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.
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!
Rescued hummingbird. Image from Stowe’s story in Our Young Folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, no. 1 (January 1865): 5. Public Domain.
At Rye Beach [1] during our summer’s vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,–days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water dashed along the ground and careered in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so, shivering and drawing our blanket- shawls close about us, we sat down at the window to watch the storm outside. The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that we had so often seen flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, we sent out to have him taken in. When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint, watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that grim death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds. What a time we had reviving him,–holding the little wet thing in the warm hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate! His eyes were fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where he was.
Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn’t mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for getting him a settled establishment in our apartment. I gave up my work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that he should take a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was formally put to bed, with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck, to keep him from beating his wings. Out of his white wrappings he looked forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him, and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.
The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life’s fire burning in their tiny bodies. Our bird’s lungs manufactured brilliant blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get more of it than he needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical authority looked grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once. We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would do well enough in time,–as it afterwards appeared he did, for from that day there was no more bleeding. In the course of the second day he began to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to return to us; perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time. “These great giants,” he seemed to say to himself, “are not bad people after all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and warmed me! Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them.” So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him “Hum, the son of Buz.” He became an individuality, a character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were.
“Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum. He has but one weakness–he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is in rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him. Mr. A—- reads Macaulay [2] to us, and you should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny’s thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded: he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than when sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my face with great edification.
“I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to make him go to bed in his box; but he evidently considers himself sufficiently convalescent to make a stand for his rights as a bird, and so scratched indignantly out of his wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the edge of the box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least. Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round and wide, and sits cocking his little head at me reflectively.”
When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out bright, Hum became entirely well, and seemed resolved to take the measure of his new life with us. Our windows were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames with mosquito gauze [3], so that the sun and air found free admission, and yet our little rover could not pass out. On the first sunny day he took an exact survey of our apartment from ceiling to floor, humming about, examining every point with his bill–all the crevices, mouldings, each little indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair and stand; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside apartment, his scrutiny was soon finished. We wondered at first what this was all about; but on watching him more closely, we found that he was actively engaged in getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither and thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects which in summer time are to be found in an apartment. In short, we found that, though the nectar of flowers was his dessert, yet he had his roast beef and mutton-chop to look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was not made out of a simple vegetarian diet. Very shrewd and keen he was, too, in measuring the size of insects before he attempted to swallow them. The smallest class were whisked off with lightning speed; but about larger ones he would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes, darting hither and thither, and surveying them warily, and if satisfied that they could be carried, he would come down with a quick, central dart which would finish the unfortunate at a snap. The larger flies seemed to irritate him, especially when they intimated to him that his plumage was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail; when he would lay about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a sword. A grasshopper that strayed in, and was sunning himself on the window-seat, gave him great discomposure. Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to long to make a dive at him; but, with characteristic prudence, confined himself to threatening movements, which did not exactly hit. He saw evidently that he could not swallow him whole, and what might ensue from trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay [4].
Hum had his own favourite places and perches. From the first day he chose for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across the corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established himself with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. He did not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between his shoulders, with his bill almost straight up in the air. One evening one of us, going to use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line. Another evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off; but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself again, and was found clinging, like a little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the window.
A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up over the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it had been there five minutes, flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here, now there, till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and after that he roosted there every night. Who does not see in this change all the signs of reflection and reason that are shown by us in thinking over our circumstances, and trying to better them? It seemed to say in so many words: “That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird; I get frightened, and wake from bad dreams to find myself head downward; so I will find a better roost on this twig.”
When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white muslin gown embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards her, and with his bill made instant examination of these new appearances; and one day, being very affectionately disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat some time. On another occasion, while Mr. A—- was reading, Hum established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds [5], making him look as if dressed out for a party. Hum’s most favourite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch his little claws. There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to the conversation or reading.
Hum had his different moods, like human beings. On cold, cloudy, gray days he appeared to be somewhat depressed in spirits, hummed less about the room, and sat humped up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much like a bird in a great-coat as possible. But on hot, sunny days, every feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked natty and trim, his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was impossible to come near him, for his agility. Then let mosquitoes and little flies look about them! Hum snapped them up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal familiarity with a saucy alacrity.
Hum had his established institutions in our room, the chief of which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood–sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler; which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians that he would fall in some day and be drowned. For which reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved; for the next morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum over my head, but by a sharp little flutter, and found Mr. Hum beating his wings in the tumbler, –having actually tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get his morning coffee before I was awake.
Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters, — but one day, when the door was left open, he made a dart out, and so into the open sunshine. Then, to be sure, we thought we had lost him. We took the mosquito netting out of all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of sugar and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual occupations. We saw him joyous and brisk among the honeysuckles outside the window, and it was gravely predicted that he would return no more. But at dinner-time in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to his spoon as if nothing had happened. Instantly we closed our windows and had him secure once more.
