Category: Sketch

Categories
1910s Book chapter Essay Sketch Wild animals

Red Fox and Cotton Tail

Red Fox and Cotton Tail

By Therese Osterheld Deming
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Original illustration by Edwin Willard Deming from American Animal Life, p. 68.

R

ed fox is one of the wisest and most cunning of little creatures, with so little feat of man that he prefers to live neat settlements, where he can poach upon the farmer’s chickens and fowl to help out his menu of mice and rabbits, birds and other wood folk.[1]

The foxes make dens in the midst of big tree forests, or in crevices among the rocks, where the vixen (mother) hides her four of five cubs while she goes out to find food to bring home. She always travels in a roundabout way, to and from her den, so that her enemies cannot find the way. She never leaves any refuse about her doorway that might attract the attention of man or animal folk who may be hunting about her domain.[2]

On sunny days the vixen takes her fox cubs out into the sunshine to play. They may never have seen man, yet they run and hide at his approach; but if caught, they make very lovely little pets.

Some friends, hunting in New Brunswick, caught a little fox cub and put him into a box cage.[3] They shot Canadian jays for their little captive, and the cunning little fellow carried each on into his box to hide it, until he had his box so full that he could not get into it himself. He became very tame and played all day; but at night the hunters would awaken to hear his plaintive little bark, then off in the distance would come the answer comr the poorl old vixen, who was mourning the loss of her little one, while the screech-owl flew from limb to limb, seeming to laugh at the troubles of the poor mother trying to quiet her lost one.

During the nesting season, the red fox destroys quantities of quail and partridge nests. He is hunted with hounds and seems to enjoy the sport as much as his pursuers, leading them a merry chase, often running the top rail of a fence or jumping from stone to stone. Should he get far ahead, he will stop and wait for the hounds to catch up, then off he runs again and often gets away finally, to hide and rest in his den. If he should suddenly come upon a hunter, he will show no signs of fear, but just pretend he never saw him, and gradually work away until he is over some small hill, then he will run as fast as he can, to get out of the way.

He is the handsomest and most valuable fox from the Southern Alleghanies to Point Barrow, wearing many different suits in different parts of the country, from yellow-red to the palest of bleached-out colors on the sun-kissed desert, and very bright colors in the forest regions of Alaska.

He is so cunning and so well able to care for himself that it is not so easy to exterminate him as it is other animals less wise.

The black-cross fox and the silver fox are just two different phases of the same red fox.

The red fox has a very keen sense of hearing. He depends more upon his ears and nose than upon his eyes in detecting the approach of danger or in locating his prey. When he gets scent of a rabbit, he is happy: for rabbits are his favorite food, and poor little molly-cottontail must always be watchful or she will be caught. Should she not see her enemy until he is almost upon her, she will lie very close to the ground, behind a bunch of grass or a bush, and never move. Often the hunter will pass her by; but sometimes she has a hard run to save her life, and many times. poor thing, she is caught.

The cottontail is the smallest of the rabbit family and is found all over the country. She burrows in the ground for a home; but, unfortunately, she has not learned to make herself a back door, to escape in time of danger, for members of the weasel or marten families follow this creature into her home.

Original illustration by Edwin Willard Deming from American Animal Life, p. 71.

Like all rabbits she has regular runways or trails through the woods; but on moonlight nights she will come out into the clearings, with her relatives, and romp, play and frisk about in the moonlight, having a lively time. Suddenly one of the brothers will stamp his feet, and in a second all have disappeared and run for safety. Most people might have wondered what the matter was. Little Brother Rabbit knew, for almost instantly, Ko-Ko-Kas, the big brown owl, flew over the clearing and each little rabbit was glad he had heard and obeyed the warning. Had he not he would have suffered more than when Chief Rabbit refused to go to a council called by Owl. Owl was chief then, and called four times, but the Rabbit did not answer. Then he told the Rabbit his ears would grow until he came to the council. We all know how long his ears grew; and they might have been much longer had not the Rabbit answered and run to the council as fast as he could go.

