Mockingbird and Dogwood. Colored illustration, 1771, by Mark Catesby. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. Courtesy Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.
Whether spread in flight,
Or perched upon the swinging bough,
Whether day or night,
He sings as he is singing now—
Till ev’ry leaf upon the tree
Seems dripping with his melody![1]
Posey, Alexander. “The Mocking Bird.” Indian School Journal 6, no. 10 (April 1910): 30.
[1] The Northern Mockingbird inhabits most of United States and Mexico year-round. Known for its personality, the bird is famous for its singing ability, which enables it to mimic many other birds. They defend their nests boldly.
Contexts
The Indian School Journal was the official publication for the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (also known as the Haworth Institute, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, and the Chilocco Indian School). Located in north-central Oklahoma near the Kansas border, it began taking students in 1884, enrolling 150 from seventeen tribes that first year. Enrollment had more than doubled by 1895, with students coming from various tribes, including the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Pawnee tribes. The Oklahoma Historical Society notes that “significant enrollment from the so-called ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ did not occur until after 1910 but by 1925, Cherokee constituted the largest single tribal affiliation at the school (26 percent of approximately nine hundred students).” Following World War II and the expansion of public education, the school enrolled mostly students who lacked access to such education.
Like most federally funded Indian schools, Chilocco sought to assimilate Native children into white society. Also like other schools, it stressed “industrial” education—manual and domestic labor—over academic pursuits, aiming to train them as workers for white families. Education at Chilocco was notably militaristic; students attended weekly Christian religious services, also intended to weaken their ties to family and tribe. In the 1950s, student numbers peaked at around 1300, and the school closed in 1980. Muskogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist Alexander Posey was a nationally known writer whose appearance in the school’s magazine suggests his powerful influence on young Native American readers. Following his tragic death by drowning in the Oktahutchee River when he was only 34 years old—and only a few months after The Indian School Journal published several poems—his wife Minnie collected his work in The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. His evocative poetry is also available through the Academy of American Poets (poets.org) and The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. The Envious Lobster uses the versions Posey published in the school’s magazine.
Resources for Further Study
Archuleta, Margaret L., Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled), eds. Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000.
Connelley, William Elsey. “Memoir or Alexander Lawrence Posey.” In The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. Ed. Mrs. Minnie H. Posey. Topeka, KS: Crane and Company, 1910. Pp. 5-65.
Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr. Alexander Posey: Creek Poet, Journalist, and Humorist. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). “Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1995).
Eastern Meadow Lark. Colored lithograph, 1919, by Louis Agassiz. Public Domain.
When other birds despairing southward fly
In early autumn time away,
When all the green leaves of the forest die,
How merry still art thou and gay.[1]
O golden breasted bird of dawn,
Through all the bleak days singing on,
Till winter, woo a captive by thy strain,
Breaks into smiles and spring is come again.
Posey, Alexander. “To the Indian Meadow Lark.” Indian School Journal 6, no. 10 (April 1910): 30.
[1] The Indian meadow lark is likely the Western Meadowlark, a year-round resident of Posey’s Oklahoma home. The Eastern Meadow Lark is similar in appearance, but its songs differ.
Contexts
The Indian School Journal was the official publication for the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (also known as the Haworth Institute, the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, and the Chilocco Indian School). Located in north-central Oklahoma near the Kansas border, it began taking students in 1884, enrolling 150 from seventeen tribes that first year. Enrollment had more than doubled by 1895, with students coming from various tribes, including the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Pawnee tribes. The Oklahoma Historical Society notes that “significant enrollment from the so-called ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ did not occur until after 1910 but by 1925, Cherokee constituted the largest single tribal affiliation at the school (26 percent of approximately nine hundred students).” Following World War II and the expansion of public education, the school enrolled mostly students who lacked access to such education.
