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.
Cornelis Saftleven. A Lion Snarling. Black and red chalk and black and brown washes, 1625-1633, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Public domain.
Ay, I am here—Monsieur Dessalines, the freedman; made so by his own hand and proclamation. If it suit thy quaking spirit better I am thy master’s escaped slave. Take me if thou darest! Hiding place my castle is on the mountains, where dwells no will save mine, and no slave dare breathe the air and refuse to be a man.
Good Dessalines, you say? Good slave! I remember when first I was sent to the master to receive from his lips my first instruction in the art of making self, in all things, subservient to the master’s will. On entrance to his presence, in meek and humble tones I showed my aptitude for the first lesson in slavish servitude. This must have pleased the good man, for next he tried to instill in me that God expected of the slave obedience to the master’s will. From sundry books he had at hand he read to me; and all he read impressed me with the thought that the gods from the beginning had ordained one race to serve, the other to rule. My people were of the race to serve; his people of the race to rule. Desiring to see how far this mockery went I asked to be taught a prayer whereby I could free my soul from guilt of insolence and hatred to the whites. He directed me to say a prayer, which after him I repeated, and called on all the saints and angels of his faith to witness I was an obdurate, worthless sinner. Again did he seek to impress me with the thought I must learn to love my masters. Then threw I the mask aside.[1] I told him I hated the masters and their gods! I told him the African’s gods taught revenge for wrongs, hatred for hatred, and death for death. On this he threatened me with chastisement, torment and the church’s most fruitful curses. He dared to call me a pagan dog! Dost know what then I did? I plucked him by his unholy beard, threw him to the ground and spurned him as I would some snarling, fangless cur.
God have mercy on me? Thou, too, art a doler out of superstitious cant—an humble worshipper of thy master’s household gods. I have none, I know none, and owe allegiance only to my kind. A race enslaved ’tis true, but not all of us are only fit to be in spirit as thy master hath made thee. Teach the slave if he disobey he receives the lash. ‘Tis is reason, for thy corporal frame is captive; but to command the mind to worship at an altar where the sacrifice of liberty and manhood occur each day is as tyrannical as useless. Minds are not made captive with slavery chains, nor are men’s souls made for barter and trade.
What has made me master here? What will make ye masters here? Look upon us! I am as black as the shadows of night, with muscles of iron and a will that was never enslaved! What has he that I have not save the arrogance of the accursed Caucasian blood? What have these Franks that we are their household chattels–that we are their beasts? They suffer from the heat more than we, their sight is less keen, the evening dews hasten them to their graves and the noonday’s sun finds them under cover. The very fibres[2] of their frames are weak and puny, and, as the gods allotted labor for the part of man, they must depend on us to carry out the law. What fetich[3] have they that sustains their power to rule and ours to serve? We are ten to one their number now in Haiti—perhaps an hundred it may be. Then is it the strong who rules, or is it the natural sequence of our own inward weakness? Have ye mothers, sisters or laughing babes that ye can call your own?
Were ye always slaves and your sires, too? And must it follow that ye must always be?
Listen! When but a stripling in my native land I was wont to hunt the great king of the jungles whose roar is like the distant thunder, and whose bite is death. One day, with five companions, armed with spears and shields, I penetrated a dense undergrowth and suddenly confronted a lioness and her mate. On seeing us they gave forth terrific roars in defiance of our arms and numbers. All unprepared for the meeting, my companions were affrighted and would have fled had I not called on them to halt—as flight meant a fearful death—and to charge upon the foe. We charged upon them, and though they were wounded, they were not disabled, and only made more fierce and desperate. Then there ensued such a battle! The spears were torn from our hand. Three of my companions with their entrails protruding from their tortured abdomens were still in death upon the ground. The brutes’ terrific roar and fearful carnage drove terror to our hearts, and routed, we ran ingloriously from the scene. What would I teach thee from this tale? The same lesson I have learned: That wavering is cowardly and desperation makes men brave; that the arms of the oppressors, however great in number, cannot prevail with the desperation of the lion at bay. The masters are wavering like the tall palmetto in the storm’s angry blast. Let us but be brave and the shackles now upon your limbs will be turned to anklets of gold and precious stones taken from the bodies of these Frankish dogs. If you will be brutes be lions!
Louis Rigaud. Jean Jacques Dessalines. Oil Painting, 1878, Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
EASTON, WILLIAM EDGAR. “DESSALINES,” IN THE DUNBAR SPEAKER AND ENTERTAINER, ED. ALICE MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON, 100-02. NAPERVILLE, ILL: J. L. NICHOLS & CO., 1920.
[1] Paul Laurence Dunbar’s famous poem “We Wear the Mask” was first published in 1896, three years after Dessalines.
[2] Fibre: Alternate spelling of fiber.
[3] Fetich: Archaic spelling of fetish.
Contexts
The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer‘s dedication reads: “To the children of the race which is herein celebrated, this book is dedicated, that they may read and learn about their own people.” In the foreword, Leslie Pinckney Hill, an African American educator, writer, and community leader who graduated from Harvard University in 1903, criticizes the one-sidedness of prevailing reading courses: “In vain may you search their pages—those pages upon which all our reading has been founded—for anything other than a patronizing view of that vast, brooding world of colored folk—yellow, black and brown—which comprises by far the largest portion of the human family.” Hill further writes that Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s book seeks to prove “that the white man has no fine quality, either by heart or mind, which is not shared by his black brother.”
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the 1804 Haitian Revolution. The text included in The Dunbar Speaker is a modified excerpt from Easton’s 1893 historical drama Dessalines. Without other characters’ interventions (as they appear in the original play) this adaptation becomes a monologue.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
affrighted: Frightened, terrified.
freedmen: A man who was a slave but has now been given his freedom; an emancipated (male) slave.
Resources for Further Study
In “Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Demon, Demigod, and Everything in Between,” Lindsay J. Twa analyzes contradictory representations of Dessalines’ controversial legacy. She notes that twentieth-century African American writers reached for this Haitian historical figure as part of their rhetorical efforts to instill racial pride and represent black heroic accomplishment.
Easton himself, in the preface to Dessalines, admits that he favors romance over history in his fictionalization of Dessalines’ story, and asks readers to given him credit for “seeking . . . to teach the truth, that ‘minds are not made captive by slavery’s chains, not were men’s souls made for barter and trade.’”
Lucy Maud Montgomery Library and Archives Canada / Public Domain
CHAPTER IV: Morning at Green Gables
IT was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across glimpses of blue sky. For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn’t want her because she wasn’t a boy! But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor. She pushed up the sash–it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn’t been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight that nothing was needed to hold it up. Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes glistening with delight. Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? Wasn’t it a lovely place? Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here! She would imagine she was. There was scope for imagination [1] here. A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind. Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; [2] there was a gap in it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters [3] was visible. Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea. Anne’s beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed. She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, until she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheard by the small dreamer.
Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. Boston: L. C. Page & Co., 1908.
[1] “Scope for imagination” is a phrase Anne uses frequently when she is inspired by nature, people, or events.
[2] Montgomery describes the trees surrounding Green Gables through Anne’s eyes. There are blooming cherry and apples trees as well as purple-blossomed lilac trees. The lilacs are especially romantic because of their sweet fragrance which perfumes the air in early spring.
[3] Lake of the Shining Water was the name Anne gave to a small pond on the farm. She had an extraordinary imagination and often gave names to things that inspired her spirit.
Contexts
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908. The setting is a small community on Prince Edward Island in Canada. This was a time when women’s rights were greatly restricted, in Canada and throughout the world. The book tells the story of an orphan girl who is desperate for a loving family. She is sent to help two older people, a brother and sister, who live in a house called Green Gables. Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert have never been married and have no experience raising children. They have requested to adopt a boy who could help with farm chores. Instead, Anne arrives. Marilla is ready to send her back to the orphanage, but Matthew is quickly charmed by Anne’s happy and inquisitive personality and her love of the beautiful countryside in Avonlea, the town where she finds her new home. The story touches on the plight of women in the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries as Anne struggles to live out her dreams. Montgomery’s ability to paint pictures with language is demonstrated magnificently in the book through Anne’s words. This early chapter is a lovely introduction to the beginning of Anne’s life in Avonlea with the Cuthberts.