Original illustration by Edwin Willard Deming from American Animal Life, p. 72.
DEMING, THERESE OSTERHELD. “RED FOX AND COTTON TAIL,” IN AMERICAN ANIMAL LIFE, 67-76. NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES, 1916.

[1] In addition to rodents, rabbits, birds, and amphibians, the diet of red foxes also includes fruit.

[2] Interestingly, red foxes rarely sleep in their dens, but out in the open. They will only sleep in their burrows during extreme weather or, in the case of female foxes, while raising their kits.

[3] New Brunswick is a province of Canada.

Contexts

American Life is one of a series of books written by Therese Osterheld Deming and illustrated by Edwin Willard Deming. After marrying in 1892, the Demings frequently worked together. Edward Willard Deming was an American painter and sculptor who, after studying in Paris in 1884 and 1885, lived in proximity to various Indigenous American tribes. These experiences informed most of his work.  

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

What to do if you see a fox in your neighborhood.

Categories
1850s Sketch Wild animals

The Lake Trip; Or, Going a Fishing

The Lake Trip; Or, Going a Fishing

By Fanny Fern
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
John Frederick Kensett. Lake George. Oil on canvas, 1869, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Public Domain.

Oh! Aunty, it has done raining! The sun is shining so brightly; we are going to the Lake to fish — Papa says so — you and Papa, and Bell, and Harry, and Emma, and Agnes, and our dog Bruno.

Of course, Aunty, who was always on hand for such trips, wasn’t five minutes springing to her feet, and in less than half an hour Pat stood at the door with the carriage, (that somehow or other always held as many as wanted to go, whether it were five, or forty-five;) “Papa” twisting the reins over hats and bonnets with the dexterity of a Jehu;[1] jolt — jolt — on we go, over pebblestones — over plank roads — past cottages — past farms — up hill and down, till we reach “the Lake.”

Shall I tell you how we tip-toed into the little egg-shell boats? How, after a great deal of talk, we all were seated to our minds — how each one had a great fishing rod put into our hands — how Aunty, (who never fished before,) got laughed at for refusing to stick the cruel hook into the quivering little minnows used for “bait” — and how, when they fixed it for her, she forgot all about moving it round, so beautiful was the “blue above, and the blue below,” [2] until a great fish twitched at her line, telling her to leave off dreaming and mind her business — and how it made her feel so bad to see them tear the hook from the mouth of the poor fish she was so un-lucky as to catch, that she coaxed them to put her ashore, telling them it was pleasure not pain she came after — and how they laughed and floated off down the Lake, leaving her on a green moss patch, under a big tree — and how she rambled all along shore gathering the tiniest little shells that ever a wave tossed up —and how she took off her shoes and stockings and dipped her feet in the cool water, and listened to the bees’ drowsy hum  from the old tree trunk close by, and watched the busy ant stagger home, under the weight of his well earned morsel — and how she made a bridge of stones over a little streamlet to pluck some crimson lobelias, growing on the other side, and some delicate, bell-shaped flowers, fit only for a fairy’s bridal wreath,[3] — and how she wandered till sunset came on, and the Lake’s pure breast was all a-glow, and then, how she lay under that old tree, listening to the plashing waves, and watching the little birds, dipping their golden wings into the rippling waters, then soaring aloft to the rosy tinted clouds? Shall I tell you how the grand old hills, forest crowned, stretched off into the dim distance — and how sweet the music of childhood’s ringing laugh, heard from the far-off shore — or how Aunty thought ’twas such a pity that sin, and tears, and sorrow, should ever blight so fair a world?

But Aunty mustn’t make you sad; here come the children leaping from the boat; they v’e “caught few fish,” but a great deal of sunshine, (judging from their happy faces.) God bless the little voyagers, all; the laughing Agnes, the pensive Emma, the dove-eyed, tender-hearted Mary, the rosy Bell, the fearless Harry. In the green pastures by the still waters, may the dear Shepherd fold them.

