The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
J >> John Muir >> The Story of My Boyhood and YouthSometimes a flock of swans were seen passing over at a great height on
their long journeys, and we admired their clear bugle notes, but they
seldom visited any of the lakes in our neighborhood, so seldom that
when they did it was talked of for years. One was shot by a blacksmith
on a millpond with a long-range Sharp's rifle, and many of the
neighbors went far to see it.
The common gray goose, Canada honker, flying in regular harrow-shaped
flocks, was one of the wildest and wariest of all the large birds that
enlivened the spring and autumn. They seldom ventured to alight in our
small lake, fearing, I suppose, that hunters might be concealed in the
rushes, but on account of their fondness for the young leaves of
winter wheat when they were a few inches high, they often alighted on
our fields when passing on their way south, and occasionally even in
our corn-fields when a snowstorm was blowing and they were hungry and
wing-weary, with nearly an inch of snow on their backs. In such times
of distress we used to pity them, even while trying to get a shot at
them. They were exceedingly cautious and circumspect; usually flew
several times round the adjacent thickets and fences to make sure that
no enemy was near before settling down, and one always stood on guard,
relieved from time to time, while the flock was feeding. Therefore
there was no chance to creep up on them unobserved; you had to be well
hidden before the flock arrived. It was the ambition of boys to be
able to shoot these wary birds. I never got but two, both of them at
one so-called lucky shot. When I ran to pick them up, one of them flew
away, but as the poor fellow was sorely wounded he didn't fly far.
When I caught him after a short chase, he uttered a piercing cry of
terror and despair, which the leader of the flock heard at a distance
of about a hundred rods. They had flown off in frightened disorder, of
course, but had got into the regular harrow-shape order when the
leader heard the cry, and I shall never forget how bravely he left his
place at the head of the flock and hurried back screaming and struck
at me in trying to save his companion. I dodged down and held my hands
over my head, and thus escaped a blow of his elbows. Fortunately I had
left my gun at the fence, and the life of this noble bird was spared
after he had risked it in trying to save his wounded friend or
neighbor or family relation. For so shy a bird boldly to attack a
hunter showed wonderful sympathy and courage. This is one of my
strangest hunting experiences. Never before had I regarded wild geese
as dangerous, or capable of such noble self-sacrificing devotion.
The loud clear call of the handsome bob-whites was one of the
pleasantest and most characteristic of our spring sounds, and we soon
learned to imitate it so well that a bold cock often accepted our
challenge and came flying to fight. The young run as soon as they are
hatched and follow their parents until spring, roosting on the ground
in a close bunch, heads out ready to scatter and fly. These fine birds
were seldom seen when we first arrived in the wilderness, but when
wheat-fields supplied abundance of food they multiplied very fast,
although oftentimes sore pressed during hard winters when the snow
reached a depth of two or three feet, covering their food, while the
mercury fell to twenty or thirty degrees below zero. Occasionally,
although shy on account of being persistently hunted, under pressure
of extreme hunger in the very coldest weather when the snow was
deepest they ventured into barnyards and even approached the doorsteps
of houses, searching for any sort of scraps and crumbs, as if
piteously begging for food. One of our neighbors saw a flock come
creeping up through the snow, unable to fly, hardly able to walk, and
while approaching the door several of them actually fell down and
died; showing that birds, usually so vigorous and apparently
independent of fortune, suffer and lose their lives in extreme weather
like the rest of us, frozen to death like settlers caught in
blizzards. None of our neighbors perished in storms, though many had
feet, ears, and fingers frost-nipped or solidly frozen.
As soon as the lake ice melted, we heard the lonely cry of the loon,
one of the wildest and most striking of all the wilderness sounds, a
strange, sad, mournful, unearthly cry, half laughing, half wailing.