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Resources for Further Study
You can easily find the book by searching for” Anne of Green Gables” online or on Amazon.
Watch the series “Anne with an E” on Netflix and try not to cry at least once.
Learn more about Lucy Maud Montgomery by reading Mary Henley Rubio’s biography “Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings” published in 2010 by Anchor Canada.
Visit the Canadian historical site, Green Gables Heritage Place if you plan to visit Prince Edward Island in Canada.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
gable: the upper part of the end wall of a building, between the two sloping sides of the roof, that is shaped like a triangle.
sash: either of a pair of windows, one above the other, that are opened and closed by sliding them up and down inside the frame.
Contemporary Connections
Lucy Maud Montgomery struggled to overcome sexism as a female writer at a time when it was not considered an appropriate aspiration for women. She fought a courageous battle to become one of Canada’s most beloved novelists, and supported her family almost entirely with her publishing income. Historica Canada created a Heritage Minute video on Montgomery for International Women’s Day in 2018.
Language cannot express the awful ire of William the Testy[3] on hearing of the catastrophe at Fort Goed Hoop[4]. For three good hours his rage was too great for words, or rather the words were too great for him (being a very small man), and he was nearly choked by the misshapen, nine-cornered[5] Dutch oaths and epithets which crowded at one into his gullet. At length his words found vent, and for three days he kept up a constant discharge, anathematising the Yankees, man, woman, and child, for a set of dieven, schobbejacken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, blaes-kakken, loosen-schalken, kakken-bedden,[6] and a thousand other names, of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not make mention. Finally, he swore that he would have nothing more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, questioning, swapping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle-splitting, cider-watering, horse-jockeying, notion-peddling crew—that they might stay at Fort Goed Hoop and rot, before he would dirty his hands by attempting to drive them away; in proof of which he ordered the new-raised troops to be marched forthwith into winter quarters, although it was not as yet quite midsummer. Great despondency now fell upon the city of New Amsterdam.[7] It was feared that the conquerors of Fort Goed Hoop, flushed with victory and apple-brandy, might march on to the capital, take it by storm, and annex the whole province to Connecticut. The name of Yankee became as terrible among the Nieuw Nederlanders[8] as was that of Gaul among the ancient Romans, insomuch that the good wives of the Manhattoes used it as a bugbear[9] wherewith to frighten their unruly children.
Everybody clamored round the governor, imploring him to put the city in a complete posture of defence, and he listened to their clamors. Nobody could accuse William the Testy of being idle in time of danger, or at any other time. He was never idle, but then he was often busy to very little purpose. When a youngling he had been impressed with the words of Solomon, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, observe her ways and be wise,”[10] in conformity to which he had ever been of a restless, ant-like turn; hurrying hither and thither, nobody knew why or wherefore, busying himself about small matters with an air of great importance and anxiety, and toiling at a grain of mustard-seed in the full conviction that he was moving a mountain. In the present instance he called in all his inventive powers to his aid, and was continually pondering over plans, making diagrams, and worrying about with a troop of workmen and projectors at his heels. At length, after a world of consultation and contrivance, his plans of defence ended in rearing a great flag-staff in the center of the fort, and perching a windmill on each bastion.
These warlike preparations in some measure allayed the public alarm, especially after an additional means of securing the safety of the city had been suggested by the governor’s lady. It has already been hinted in this most authentic history that in the domestic establishment of William the Testy “the grey mare was the better horse;” in other words, that his wife “ruled the roast,” and, in governing the governor, governed the province, which might thus be said to be under petticoat government.
Now it came to pass that this time there lived in the Manhattoes a jolly, robustious trumpeter, named Anthony Van Corlear, famous for his long wind; and who, as the story goes, could twang so potently upon his instrument that the effect upon all within hearing was like that ascribed to the Scotch bagpipe when it sings right lustily i’ the nose.
This sounder of brass was moreover a lusty[11] bachelor, with a pleasant, burly visage, a long nose, and huge whiskers. He had his little bowery, or retreat in the country, where he led a roystering life, giving dances to the wives and daughters of the burghers of the Manhattoes, insomuch that he became a prodigious favorite with all the women, young and old. He is said to have been the first to collect that famous toll levied on the fair sex at Kissing Bridge,[12] on the highway to Hell-gate.[13]
To this sturdy bachelor the eyes of all the women were turned in this time of darkness and peril, as the very man to second and carry out the plans of defence of the governor. A kind of petticoat council was forthwith held at the government house, at which the governor’s lady presided: and this lady, as has been hinted, being all potent with the governor, the result of these councils was the elevation of Anthony the Trumpeter to the post of commandant of windmills and champion of New Amsterdam.
The city being thus fortified and garrisoned, it would have done one’s heart good to see the governor snapping his fingers and fidgeting with delight, as the trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts twanging defiance to the whole Yankee race, as does a modern editor to all the principalities and powers on the other side of the Atlantic. In the hands of Anthony Van Corlear this windy instrument appeared to him as potent as the horn of the paladin Astolpho,[14] or even the more classic horn of Alecto;[15] nay, he had almost the temerity to compare it with the rams’ horns celebrated in Holy Writ, at the very sound of which the walls of Jericho fell down.[16]
Be all this as it may, the apprehensions of hostilities from the east gradually died away. The Yankees made no further invasion; nay, they declared they had only taken possession of Fort Goed Hoop as being erected within their territories. So far from manifesting hostility, they continued to throng to New Amsterdam with the most innocent countenances imaginable, filling the market with their notions, being as ready to trade with the Netherlands as ever, and not a whit more prone[17] to get to the windward of them in a bargain.
The old wives of the Manhattoes who took tea with the governor’s lady attributed all this affected moderation to the awe inspired by the military preparations of the governor, and the windy prowess of Anthony the Trumpeter.
“Anthony’s Nose” from Myths and Legends of Our Own Land[18]
The Hudson Highlands are suggestively named Bear Mountain, Sugar Loaf, Cro’ Nest, Storm King, called by the Dutch Boterberg, or Butter Hill, from its likeness to a pat of butter; Beacon Hill, where the fires blazed to tell the country that the Revolutionary war was over; Dunderberg, Mount Taurus, so called because a wild bull that had terrorized the Highlands was chased out of his haunts on this height, and was killed by falling from a cliff on an eminence to the northward, known, in consequence, as Breakneck Hill. These, with Anthony’s Nose, are the principal points of interest in the lovely and impressive panorama that unfolds before the view as the boats fly onward.[19]
Concerning the last-named elevation, the aquiline[20] promontory that abuts on the Hudson opposite Dunderberg, it takes title from no resemblance to the human feature, but is so named because Anthony Van Corlaer, the trumpeter, who afterwards left a reason for calling the upper boundary of Manhattan Island Spuyten Duyvil Creek, killed the first sturgeon[21] ever eaten at the foot of this mountain. It happened in this wise: By assiduous devotion to keg and flagon Anthony had begotten a nose that was the wonder and admiration of all who knew it, for its size was prodigious; in color it rivalled the carbuncle, and it shone like polished copper.[22] As Anthony was lounging over the quarter of Peter Stuyvesant’s galley one summer morning this nose caught a ray from the sun and reflected it hissing into the water, where it killed a sturgeon that was rising beside the vessel. The fish was pulled aboard, eaten, and declared good, though the singed place savored of brimstone, and in commemoration of the event Stuyvesant dubbed the mountain that rose above his vessel Anthony’s Nose.
“Why Spuyten Duyvil is so Named” from Myths and Legends of Our Own Land[18]
The tide-water creek that forms the upper boundary of Manhattan Island is known to dwellers in tenements round about as “Spittin’ Divvle.” The proper name of it is Spuyten Duyvil, and this, in turn, is the compression of a celebrated boast by Anthony Van Corlaer. This redoubtable gentleman, famous for fat, long wind, and long whiskers, was trumpeter for the garrison at New Amsterdam, which his countrymen had just bought for twenty-four dollars, and he sounded the brass so sturdily that in the fight between the Dutch and Indians at the Dey Street peach orchard[23] his blasts struck more terror into the red men’s hearts than did the matchlocks of his comrades. William the Testy vowed that Anthony and his trumpet were garrison enough for all Manhattan Island, for he argued that no regiment of Yankees would approach near enough to be struck with lasting deafness, as must have happened if they came when Anthony was awake.