Winslow Homer. Woman with Flower. Watercolor, 1880, Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
FERN, FANNY. “The Lake Trip; Or, Going a Fishing,” IN Little Ferns for Fanny’s Little Friends, 27-9. Auburn and Buffalo: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1854.

[1] In the Bible’s Old Testament, before leading the revolt after which he would become king of Israel, Jehu was a commander of chariots.

[2] The line “with the blue above, and the blue below” comes from “The Sea,” a poem by English poet Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874), who wrote under the pen name of Barry Cornwall. You can find the full poem here.

Mary Vaux Walcott. Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Cardinalis). Watercolor on paper, 1878, Smithsonian American Art Museum (D.C.). Public Domain.

[3] Cardinal flower (Lobelia Cardinalis) is a native American herbaceous perennial in the bellflower family. Its bright red flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds.

Contexts

Fanny Fern (born Sara Payson Willis; 1811-1872) was a very popular newspaper columnist, novelist, and children’s writer. She became the first woman columnist in the United States. From the 1850s to the 1870s, Fern wrote articles and columns for periodicals like Olive Branch, True Flag, Musical World and Times, and New York Ledger. She was known by her irreverent and unapologetic style. During her lifetime, she published three books for children: Little Ferns for Fanny’s Little Friends (1853), The Play-Day Book (1857), and The New Story Book for Children (1864).

Resources for Further Study
  • During the first half of the nineteenth century, American attitudes toward nature shifted in part due to the influence of Romantic and Transcendental writers like William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Beautiful scenery, picturesque landscapes, and the aesthetic of nature in general began to be perceived as “important to people’s physical and spiritual health and communing with nature as communing with God.” These new perceptions developed into preservationist conservation ideas, to which we can trace, among others, the drive to create many of the protected spaces such as natural parks that we still enjoy today.
  • “Recreational Fishing in England and America” (Part 1 and Part 2).
  • Fanny Fern Collection at the University of New England’s Library.
Contemporary Connections

Richard Louv’s “Children and Nature Movement.”

Categories
1910s African American Autobiography Essay Family Farm life Sketch

How I Grew My Corn

How I Grew My Corn

By Helen Stevenson
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Charles E. Burchfield. Sunlight on Corn. Watercolor on paper, 1916, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State College, NY. Public domain.

In the year 1914 all the children schools of Cumberland county, N. J., were given the privilege to enter a contest. The girls were to sew, patch or bake and the boys to grow corn or sweet potatoes.[1] As I liked to work out of doors I entered the corn contest. The rules were that the boys should do all the work themselves; the girls were to do all except the plowing. We were to have one-tenth of an acre and find our own seed.

When I first asked my father for a piece of ground he said, “I can not spare it.” But at last he consented to give me a plot next to the woods, if I could get one-tenth of an acre from it.

One night after school I went down and measured off my ground. On the nineteenth of May I took my old friend, Harry (the horse), whom I had worked in the field before, and went down to my farm, as I called it. There I worked until I had an even seed bed, after which I marked it out and fertilized it. On the next day I planted my corn putting three grains in a hill and covering it with a hoe.

I paid it daily visits and when it was about two inches high I replanted it and hoed the hills which were up. From then on I hoed and cultivated my crop and kept it free from grass until it grew too large to be attended. As it was a dry season that year, the stalks next to the woods did not grow to their full height.

I also had visitors to come and see my corn. This gave me more courage to go on as all the other girls and boys in Fairfield township had given it up. Mother and father had also tried to discourage me, but I kept on.

I did not cut it down until November. I then measured my highest stalks which were from fifteen to sixteen feet. On the day before the contest I stayed home to get my corn ready. Mother and father coaxed me not to take it away, but I did.

