in the stable, was frisky and boisterous, and often to
our delight reared and jumped and danced about from side to side of
the street before he could be persuaded to go ahead. We boys gazed in
awful admiration and wondered how the druggist could be so brave and
able as to get on and stay on that wild beast's back. This famous
Peter loved and when she anxiously took me in her arms and inquired
what was the matter, I told her that I had swallowed my tongue. She
only laughed at me, much to my astonishment, when I expected that she
would bewail the awful loss her boy had sustained. My sisters, who
were older than I, oftentimes said when I happened to be talking too
much, "It's a pity you hadn't swallowed at least half of that long
tongue of yours when you were little."
It appears natural for children to be fond of water, although the
Scotch method of making every duty dismal contrived to make necessary
bathing for health terrible to us. I well remember among the awful
experiences of childhood being taken by the servant to the seashore
when I was between two and three years old, stripped at the side of a
deep pool in the rocks, plunged into it among crawling crawfish and
slippery wriggling snake-like eels, and drawn up gasping and shrieking
only to be plunged down again and again. As the time approached for
this terrible bathing, I used to hide in the flowers and had a fine
garden surrounded by an iron fence, through the bars of which, when I
thought no one saw me, I oftentimes snatched a flower and took to my
heels. One day Peter discovered me in this mischief, dashed out into
the street and caught me. I screamed that I wouldna steal any more if
he would let me go. He didn't say anything but just dragged me along
to the stable where he kept the wild pony, pushed me in right back of
its heels, and shut the door. I was screaming, of course, but as soon
as I was imprisoned the fear of being kicked quenched all noise. I
hardly dared breathe. My only hope was in motionless silence. Imagine
the agony I endured! I did not steal any more of his flowers. He was a
good hard judge of boy nature.
I was in Peter's hands some time before this, when I was about two and
a half years old. The servant girl bathed us small folk before putting
us to bed. The smarting soapy scrubbings of the Saturday nights in
preparation for the Sabbath were particularly severe, and we all
dreaded them. My sister Sarah, the next older than me, wanted the
long-legged stool I was sitting on awaiting my turn, so she just
tipped me off. My chin struck on the edge of the bath-tub, and, as I
was talking at the time, my tongue happened to be in the way of my
teeth when they were closed by the blow, and a deep gash was cut on
the side of it, which bled profusely. Mother came running at the noise
I made, wrapped me up, put me in the servant girl's arms and told her
to run with me through the garden and out by a back way to Peter
Lawson to have something done to stop the bleeding. He simply pushed a
wad of cotton into my mouth after soaking it in some brown astringent
stuff, and told me to be sure to keep my mouth shut and all would soon
be well. Mother put me to bed, calmed my fears, and told me to lie
still and sleep like a gude bairn. But just as I was dropping off to
sleep I swallowed the bulky wad of medicated cotton and with it, as I
imagined, my tongue also. My screams over so great a loss brought
mother, darkest corners of the house, and oftentimes a long search
was required to find me. But after we were a few years older, we
enjoyed bathing with other boys as we wandered along the shore,
careful, however, not to get into a pool that had an invisible
boy-devouring monster at the bottom of it. Such pools, miniature
maelstroms, were called "sookin-in-goats" and were well known to most
of us. Nevertheless we never ventured into any pool on strange parts
of the coast before we had thrust a stick into it. If the stick were
not pulled out of our hands, we boldly entered and enjoyed plashing
and ducking long ere we had learned to swim.
One of our best playgrounds was the famous old Dunbar Castle, to which
King Edward fled after his defeat at Bannockburn. It was built more
than a thousand years ago, and though we knew little of its history,
we had heard many mysterious stories of the battles fought about its
walls, and firmly believed that every bone we found in the ruins
belonged to an ancient warrior. We tried to see who could climb
highest on the crumbling peaks and crags, and took chances that no
cautious mountaineer would try. That I did not fall and finish my
rock-scrambling in those adventurous boyhood days seems now a
reasonable wonder.