At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic House, about a mile from my boarding-place. I left all secure, as I supposed, at home. While gathering moss on the walls there, I was surprised by a little green humming-bird flying familiarly right towards my face and humming above my head. I called out, “Here is Hum’s very brother.” But, on returning home, I saw that the door of the room was open, and Hum was gone. Now certainly we gave him up for lost. I sat down to painting, and in a few minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tumbler in a social, confidential way, which seemed to say, “Oh, you’ve got back then.” After taking his usual drink of sugar and water, he began to fly about the ceiling as usual, and we gladly shut him in.
When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was time to go home, we had great questionings what was to be done with Hum. To get him home with us was our desire; but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling by railroad? Great were the consultings. A little basket of Indian work was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, and a bottle of sugar and water provided, and we started with him for a day’s journey. When we arrived at night the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and water in Boston. We found him alive and well, but so dead asleep that we could not wake him to roost; so we put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his tumbler for morning. The next day found him alive and humming, exploring the room and pictures, perching now here and now there; but as the weather was chilly, he sat for the most part of the time in a humped-up state on the tip of a pair of stag’s horns. We moved him to a more sunny apartment; but, alas! the equinoctial storm came on, and there was no sun to be had for days. Hum was blue; the pleasant seaside days were over; his room was lonely, the pleasant three that had enlivened the apartment at Rye no longer came in and out; evidently he was lonesome, and gave way to depression. One chilly morning he managed again to fall into his tumbler, and wet himself through; and notwithstanding warm bathings and tender nursings, the poor little fellow seemed to get diptheria, or something quite as bad for humming-birds.
We carried him to a neighboring sunny parlour, where ivy embowers all the walls and the sun lies all day. There he revived a little, danced up and down, perched on a green spray that was wreathed across the breast of a Psyche, [6] and looked then like a little flitting soul returning to its rest. Towards evening he drooped; and, having been nursed and warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green twig laid on the piano. In that sleep the little head drooped–nodded–fell; and little Hum went where other bright dreams go–to the Land of the Hereafter. [7]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Hum, the son of Buz,” In our young folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, No. 1 (January 1865): 1-7.
[1] Rye Beach is a coastal town in New Hampshire, only an hour away from Boston (by today’s means of conveyance).
[3] Mosquito gauze was used to create a window screen.
[4] He choose not to pursue the insect further.
[5] During the Victorian era many stylish women wore hats adorned with stuffed birds and feathers. In 1886 Sometime in 1886, Frank Chapman (1864–1945), an accomplished ornithologist, found more than 40 species of stuffed birds in New York City, all adorning ladies hats. In Boston, Massachusetts, in 1896 Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall led a campaign against this practice. Steadily attracting more and more supporters, they formed the Audubon Society–today one of the largest bird protection charities in the world–and took on the millinery trade. Although some protective legislation was passed in the US after a few years, the importation of feathers wasn’t banned until 1918, when the US Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
[6] In Greek mythology, Psyche was a beautiful princess who fell in love with Eros (Cupid), god of love, and went through terrible trials before being allowed to marry him. The story is often understood to be about the soul redeeming itself through love.
[7] The Land of the Hereafter refers to Heaven, and tells us that little Hum has died.
Contexts
Harriet Beecher Stowe is most famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which brought the daily horrors of slavery to a wide audience and is credited by scholars with contributing to the start of the American Civil War. She was a passionate abolitionist and a prolific writer. She found time to raise a family of seven children and add stories for children to her portfolio of work. Her first published book, in 1833, was Primary Geography for Children (you can find the 1855 revised edition, titled A New Geography for Children at Hathi Trust). Learn more about Stowe’s life and work.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
chaffed: To banter, rail at, or rally, in a light and non-serious manner, or without anger, but so as to try the good nature or temper of the person “chaffed.”
cambric: A kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray in Flanders. (Also applied to an imitation made of hard-spun cotton yarn.)
chestnut burr: The large edible seed or “nut” of the chestnut-tree, two or more of which are enclosed in a prickly pericarp or “burr.”
Chestnut burrs. Photo courtesy of pxfuel.com.
diptheria: An infectious disease that is characterized by severe inflammation of mucous membranes, esp. of the throat but often also of the nose, larynx, trachea, and bronchi, with formation of a thick layer of exudate sometimes causing obstruction to breathing, and which is caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Also: infection of other sites, especially the skin, by this bacterium.
palpitate: (of the heart) to beat rapidly and/or in an irregular way especially because of fear or excitement.
rills: shallow channels cut by water flowing over rock or soil.
spiraea: One or other species of an extensive genus of rosaceous plants or shrubs, many of which are largely cultivated for their handsome foliage and flowers.
Climate change is threatening hummingbirds by disrupting their patterns of migration and feeding routines. As bloom times change they may arrive at a known source of nutrition too early or too late. In short, they have lost their synchronization with nature. Scientists are still studying the problem and possible remedies, but you can help by turning your home into a hummingbird haven and following other tips in the article “Turn Your Yard Into A Hummingbird Spectacular,” published in Audubon Magazine.
Mule Barometer. Color zinc engraving and fiber, 1906, Library of Congress.