After selecting ten of my largest and best ears of corn, I put them in a basket and went to Bridgeton with one of my neighbors, as father would not take them. After arriving in town I carried my corn up to the Court House.

The next day I went to school and in the afternoon my teacher received a telephone message which said I had won a prize. I was very happy indeed; mother and father were surprised.

On Saturday went to the Bridgeton Library annex where things were being exhibited and saw my corn with a prize tag on it which made me feel very proud. I then went to the Commercial League room where the prizes were distributed. I received my prize and went home very happy and full of courage to try again.

The amount I cleared for my corn was $12.00–$5.00 for my fodder, $4.00 for my seed and $3.00 for my prize.

I am going to try again this year and I think all boys and girls who have the privilege of learning to farm should do so–for there is nothing better than life on a farm.

STEVENSON, HELEN. “HOW I GREW MY CORN.” THE CRISIS 8, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1914): 273-74.
Cover of the State of New Jersey’s Department of Public Instruction’s Leaflet No. 3: Corn Growing (1914).

[1] In February, 1914 the Department of Public Instruction from Trenton, N.J. published an elementary agriculture manual on corn growing. This document’s foreword references “the widespread interested aroused at the present time by the organization of ‘Corn Clubs’ [that] makes a study of corn one of the best ways of introducing agriculture in the elementary grades of the public schools of the State.” The section “Suggestions for Girls’ Participation in the Study of Agriculture” speaks directly to Helen Stevenson’s experience: “The girls may do exactly the same work as the boys . . . Not a few girls will prefer this plan and some of our girls have grown corn quite as successfully as boys.”

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

fodder: Food for cattle, horses, or other animals.

Resources for Further Study
  • After the Civil War (1861-1865) and the subsequent abolition of slavery, former slaves were notoriously promised “forty acres and a mule” as a compensation for their unpaid work during slavery. Ultimately, this attempted redistribution failed and by the end of the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) lands were returned to their previous white owners.
  • A timeline of interactions between black farmers and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1920 to 2021.  
  • Oxford Bibliographies‘ page on African American agriculture and agricultural labor.
  • TED-Ed short animation on the history of corn. Indigenous peoples from southern Mexico domesticated corn about 10,000 years ago. Today, this crop accounts for more than one tenth of our global crop production!
Contemporary Connections

Data on female producers from the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

“Living off the land: the new sisterhood of Black female homesteaders.”

Categories
1910s Essay Horses Native American Sketch Wild animals

How Wolves Catch Wild Horses

How Wolves Catch Wild Horses

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Students at Chilocco Indian School. Date unknown. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

Travelers tell us that the wolves of Mexico have a strange way of catching the wild horses. These horses have a great speed. It is almost impossible for a single cowboy to catch one. The cowboys, when they wish to run them down, have relays of pursuers. First one set of cowboys will chase the horses, then another, and another, until at last the horses are caught by the lasso. But it is only when they are completely tired that they are caught; therefore it would be impossible for the wolves to catch them unless they used strategy, for the flight of the wolves is no so swift as that of the horses.

This is the way the wolves kill the wild horses of the Mexican plains. First, two wolves come out of the woods and begin to play together like two kittens. They gambol about each other and run backward and forward. Then the herd of horses lift their startled heads and gets ready to stampede. But the wolves seem to be so playful that the horses, after watching them for awhile, forget their fears, and continue to graze. Then the wolves in their play come nearer and nearer while other wolves slowly and stealthily creep after them. Then suddenly the enemies surround the herd and make one plunge, and the horses are struggling with the fangs of the relentless foes gripped in their throats.

Anonymous. “How Wolves Catch Wild Horses.” Indian School Journal 6, no. 10 (April 1910): 30.

[1] Here is some commentary. Turn this text red in the color settings if it isn’t already. You will need to name your anchor blocks in the block settings by clicking on it and assigning an ID. I like using the format note-x where x is the number of the note you’re on. Then, add the note number in brackets to your text where you want it to go, highlight the number, and link to #note-x.