Among our best games were running, jumping, wrestling, and scrambling.
I was so proud of my skill as a climber that when I first heard of
hell from a servant girl who loved to tell its horrors and warn us
that if we did anything wrong we would be cast into it, I always
insisted that I could climb out of it. I imagined it was only a sooty
pit with stone walls like those of the castle, and I felt sure there
must be chinks and cracks in the masonry for fingers and toes. Anyhow
the terrors of the horrible place seldom lasted long beyond the
telling; for natural faith casts out fear.
Most of the Scotch children believe in ghosts, and some under peculiar
conditions continue to believe in them all through life. Grave ghosts
are deemed particularly dangerous, and many of the most credulous will
go far out of their way to avoid passing through or near a graveyard
in the dark. After being instructed by the servants in the nature,
looks, and habits of the various black and white ghosts, boowuzzies,
and witches we often speculated as to whether they could run fast, and
tried to believe that we had a good chance to get away from most of
them. To improve our speed and wind, we often took long runs into the
country. Tam o' Shanter's mare outran a lot of witches,--at least
until she reached a place of safety beyond the keystone of the
bridge,--and we thought perhaps we also might be able to outrun them.
Our house formerly belonged to a physician, and a servant girl told us
that the ghost of the dead doctor haunted one of the unoccupied rooms
in the second story that was kept dark on account of a heavy
window-tax. Our bedroom was adjacent to the ghost room, which had in
it a lot of chemical apparatus,--glass tubing, glass and brass
retorts, test-tubes, flasks, etc.,--and we thought that those strange
articles were still used by the old dead doctor in compounding physic.
In the long summer days David and I were put to bed several hours
before sunset. Mother tucked us in carefully, drew the curtains of the
big old-fashioned bed, and told us to lie still and sleep like gude
bairns; but we were usually out of bed, playing games of daring called
"scootchers," about as soon as our loving mother reached the foot of
the stairs, for we couldn't lie still, however hard we might try.
Going into the ghost room was regarded as a very great scootcher.
After venturing in a few steps and rushing back in terror, I used to
dare David to go as far without getting caught.
The roof of our house, as well as the crags and walls of the old
castle, offered fine mountaineering exercise. Our bedroom was lighted
by a dormer window. One night I opened it in search of good scootchers
and hung myself out over the slates, holding on to the sill, while the
wind was making a balloon of my nightgown. I then dared David to try
the adventure, and he did. Then I went out again and hung by one
hand, and David did the same. Then I hung by one finger, being careful
not to slip, and he did that too. Then I stood on the sill and
examined the edge of the left wall of the window, crept up the slates
along its side by slight finger-holds, got astride of the roof, sat
there a few minutes looking at the scenery over the garden wall while
the wind was howling and threatening to blow me off, then managed to
slip down, catch hold of the sill, and get safely back into the room.
But before attempting this scootcher, recognizing its dangerous
character, with commendable caution I warned David that in case I
should happen to slip I would grip the rain-trough when I was going
over the eaves and hang on, and that he must then run fast downstairs
and tell father to get a ladder for me, and tell him to be quick
because I would soon be tired hanging dangling in the wind by my
hands. After my return from this capital scootcher, David, not to be
outdone, crawled up to the top of the window-roof, and got bravely
astride of it; but in trying to return he lost courage and began to
greet (to cry), "I canna get doon. Oh, I canna get doon." I leaned out
of the window and shouted encouragingly, "Dinna greet, Davie, dinna
greet, I'll help ye doon. If you greet, fayther will hear, and gee us
baith an awfu' skelping." Then, standing on the sill and holding on by
one hand to the window-casing, I directed him to slip his feet down
within reach, and, after securing a good hold, I jumped inside and
dragged him in by his heels. This finished scootcher-scrambling for
the night and frightened us into bed.