Nevertheless the great northern diver, as our species is called, is a
brave, hardy, beautiful bird, able to fly under water about as well as
above it, and to spear and capture the swiftest fishes for food. Those
that haunted our lake were so wary none was shot for years, though
every boy hunter in the neighborhood was ambitious to get one to prove
his skill. On one of our bitter cold New Year holidays I was surprised
to see a loon in the small open part of the lake at the mouth of the
inlet that was kept from freezing by the warm spring water. I knew
that it could not fly out of so small a place, for these heavy birds
have to beat the water for half a mile or so before they can get
fairly on the wing. Their narrow, finlike wings are very small as
compared with the weight of the body and are evidently made for flying
through water as well as through the air, and it is by means of their
swift flight through the water and the swiftness of the blow they
strike with their long, spear-like bills that they are able to capture
the fishes on which they feed. I ran down the meadow with the gun, got
into my boat, and pursued that poor winter-bound straggler. Of course
he dived again and again, but had to come up to breathe, and I at
length got a quick shot at his head and slightly wounded or stunned
him, caught him, and ran proudly back to the house with my prize. I
carried him in my arms; he didn't struggle to get away or offer to
strike me, and when I put him on the floor in front of the kitchen
stove, he just rested quietly on his belly as noiseless and motionless
as if he were a stuffed specimen on a shelf, held his neck erect, gave
no sign of suffering from any wound, and though he was motionless, his
small black eyes seemed to be ever keenly watchful. His formidable
bill, very sharp, three or three and a half inches long, and shaped
like a pickaxe, was held perfectly level. But the wonder was that he
did not struggle or make the slightest movement. We had a
tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of great experience, who was so fond of
lying under the stove in frosty weather that it was difficult even to
poke him out with a broom; but when he saw and smelled that strange
big fishy, black and white, speckledy bird, the like of which he had
never before seen, he rushed wildly to the farther corner of the
kitchen, looked back cautiously and suspiciously, and began to make a
careful study of the handsome but dangerous-looking stranger. Becoming
more and more curious and interested, he at length advanced a step or
two for a nearer view and nearer smell; and as the wonderful bird kept
absolutely motionless, he was encouraged to venture gradually nearer
and nearer until within perhaps five or six feet of its breast. Then
the wary loon, not liking Tom's looks in so near a view, which
perhaps recalled to his mind the plundering minks and muskrats he had
to fight when they approached his nest, prepared to defend himself by
slowly, almost imperceptibly drawing back his long pickaxe bill, and
without the slightest fuss or stir held it level and ready just over
his tail. With that dangerous bill drawn so far back out of the way,
Tom's confidence in the stranger's peaceful intentions seemed almost
complete, and, thus encouraged, he at last ventured forward with
wondering, questioning eyes and quivering nostrils until he was only
eighteen or twenty inches from the loon's smooth white breast. When
the beautiful bird, apparently as peaceful and inoffensive as a
flower, saw that his hairy yellow enemy had arrived at the right
distance, the loon, who evidently was a fine judge of the reach of his
spear, shot it forward quick as a lightning-flash, in marvelous
contrast to the wonderful slowness of the preparatory poising,
backward motion. The aim was true to a hair-breadth. Tom was struck
right in the centre of his forehead, between the eyes. I thought his
skull was cracked. Perhaps it was. The sudden astonishment of that
outraged cat, the virtuous indignation and wrath, terror, and pain,
are far beyond description. His eyes and screams and desperate retreat
told all that. When the blow was received, he made a noise that I
never heard a cat make before or since; an awfully deep, condensed,
screechy, explosive _Wuck!_ as he bounced straight up in the air like
a bucking bronco; and when he alighted after his spring, he rushed
madly across the room and made frantic efforts to climb up the
hard-finished plaster wall. Not satisfied to get the width of the
kitchen away from his mysterious enemy, for the first time that cold
winter he tried to get out of the house, anyhow, anywhere out of that
loon-infested room. When he finally ventured to look back and saw that
the barbarous bird was still there, tranquil and motionless in front
of the stove, he regained command of some of his shattered senses and
carefully commenced to examine his wound. Backed against the wall in
the farthest corner, and keeping his eye on the outrageous bird, he
tenderly touched and washed the sore spot, wetting his paw with his
tongue, pausing now and then as his courage increased to glare and
stare and growl at his enemy with looks and tones wonderfully human,
as if saying: "You confounded fishy, unfair rascal! What did you do
that for? What had I done to you? Faithless, legless, long-nosed
wretch!" Intense experiences like the above bring out the humanity
that is in all animals. One touch of nature, even a cat-and-loon
touch, makes all the world kin.