Now if you wish to travel fast
I beg you not to fool
With locomotion that's procured
Behind a Georgia mule.[1]
When I was teaching school in the backwoods of Georgia I had, one day, to attend to some business in Mudville, an embryo city about eleven miles from my school. Now you must know that a country school teacher can do nothing without first consulting his Board of Trustees; so I notified that honorable body that there was some business of vast importance to be attended to, and asked them to meet me on Friday afternoon; they all promised to be on hand “two hours b’sun.”[2] Friday afternoon, after school was dismissed, they came in one by one until they had all gathered.
As the chairman called the meeting to order, he said: “Bredren, de objick ob dis meeting is to consider de ways ob pervidin de means ob transposing de ‘fessar to Mudville.”[3] Now, by the way, the chairman of the Board was undoubtedly intended by nature for a smart man. He had a very strong weakness for using big words in the wrong place, and thought it his special duty to impress the “’fessar” at all times with his knowledge of the dictionary. Well, after much debate it was finally decided that “Brudder” Whitesides would “furnish the mule” and “Brudder Jinks de buggy” and that I should start early the next morning.
The next morning I was up quite early, because I wished to start as soon as possible in order to avoid the heat of the day. I ate breakfast and waited—six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock—and still that promised beast had not put in appearance. Knowing the proclivity of the mule to meander along as his own sweet will dictates, especially when the sun shines hot, I began to despair of reaching Mudville at all that day; but “Brudder” Jinks, with whom I boarded, seeing my melancholy state of mind, offered to hitch up Gypsy, an antiquated specimen of the mule, whose general appearance was that of the skeleton of some prehistoric animal one sees in a museum.
I accepted this proposition with haste, and repented at leisure.
I could see a weary, long-suffering look in that mule’s eye, and I could imagine how his heart must have sought the vicinity of his tail, when they disturbed his dreams of green fields and pleasant pastures, and hitched him to an old buggy, to encounter the stern realities of a dusty road. “Verily, verily,” I soliloquized, “the way of the mule is hard.” But, putting aside all tender feelings, I jumped into the buggy and grasping a stick of quite ample proportions began to urge his muleship on his way.
Nothing of much consequence hampered our onward journey except the breaking down of three wheels and the excessive heat of the sun, which great luminary seemed not more than ninety-five miles away.
I arrived at Mudville sometime between 12 [P.?]M. and 6 P.M. After having finished my business and having bountifully fed my mule on water and what grass he could nibble from around his hitching post, I bought a large watermelon and started for home. Before I was out of sight of the town, I began to have serious misgivings about reaching home before a very late hour. In the morning by various admonitions and applications of the hickory, I had been able to get my mule into a jog trot, but on the homeward journey he would not even get up to a respectable walk. Well, we trudged on for two hours or more, when to my dismay he stopped,—stopped still. As the hour was getting late and it was growing dark, I began advising him—with the hickory—that it was best to proceed, but he seemed to have hardened his heart, and his back also, and paid me no heed. There I sat—all was as still as the grave, save for the dismal hoot of the screech-owl.[4] There I was, five and a half miles from home with no prospect of getting there.
I began to coax my mule with some words which perhaps are not in the Sabbath School books, and to emphasize them with the rising and falling inflection of the stick across his back; but still he moved not. Then all at once my conscience smote me. I thought perhaps the faithful beast might be sick. My mind reverted to Balaam, whose beast spoke to him when he had smitten him but three times and here I had smitten my beast about 3,333 times. I listened almost in expectation of hearing say, “Johnson, Johnson, why smites thou me 3,333 times?”[5]
I got out of the buggy and looked at the mule; he gazed at me with a sad far-away expression in his eye, which sent pangs of remorse to my heart. I thought of the cruel treatment I had given him, and on the impulse of the moment I went to the buggy, got out my large, luscious melon, burst it open and laid it on the ground before the poor animal; and I firmly resolved to be a friend of the mule ever after, and to join the Humane Society as soon as I reached Atlanta.[6]
As I watched that mule slowly munching away at my melon, I began to wonder if I had not acted a little too hastily in giving it to him, but I smothered that thought when I remembered the pledge I had just taken. When he had finished he looked around with a satisfied air which encouraged me; so I took hold of his bridle and after stroking him gently for a moment, attempted to lead him off. But he refused to be led. He looked at me from under his shabby eyebrows, but the sad, far-away expression had vanished and in its stead was a mischievous gleam, born of malice afore-thought.[7] I remonstrated with him, but it only seemed to confirm his convictions that it was right for him to stand there. I thought of my melon he had just devoured; then I grew wrathy, and right there and then renounce all my Humane Society resolutions, and began to shower down on that mule torrents of abuse and hickory also, but all to no effect. Instead of advancing he began to “revance.” I pulled on the bridle until my hands and arms were sore, but he only continued to back and pull me along with him. When I stopped pulling he stopped backing, and so things went on for the space of about half an hour.