Like most federally funded Indian schools, Chilocco sought to assimilate Native children into white society. Also like other schools, it stressed “industrial” education—manual and domestic labor—over academic pursuits, aiming to train them as workers for white families. Education at Chilocco was notably militaristic; students attended weekly Christian religious services, also intended to weaken their ties to family and tribe. In the 1950s, student numbers peaked at around 1300, and the school closed in 1980. Muskogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist Alexander Posey was a nationally known writer whose appearance in the school’s magazine suggests his powerful influence on young Native American readers. Following his tragic death by drowning in the Oktahutchee River when he was only 34 years old—and only a few months after The Indian School Journal published several poems—his wife Minnie collected his work in The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. His evocative poetry is also available through the Academy of American Poets (poets.org) and The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. The Envious Lobster uses the versions Posey published in the school’s magazine.
Resources for Further Study
Archuleta, Margaret L., Brenda J. Child, and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled), eds. Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000.
Connelley, William Elsey. “Memoir or Alexander Lawrence Posey.” In The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. Ed. Mrs. Minnie H. Posey. Topeka, KS: Crane and Company, 1910. Pp. 5-65.
Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr. Alexander Posey: Creek Poet, Journalist, and Humorist. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). “Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina. (Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Eastern Oklahoma, not enrolled). They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1995).
Indian Canoe Parade in Tulalip Bay, c.1912. Photo. Ferdinand Brady. Courtesy University of Washington Libraries.
MARY.
How I love the blooming Spring,
When the birds so gayly sing!
JOHN.
More the Summer me delights,
With its lovely days and nights.
EMELY.
Autumn is the best of all,
With its fruits for great and small.
RICHARD.
Nay! old Winter is the time!
Jolly then the sleigh-bells’ chime!
GRANDMOTHER.
Every season will be bright,
Children, if you’ll live aright.
Anonymous. “The Seasons.” The Youth’s Companion 14, no. 2 (July 1882): n.p.
Contexts
Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”
Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.
Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this poem was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. Student newspapers frequently published work by students, but it’s often difficult to identify authorship even if contributions included the author’s name. The moral that ends the sketch may be an addition by one of the school’s teachers.
Marr, Carolyn J. “Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest,” University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection. This article includes historical contexts and features “A Typical Daily Schedule.”
———. “Between Two Worlds: Experiences at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, 1905-1932,” Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve.
Contemporary Connections
“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.
Tulalip Indian School and Bandstand, 1910. Photograph. Ferdinand Brady. Courtesy UW Special Collections (NA1464).
Icy winter has departed,
And the balmy spring has come,
The birds sing forth their melody,
And the bees begin to hum.
The bobolink now sounds his note,[1]
His song so clear and sweet,
He tells us of the balmy spring,
We’ve longed so much to greet.
The fields have changed their dark gray robe
For one of loveliest green,
And on the hills and in the vales
The flocks and herds are seen.
Out on the fresh green sward
The hen now leads her tender brood,
And seeks for them with anxious care
The choicest bits of food.
The gentle river now is studded
With many a white-sailed craft,
That swiftly o’er its bosom
The genial breezes waft.
But summer soon will come,
And to us she will bring
More blessings and more pleasures
Than did the welcome spring.
Now let us well remember,
That their beauty cannot last,
For when cometh bleak December,
He’ll destroy it with his blast.
[1] Notable for its song, the Bobolink is a black and white bird with a yellow “cap.” ItDuring migration it occupies much of the southeastern quarter of the United States, and it summers (and breeds) in the U.S. Northeast, upper Midwest, and much of southern Canada. It rarely appears in the Tulalip region. Mentioning the bird here suggests that a teacher who came from the eastern part of the country may have described it to the author, or that the author read about it.
Contexts
Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”
Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.
Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this poem was published anonymously.Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. In describing the spring, this poem mirrors much of the nineteenth century’s natural history writing for children. Its emphasis on agriculture indirectly demonstrates the U.S. official policy of eliminating these tribes’ traditional lifeways of fishing, hunting, and gathering.
Marr, Carolyn J. “Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest,” University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection. This article includes historical contexts and features “A Typical Daily Schedule.”
———. “Between Two Worlds: Experiences at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, 1905-1932,” Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve.
Contemporary Connections
“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.