It was a great memorable day when the first flock of passenger pigeons
came to our farm, calling to mind the story we had read about them
when we were at school in Scotland. Of all God's feathered people that
sailed the Wisconsin sky, no other bird seemed to us so wonderful. The
beautiful wanderers flew like the winds in flocks of millions from
climate to climate in accord with the weather, finding their
food--acorns, beechnuts, pine-nuts, cranberries, strawberries,
huckleberries, juniper berries, hackberries, buckwheat, rice, wheat,
oats, corn--in fields and forests thousands of miles apart. I have
seen flocks streaming south in the fall so large that they were
flowing over from horizon to horizon in an almost continuous stream
all day long, at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, like a
mighty river in the sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls
and cataracts, and rising suddenly here and there in huge ragged
masses like high-plashing spray. How wonderful the distances they flew
in a day--in a year--in a lifetime! They arrived in Wisconsin in the
spring just after the sun had cleared away the snow, and alighted in
the woods to feed on the fallen acorns that they had missed the
previous autumn. A comparatively small flock swept thousands of acres
perfectly clean of acorns in a few minutes, by moving straight ahead
with a broad front. All got their share, for the rear constantly
became the van by flying over the flock and alighting in front, the
entire flock constantly changing from rear to front, revolving
something like a wheel with a low buzzing wing roar that could be
heard a long way off. In summer they feasted on wheat and oats and
were easily approached as they rested on the trees along the sides of
the field after a good full meal, displaying beautiful iridescent
colors as they moved their necks backward and forward when we went
very near them. Every shotgun was aimed at them and everybody feasted
on pigeon pies, and not a few of the settlers feasted also on the
beauty of the wonderful birds. The breast of the male is a fine rosy
red, the lower part of the neck behind and along the sides changing
from the red of the breast to gold, emerald green and rich crimson.
The general color of the upper parts is grayish blue, the under parts
white. The extreme length of the bird is about seventeen inches; the
finely modeled slender tail about eight inches, and extent of wings
twenty-four inches. The females are scarcely less beautiful. "Oh, what
bonnie, bonnie birds!" we exclaimed over the first that fell into our
hands. "Oh, what colors! Look at their breasts, bonnie as roses, and
at their necks aglow wi' every color juist like the wonderfu' wood
ducks. Oh, the bonnie, bonnie creatures, they beat a'! Where did they
a' come fra, and where are they a' gan? It's awfu' like a sin to kill
them!" To this some smug, practical old sinner would remark: "Aye,
it's a peety, as ye say, to kill the bonnie things, but they were made
to be killed, and sent for us to eat as the quails were sent to God's
chosen people, the Israelites, when they were starving in the desert
ayont the Red Sea. And I must confess that meat was never put up in
neater, handsomer-painted packages."
In the New England and Canada woods beechnuts were their best and most
abundant food, farther north, cranberries and huckleberries. After
everything was cleaned up in the north and winter was coming on, they
went south for rice, corn, acorns, haws, wild grapes, crab-apples,
sparkle-berries, etc. They seemed to require more than half of the
continent for feeding-grounds, moving from one table to another,
field to field, forest to forest, finding something ripe and wholesome
all the year round. In going south in the fine Indian-summer weather
they flew high and followed one another, though the head of the flock
might be hundreds of miles in advance. But against head winds they
took advantage of the inequalities of the ground, flying comparatively
low. All followed the leader's ups and downs over hill and dale though
far out of sight, never hesitating at any turn of the way, vertical or
horizontal that the leaders had taken, though the largest flocks
stretched across several States, and belts of different kinds of
weather.
There were no roosting-or breeding-places near our farm, and I never
saw any of them until long after the great flocks were exterminated. I
therefore quote, from Audubon's and Pokagon's vivid descriptions.
"Toward evening," Audubon says, "they depart for the roosting-place,
which may be hundreds of miles distant. One on the banks of Green
River, Kentucky, was over three miles wide and forty long."