I wondered what time was. Just then the moon began to rise, from which I knew it was about 9 o’clock. My physical exertion began to tell on me and I hungered. Oh, how I hungered for a piece of that watermelon! And I hit the mule an extra blow as a result of those longings.
I was now desperate. I sat down on the side of the road and groaned; that groan came from the depths of my soul, and I know that I presented a perfect picture of despair. However, I determined to gather all my remaining strength for one final effort; so I caressed him up and down the backbone two or three times as a sort of persuader, then grasping the bridle with both hands, I began to pull, pull as hard as I had never pulled before and as I never hope to pull again. And he began to back. I continued to pull and he continued to back.
How long this order of things might have gone on I do not know, but just then a brilliant idea struck me so forcibly as to come near knocking me down. I took the mule out, and by various tying, buckling and tangling, I hitched him up again, upside down, or wrong side out, or, well, I can’t exactly explain, but anyhow when I got through his tail pointed in the direction I wanted him to go. Then I got back in the buggy and taking hold of the bridle began to pull, and he began to back; and I continued to pull, and he continued to back; and will you believe me, that mule backed all the way home! It is true we did not travel very fast but every time he would slow down, I would put a little extra force into my pull and he would put a little extra speed into his back. Ever and anon he would glance at me with that mischievous, malicious twinkle, which seemed to say “I’ve got you tonight,” and I would smile back a quiet, self-satisfied smile and give an extra pull.
But when we got home, that mischievous, malicious twinkle changed, and he looked at me in a dazed sort of way and I smiled back quite audibly. And do you know, that mule has been in a dark brown study ever since.[8] He is trying to get through his slow brain how I managed to make him pull me home that night.
As I jumped out of the buggy the clock struck twelve. And there at that solemn hour of the night, as the pale moon shed her silvery beams all around and as the bright stars peeped down upon me from the ethereal blue, and the gentle zephyrs wafted to me the odor of a hog-pen in the near distance, I vowed a vow, an awful vow, that so long as I breathed the vital air, never, no, never again, would I attempt to drive a Georgia mule.
Muybridge, Eadweard. Animal Locomotion: Mule. Photograph, c1887, Library of Congress.
Johnson, James weldon. “behind A Georgia mule,” in the upward path: a reader for colored children, ed. myron t. pritchard and mary white ovington, 66-72. harcourt, brace and howe, 1920.
[1] Mules are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. They are mostly infertile.
[2] Perhaps “before sundown.”
[3] ‘fessar: i.e. professor.
[4] The Eastern Screech Owl is Georgia’s most common owl. This strictly nocturnal bird is often more heard than seen.
[5] Balaam is a non-Israelite prophet featured in the Bible’s Old Testament’s Book of Numbers. While riding his donkey on his way to Moab (modern Jordan), an angel that only his donkey could see blocked their way. When the animal refused to continue, Balaam beat it three times with a staff until the donkey addressed him and asked him why.
Anderson, Alexander. Balaam. Wood Engraving, 19th century, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, CT. Public Domain.
[6] Probably a reference to the American Humane Society, founded in 1877 to promote the humane treatment of children and animals.
[7] Premeditated; deliberate.
[8] A state of deep reverie or intense thought. The term “brown study” seems to have appeared first in the sixteenth century and came into regular usage in the nineteenth century.
Contexts
Weldon Johnson wrote this autobiographical piece during the Jim Crow Era, when Southern schools were racially segregated and extremely unequal. In addition to being a writer and an educator, Weldon Johnson was a civil rights activist and a leader of the NAACP.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
coax: To influence or persuade by caresses, flattery, or blandishment.
ever and anon: Ever and again, every now and then; continually at intervals.
hamper: To obstruct the free movement of (a person or animal), by fastening something on, or by material obstacles or entanglements.
hickory: The wood of a North America hickory tree. Also, a stick or switch made of hickory (or sometimes another wood).
wrathy: Feeling, or inclined to, wrath; wrathful, very angry, incensed.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.”1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 105. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., http://www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
IF you live in the country, you can have many interesting experiences with birds. One morning, at about seven o’clock, last March, I discovered a fawn-colored screech owl perched disconsolately upon the upper sash of a window which had been left lowered from the top all night. [1] The owl, uttering faint croons, peered about as if trying to discover where he had spent the night. It was many minutes after my finding him, that he fluttered heavily away. My first cry of surprise seemed in no wise to have disturbed him.
Once, at this same window, I found a chimney swift, clinging desperately to the screen. The bird had flown in at the top of the window and landed just inside, against the screen below. He was quivering with fear.
For countless springs, the swifts, or swallows, had taken up their abode in a south chimney of our house. We could hear them often at night, in the brick-walled home. They seemed always to be “cuddling down”, yet never to get quite “cuddled” to their satisfaction. The little bell-like twitterings would be sounding, I imagined, whenever I awoke.
At dusk, when the sky was lavender, the swallows would flutter in graceful groups, trilling, swirling high over our heads. [2] How well I can see them now!––grouping themselves, breaking ranks, then flitting together. But as to having come into close contact with our neighbors, the swifts, that pleasure had not been mine till I found the frightened bird on the window screen. [3]
“Ah, here you are at last, little lodger,” I thought, and my heart bounded as it had when I first discovered an oriole’s nest. “We have slept in the same house many nights,” I said gently. “You should not fear me now.”