Peter Stuyvesant-Peter the Headstrong[24]—showed his appreciation of Anthony’s worth by making him his esquire,[25] and when he got news of an English expedition on its way to seize his unoffending colony, he at once ordered Anthony to rouse the villages along the Hudson with a trumpet call to war. The esquire took a hurried leave of six or eight ladies, each of whom delighted to believe that his affections were lavished on her alone, and bravely started northward, his trumpet hanging on one side, a stone bottle, much heavier, depending from the other. It was a stormy evening when he arrived at the upper end of the island, and there was no ferryman in sight, so, after fuming up and down the shore, he swallowed a mighty draught of Dutch courage,[26]—for he was as accomplished a performer on the horn[27] as on the trumpet,—and swore with ornate and voluminous oaths that he would swim the stream “in spite of the devil” [En spuyt den Duyvil].
He plunged in, and had gone half-way across when the Evil One, not to be spited, appeared as a huge moss-bunker,[28] vomiting boiling water and lashing a fiery tail. This dreadful fish seized Anthony by the leg; but the trumpeter was game, for, raising his instrument to his lips, he exhaled his last breath through it in a defiant blast that rang through the woods for miles and made the devil himself let go for a moment. Then he was dragged below, his nose shining through the water more and more faintly, until, at last, all sight of him was lost. The failure of his mission resulted in the downfall of the Dutch in America, for, soon after, the English won a bloodless victory, and St. George’s cross[29] flaunted from the ramparts where Anthony had so often saluted the setting sun. But it was years, even then, before he was hushed, for in stormy weather it was claimed that the shrill of his trumpet could be heard near the creek that he had named, sounding above the deeper roar of the blast.
[6] These words are all Dutch (or pseudo-Dutch in the case of “loosen” to mean loose) and they mean ‘thieves’, ‘scum’, ‘rascals’, ‘twist-seeking’ (up to chicanery), ‘bladders’, ‘loose rogues’, and either ‘people who poop in their beds’ or ‘people who have poop for beds’, respectively.
[7] modern-day New York City. (OED)
[8] Dutch name for people who lived in the “New Netherlands”, portions of present day New England.
[9] an object of fear or dread. a boogieman. (OED)
[12] The bridge here mentioned by Mr. Knickerbocker still exists; but it is said that the toll is seldom collected nowadays excepting on sleighing parties, by the descendants of the patriarchs, who still preserve the traditions of the city. (Irving)
There are at least two structures known as “Kissing Bridge” in New York City. (Justo, Patrick D. “Libidinous New York.” New York, vol. 39, no. 6, Feb 20, 2006, pp. 16.)
[13] Hell Gate is a bridge in New York City that spans the east river between Randal’s Island and Brooklyn, near Riker’s Island.
[18] Myths and Legends of Our Own Land is an anthology of American myths and folklore, including excerpts from the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, as well as records, histories, newspapers, magazines, and oral narrative.
[22] Rhinophyma, Greek for ‘nose growth’ is a symptom of advanced rosacea. Known as ‘alcoholic’s nose’ it was once believed to be caused by drinking.
[23] The ‘Peach War‘ is mentioned in The Knickerbocker’s History, though Anthony Van Corlaer is not mentioned in that version of the tale.
[24] Peter Stuyvesant (1592-1672) was the last director-general of all Dutch possessions in the Caribbean and North America. In August 1664, he was forced to surrender the colony of New Netherlands to the English.
[29] A red cross on a white background, the cross consisting of an upright and a horizontal bar crossing each other in the center; a flag bearing this cross; frequently as a symbol of England or Englishness. (OED)
Contexts
While it is unclear if Anthony Van Corlaer was a real person, Spuyten Duyvil is a real place. It is a neighborhood of the Bronks, south of Riverdale and north of Harlem. Van Corlaer is widely believed to be the source of this name by New Yorkers, though, aside from the stories above, there is very little evidence of his existence.
These stories tie in with so many literary modes and tools, as well as historical events that they are a goldmine for teachers. The mythological allusions in Knickerbockers History, pairing Spyuten Duyvil and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (1979) by the Charlie Daniels Band, and the historical aspects of Dutch colonies or shark attacks in the United States would each make solid lesson plans on their own.
Contemporary Connections
In 2002, Ed Boland Jr. mentioned Anthony Van Corlaer as the source of the name Spuyten Duyvil in his New York Times question and answer columnF.Y.I.
Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom, 1833, oil on canvas. Worcester Art Museum, 1934.65.
When the all-wise God created animals, and some of them for the use of man, it is not to be believed that he intended creatures of the highest degree of intelligence to be cruel to those so much inferior in understanding and so helpless. When men fight, it is considered cowardice for one to strike another when he is down. (Gentlemen never fight, they reason the matter to an understanding and settlement.) But man will strike poor dumb animals, who are all the time down in helplessness. A gentleman never does this wrong to his honor, for he knows there are other ways of doing. Man would soon weary of the many heavy burdens, or sink under them, if he and not the horse had to bear them. There would be few journeys made, and where would be the delightful rides and sleighing were there no horses? In some countries men transport great loads of freight upon their backs, and how strange it looks to us, even in pictures.
Cows are generally timid creatures, and, in a certain way, the best of animals. How many good things to eat would be lacking if we had no milk! Nothing in the vegetable kingdom would answer the purpose. The cow, then, should at all times be regarded as our benefactress as much as man is hers, and should receive our kindest treatment. What would the children do without bread and milk? How some folks would miss ice-cream in the summer-time! And then such frolics as the children have in the country with bossy’s calf.
But aside from our own ideas and pleasure on the subject, we have a Master who is the friend of all dumb creatures, and some day we and they will meet Him and have to listen to what will be said.
In the Bible it is written: “And at His coming all flesh shall speak, and the trees shall clap their leaves for joy.”[1] All flesh includes animals, birds, and every other living thing. How will some persons feel in the day of judgment when the dumb creatures they have beaten or half starved rise up before them and bear witness against them? The Creator is just, he will hear the helpless, and he will not say, “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you;” no, those cruel hearts will have to meet their reward.
It seems to me that a person who will take two peaceable dogs and worry them into a cruel fight, is not even of so good a spirit as the dogs themselves. It is strange that human intelligence can stoop to such a level, no, beneath the level of the brute creation.
Cruelty to animals is receiving a large share of attention in some cities, and laws to protect these dumb creatures and punish their cruel masters, have been enacted. There is an association[2] which publishes a good paper called Our Dumb Animals, and it is a good one for everyone, old and young, to read. Many thousands of children are joining it by letter. Its object is to teach kindness, and thus the law become natural and universal. Many beautiful stories are related, and they desire to learn all they can of such in the experience of their new members.
In a certain kingdom, Norway, I am told that if a man beats his horse cruelly, or overloads it, or drives it too fast, he is brought before the proper officers of the law and fined. If the offense is repeated, he is fined and imprisoned, and on the third offense these penalties are again imposed and the animal taken from him. But in that country it is seldom that cruelty is exercised, for it is hard for the poor to earn a living, and a horse or a cow is regarded as riches, and these creatures are generally treated with all the kindness they need. Sheep are also very kindly treated, for the nice long wool will some day be transferred from its own place into the family’s use.