"My first view of it," says the great naturalist, "was about a
fortnight after it had been chosen by the birds, and I arrived there
nearly two hours before sunset. Few pigeons were then to be seen, but
a great many persons with horses and wagons and armed with guns, long
poles, sulphur pots, pine pitch torches, etc., had already established
encampments on the borders. Two farmers had driven upwards of three
hundred hogs a distance of more than a hundred miles to be fattened on
slaughtered pigeons. Here and there the people employed in plucking
and salting what had already been secured were sitting in the midst of
piles of birds. Dung several inches thick covered the ground. Many
trees two feet in diameter were broken off at no great distance from
the ground, and the branches of many of the tallest and largest had
given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado.
"Not a pigeon had arrived at sundown. Suddenly a general cry
arose--'Here they come!' The noise they made, though still distant,
reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a
close-reefed ship. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men.
The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted and a
magnificent as well as terrifying sight presented itself. The pigeons
pouring in alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses
were formed on the branches all around. Here and there the perches
gave way with a crash, and falling destroyed hundreds beneath, forcing
down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded; a scene of
uproar and conflict. I found it useless to speak or even to shout to
those persons nearest me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom
heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters
reloading. None dared venture within the line of devastation. The hogs
had been penned up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded
being left for the next morning's employment. The pigeons were
constantly coming in and it was after midnight before I perceived a
decrease in the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued all
night, and anxious to know how far the sound reached I sent off a man
who, returning two hours after, informed me that he had heard it
distinctly three miles distant.
[Illustration: BAROMETER
Invented by the author in his boyhood]
"Toward daylight the noise in some measure subsided; long before
objects were distinguishable the pigeons began to move off in a
direction quite different from that in which they had arrived the
evening before, and at sunrise all that were able to fly had
disappeared. The howling of the wolves now reached our ears, and the
foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, coons, opossums, and polecats were seen
sneaking off, while eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied
by a crowd of vultures, came to supplant them and enjoy a share of the
spoil.
"Then the authors of all this devastation began their entry amongst
the dead, the dying and mangled. The pigeons were picked up and piled
in heaps until each had as many as they could possible dispose of,
when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.
"The breeding-places are selected with reference to abundance of food,
and countless myriads resort to them. At this period the note of the
pigeon is coo coo coo, like that of the domestic species but much
shorter. They caress by billing, and during incubation the male
supplies the female with food. As the young grow, the tyrant of
creation appears to disturb the peaceful scene, armed with axes to
chop down the squab-laden trees, and the abomination of desolation and
destruction produced far surpasses even that of the roosting places."
Pokagon, an educated Indian writer, says: "I saw one nesting-place in
Wisconsin one hundred miles long and from three to ten miles wide.
Every tree, some of them quite low and scrubby, had from one to fifty
nests on each. Some of the nests overflow from the oaks to the hemlock
and pine woods. When the pigeon hunters attack the breeding-places
they sometimes cut the timber from thousands of acres. Millions are
caught in nets with salt or grain for bait, and schooners, sometimes
loaded down with the birds, are taken to New York where they are sold
for a cent apiece."
V
YOUNG HUNTERS
American Head-hunters--Deer--A Resurrected
Woodpecker--Muskrats--Foxes and Badgers--A Pet
Coon--Bathing--Squirrels--Gophers--A Burglarious Shrike.
In the older eastern States it used to be considered great sport for
an army of boys to assemble to hunt birds, squirrels, and every other
unclaimed, unprotected live thing of shootable size. They divided into
two squads, and, choosing leaders, scattered through the woods in
different directions, and the party that killed the greatest number
enjoyed a supper at the expense of the other. The whole neighborhood
seemed to enjoy the shameful sport especially the farmers afraid of
their crops. With a great air of importance, laws were enacted to
govern the gory business. For example, a gray squirrel must count four
heads, a woodchuck six heads, common red squirrel two heads, black
squirrel ten heads, a partridge five heads, the larger birds, such as
whip-poor-wills and nighthawks two heads each, the wary crows three,
and bob-whites three. But all the blessed company of mere songbirds,
warblers, robins, thrushes, orioles, with nuthatches, chickadees, blue
jays, woodpeckers, etc., counted only one head each. The heads of the
birds were hastily wrung off and thrust into the game-bags to be
counted, saving the bodies only of what were called game, the larger
squirrels, bob-whites, partridges, etc. The blood-stained bags of the
best slayers were soon bulging full. Then at a given hour all had to
stop and repair to the town, empty their dripping sacks, count the
heads, and go rejoicing to their dinner. Although, like other wild
boys, I was fond of shooting, I never had anything to do with these
abominable head-hunts. And now the farmers having learned that birds
are their friends wholesale slaughter has been abolished.