Carolina parrot. Late 18th-century colored engraving. Courtesy Getty Images.
There once lived, in a small village, a farmer who kept a parrot, which was in the habit of keeping bad company. One day, after the farmer had finished planting his corn, the crows, together with the parrot, soon occupied themselves with feasting upon it. The farmer, seeing this, resolved to punish the black robbers. Seizing his gun, he crept slyly along the fence until he came within a few yards of them, and then fired. Walking over to the corn to see what effect the shot produced, to his great surprise, he found that he had wounded his parrot. Poor Polly was taken home and kindly cared for. The children asked their father how the parrot came to be shot. “Bad company,” answered the father; “Bad company,” repeated Poll.
Afterwards, whenever the parrot would see the children quarreling and wrangling among themselves, Poll would cry out, “Bad company! Bad company!”
Thus, dear young readers, when you are tempted to associate with bad companions, remember the story of the parrot and its punishment.
American crow. Lithograph. Birds of Pennsylvania, 1897. Public domain.
Anonymous. “The Farmer and the Parrot.” The Youth’s Companion 5, no. 1 (October 1881): 112.
Contexts
Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the tribe’s website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”
Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.
Like many contributions to Native American newspapers, this sketch was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story typifies the didactic texts that students were expected to compose. Its humor, however, suggests the author may be resisting the “parroting” of conventional morality.
Marr, Carolyn J. “Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest,” University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection. This article includes historical contexts and features “A Typical Daily Schedule.”
———. “Between Two Worlds: Experiences at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, 1905-1932,” Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve.
Contemporary Connections
“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.
Tulalip Indian School Classroom, May 1914. Courtesy J. A. Juleen / Everett Public Library’s Northwest History Room.
Teacher. “Now Mary, my dear, suppose I were to shoot at a tree with five birds on it, and kill three, how many would be left?”
Mary: “Three, ma’am.”
Teacher: “No, two would be left.”
Mary: “No there wouldn’t though. The three shot would be left and the other two would be flied away.” [1]
Anonymous. [A Mathematical conversation.] The Youth’s Companion: A Juvenile Monthly Magazine Published for the Benefit of the Puget Sound Indian Missions 2, no. 1 (July 1881): 39.
[1] Presumably the observer uses “flied” to indicate that Mary is very young. We should assume that the teacher is white and that Mary is a Tulalit student.
Contexts
Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”
Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.
Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this conversation was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story represents a significant change from the didactic texts that students were normally expected to compose. It showcases Native intelligence in a period when most white Americans regarded the nation’s Indigenous people as inferior or even subhuman. The conversation also emphasizes how the Tulalip child sees the world differently, and in some ways more clearly than her white teacher. Humorous sketches like these were common in Native American texts.
Marr, Carolyn J. “Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest,” University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection. This article includes historical contexts and features “A Typical Daily Schedule.”
———. “Between Two Worlds: Experiences at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, 1905-1932,” Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve.
Contemporary Connections
“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.
John James Audubon. “White-Headed Eagle,” from Birds of America (1827-38), plate 31. Audubon.com.
In a distant field, stood a large tulip-tree, [1] apparently of a century’s growth, and one of the most gigantic. It looked like the father of the surrounding forest. [2] A single tree, of huge dimensions, standing all alone, is a sublime object.
On the top of this tree, an old eagle, commonly called the “Fishing-Eagle” had built her nest every year, for many years, and undisturbed had raised her young. What is remarkable, as she procured her food from the ocean, this tree stood full ten miles from the sea-shore. It had long been known as the “Old Eagle-Tree.”
On a warm, sunny day, the workmen were hoeing corn in an adjoining field. At a certain hour of the day, the old eagle was known to set off for the sea-side, to gather food for her young. As she this day returned with a large fish in her claws, the work-men surrounded the tree, and by yelling and hooting, and throwing stones, so scared the poor bird, that she dropped her fish, and they carried it off in triumph.
The men soon dispersed, but Joseph sat down under a bush near by, to watch and to bestow unavailing pity. The bird soon returned to her nest, without food. The eaglets at once set up a cry for food so shrill, so clear, and so clamorous, that the boy was greatly moved.