I have even seen a bed-spread made from cow’s hair, and it was a handsome one, too. I knew. a young girl who told me: “In my country I was poor and could not afford to keep a pet hen, even, times were so hard. Now I keep sixty. I am rich.” This girl made a good use of her income, and in two years’ profits of her industry, emigrated a lone relative, who now unites with her in the same business. These good women saw much among us Americans that looked to them like waste. A friend once remarked: “These foreigners use what we would waste, and sell what we would use, and that is why they prosper where we do not get ahead.” I once saw a Swede currying[3] his horse and observed that he carefully saved the hair in a box. As a dear friend of mine says, “ I haven’t got a particle of inquisitiveness, but my ‘want to know ‘ is very large,” so I asked him why he did that. He told me that he was going to add a room to his house before long, and would use this in the plaster instead of throwing it away and buying more. Then he patted his horse and praised its shining coat and ended by thanking Blackbird for the contribution.
Cocheron, Augusta Joyce. 1890.”Dumb Creatures” In The children’s book; a collection of short stories and poems. A mormon book for Mormon Children, 164-167. Utah: Bountiful Davis Co.
[1] “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isa. 55:12 KJV).
[2] The association Cocheron refers to here is the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which started publishing issues of Our Dumb Animals in 1868 under the guidance of George T. Angell. The magazine’s motto was, “We Speak For Those Who Cannot Speak For Themselves.”
[3] A curry or curry comb is a horse grooming brush that removes shedding hair, dead skin, and sweat from the horse’s body.
Contexts
In the original Preface of A Mormon Book for Mormon Children., Augusta Joyce Crocheron wrote the following:
A Little Talk with the Children,
The thought came into my mind, Write a book for the children; and while I listened, it became a desire and a pleasant one, for I would dearly love to become the household friend of many little children who are growing up within the homes of the Saints.
If they are willing to listen, I will tell them a few true stories, not fairy ones, indeed, of which little ones are so fond, so fascinating, but, alas! so false. No, these must be true.
Many pleasant hours have I spent in story-telling, and surely my pleasure was as great as theirs; stories to sleepy eyes, out in the summer moonlight on the veranda, with great patches of flowers faintly showing in the shadows of wide branches, and night-birds singing over us; story-telling on rainy afternoons, or by roaring hearth—light; at home and abroad—how many listeners there have been. But I must not tell you what I have read, as I did those little hearers, it must be some things that I have known. If I could only show to my little friends of the present time, the sweet faces remembered looking anxiously into mine, it would be the best part of the book; those—no story could equal.
Would that I could make these, also, my friends, as the authors I so loved were mine.
And, if I should ever travel from home, as some of the Sisters do, to visit the associations, I would be happy to have you tell me, if we meet, if anything written herein has pleased you.
Pleasant smiles and kind words from good hearts are some times worth more than silver and gold.
This book is the fulfillment of a wish expressed by President Brigham Young a short time before his death, and in conclusion he said, “Who will write a book for the children?”
To attempt this was in my power, but it required means to publish, and this I could not do alone. Two good Brethren, who think more of the youth of our people than they do of riches, were kind enough to lend me the use of what was needed to accomplish the object.
When you read this book, I want you in your hearts to thank Bishop Jacob Weiler, of Third Ward, Salt Lake City, and Elder Alwood Brown, of Centreville, Davis County, and ask our Heavenly Father to bless and prosper them long upon the earth, and may their names beheld by you in pure and lasting remembrance.
Augusta Joyce Crocheron
Bountiful, Davis County, Utah,September 3, 1890
Resources for Further Study
Angell, George T. 1868-1951. Our Dumb Animals. Boston: Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006069414.
Davis, Janet M. 2016. The Gospel of Kindness : Animal Welfare and the Making of Modern America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733156.001.0001.
Finsen, Lawrence, and Susan Finsen. 1994. The Animal Rights Movement in America : From Compassion to Respect. Social Movements Past and Present. New York: Twayne.
Linzey, Andrew, and Clair Linzey, eds. 2018. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics. Routledge Handbooks in Religion Ser. Milton: Routledge. https://doi-org.libproxy.uncg.edu/10.4324/9780429489846.
Pedagogy
Several animal welfare and animal rights organizations and activists have excellent online humane education materials for teaching children about the importance of treating their fellow animals with respect. Listed below are just a few of many such resources:
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
Though animals do not have hands, they have different parts which they use to do some of the same things that we do with our hands. I will tell you about some of these in this chapter
You see this dog dragging along a rope which he holds in his mouth. He is making his teeth answer in place of hands. Dogs always do this when they carry things. They can not carry them in any other way. You carry a basket along in your hand, but the dog takes it between his teeth, because he has no hand as you have.
I have told you, in another chapter, how the cow and the horse crop the grass. They do it, you know, with their front teeth. They take up almost any kind of food—a potato, an apple—with these teeth. These teeth, then, answer for hands to the cow and horse. Their lips answer also the same purpose in many cases. The horse gathers his oats into his mouth with the lips. The lips are for hands to such animals in another respect. They feel things with their lips just as we do with the tips of our fingers.
My horse once, in cropping some grass, took hold of some that was so stout[1] and so loose in the earth that he pulled it up by the roots. As he ate it the dirt troubled him. He therefore knocked the grass several times against the fence, holding it firmly in his teeth, and thus got the dirt out, just as people do out of a mat when they strike it against any thing. I once knew a horse that would lift a latch or shove a bolt with his front teeth as readily as you would with your hand. He would get out of the barn yard in this way. But this was at length prevented by a very simple contrivance. A piece of iron was fixed in such a manner at the end of the bolt that you could not shove the bolt unless you raised the iron at the same time. Probably this puzzled the horse’s brain. Even if he understood it, he could not manage the two things together. I have heard about a horse that would take hold of a pump-handle with his teeth and pump water into a trough when he wanted to drink. This was in a pasture where there were several horses; and what is very curious, the other horses, when they wanted to drink, would, if they found the trough empty, tease this horse that knew how to pump; they would get around him, and bite and kick him till he would pump some water for them.
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
Monkeys have four things like hands. They are halfway between hands and feet. With these they are very skillful at climbing. There are some kinds of monkeys, as the one represented here, that use their tails in climbing as a sort of fifth hand.
The cat uses for hands some times her paws, with their sharp claws, sometimes her teeth, and sometimes both together. She climbs with her claws. She catches things with them—mice, rats, or any thing that you hold out for her to run after. She strikes with her paws, just as angry children and men sometimes do with their hands. When the cat moves her kittens from one place to another, she takes them up with her teeth by the nape of the neck. There is no other way in which she can do it. She cannot walk on her hind feet and carry them with her fore paws. It seems as if it would hurt a kitten to carry it in the way that she does, but it does not.
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
When a squirrel nibbles a nut to make a hole in it, he holds it between his two fore paws like hands. So also does the dormouse, which you see here.
The bill[2] of a bird is used as its hand. It gathers with it its food to put into its crop. When you throw corn out to the hens, how fast they pick it up, and send it down into their crops to be well soaked! The humming-bird has a very long bill, and in it lies a long, slender, and very delicate tongue. As he poises himself in the air before a flower, his wings fluttering so quickly that you can not see them, he runs his bill into the bottom of the flower where the honey is, and puts his little long tongue into it. The bill of the duck is made in a peculiar way. You know that it gets its food under water in the mud. It can not see, therefore, what it gets. It has to work altogether by feeling, and it has nerves in its bill for this purpose.
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
Here is a picture of its bill, showing the nerves branching out on it. You see, too, a row of pointed things all around the edge. They look like teeth, but they are not teeth. They are used by the duck in finding its food. It manages in this way: it thrusts its bill down, and as it takes it up it is full of mud. Now mixed with the mud are things which the duck lives on. The nerves tell the duck what is good, and it lets all the rest go out between the prickles. It is a sort of sifting operation, the nerves in the sieve[3] taking good care that nothing good shall pass out.
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
One of the most remarkable things used in place of a hand is the trunk of the elephant. The variety of uses to which the elephant puts this organ is very wonderful. It can strike very heavy blows with it. It can wrench off branches of trees, or even pull up trees by the roots, by winding its trunk around them to grasp them, as you see it is doing here. It is its arm with which it carries its young. It is amusing to see an old elephant carefully wind its trunk around a new-born elephant, and carry it gently along.