[2] Here is some commentary. Turn this text red in the color settings if it isn’t already. You will need to name your anchor blocks in the block settings by clicking on it and assigning an ID. I like using the format note-# where # is the number of the note you’re on.

Contexts

Located in north-central Oklahoma near the Kansas border, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (also known as the Haworth Institute, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, and the Chilocco Indian School) began taking students in 1884, enrolling 150 from seventeen tribes that first year. Enrollment had more than doubled by 1895, with students coming from various tribes, including the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Pawnee tribes. The Oklahoma Historical Society notes that “significant enrollment from the so-called ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ did not occur until after 1910 but by 1925, Cherokee constituted the largest single tribal affiliation at the school (26 percent of approximately nine hundred students).” Following World War II and the expansion of public education, the school enrolled mostly students who lacked access to such education.

Like most federally funded Indian schools, Chilocco sought to assimilate Native children into white society. Also like other schools, it stressed “industrial” education—manual and domestic labor—over academic pursuits, aiming to train them as workers for white families. Education at Chilocco was notably militaristic; students attended weekly Christian religious services, also intended to weaken their ties to family and tribe. In the 1950s, student numbers peaked at around 1300, and the school closed in 1980. This sketch highlights animals’ intelligence, a popular topic for American writers of all ages and ethnicities throughout the time period The Envious Lobster encompasses.

Resources for Further Study
  • Archuleta, Margaret L., Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled), eds. Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000.
  • Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). “Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.
  • Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1995).
Contemporary Connections

“At Length with K. Tsianina Lomawaima.” At Length with Steve Scher. February 10, 2016.

“Chilocco Through the Years.” Firethief Productions. Chilocco History Project, August 2, 2019.

Douglas, Crystal. “A Look at the Chilocco Indian School.” The Kaw Nation: People of the Southwind. Fife, Ari. “At one former Native American School in Oklahoma, honoring the dead now falls to alumni.” The Frontier, July 21, 2021.

Categories
1880s Dogs Education Native American Short Story Sketch

The Dog and the Shadow

The Dog and the Shadow

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
The Old Dog Looks like a Picture. Engraving, 1853, by Thomas Landseer. Courtesy New York Public Library.

A dog, with a piece of meat in his mouth, was crossing a stream on a plank, and saw in the water what he took to be another dog, with a piece of meat twice as large as his own. Letting go what he had, he jumped at the other dog to get the larger piece from him. He thus lost both,–the one he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the swift current swept it away.

Moral. Greediness is a bad fault, especially in children. Always avoid it, dear little friends. Be satisfied with the little you have, and never envy or covet the greater possessions of others.

Anonymous. “The Dog and the Shadow.” In “Our Little ONes’ Corner.” The Youth’s Companion 12, no. 1 (May 1882): 304.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this sketch was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. Student newspapers frequently published work by students, but it’s often difficult to identify authorship even if contributions included the author’s name. The moral that ends the sketch may be an addition by one of the school’s teachers. If an older student wrote the sketch and added the moral, the advice to avoid coveting others’ possessions carries heavy irony, given that settlers appropriated Native lands and belongings from the beginning of the settlement era.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Essay Farm life Harvest Native American Seasons Sketch

The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons

By William Lear
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
The Four Seasons, by William Clarke Rice. Oil on fabric, 1923. Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Spring is a very lovely season. Everybody delights to be out doors, to enjoy the pure air. In the fields some of the farmers are plowing, others are sowing their crops or preparing the ground for their vegetables. We see the birds in the trees flying about. They seem very happy, and are singing their sweetest songs. In the woods spring up beautiful wild flowers which we pick, some for our church, and others for our little oratory of St. Aloysius in our schoolroom.[1]

Then summer comes; it is the hottest of all the seasons. The berries are ripe and people, old and young, are picking them for their use. When it is very hot, no one likes to work outside in the sun, but the hay and grain must be cut and stored away. This is a very busy season for farmers.