We seldom saw deer, though their tracks were common. The Yankee
explained that they traveled and fed mostly at night, and hid in
tamarack swamps and brushy places in the daytime, and how the Indians
knew all about them and could find them whenever they were hungry.
Indians belonging to the Menominee and Winnebago tribes occasionally
visited us at our cabin to get a piece of bread or some matches, or to
sharpen their knives on our grindstone, and we boys watched them
closely to see that they didn't steal Jack. We wondered at their
knowledge of animals when we saw them go direct to trees on our farm,
chop holes in them with their tomahawks and take out coons, of the
existence of which we had never noticed the slightest trace. In
winter, after the first snow, we frequently saw three or four Indians
hunting deer in company, running like hounds on the fresh, exciting
tracks. The escape of the deer from these noiseless, tireless hunters
was said to be well-nigh impossible; they were followed to the death.
Most of our neighbors brought some sort of gun from the old country,
but seldom took time to hunt, even after the first hard work of
fencing and clearing was over, except to shoot a duck or prairie
chicken now and then that happened to come in their way. It was only
the less industrious American settlers who left their work to go far
a-hunting. Two or three of our most enterprising American neighbors
went off every fall with their teams to the pine regions and cranberry
marshes in the northern part of the State to hunt and gather berries.
I well remember seeing their wagons loaded with game when they
returned from a successful hunt. Their loads consisted usually of half
a dozen deer or more, one or two black bears, and fifteen or twenty
bushels of cranberries; all solidly frozen. Part of both the berries
and meat was usually sold in Portage; the balance furnished their
families with abundance of venison, bear grease, and pies.
Winter wheat is sown in the fall, and when it is a month or so old the
deer, like the wild geese, are very fond of it, especially since
other kinds of food are then becoming scarce. One of our neighbors
across the Fox River killed a large number, some thirty or forty, on a
small patch of wheat, simply by lying in wait for them every night.
Our wheat-field was the first that was sown in the neighborhood. The
deer soon found it and came in every night to feast, but it was eight
or nine years before we ever disturbed them. David then killed one
deer, the only one killed by any of our family. He went out shortly
after sundown at the time of full moon to one of our wheat-fields,
carrying a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. After lying
in wait an hour or so, he saw a doe and her fawn jump the fence and
come cautiously into the wheat. After they were within sixty or
seventy yards of him, he was surprised when he tried to take aim that
about half of the moon's disc was mysteriously darkened as if covered
by the edge of a dense cloud. This proved to be an eclipse.
Nevertheless, he fired at the mother, and she immediately ran off,
jumped the fence, and took to the woods by the way she came. The fawn
danced about bewildered, wondering what had become of its mother, but
finally fled to the woods. David fired at the poor deserted thing as
it ran past him but happily missed it. Hearing the shots, I joined
David to learn his luck. He said he thought he must have wounded the
mother, and when we were strolling about in the woods in search of her
we saw three or four deer on their way to the wheat-field, led by a
fine buck. They were walking rapidly, but cautiously halted at
intervals of a few rods to listen and look ahead and scent the air.
They failed to notice us, though by this time the moon was out of the
eclipse shadow and we were standing only about fifty yards from them.
I was carrying the gun. David had fired both barrels but when he was
reloading one of them he happened to put the wad intended to cover the
shot into the empty barrel, and so when we were climbing over the
fence the buckshot had rolled out, and when I fired at the big buck I
knew by the report that there was nothing but powder in the charge.
The startled deer danced about in confusion for a few seconds,
uncertain which way to run until they caught sight of us, when they
bounded off through the woods. Next morning we found the poor mother
lying about three hundred yards from the place where she was shot. She
had run this distance and jumped a high fence after one of the
buckshot had passed through her heart.