But the swallow said, with its every twitch, “Oh, please don’t touch me,––don’t touch me!” [4]
I watched it a minute, before setting it free. Swallows in motion, gnat-catching, are more pleasing to look upon than swallows in repose. When one is clinging to your screen, you think, “What a queer, little, long-winged bird; dark, with here and there touches of weather-beaten-shingle gray; tiny black beak and strange stubby tail, with extended spines that seem to hold it to the screen like black basting threads!”
Rather a mousy-looking little creature, somehow, it seemed to me. Its prominent black eyes appeared to add to the suggestion.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.”1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 106. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., http://www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
Speaking of bright dark eyes, reminds me of the humming-bird that was imprisoned one August day on my back porch. [5] She––for the little bird lacked the crimson throat that marks the male hummer––frantically imagined herself a captive, till she found that only the west end of the porch was incased in glass, and all the rest consisted of railing and lattice work. But while she was discovering this, I had an opportunity to watch her.
For a long time, I saw only a blinding grayish blur of perpetual motion. Then the hummingbird paused on the framework of the window, and I noticed the sheen on her splendid moss-green feathers, and marvelled at tiny black claws, minute enough to have been fashioned from wire hairpins. I heard a faint, “Chirp, chirp.” Yet, when I was a child, someone had told me that humming-birds made no sound aside from the buzzing produced by their wings in motion.
While writing of sounds, I think of a songbird, the brown thrasher, and a surprise that the thrashers once gave me. [6] On a sunny morning in spring, I came upon a pile of brush at the back of the orchard. Peeping at me through the mass of twigs, was a certain old Plymouth Rock hen, that I had always suspected of being a little daft. [7] Her ways were wild and strange. She delighted in hatching eggs in outlandish places. I went to discover upon what she was sitting. And what do you think I beheld just above Mrs. Plymouth Rock? I found a brown thrasher there, nesting complacently in what you might call the second story of the brush heap. Her glassy yellow eyes glared at me coldly, as if to say, “If it suits Mrs. Plymouth Rock and me–––”
But who can account for the whims of birds? One summer day, a most amazing sight met my eyes. Flat on the ground in the back pasture, I found the nest of a mourning-dove! [8] Mother Dove fluttered off, with that gentle, high-keyed plaint that she uses in flight, and left me to gaze at the nest of faded rootlets and two woefully ugly fledglings with long gray breaks. Their shallow nest was on a particularly damp-looking spot of earth. After one recovered from the little shock of finding the brood on the ground, one’s heart was filled with pity. The sight was so cheerless. [9]
I thought of the oriole’s comely basket, high in the golden light, where it swung from the tip of a poplar branch. [10] I thought of a neat song-sparrow’s nest that I had just seen hidden under the “eaves” of a Norway spruce hedge, where the song-sparrows spend the winter.
They come out on every mild morning to sing a little, even when Cardinal is silent. You recall their sharp knife-like notes. Ever ready to make cheer, the song-sparrows would seem to live a life free from trouble. Yet they know what it is to have their hedge haunted by wily cats, on winter evenings, when the cold birds are fluttering to shelter; and at dusk, in spring, when Mother Sparrow is directing her awkward, freckled birdlings to some nook for safety. [11]
Oh, I cannot tell how indignant it made me once to discover in the nest of Mother Song-Sparrow, two cowbird eggs, flecked with cocoa-brown like hers, but a trifle larger. Unsuspecting little Song-Sparrow, would have five instead of three eggs to tend, while the cowbird went swaggering with her noisy comrades up and down the pasture, in the wake of the cows.
As I write, this pasture is white with snow. For it is a January day, and cold. Five crows have come up from the woods, to peck at the corn stubble in what was once a pasture and then a cornfield. They strut over the snowy surface and pull at the bits of stalk. But they never come to feast when I feed Titmouse, with his golden hoard under each wing, and Chickadee, wearing the jaunty black skullcap, and making small sounds like corks screwing in bottles. [12]
Hawkins, Marcellus. Front cover. 1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 97. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., The Brownies’ Book, www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.” The Brownies’ Book, ed. W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, no. 4, New York, N.Y.: DuBois and Dill, April 1920. 105-106. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/22001351/>.
Contexts
This nonfiction text blends both animal welfare and natural history. Lee describes and animates many different types of birds, but important to note is Lee’s evocation of readers’ sympathy. The young author “anthropomorphizes and feminizes” the animals throughout the text as a way to teach moral lessons to her young readers (Kilcup 306, full citation below). Lee’s nonfiction demonstrates her ability to write informally and with a child-like tone, while also drawing important and mature connections about animal welfare.
Resources for Further Study
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World: All About Birds
Kilcup, Karen. Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children’s Writing, Nature, and the Environment. University of Georgia Press, 2021.