But the elephant can also do some very little things with his trunk. You see in this picture that there is a sort of finger at the very end of the trunk. It is a very nimble[4] finger, and with it this monstrous animal can do a great variety of little things. He will take with it little bits of bread, and other kinds of food that you hand to him, and put them into his mouth. He will take up a piece of money from the ground as easily as you can with your fingers. It is with this finger, too, that he feels of things just as you do with your fingers. I once saw an elephant take a whip with this fingered end of his trunk, and use it as handily as a teamster[5], very much to the amusement of the spectators.
Original Child’s Book of Nature illustration. 1871, unattributed.
The elephant can reach a considerable distance with his trunk. And this is necessary, because he has so very short a neck. He could not get at his food without his long trunk. Observe, too, how he can turn this trunk about in every direction, and twist it about in every way. It is really a wonderful piece of machinery. Cuvier, a great French anatomist, says that there are over thirty thousand little muscles in it. All this army of muscles receive their orders by nerves from the mind in the brain, and how well they obey them!
You see that there are two holes in the end of the trunk. Into these he can suck water, and thus fill his trunk with it. Then he can turn the end of his trunk into his mouth and let the water run down his throat. But sometimes he uses the water in his trunk in another way; he blows it out through his trunk with great force. He does this when he wants to wash himself, directing his trunk in such a way that the water will pour over him. He some times blows the water out in play, for even such great animals have sports like children. Sometimes, too, he blows the water on people that he does not like. You perhaps have read the story of the tailor[6] who pricked the trunk of an elephant with his needle. The elephant, as he was passing, put his trunk into the shop window, hoping that the tailor would give him something to eat. He was angry at being pricked, and was determined to make the man sorry for doing such an unkind act. As his keeper led him back past the same window, he poured upon the tailor his trunk full of dirty water, which he had taken from a puddle for this purpose.
hooker, worthington. 1871. “Chapter XXII: What Animals Use for hands.” In The child’s book of nature: for the use of families and schools: intended to aid mothers and teachers in training children in the observation of nature: in three parts, 102-108. New York: Harper & Brothers. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101795903.
[1] Wide or thick in build.
[2] Also known as the beak of a bird.
[3] A bowl-shaped object usually used to strain or separate larger solids from liquids and small solids.
[4] Quick-moving and light.
[5] A person who drives a team of animals.
[6] Hooker is referring to the Indian fable “The Revenge of the Elephant,” which can be found with other Indian animal fables in the Panchatantra. In some versions of the story, it is the tailor’s son who pricks the elephant’s trunk with a needle and learns the error of his ways.
Contexts
The Child’s Book of Nature is a natural science book for children written in three parts: Part I. Plants, Part II. Animals, and Part III. Air, Water, Heat, Light, &c. In the original Preface of The Child’s Book of Nature, Hooker explains his approach to writing science for a juvenile audience and affirms his belief in the importance of science education:
Children are busy observers of natural objects, and have many questions to ask about them. But their inquisitive observation is commonly repressed, instead of being encouraged and guided. The chief reason for this unnatural course is, that parents and teachers are not in possession of the information which is needed for the guidance of children in the observation of nature. They have not themselves been taught aright, and therefore are not able to teach others. In their own education the observation of nature has been almost entirely excluded; and they are, therefore, unprepared to teach a child in regard to the simplest natural phenomena. Here is a radical error in education. When we put a child into the school-room, to be drilled in spelling, reading, arithmetic, geography, etc., we effectually shut him in from all the varied and interesting objects of nature, which he is so naturally inclined to observe and study. These are very seldom made the subjects of instruction in childhood. And even at the fireside the deficiency is nearly as great as it is in the school-room.
A similar defect appears to a great extent through the whole course of education. The study of the wonderful phenomena which are all around us and within us, is, for the most part, neglected, except by the few whose inclinations to it are so strong that they can not be repressed. This defect is well illustrated in a remark which was made by a mother in relation to her own education. When at school she stood at the head of her class, and excelled particularly in mathematics. Her remark was, that she every day regretted that much of the time she had given to the study of mathematics had not been spent in learning what would enable her to answer the continual questions of her children. Even when the natural sciences are taught, the mode of teaching them is generally ineffectual. The knowledge which the mass of pupils in our higher schools gain of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, and Physiology, is very deficient.
There should be a thorough change in this respect in the whole course of education, beginning in childhood. The natural sciences should be made prominent among the studies even of young children, who, in other words, should be encouraged and guided in that observation of nature to which they are generally so much inclined. In the different departments of natural science there are multitudes of facts or phenomena in which children readily become interested, when they are properly explained. In this little book my object is to supply the mother and the teacher with the means of introducing the child into one department of natural science—that which relates to the vegetable world, or vegetable physiology. With this view, I have endeavored to select those points only which the child will fully understand, and in which he will be interested. But this selection has by no means shut me up within narrow limits. I have been surprised at the amount of knowledge in this interesting study that can be satisfactorily communicated to the mind of a child. While the fundamental points in vegetable physiology are quite fully developed in this book, I have avoided as far as possible all technical terms. These can be learned when the pupil becomes old enough to profit by learning them. The facts, the phenomena, are what the child wants to understand ; and these can be communicated in the simplest language, so that a child of about seven or eight, or perhaps even six years, can readily be made to comprehend them.
I begin with the most simple and obvious facts—those which relate to flowers—and go on through fruits, seeds, leaves, roots, etc., step by step, until, at the latter part of the book, the circulation of the sap, and other points at first view complicated, are made perfectly intelligible. By this gradual unfolding of the subject, many points are made clear to the child, which are not fully understood by many of those who in riper years have studied botany; for in the common mode of teaching this science the mere technicalities of it are made prominent, while the interesting facts which vegetable physiology presents to us in such variety receive but little attention.
The best time to use this book in teaching is during the summer, because then every thing can be illustrated by specimens from the field and the garden, and the teacher can amplify upon what I have given. For example, when the lesson is to be on leaves, the teacher can request her scholars to bring as many different kinds of leaves as they can find; and she can point out their differences after the same plan that I have adopted, but in a much more extended manner. Indeed, if the teacher catch her self the true spirit of observation, she will be continually led in her teachings to add facts of her own gathering to those which I have presented.
I believe that there are few terms in the book that can not be readily understood by the child. A little explanation may sometimes be necessary on the part of the teacher, especially when the same word is used as meaning more at one time than at another. For example, the word plant is used sometimes, as in the title of this book, to include every thing that is vegetable; while at another time it is used to distinguish certain forms of vegetables from others, as in the expression plants and trees.
I have made such a division into chapters as will place each subject by itself, and at the same time, for the most part, give lessons of a proper length for the learner. I have placed questions at the end of each chapter, for convenience in instruction. Of course the teacher or parent will vary them as she sees fit, to accommodate the capacities of those whom she teaches.
“What Animals Use for Hands” is the twenty-second chapter of Part II. Animals and is included in this anthology as an example of late nineteenth-century American efforts to promote children’s science education.
Resources for Further Study
Viṣṇuśarman. 2013. Panchatantra : 51 Short Stories with Moral (Illustrated). Edited by Praful B and Maharshi G. Place of publication not identified: Vyanst.
Longbottom, John E., and Philip H. Butler. 1999. “Why Teach Science? Setting Rational Goals for Science Education.” Science Education, 83, no. 4: 473-492. https://doi-org.libproxy.uncg.edu/10.1002/(SICI)1098-237X(199907)83:4<473::AID-SCE5>3.0.CO;2-Z.
Davies, Dan, and Deb McGregor. 2016. Teaching Science Creatively. London: Routledge.
Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory. 2010. Teaching Children Science: Hands-On Nature Study in North America, 1890-1930. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Pedagogy
Hooker provides guided reading questions with each chapter of his book. The questions for Chapter XXII are as follows:
What is said about the dog? What answer for hands to the cow and the horse? Tell the anecdotes about horses. What does the cat use for hands, and how? What is said about the squirrel and dormouse? What is the bird’s hand? Tell about feeding the hens. Tell about the bill of the duck. What is told of the humming-bird? Mention some of the variety of uses to which the elephant can put his trunk. What is said about the finger on the end of it? Why does the elephant need so long a trunk? What is said about the muscles in it? How does the elephant drink? How does he wash himself? Tell about the tailor.
