Chapter X

THE PLOUGHBOY WHO BECAME A FAMOUS NATURALIST.

One evening, in the town of Dunbar, Scotland, an excited lad hurried through the streets shouting to his schoolmates: "I'm gaun tae Amaraka the morn!" When they refused to believe him he said, "Weel--just you see if I am at skule the morn."

The lad was John Muir. That evening, as he and his brother, David sat by the fireside learning their lessons, his father walked in and said, "Bairns, you needna learn your lessons the nicht, for we're gaun to America the morn!" The boys were wild with joy. Even the natural heart-pain of parting from their grandparents, whom they deeply loved, was quickly quenched as they conjured up pictures of the life they were to lead across the seas. Mr. Muir decided to take with him John, who was eleven years of age, David, a brother, aged nine, Sarah, who was thirteen. Mrs. Muir and four children remained in Scotland until the new home was ready for them.

After a voyage of nearly seven weeks, in a sailing ship, the immigrants arrived in America and very soon after settled on their claim in Wisconsin. With the help of some neighbours, Mr. Muir built a shanty in less than a day, after the materials for the roof and walls were ready. From the first John Muir fell in love with his surroundings. To him the wilderness was a glorious place. He watched the birds and animals, the trees and the flowers, the streams and lakes--everything around him filled him with delight. It was a backwoods farm, and the hard work of clearing the farm began at once. John enjoyed piling up immense quantities of brushwood and making huge fires. Mr. Muir bought a yoke of oxen and the task of clearing the land began in earnest. The lads were up early and late, doing their best to help their father get the place cleared and a frame house built, so that the other members of the family, who had been left behind in Scotland, could join them. Late in the fall, just before the winter snow began to fall, the house was ready, and Mrs. Muir and the other four children arrived.

John was the eldest of the boys, and his father looked to him to do almost a man's work. The summer work was heavy, and especially harvesting and corn-hoeing. All the ground had to be hoed over the first few years and John had scarcely a minute to rest. They had no proper farm implements to begin with, and the hoes had to be kept moving up and down as if they were worked by machinery. John took great pride in the amount of work he was able to do, and very often worked sixteen and seventeen hours a day.

In winter time John and his brothers arose early to feed the cattle, grind axes, bring in the wood, and dozens of other jobs that needed to be done. No matter what the weather was, there was work to be done. It was pioneer farming, and it was only by long and hard effort that it was possible to earn a livelihood.

John was put to work at the plough at twelve years of age, when his head little more than reached the handles. For many years the bulk of the ploughing on that hard backwoods farm fell to his lot. From the first he determined to do as good ploughing as though he were a man, and in this he did not fail. None could draw a straighter furrow. The work was made especially hard because of the tree stumps which were everywhere on the half-cleared land.

To John's lot also fell the task of splitting rails for the long lines of zig-zag fences. Making rails was hard work and required no little skill. Sometimes John would cut and split one hundred rails a day from short, knotty, oak timbers, swinging the heavy mallet from early morning to late at night, until his hands were sore. He was proud of the amount of work that he was able to do, but the heavy exertions of those days probably prevented his growth and earned for him the title of the "Runt of the Family."

After eight years of very hard work the farm was at last cleared. John had worked as hard as any man, often rising at four o'clock in the morning and toiling till late at night. He made the rash vow that he would do a man's work, and even when he was not well, he made good his pledge. Then, when at last the land was cleared, his father bought a half section of wild land four or five miles away, and the task of clearing, breaking up, and fencing began all over again.

Soon after the entire family moved to the new farm, which was known as Hickory Hill Farm. It was high and dry, and very good land, but there was no living water, and so a well, ninety feet deep, had to be dug. With the exception of the first ten feet of ground, was hard, fine-grained sandstone. Mr. Muir tried to blast the sandstone, but failed, and he decided to have John do all the work with mason's chisels. This was a long, hard job, with a good deal of danger in it. He had to sit cramped in a place about three feet in diameter, and chip, chip away, day after day, for months. In the morning Mr. Muir and David lowered John in a windlass, then went away to the farm work and returned at noon to haul him up for dinner. After dinner he was promptly lowered again and left there until evening.

One day he was almost suffocated by carbonic acid gas which had settled at the bottom during the night. He was almost overcome as soon as he had been let down, but managed to shout, "Take me out". He was hauled up almost more dead than alive. Water was thrown down to absorb the gas, and a bundle of hay attached to a light rope was dropped and used to carry down pure air to stir up the poison. At last water was secured and two iron-bound buckets swung, which drew water from the well for many a long year.

It was fortunate for John that he had made good progress at school before he left Scotland, for he had few opportunities to study after he arrived on the backwoods farm.

For many years nearly every waking moment was spent in doing some kind of manual work. However, he was hungry for knowledge, and eagerly read the few books which came his way. Among these were the Bible, parts of Shakespeare's poems, and selections from Milton, Cowper and others, not often read by boys of his age.

When he was twenty-three he decided to attend the State University. His father told him that he would have to support himself by his own efforts. This he did, first by living very simply, and then by seizing every opportunity to earn a dollar. He taught school and worked in the harvest fields during the long summer vacations. When in college he lived so frugally that sometimes he did not spend more than half a dollar a week.

The greatest interest of John Muir's life had always been the things he found in nature. From the days when, as a little fellow, he played around the fields and streams near Dunbar in Scotland, he had loved the open air and the hundreds of things which lived and grew there. When he did finish his course at college he suffered from eye trouble, and was even threatened with blindness. He there and then decided to live in the open and see as much of the world as possible.

He set out on a walking tour through several States. He visited Cuba, then the Isthmus of Panama, and then went straight to San Francisco, where he arrived with less than a dollar in his pocket. This distance was all covered on foot. He slept in the open most of the time and gathered biological specimens as he went. Sometimes he ran completely out of money, and when this happened he secured work until he had sufficient to proceed.

Soon after he arrived in San Francisco he visited the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from then until the time of his death he found these great hills a source of never-ending joy. He tramped among them until he knew them thoroughly. It was chiefly through his efforts that Congress set aside Yosemite as a national park. He was often called "Father of the Yosemite."

In 1876 he was appointed a member of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and he saw Alaska, where he travelled hundreds of miles alone. Later he visited Siberia, Norway, and Switzerland. He did not hurry through those lands as many tourists do, but wherever he went he studied, with much care, the flowers and the animals that lived in the great open spaces. Things which others passed with only a glance he closely observed. His passion to study these things led him to visit India, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and many other countries. He travelled thousands of miles on foot and generally slept in camps and tents.

He wrote several books and a great many articles which appeared in the big magazines. He wrote about animals, insects, and flowers, and his information was gained at first hand. He knew these things because he lived among them and loved them. His knowledge was recognized and appreciated. Harvard and several other universities conferred honourary degrees upon him, but he cared little for these things. From his travels abroad he returned to the Sierra Mountains which he loved so passionately. Several universities invited him to become professor, but he preferred to live his simple life among the mountains. After his death, in 1914, these beautiful lines were written about him by Odell Shepard:

THE PRAYER OF JOHN MUIR.

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountain when I die,
In the murmur of the pines and gliding streams,
Where the long day loiters by
Like a cloud across the sky,
And the night is calm and musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,
In a valley filled with dim and rosy light;
Let me hear the streams at play
Through the vivid golden day,
And a voice of many waters in the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanting glade,
Under bending alders, garrulous and cool,
Where the sycamores have made
Leafy shrines of shifting shade,
Tremulous about the ferned and pebbled pool.