Photograph of the Mvskoke (Creek) Council House, built in 1878. Photographer unknown.
'Neath the sheltering shades I linger,
Where cool summer breezes blow,
And list to the chirp of the song-birds
As my sires did moons ago.
I long to hear the bell’s loud note
From thy towers on high,
And feel again a joyous content,
As I felt in days gone by.
But now when I hear its music,
Pouring forth its tuneful lay,
It spreads o’er my heart a sadness
Which I can scarcely drive away.
Many summers have come and vanished,
Many suns passed o’er thy head,
Hands that carved thy towering walls,
Are numbered with the dead.
Within thy hallowed walls have gathered,
Many, many warriors bold,
Chieftains mighty—statesmen fearless,
Gift with wisdom—from nature’s fold.
Within thy walls there echoed voices
Raised for truth that ne’er will cease,
From thy halls spoke law and order,
From thy towers echoed peace.
There were recounted dear traditions,
Handed down from many ages;
There was worshipped the Great Spirit,
There preached the honored sages.
All has ceased where life once blossomed,
Like unto a fading flower;
Our nation’s grandeur has departed,
Thou but speak of bygone power.
Where once echoed voices eloquent,
Where wisdom’s voice did thrill,
All is now but gloomy silence,
Yet tender memory hangs there still.
Live on, oh dear old structure,
You have done your duty well,
For what once a noble race accomplished,
You alone must live to tell.
Eagle Eye Thompson. “Ye old council house.” Sturm’s oklahoma magazine. January 1909, 86.
[1] According to the publication, Eagle Eye Thompson was described as “a young Creek who seems to have inherited the love and pride of race which have ever been a leading trait of the Indian.” Unfortunately, no additional biographical info on Eagle Eye Thompson was found. “Creek” was the term frequently used in 1909 for what is now known as the Muscogee Creek Nation. The spelling of their name is Mvskoke in their language.
Contexts
The Council House described in the poem and pictured above was built in 1878 after the previous Council House suffered a fire. The structure is now a museum of the Nation’s culture and history called the Muscogee Creek Council House Museum and is a tourist attraction in the Okmulgee, Oklahoma area. The Council House was the seat of the Tribe and where it handled all of its governmental affairs. While issues of government may not have directly involved very young children, older children would have been aware of such goings-on, as Eagle Eye Thompson, described as “a young Creek,” clearly was.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Cultural Center’s website explores the history of the Nation’s Council House.
The Nation’s website provides an excellent history of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
This page on the Nation’s website has tabs that explore the different levels of the Nation’s governmental entities.
Pedagogy
The STEP program has lots of lessons plans for all grades that focus on Mvskoke history and culture, as well as broader Native American history. As a bonus, Oklahoma educators can even check out the educational trunk!
In teaching about Council Houses, it would be helpful to also explain the role that Native American governments played in shaping contemporary U.S. democracy. Terri Hansen (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) for PBS provides an excellent overview and several helpful comparison between the current U.S. Constitution and the Iroquois (now commonly called Haudenosaunee) Confederacy.
Original illustration for Zitkala-Sa’s story in the The Jones Fifth Reader, p. 443.
I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and light – footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mother‘s pride, — my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others.
In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire, toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her I sat upon my feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee.
Soon after breakfast mother sometimes began her bead work. On a bright, clear day she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the ground, and rolled up the canvas on its frame of slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie.
Untying the long, tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my mother spread upon a mat beside 5 her bunches of colored beads, just as an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing ‘from a beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade, she trimmed the buckskin into shape. Often she worked upon moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in her designing. With a proud, beaming face I watched her work. In imagination I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting moccasins. I felt the eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red beads decorating my feet.
Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical observation lessons in the art of beadwork. It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my beads upon it. My mother required of me original designs for my lessons in beading. At first I frequently insnared many a sunny hour into working a long design. Soon I learned from self – inflicted punishment to refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I began.
After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and squares. My original designs were not always symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother had little patience. The quietness of her oversight made me feel responsible and dependents upon my own judgment. She treated me as a dignified little individual as long as I was on my good behavior; and how humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her!
Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits, and found joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a summer afternoon a party of four or five of my playmates roamed over the hills o with me. I remember well how we used to exchange our necklaces, beaded belts, and sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things we had heard them say in their conversations. We imitated their various manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we seated ourselves upon our feet; and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women were accustomed to do.
While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in undertones, “Han! han!”(Yes! yes! ) whenever the speaker paused for breath, or sometimes for our sympathy. As the discourse became more thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our voices in these interjections.
No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting of a cloud shadow in the landscape near by was sufficient to change our impulses; and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played among the hills. We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing and calling to one another, we were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green.
Original illustration for Zitkala-Sa’s story in The Jones Fifth Reader, page 447
One summer afternoon my mother left me alone in our wigwam, while she went across the way to my aunt’s dwelling.