Hooker also suggests that children will find the study of science, and particularly animal science, more interesting if information is presented in comparison to their own physiology and lived experiences. To that end, you might ask your child or student to consider the following questions:
How is [animal]’s body like mine? How is it different?
What can I do with my body that [animal] cannot?
Can [animal] do something with their body that I cannot? Why might they have that ability if I don’t?
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.
THE next day the great cloud still hung over the mountain, and the rain poured like water from a full sponge. The princess was very fond of being out of doors, and she nearly cried when she saw that the weather was no better. But the mist was not of such a dark dingy gray; there was light in it; and as the hours went on, it grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost too brilliant to look at; and late in the afternoon, the sun broke out so gloriously that Irene clapped her hands, crying,
“See, see, Lootie! The sun has had his face washed. Look how bright he is! Do get my hat, and let us go out for a walk. Oh dear! oh dear! how happy I am!”
Lootie was very glad to please the princess. She got her hat and cloak, and they set out together for a walk up the mountain; for the road was so hard and steep that the water could not rest upon it, and it was always dry enough for walking a few minutes after the rain ceased. The clouds were rolling away in broken pieces, like great, overwoolly sheep, whose wool the sun had bleached till it was almost too white for the eyes to bear. Between them the sky shone with a deeper and purer blue, because of the rain. The trees on the road-side were hung all over with drops, which sparkled in the sun like jewels. The only things that were no brighter for the rain, were the brooks that ran down the mountain; they hadchanged from the clearness of crystal to a muddy brown; but what they lost in color they gained in sound—or at least in noise, for a brook when it is swollen is not so musical as before. But Irene was in raptures with the great brown streams tumbling down everywhere; and Lootie shared in her delight, for she too had been confined to the house for three days. At length she observed that the sun was getting low, and said it was time to be going back. She made the remark again and again, but, every time, the princess begged her to go on just a little farther and a little farther; reminding her that it was much easier to go down hill, and saying that when they did turn, they would be at home in a moment. So on and on they did go, now to look at a group of ferns over whose tops a stream was pouring in a watery arch, now to pick a shining stone from a rock by the wayside, now to watch the flight of some bird. Suddenly the shadow of a great mountain peak came up from behind, and shot in front of them. When the nurse saw it, she started and shook, and tremulously grasping the hand of the princess turned and began to run down the hill.
“What’s all the haste, nursie?” asked Irene, running alongside of her.
“We must not be out a moment longer.”
“But we can’t help being out a good many moments longer.”
It was too true. The nurse almost cried. They were much too far from home. It was against express orders to be out with the princess one moment after the sun was down; and they were nearly a mile up the mountain! If his Majesty,Irene’s papa, were to hear of it, Lootie would certainly be dismissed; and to leave the princess would break her heart. It was no wonder she ran. But Irene was not in the least frightened, not knowing anything to be frightened at. She kept on chattering as well as she could, but it was not easy.
Title Page
“Lootie! Lootie! why do you run so fast? It shakes my teeth when I talk.”
“Then don’t talk,” said Lootie.
But the princess went on talking. She was always saying, “Look, look, Lootie,” but Lootie paid no more heed to anything she said, only ran on.
“Look, look, Lootie! Don’t you see that funny man peeping over the rock?”
Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock and when they came nearer, the princess clearly saw that it was only a large fragment of the rock itself that she had mistaken for a man.
“Look, look, Lootie! There’s such a curious creature at the foot of that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It’s making faces at us, I do think.”
Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still—so fast, that Irene’s little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a clash. It was a hard down-hill road, and she had been running very fast—so it was no wonder she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly beside herself; but all she could do was to run on, the moment she got the princess on her feet again.
“Who’s that laughing at me?” said the princess, trying to keep in her sobs, and running too fast for her grazed knees.
“Nobody, child,” said the nurse, almost angrily.
But that instant there came a burst of coarse tittering from somewhere near, and a hoarse indistinct voice that seemed to say, “Lies! lies! lies!”
“Oh!” cried the nurse with a sigh that was almost a scream, and ran on faster than ever.
“Nursie! Lootie! I can’t run any more. Do let us walk a bit.”
“What am I to do?” said the nurse. “Here, I will carry you.”
She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry, and said—
“We’ve taken the wrong turning somewhere, and I don’t know where we are. We are lost, lost!”
The terror she was in had quite bewildered her. It was true enough they had lost the way. They had been running down into a little valley in which there was no house to be seen.
Now Irene did not know what good reason there was for her nurse’s terror, for the servants had all strict orders never to mention the goblins to her[3], but it was very discomposing to see her nurse in such a fright. Before, however, she had time to grow thoroughly alarmed like her, she heard the sound of whistling, and that revived her. Presently she saw a boy coming up the road from the valley to meet them. He was the whistler; but before they met, his whistling changed to singing. And this is something like what he sang:
“Ring! dod! bang! Go the hammers’ clang! Hit and turn and bore! Whizz and puff and roar! Thus we rive the rocks. Force the goblin locks. See the shining ore! One, two, three— Bright as gold can be! Four, five, six— Shovels, mattocks, picks! Seven, eight, nine— Light your lamp at mine. Ten, eleven, twelve— Loosely hold the helve.[4] We’re the merry miner-boys, Make the goblins hold their noise.”
“I wish you would hold your noise,” said the nurse rudely, for the very word goblin at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It would bring the goblins upon them to a certainty, she thought, to defy them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not stop his singing.
“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen— This is worth the siftin’; Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen— There’s the match, and lay’t in. Nineteen, twenty— Goblins in a plenty.”
“Do be quiet,” cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy, who was now close at hand, still went on.
“Hush! scush! scurry! There you go in a hurry! Gobble! gobble! gobblin’! There you go a wobblin’; Hobble, hobble, hobblin’! Cobble! cobble! cobblin’! Hob-bob-goblin—Huuuuuh!”
“There!” said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. “There! that’ll do for them. They can’t bear singing, and they can’t stand that song. They can’t sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don’t like other people to sing.”[5]
The boy was dressed in a miner’s dress, with a curious cap on his head. He was a very nice-looking boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which he worked, and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. He was about twelve years old. His face was almost too pale for beauty, which came of his being so little in the open air and the sunlight—for even vegetables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry indeed—perhaps at the thought of having routed the goblins; and his bearing as he stood before them had nothing clownish or rude about it.
“I saw them,” he went on, “as I came up; and I’m very glad I did. I knew they were after somebody, but I couldn’t see who it was. They won’t touch you so long as I’m with you.”
“Why, who are you?” asked the nurse, offended at the freedom with which he spoke to them.
“If you’re not afraid of them, they’re afraid of you. I’m not afraid of them. That’s all. But it’s all that’s wanted—up here, that is. It’s a different thing down there. They won’t always mind that song even, down there. And if anyone sings it, they stand grinning at him awfully; and if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they—oh! don’t they give it him!”[5]
“What do they do to him?” asked Irene, with a trembling voice.
“Don’t go frightening the princess,” said the nurse.
“The princess!” repeated the little miner, taking off his curious cap. “I beg your pardon; but you oughtn’t to be out so late. Everybody knows that’s against the law.”
“Yes, indeed it is!” said the nurse, beginning to cry again. “And I shall have to suffer for it.”
“What does that matter?” said the boy. “It must be your fault. It is the princess who will suffer for it. I hope they didn’t hear you call her the princess. If they did, they’re sure to know her again: they’re awfully sharp.”
“Lootie! Lootie!” cried the princess. “Take me home.”
“Don’t go on like that,” said the nurse to the boy, almost fiercely. “How could I help it? I lost my way.”
“You shouldn’t have been out so late. You wouldn’t have lost your way if you hadn’t been frightened,” said the boy. “Come along. I’ll soon set you right again. Shall I carry your little Highness?”
“Impertinence!” murmured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for she thought if she made him angry, he might take his revenge by telling some one belonging to the house, and then it would be sure to come to the king’s ears.