After this we have autumn. The heat of the summer is gone, and we must now provide wood and fill up our sheds as much as we can, to keep us warm in the cold winter days, for we already feel the cold a little in the morning. Besides this we gather our vegetables and fruits, and keep them in a safe place, but sometimes the rats and mice have a good time with them.

Now comes the terrible and dreaded winter. How we like to have warm clothes, and fire is a precious thing. But there are many poor people who have no homes, and no fire to keep them warm. On the western coast of North America the winters are milder than on the eastern coast. We have snow in December and January. It does not stay long, but people make good use of it while it lasts.

Lear, William. “The Four Seasons.” The Youth’s Companion 6, no. 1 (November 1881): 143.

[1] St. Aloysius (1568-1591) was an Italian-born nobleman who relinquished his wealth to become a Jesuit priest in the Roman Catholic church. White religious leaders considered him to be an important spiritual model for students in the Tulalip Indian School.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Unlike many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this conversation was published with an author’s name. William Lear (Lummi) appears in the 1885-1940 Native American Census Rolls in 1901, when he was thirty-six, so he would have been about fifteen when he composed “The Four Seasons.” He was the father of thirteen-year-old Clara and fifteen-year-old Florance, who are listed in 1910 school census. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. In describing the seasons, this story mirrors much of the nineteenth century’s natural history writing for children. The sketch of winter veers from convention, focusing on the region’s poverty and ending with a hint of pleasure.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

urrent significance.

Categories
1880s Birds Farm life Native American Short Story Sketch

The Farmer and the Parrot

The Farmer and the Parrot

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Carolina parrot. Late 18th-century colored engraving. Courtesy Getty Images.

There once lived, in a small village, a farmer who kept a parrot, which was in the habit of keeping bad company. One day, after the farmer had finished planting his corn, the crows, together with the parrot, soon occupied themselves with feasting upon it. The farmer, seeing this, resolved to punish the black robbers. Seizing his gun, he crept slyly along the fence until he came within a few yards of them, and then fired. Walking over to the corn to see what effect the shot produced, to his great surprise, he found that he had wounded his parrot. Poor Polly was taken home and kindly cared for. The children asked their father how the parrot came to be shot. “Bad company,” answered the father; “Bad company,” repeated Poll.

Afterwards, whenever the parrot would see the children quarreling and wrangling among themselves, Poll would cry out, “Bad company! Bad company!”

Thus, dear young readers, when you are tempted to associate with bad companions, remember the story of the parrot and its punishment.

American crow. Lithograph. Birds of Pennsylvania, 1897. Public domain.
Anonymous. “The Farmer and the Parrot.” The Youth’s Companion 5, no. 1 (October 1881): 112.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the tribe’s website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American newspapers, this sketch was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story typifies the didactic texts that students were expected to compose. Its humor, however, suggests the author may be resisting the “parroting” of conventional morality.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Birds Dialogue Drama, dialogue Education Native American Sketch

[A Mathematical Conversation]

[A Mathematical Conversation]

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Tulalip Indian School Classroom, May 1914.
Courtesy J. A. Juleen / Everett Public Library’s Northwest History Room.

Teacher. “Now Mary, my dear, suppose I were to shoot at a tree with five birds on it, and kill three, how many would be left?”

Mary: “Three, ma’am.”

Teacher: “No, two would be left.”

Mary: “No there wouldn’t though. The three shot would be left and the other two would be flied away.” [1]

Anonymous. [A Mathematical conversation.] The Youth’s Companion: A Juvenile Monthly Magazine Published for the Benefit of the Puget Sound Indian Missions 2, no. 1 (July 1881): 39.