I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee, for I feared a tall, broad – shouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked among the hills. Wiyaka – Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless, and when ever he came into a wigwam he was driven there by extreme hunger. In one tawny arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of wild sunflowers that he gathered in his aimless ramblings. His black hair was matted by the winds and scorched into a dry red by the constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one brown bare foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and fro.
I felt so sorry for the man in his misfortune that I prayed to the Great Spirit to restore him, but though I pitied him at a distance, I was still afraid of him when he appeared near our wigwam.
Thus, when my mother left me by myself that after noon, I sat in a fearful mood within our tepee. I recalled all I had ever heard about Wiyaka – Napbina; and I tried to assure myself that though he might pass near by, he would not come to our wigwam because there was no little girl around our grounds.
Just then, from without, a hand lifted the canvas covering of the entrance; the shadow of a man fell within the wigwam, and a roughly – moccasined foot was planted inside.
For a moment I did not dare to breathe or stir, for I thought that it could be no other than Wiyaka – Napbina. The next instant I sighed aloud in relief. It was an old grandfather who had often told me Iktomi legends.
“Where is your mother, my little grandchild?“ were his first words.
“My mother is soon coming back from my aunt’s tepee, “I replied.
“Then I shall wait a while for her return, “he said, crossing his feet and seating himself upon a mat.
At once I began to play the part of a generous hostess. I turned to my mother’s coffeepot.
Lifting the lid I found nothing but coffee grounds in the bottom. I set the pot on a heap of cold ashes in the center of the wigwam, and filled it half full of warm Missouri River water. During this performance I felt conscious of being watched. Then breaking off a small piece of our unleavened bread, I placed it in a bowl. Turning soon to the coffeepot, which would not have boiled on a dead fire had I waited forever, I poured out a cup of worse than muddy warm water. Carrying the bowl in one hand and the cup in the other, I handed the light luncheon to the old warrior. I offered them to him with the air of bestowing generous hospitality.
“How! how!“ he said, and placed the dishes on the ground in front of his crossed feet. He nibbled at the bread and sipped from the cup. I sat back against a pole watching him. I was proud to have succeeded so well in serving refreshments to a guest. Before the old warrior 5 had finished eating, my mother entered. Immediately she wondered where I had found coffee, for she knew I had never made any and that she had left the coffeepot empty. Answering the question in my mother‘s eyes, the warrior remarked, “My granddaughter made coffee on a heap of dead ashes, and served me the moment I came.”
They both laughed, and mother said, “Wait a little longer, and I will build a fire.” She meant to make some real coffee. But neither she nor the warrior, whom the law of our custom had compelled to partake of my insipid hospitality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment, poor as it was, with the utmost respect. It was not till long years afterward that I learned how ridiculous a thing I had done. [1]
Zitkala-Ša. “the indian girl.” in the jones fifth reader, edited by L.m. Jones, 441-447. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1903.
This piece, published in 1903, appears to be a cross-written version of Zitkála-Šá’s “Impressions of An Indian Childhood” which was originally published in 1901 in the Atlantic Monthly. The piece also begins her 1921 book American Indian Stories. American Indian Stories is largely autobiographical and highlights the stark contrast between Zitkála-Šá’s childhood on the reservation, as the piece above shows, and her experience at White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a boarding school for Native children that was operated by Quaker missionaries.
Resources for Further Study
This document provides a bit more information on Quaker-run boarding schools and specifically mentions Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories.
To learn more about the Yankton Reservation, please see the transcribed treaty that the U.S. government entered into with the Yankton tribe in 1858. This short article by the National Parks Service explains the pressure the Yankton were under in signing the treaty and the National Archives gives additional background on the 1858 treaty..
Contemporary Connections
Concerned about waste management facilities encroaching on and polluting the reservation, the Yankton tribe sued the state of South Dakota twice, once in 1995 and again in 1997. In both cases, the courts rejected the Tribe’s claims.
Left: Original cover of Eastman’s Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls. Right: Portrait of the author included in the original 1914 publication. Photographer unknown.
To be in harmony with nature, one must be true in thought, free in action, and clean in body, mind, and spirit. This is the solid granite foundation of character.
Have you ever wondered why most great men were born in humble homes and passed their early youth in the open country? There a boy is accustomed to see the sun rise and set every day; there rocks and trees are personal friends, and his geography is born with him, for he carries a map of the region in his head. In civilization there are many deaf ears and blind eyes. Because the average boy in the town has been deprived of close contact and intimacy with nature, what he has learned from books he soon forgets, or is unable to apply. All learning is a dead language to him who gets it at second hand.
It is necessary that you should live with nature, my boy friend, if only that you may verify to your own satisfaction your schoolroom lessons. Further than this, you may be able to correct some error, or even to learn something that will be a real contribution to the sum of human knowledge. That is by no means impossible to a sincere observer. In the great laboratory of nature there are endless secrets yet to be discovered.
We will follow the Indian method, for the American Indian is the only man I know who accepts natural things as lessons in themselves, direct from the Great Giver of life.