“No, thank you,” said Irene. “I can walk very well, though I can’t run so fast as nursie. If you will give me one hand, Lootie will give me another, and then I shall get on famously.”
They soon had her between them, holding a hand of each.
“Now let’s run,” said the nurse.
“No, no,” said the little miner. “That’s the worst thing you can do. If you hadn’t run before, you would not have lost your way. And if you run now, they will be after you in a moment.”[5]
“I don’t want to run,” said Irene.
“You don’t think of me,” said the nurse.
“Yes, I do, Lootie. The boy says they won’t touch us if we don’t run.”
“Yes; but if they know at the house that I’ve kept you out so late, I shall be turned away, and that would break my heart.”
“Turned away, Lootie. Who would turn you away?”
“Your papa, child.”
“But I’ll tell him it was all my fault. And you know it was, Lootie.”
“Then I’ll cry, and go down on my knees to him, and beg him not to take away my own dear Lootie.”
The nurse was comforted at hearing this, and said no more. They went on, walking pretty fast, but taking care not to run a step.
“I want to talk to you,” said Irene to the little miner; “but it’s so awkward! I don’t know your name.”
“My name’s Curdie, little princess.”
“What a funny name! Curdie! What more?”
“Curdie Peterson. What’s your name, please?”
“Irene.”
“What more?”
“I don’t know what more.—What more is my name, Lootie?”
“Princesses haven’t got more than one name. They don’t want it.”
“Oh then, Curdie, you must call me just Irene, and no more.”
“No, indeed,” said the nurse indignantly. “He shall do no such thing.”
“What shall he call me, then, Lootie?”
“Your royal Highness.”
“My royal Highness! What’s that? No, no, Lootie, I will not be called names. I don’t like them. You said to me once yourself that it’s only rude children that call names; and I’m sure Curdie wouldn’t be rude.—Curdie, my name’s Irene.”
“Well, Irene,” said Curdie, with a glance at the nurse which showed he enjoyed teasing her, “it’s very kind of you to let me call you anything. I like your name very much.”
He expected the nurse to interfere again; but he soon saw that she was too frightened to speak. She was staring at something a few yards before them, in the middle of the path, where it narrowed between rocks so that only one could pass at a time.
“It’s very much kinder of you to go out of your way to take us home,” said Irene.
“I’m not going out of my way yet,” said Curdie. “It’s on the other side those rocks the path turns off to my father’s.”
“You wouldn’t think of leaving us till we’re safe home, I’m sure,” gasped the nurse.
“Of course not,” said Curdie.
“You dear, good, kind Curdie! I’ll give you a kiss when we get home,” said the princess.
The nurse gave her a great pull by the hand she held. But at that instant the something in the middle of the way, which had looked like a great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after another it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it was now too dark to tell what they were. The nurse began to tremble from head to foot. Irene clasped Curdie’s hand yet faster,[7] and Curdie began to sing again.
“One, two— Hit and hew! Three, four— Blast and bore! Five, six— There’s a fix! Seven, eight— Hold it straight. Nine, ten— Hit again! Hurry! scurry! Bother! smother! There’s a toad In the road! Smash it! Squash it! Fry it! Dry it! You’re another! Up and off! There’s enough!—Huuuuuh!”
As he uttered the last words, Curdie let go his hold of his companion, and rushed at the thing in the road, as if he would trample it under his feet. It gave a great spring, and ran straight up one of the rocks like a huge spider. Curdie turned back laughing, and took Irene’s hand again. She grasped his very tight, but said nothing till they had passed the rocks. A few yards more and she found herself on a part of the road she knew, and was able to speak again.
“Do you know, Curdie, I don’t quite like your song; it sounds to me rather rude,” she said.
“Well, perhaps it is,” answered Curdie. “I never thought of that; it’s a way we have. We do it because they don’t like it.”
“Never mind, Princess Irene,” he said. “You mustn’t kiss me to-night. But you sha’n’t break your word. I will come another time.”
“Oh, if you ask me that way, of course I won’t; though I don’t a bit know why. Look! there are the lights of your great house down below. You’ll be at home in five minutes now.”
Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived at the door belonging to their part of the house without anyone seeing them. The nurse was rushing in with a hurried and not over-gracious good-night to Curdie; but the princess pulled her hand from hers, and was just throwing her arms around Curdie’s neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away.
“Lootie, Lootie, I promised Curdie a kiss,” cried Irene.
“A princess mustn’t give kisses. It’s not at all proper,” said Lootie.
“But I promised,” said the princess.
“There’s no occasion; he’s only a miner-boy.”
“He is a good boy, and a brave boy, and he has been very kind to us. Lootie! Lootie! I promised.”
“Then you shouldn’t have promised.”
“Lootie, I promised him a kiss.”
“Your royal Highness,” said Lootie, suddenly growing very respectful, “must come in directly.”
“Nurse, a princess must not break her word,” said Irene, drawing herself up and standing stockstill.
Lootie did not know which the king might count the worst—to let the princess be out after sunset, or to let her kiss a miner-boy. She did not know that, being a gentleman, as many kings have been, he would have counted neither of them the worse. However much he might have disliked his daughter to kiss the miner-boy, he would not have had her break her word for all the goblins in creation. But, as I say, the nurse was not lady enough to understand this, and so she was in a great difficulty, for, if she insisted, some one might hear the princess cry and run to see, and then all would come out. But here Curdie came again to the rescue.
“Never mind, Princess Irene,” he said. “You mustn’t kiss me to-night. But you sha’n’t break your word. I will come another time. You may be sure I will.”
“Oh, thank you, Curdie!” said the princess, and stopped crying.
“Good night, Irene; good night, Lootie,” said Curdie, and turned and was out of sight in a moment.
“I should like to see him!” muttered the nurse, as she carried the princess to the nursery.
“You will see him,” said Irene. “You may be sure Curdie will keep his word. He’s sure to come again.”
“I should like to see him!” repeated the nurse, and said no more. She did not want to open a new cause of strife with the princess by saying more plainly what she meant. Glad enough that she had succeeded both in getting home unseen, and in keeping the princess from kissing the miner’s boy, she resolved to watch her far better in future. Her carelessness had already doubled the danger she was in. Formerly the goblins were her only fear; now she had to protect her charge from Curdie as well.
[1] In “The Fantastic Imagination”, George MacDonald wrote “I write not for children, but for the childlike, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”
[2] This chapter shows three possible reactions to nature: excitement, fear, and mastery. A summary of the story to this point is in the Context section.
[3] The King and Lootie are too scared for Irene to teach her about goblins.
[4] A handle of a weapon or tool, as an axe, chisel, hammer, etc.
[5] Curdie is safe because he knows about goblins and how to deal with them.
[6] Lootie breaks the rule about mentioning goblins in front of the princess.
[7] Pay attention to, take into account. (OED)
[8] More tightly. (OED)
Contexts
Princess Irene lives in a castle in a mountainous kingdom. Her father is often away, so her primary caregiver is her nurse, Lootie. Unbeknownst to Irene, there are goblins living in the mountains. These goblins once lived on the surface but were long ago banished by the humans. They hate humans and harm them when they can hoping to avenge themselves.
One rainy day—the third in a row—the princess “loses herself” in a part of the castle she had never seen before. There she meets a benevolent, mysterious, and beautiful old lady with long white hair, who calls herself Irene’s namesake and great-great-grandmother. The lady keeps pigeons and spends most of her time spinning thread. After a short visit, the lady helps Irene find her way back to more familiar parts of the castle.
Resources for Further Study
The entire book is available on Project Gutenberg and is also avalible through your local library.
The George MacDonald WWW Page, the home of The George MacDonald Society is the most extensive source of information on MacDonald and his work.
This chapter, as well as the book it comes from shows multiple reactions to nature and problem-solving. It is also an excellent example of a long-form fairy tale.
Learning Questions:
“Which fairy tale conventions do you see in this story?”
“What is each character’s reaction to nature? Which seems the best to you?”
“Does Lootie do a good job of protecting Irene from goblins?”
“Will she do a good job ‘protecting’ Irene from Curdie?”
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.