[1] Presumably the observer uses “flied” to indicate that Mary is very young. We should assume that the teacher is white and that Mary is a Tulalit student.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this conversation was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story represents a significant change from the didactic texts that students were normally expected to compose. It showcases Native intelligence in a period when most white Americans regarded the nation’s Indigenous people as inferior or even subhuman. The conversation also emphasizes how the Tulalip child sees the world differently, and in some ways more clearly than her white teacher. Humorous sketches like these were common in Native American texts.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Cats Education Native American Sketch

A Knowing Cat

A Knowing Cat

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Detail, cat with game. Oil painting, Alexandre-François Desportes,
late 17th-early 18th century. Public Domain.

A blind girl in a hospital had learned to feed herself, and at meal times a tray containing her dinner was placed on her knees. One day while she was eating, the pet cat of the establishment placed herself before the girl and looked long and earnestly at her, so earnestly that the attendant, fearing the animal meditated some mischief, took her out of the room. Again, the next day, at the same hour, the cat entered the room, but this time walked quietly to the girl’s side, reared herself on her hind legs, and noiselessly reached out her paw to the plate, seized a morsel that pleased her, and, silently as she came, departed to enjoy her stolen meal. The girl never missed her loss, and when told of it by her companions laughed heartily. It is evident that the cat, from observation, had entirely satisfied herself that the girl could not see, and by a process of reasoning decided she could steal a good dinner by this practical use of knowledge.

Tulalip Indian School Classroom, May 1914.
Courtesy J. A. Juleen / Everett Public Library’s Northwest History Room.
Anonymous. “A Knowing Cat.” The Youth’s Companion: A Juvenile Monthly Magazine Published for the Benefit of the Puget Sound Indian Missions 2, no. 1 (July 1881): 39.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

“A Knowing Cat,” like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story represents a significant change from the didactic texts that students were normally expected to compose. It showcases feline intelligence, a common theme in nineteenth-century American children’s writing.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe. “Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Short Story Sketch Trees

Vegetable Clothing

Vegetable Clothing

By C. J. Russell
Annotations by Mary Miller/KK
King Charles’s Vegetable Necktie. Original illustration
by D.C. Beard from St. Nicholas Magazine, 13, no. 2
May – October 1886), 524.

About two hundred years ago the governor of the island of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Lynch, sent to King Charles II. of England a vegetable necktie, and a very good necktie it was, although it had grown on a tree and had not been altered since it was taken from the tree. It was as soft and white and delicate as lace, and it is not surprising that the King should have expressed his doubts when he was told that the beautiful fabric had grown on a tree in almost the exact condition in which he saw it. It had been stretched a little, and that was all.

But if King Charles was astonished to learn that neckties grew on trees in Jamaica, what must have been the feelings of a stranger traveling in Central America, on being told that mosquito-nets grew on trees in that country? He had complained to his host that the mosquitoes had nearly eaten him up the night before, and had been told in response that he should have a new netting put over his bed.

Satisfied with this statement, the traveler was turning away, but his attention was arrested by his host’s calmly continuing, “in fact, we are going to strip a tree anyhow, because there is to be a wedding on the estate, and we wish to have a dress ready for the bride.”

“You don’t mean,” said the traveler incredulously, “that mosquito-netting and bridal dresses grow on trees, do you?”

“That is just what I mean,” replied his host.

“All right,” said the stranger, who fancied a joke was being attempted at his expense, “let me see you gather the fruit and I will believe you.”

“Certainly,” was the answer; “follow the men, and you will see that I speak the exact truth.”

Still looking for some jest, the stranger followed the two men who were to pluck the singular fruit, and stood by when they stopped at a rather small tree, bearing thick, glossy-green leaves, but nothing else which the utmost effort of the imagination could convert into the netting or the wedding garments. The tree was about twenty feet high and six inches in diameter, and its bark looked much like that of a birch-tree.

“Is this the tree?” asked the stranger.

“Yes, señor,” answered one of the men, with a smile.

“I don’t see the mosquito-netting nor the wedding-dress,” said the stranger, “and I can’t see any joke either.”