The parent-bird seemed to try to soothe them; but their appetites were too keen, and it was all in vain. She then perched herself on a limb near them and looked down into the nest with a look that seemed to say, “I know not what to do next.”
Her indecision was but momentary; again she poised herself, uttered one or two sharp notes, as if telling them to “lie still,” balanced her body, spread her wings, and was away again for the sea!
Joseph was determined to see the result. His eye followed her till she grew small, smaller, a mere speck in the sky, and then disappeared. What boy has not thus watched the flight of the bird of his country?
She was gone nearly two hours, about double her usual time for a voyage, when she again returned, on a slow, weary wing, flying uncommonly low, in order to have a heavier atmosphere to sustain her, with another fish in her talons.
On nearing the field, she made a circuit round it, to see if her enemies were again there. Finding the coast clear, she once more reached the tree, drooping, faint, and weary, and evidently nearly exhausted. Again the eaglets set up their cry, which was soon hushed by the distribution of a dinner, such as, save the cooking, a king might admire.
“Glorious bird!” cried the boy, “what a spirit! Other birds can fly more swiftly, others can sing more sweetly, others scream more loudly; but what other bird, when persecuted and robbed, when weary, when discouraged, when so far from the sea, would do this?
“Glorious bird! I will learn a lesson from thee to-day. I will never forget, hereafter, that when the spirit is determined, it can do almost any thing. Others would have drooped, and hung the head, and mourned over the cruelty of man, and sighed over the wants of the nestlings; but thou, by at once recovering the loss, hast forgotten all.
“I will learn of thee, noble bird! I will remember this. I will set my mark high. I will try to do something, and to be something in the world; I will never yield to discouragements.”
TODD, JOHN. “THE OLD EAGLE TREE.” IN MCGUFFEY’S NEW FOURTH ECLECTIC READER, ED. WILLIAM HOLMES MONTGOMERY, 86-88. NEW YORK: WILSON, HINKLE, & CO., 1857.
[1] Tulip trees, also called tulip poplars, are native to the Eastern United States. Their spring blooms are attractive to bees. They are fast growing, reaching up to 20 feet tall and almost as wide in less than 10 years, ultimately ending up around 70-80 feet tall and 50 feet wide.
School readers were an important tool in early America, especially in less settled regions where teachers were scarce. McGuffey published six readers, each advancing in level of difficulty, designed for students in kindergarten through high school. They provided a scripted tool to enable even untrained teachers to teach the basics in reading, writing, speaking and science, and to reinforce the predominant, mostly Christian values of American society. The pedagogical method was to have students memorize the materials and recite them in the classroom.
In his biography,John Todd: The Story of His Life Told Mainly by Himself, Todd relates an experience that led him to write the story of “The Old Eagle Tree.” He credits the lesson he learned from the eagle for his lifelong determination to do the right thing and to succeed.
“The Old Eagle Tree” is included in McGuffey’s Fourth Eclectic Reader, published in 1857. The McGuffey series of readers were used as instructional textbooks, primarily for reading, writing, articulation, and character building. The books include prose and poetry along with guidance for teachers. McGuffey’s Readers draw from a wide range of literary sources, including the Bible, and emphasize American writers and American values common between 1836 and 1920.
Resources for Further Study
Biography of W. H. McGuffey on the Miami University website, where he taught from 1826-36.
In The Old Eagle Tree a young boy learns the lesson of persistence and respect for nature. Today, many environmental educators emphasize that continuing exposure to nature, starting at an early age, is essential to raising environmentally responsible adults. Many schools now integrate environmental programs into their curriculums. The State of North Carolina has made a commitment to include environmental education in the curriculum for all K-12 students to capitalize on “children’s natural curiosity about animals, plants and other elements of nature.” The North Carolina Environmental Education Plan includes a quote from Dr. David Orr, who says, “We often forget that all education is environmental education — by what we include or exclude, we teach the young that they are part of or apart from the natural world. An economist, for example, who fails to connect our economic life with that of ecosystems and the biosphere has taught an environmental lesson all right, but one that is dead wrong. Our goal as educators ought to be to help students understand their implicatedness in the world and to honor mystery.”