Charles S. Olcott. The Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park. Frontispiece photograph from My First Summer in the Sierra.
July 15. Followed the mono trail up the eastern rim of the basin nearly to its summit, then turned off southward to a small shallow valley that extends to the edge of the Yosemite, which we reached about noon, and encamped. After luncheon, I made haste to high ground, and from the top of the ridge on the west side of Indian Cañon gained the noblest view of the summit peaks I have ever yet enjoyed. Nearly all the upper basin of the Merced was displayed, with its sublime domes and canons, dark upsweeping forests, and [a] glorious array of white peaks deep in the sky, every feature glowing, radiating beauty that pours into our flesh and bones like heat rays from fire. Sunshine overall; no breath of wind to stir the brooding calm. Never before had I seen so glorious a landscape, so boundless an affluence of sublime mountain beauty. The most extravagant description I might give of this view to anyone who has not seen similar landscapes with his own eyes would not so much as hint at its grandeur and the spiritual glow that covered it. I shouted and gesticulated in a wild burst of ecstasy much to the astonishment of St. Bernard Carlo, who came running up to me, manifesting in his intelligent eyes a puzzled concern that was very ludicrous, which had the effect of bringing me to my senses. A brown bear, too, it would seem, had been a spectator of the show I had made of myself, for I had gone but a few yards when I started one from a thicket of brush. He evidently considered me dangerous, for he ran away very fast, tumbling over the tops of the tangled manzanita bushes in his haste. Carlo drew back, with his ears depressed as if afraid, and kept looking me in the face, as if expecting me to pursue and shoot, for he had seen many a bear battle in his day.
Following the ridge, which made a gradual descent to the south, I came at length to the brow of that massive cliff that stands between Indian Cañon and Yosemite Falls, and here the far-famed valley came suddenly into view throughout almost its whole extent. The noble walls—sculptured into an endless variety of domes and gables, spires and battlements and plain mural precipices—all a-tremble with the thunder tones of the falling water. The level bottom seemed to be dressed like a garden—sunny meadows here and there, and groves of pine and oak; the river of Mercy sweeping in majesty through the midst of them and flashing back the sunbeams. The great Tissiack, or Half-Dome, rising at the upper end of the valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and life-like, the most impressive of all the rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration, calling it back again and again from falls or meadows, or even the mountains “beyond,—marvelous cliffs, marvelous in sheer dizzy depth and sculpture, types of endurance. Thousands of years have they stood in the sky exposed to rain, snow, frost, earthquake, and avalanche, yet they still wear the bloom of youth.
I rambled along the valley rim to the westward; most of it is rounded off on the very brink so that it is not easy to find places where one may look clear down the face of the wall to the bottom. When such places were found, and I had cautiously set my feet and drawn my body erect, I could not help fearing a little that the rock might split off and let me down, and what a down!—more than three thousand feet. Still, my limbs did not tremble, nor did I feel the least uncertainty as to the reliance to be placed on them. My only fear was that a flake of the granite, which in some places showed joints more or less open and running parallel with the face of the cliff, might give way. After withdrawing from such places, excited with the view I had got, I would say to myself, “Now don’t go out on the verge again.” But in the face of Yosemite scenery cautious remonstrance is vain; under its spell one’s body seems to go where it likes with a will over which we seem to have scarce any control.
After a mile or so of this memorable cliff work I approached Yosemite Creek, admiring its easy, graceful, confident gestures as it comes bravely forward in its narrow channel, singing the last of its mountain songs on its way to its fate—a few rods more over the shining granite, then down half a mile in showy foam to another world, to be lost in the Merced, where climate, vegetation, inhabitants, all are different. Emerging from its last gorge, it glides in wide lace-like rapids down a smooth incline into a pool where it seems to rest and compose its gray, agitated waters before taking the grand plunge, then slowly slipping over the lip of the pool basin, it descends another glossy slope with rapidly accelerated speed to the brink of the tremendous cliff, and with sublime, fateful confidence springs out free in the air.
John Muir. Approach of Dome Creek to Yosemite, illustration from My First Summer in the Sierra, p. 150.
I took off my shoes and stockings and worked my way cautiously down alongside the rushing flood, keeping my feet and hands pressed firmly on the polished rock. The blooming, roaring water, rushing past close to my head was very exciting. I had expected that the sloping apron would terminate with the perpendicular wall of the valley, and that from the foot of it, where it is less steeply inclined, I should be able to lean far enough out to see the forms and behavior of the fall all the way down to the bottom. But I found that there was yet another small brow over which I could not see, and which appeared to be too steep for mortal feet. Scanning it keenly, I discovered a narrow shelf about three inches wide on the very brink, just wide enough for a rest for one’s heels. But there seemed to be no way of reaching it over so steep a brow. At length, after careful scrutiny of the surface, I found “an irregular edge of a flake of the rock some distance back from the margin of the torrent. If I was to get down to the brink at all that rough edge, which might offer slight finger-holds, was the only way. But the slope beside it looked dangerously smooth and steep, and the swift roaring flood beneath, overhead, and beside me was very nerve-trying. I, therefore, concluded not to venture farther but did nevertheless. Tufts of artemisia were growing in clefts of the rock nearby, and I filled my mouth with the bitter leaves, hoping they might help to prevent giddiness. Then, with a caution not known in ordinary circumstances, I crept down safely to the little ledge, got my heels well planted on it, then shuffled in a horizontal direction twenty or thirty feet until close to the outplunging current, which, by the time it had descended thus far, was already white. Here I obtained a perfectly free view down into the heart of the snowy, chanting throng of comet-like streamers, into which the body of the fall soon separates. “While perched on that narrow niche I was not distinctly conscious of danger. The tremendous grandeur of the fall in form and sound and motion, acting at close range, smothered the sense of fear, and in such places one’s body takes keen care for safety on its own account. How long I remained “down there, or how I returned, I can hardly tell. Anyhow I had a glorious time, and got back to camp about dark, enjoying triumphant exhilaration soon followed by dull weariness. Hereafter I’ll try to keep from such extravagant, nerve-straining places. Yet such a day is well worth venturing for. My first view of the High Sierra, first view looking down into Yosemite, the death song of Yosemite Creek, and its flight over the vast cliff, each one of these is of itself enough for a great life-long landscape fortune—a most memorable of days—enjoyment enough to kill if that were possible.
July 16. My enjoyments yesterday afternoon, especially at the head of the fall, were too great for good sleep. Kept starting up last night in a nervous tremor, half awake, fancying that the foundation of the mountain we were camped on had given way and was falling into Yosemite Valley. In vain I roused myself to make a new beginning for sound sleep. The nerve strain had been too great, and again and again I dreamed I was rushing through the air above a glorious avalanche of water and rock. One time, springing to my feet, I said, “This time it is real—all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”
Left camp soon after sunrise for an all day ramble eastward. Crossed the head of Indian Basin, forested with Abies magnifica, underbrush mostly Ceanothus cordulatus and manzanita, a mixture not easily trampled over or penetrated, for the ceanothus is thorny and grows in dense snow-pressed masses, and the manzanita has exceedingly crooked, stubborn branches. From the head of the cañon continued on past North Dome into the basin of Dome or Porcupine Creek. Here are many fine meadows imbedded in the woods, gay with Lilium parvum and its companions; the elevation, about eight thousand feet, seems to be best suited for it–saw specimens that were a foot or two higher than my head. Had more magnificent views of the upper mountains, and of the great South Dome, said to be the grandest rock in the world. Well it may be, since it is of such noble dimensions and sculpture. A wonderfully impressive monument, its lines exquisite in fineness, and though sublime in size, is finished like the finest work of art, and seems to be alive.
Charles S. Olcott. The Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park. Photograph printed in My First Summer in the Sierra, p. 181.
Muir, John. From “Chapter 5: The Yosemite” In My First Summer in the Sierra, 115-122. Boston: Houghton MIfflin, 1917.
Contexts
My First Summer in the Sierra was first published in 1911; this text is from another printing in 1917 published as the “Sierra Edition.” The full text and illustrations from this edition are available at Project Gutenberg.
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