“If the señor will wait a few minutes he will see all that was promised, and more too,” was the reply. “He will see that this tree can bear not only mosquito-netting and wedding-dresses, but fish-nets and neck-scarfs, mourning crape [1] or bridal veils.”

The tree was without more ado cut down. Three strips of bark, each about six inches wide and eight feet long, were taken from the trunk and thrown into a stream of water. Then each man took a strip while it was still in the water, and with the point of his knife separated a thin layer of the inner bark from one end of the strip. This layer was then taken in the fingers and gently pulled, whereupon it came away in an even sheet of the entire width and length of the strip of bark. Twelve sheets were thus taken from each strip of bark, and thrown into the water.

A light broke in upon the stranger’s mind. Without a doubt these strips were to be sewn together into one sheet. The plan seemed a good one and the fabric thus formed might do, he thought, if no better cloth could be had.

The men were not through yet, however, for when each strip of bark had yielded its twelve sheets, each sheet was taken from the water and gradually stretched sidewise. The spectator could hardly believe his eyes. The sheet broadened and broadened until from a close piece of material six inches wide, it became a filmy cloud of delicate lace, over three feet in width. The astonished gentleman was forced to confess that no human-made loom ever turned out lace which could surpass in snowy whiteness and gossamer-like delicacy that product of nature.

The natural lace is not so regular in formation as the material called illusion [2], so much worn by ladies in summer; but it is as soft and white, and will bear washing, which is not true of illusion. In Jamaica and Central America, this wonderful lace is put to all the uses mentioned by the native to our traveler, and to more uses besides. In fact, among the poorer people it supplies the place of manufactured cloth, which they can not afford to buy; and the wealthier classes do not by any means scorn it for ornamental use.

Long before the white man found his way to this part of the world, the Indians had known and used this vegetable cloth; so that what was so new and wonderful to King Charles and Governor Sir Thomas Lynch was an old story to the natives. Some time after King Charles received his vegetable necktie, Sir Hans Sloane, whose art-collection and library were the foundation of the British Museum, visited Jamaica. He described the tree fully, and was the first person who told the civilized world about it. The tree is commonly called the lace-bark tree. Its botanical name is Lagetto lintearia.

Wells, c.j. “vegetable clothing,” St. Nicholas Magazine 13, no. 2 (May – October 1886):524-25
Lace-bark dress. Photograph: © Saffron Walden Museum,
Essex (Image No. 000491).
Lace-bark slippers. Photograph: © Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew (EBC 67770).

[1] A veil worn by grieving women in Victorian times. Crape was a matte silk gauze that had been crimped with heated rollers; dyed black; and stiffened with gum, starch, or glue.

[2] Illusion, also known as tulle, is a fine netting fabric made of nylon. Appearing delicate and sheer, it has enough strength to be gathered and made into a bridal veil.

Contexts

This story represents an unusual example of respect for indigenous knowledge, all the more remarkable as it was written during the height of Western Imperialism. Antigua’s history and culture is complex. Inhabited first by indigenous Siboney and, later, Arawak and Carib Indians, the island’s colonization by whites began when a group of English settlers arrived in 1632, inaugurating its development as a valuable sugar colony and trading port. In the seventeenth century, sugar cane became the biggest source of income for the British overlords, who used slaves and indentured servants to cultivate, harvest, and process the plant. Uniquely among British Caribbean colonies, when Britain abolished slavery in the empire in 1834, Antigua immediately instituted full emancipation. The island became an associated state of the British Commonwealth in 1967, gaining full independence in 1981.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

The lace-bark tree has been identified as a source for eco-friendly fabrics. See “Eco-fibres old and new” from the Kew Gardens webpage.

Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is a native Antiguan’s acerbic address to tourists which likens current tourism to a new form of colonization, enslaving the locals and featuring environmental racism. The narrated version, read by Robin Miles, is delightful. Here is a small sample.

Monica Drake recounts her family’s visit to Antigua in “Jamaica Kincaid’s Antigua.”

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