Yet there exists in us, as in you, a dread of strange things and strange places; light and darkness, storm and calm, affect our minds as they do yours, until we have learned to familiarize ourselves with earth and sky in their harsher aspects. Suppose that you are absolutely alone in the great woods at night! The Indian boy is taught from babyhood not to fear such a situation, for the laws of the wilderness must necessarily be right and just, and man is almost universally respected by the animals, unless he himself is the aggressor. This is the normal attitude of trust in our surroundings, both animate and inanimate; and if our own attitude is normal, the environment at once becomes so. It is true that an innate sense of precaution makes us fear what is strange; it is equally true that simplicity and faith in the natural wins in the end.
I will tell you how I was trained, as a boy, to overcome the terror of darkness and loneliness. My uncle, who was my first teacher, was accustomed to send me out from our night camp in search of water. As we lived a roving life in pursuit of game, my errand led me often into pathless and unfamiliar woods. While yet very young, all the manhood and self-reliance in me was called forth by this test.
You can imagine how I felt as I pushed forward alone into the blackness, conscious of real danger from possible wild beasts and lurking foes. How thrilling, how tantalizing the cry of the screech-owl! Even the rustling of a leaf or the snapping of a dry twig under foot sent a chill through my body. Novice that I was, I did not at once realize that it is as easy as swimming; all I needed was confidence in myself and in the elements.
Ralph Albert Blakelock. Moonlight, Indian Encampment. Oil on canvas, 1889, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
As I hurried through the forest in the direction my uncle had indicated, there seemed gradually to develop sufficient light for me to distinguish the trees along my way. The return trip was easier. When, as often happened, he sent me for a second pailful, no protest or appeal escaped my lips, thanks to my previous training in silent obedience. Instinct helped me, as he had foreseen, to follow the trail I had made, and the trees were already old acquaintances. I could hear my own breathing in the silence; my footfall and heart-beat sounded as though they were those of another person coming behind me, and while this disturbed me at first, I quickly became accustomed to it. Very soon I learned to distinguish different kinds of trees by the rustling of their leaves in the breeze which is caused by the stir of man or animal.
If you can accustom yourself to travel at night, how much more you will be able to see and appreciate in the daytime! You will become more sensible of the unseen presences all about you and understand better the communications of the wild creatures. Once you have thrown off the handicap of physical fear, there will develop a feeling of sympathetic warmth, unknown before.
In the event of sudden danger, I was taught to remain perfectly motionless—a dead pause for the body, while the mind acts quickly yet steadily, planning a means of escape. If I discover the enemy first, I may be passed undiscovered. This rule is followed by the animals as well. You will find it strictly observed by the young ones who are hidden by their mother before they are able to run with her; and they are made to close their eyes also. The shining pupil of the eye is a great give-away.
It is wonderful how quickly and easily one can adjust himself to his surroundings in wild life. How gentle is the wild man when at peace! How quick and masterful in action! Like him, we must keep nature’s laws, develop a sound, wholesome body, and maintain an alert and critical mind. Upon this basis, let us follow the trail of the Indian in his search for an earthly paradise!
George Catlin. Sioux Village, Lake Calhoun, near Fort Snelling. Oil on canvas, 1836, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Eastman, Charles A. “At Home with Nature,” in Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for boy scouts and camp fire girls, 1-6. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1914.
[1] The Santee Dakota are also sometimes known as the Santee Sioux.
Contexts
The Boy Scouts, as an organization, have a lengthy history of exploiting and appropriating Native American cultures and traditions, as Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) explains in Indian Country Today. In becoming an icon for the Boy Scouts, Eastman received criticism of European assimilation. However, many of his supporters, such as Penelope Myrtle Kelsey (Seneca), argue that his association with the Boy Scouts was an act of resistance against the “vanishing Indian” narrative.[2] For additional information on the “vanishing Indian” narrative, please see The Pluralism Project.
Resources for Further Study
When teaching works by Native American writers, particularly older works such as those by Charles Eastman, it is critical to emphasize that Native peoples are still here. To foster this viewpoint, it can be helpful to teach contemporary Native American writers in addition to older foundational texts.
Sharing how other institutions work to counter the “vanishing Indian” trope may also provide insightful ideas.
The Plains Art Museum, for example, is hosting an exhibition entitled The Vanishing Perspective to rebut this harmful narrative that was born of Manifest Destiny.
This activity template is based upon a text not written by a Native person but focusing on one, which may be problematic in and of itself. Still, instructors could easily tailor the learning opportunities to discuss the “vanishing Indian” trope in other works. The template is geared for 6th-8th grade learners.
Contemporary Connections
Cecily Hilleary explores the connection between the Boy Scouts’ appropriation of Native cultures and other popular forms of appropriation, such as sports teams’ names and logos.
Ben Railton’s July 2020 article in the Saturday Evening Post provides a thorough overview of the “vanishing Indian” myth and its horrific effects, particularly in Oklahoma, including increased COVID-19 cases.
[2] Kelsey, Penelope Myrtle. “A ‘Real Indian’ to the Boy Scouts: Charles Eastman as a Resistance Writer.” Western American Literature, 38: no. 1 (2013): 30-48.