Bird and Nest. From Dodge, Mary Mapes. “Little Green Hummer.” In Rhymes and Jingles. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1875. Public domain.
Little green Hummer Was born in the summer; His coat was as bright As the emerald’s light. Short was his song, Though his bill it was long; His weight altogether Not more than a feather. From dipping his head In the sunset red, And gilding his side In its fiery tide, He gleamed like a jewel, And darted around, ‘Twixt sunlight and starlight, Ne’er touching the ground. Now over a blossom, Now under, now in it; Here, there, and everywhere, All in a minute. Ah! never he cared Who wondered and stared,— His life was completeness Of pleasure and sweetness; He revelled in lightness, In fleetness and brightness This sweet little Hummer That came with the summer.
Dodge, Mary Mapes. “Little Green Hummer.” In Rhymes and Jingles, 14. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Company, 1875.
Contexts
Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905) was born in 1831 in New York. She made her most significant contribution to the body of late nineteenth and twentieth-century children’s literature and childhood education with her work as an editor of St. Nicholas Magazine. The magazine published poems, stories, and educational articles for children, and by children, on topics ranging from history to science to nature. Contributors included luminaries such as Louisa May Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. The magazine remains a rich source of insight into the education of children during that era.
Of particular interest is the “St. Nicholas League” section of submissions from readers. Works included sketches, paintings, photographs, poems, and stories. The editors recognized the best works with awards and prizes. Several famous writers were first published in the magazine, including Edna St. Vincent Millay, E. B. White, and Bennet Cerf. St. Nicholas was in circulation from 1873 to 1943, and Dodge remained as editor until her death in 1905.
Dodge also worked as an associate editor for Hearth and Home magazine alongside Harriet Beecher Stowe. Like many nineteenth-century writers, Stowe was also fascinated hummingbirds. Search for her sketch, “Hum, the Son of Buz,” elsewhere in The Envious Lobster.
Resources for Further Study
Short biography of Mary Mapes Dodge and a selection of her poems.
Climate change is threatening hummingbirds by disrupting their patterns of migration and feeding routines. As bloom times change they may arrive at a known source of nutrition too early or too late. In short, they have become out of synch with nature. Scientists are still studying the problem and possible remedies, but you can help by turning your home into a hummingbird haven and following other tips in the article “Turn Your Yard Into A Hummingbird Spectacular,” published in Audubon Magazine.
Rescued hummingbird. Image from Stowe’s story in Our Young Folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, no. 1 (January 1865): 5. Public Domain.
At Rye Beach [1] during our summer’s vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,–days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water dashed along the ground and careered in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so, shivering and drawing our blanket- shawls close about us, we sat down at the window to watch the storm outside. The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that we had so often seen flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, we sent out to have him taken in. When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint, watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that grim death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds. What a time we had reviving him,–holding the little wet thing in the warm hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate! His eyes were fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where he was.
Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn’t mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for getting him a settled establishment in our apartment. I gave up my work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that he should take a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was formally put to bed, with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck, to keep him from beating his wings. Out of his white wrappings he looked forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him, and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.
The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life’s fire burning in their tiny bodies. Our bird’s lungs manufactured brilliant blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get more of it than he needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical authority looked grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once. We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would do well enough in time,–as it afterwards appeared he did, for from that day there was no more bleeding. In the course of the second day he began to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to return to us; perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time. “These great giants,” he seemed to say to himself, “are not bad people after all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and warmed me! Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them.” So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him “Hum, the son of Buz.” He became an individuality, a character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were.
“Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum. He has but one weakness–he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is in rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him. Mr. A—- reads Macaulay [2] to us, and you should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny’s thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded: he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than when sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my face with great edification.
“I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to make him go to bed in his box; but he evidently considers himself sufficiently convalescent to make a stand for his rights as a bird, and so scratched indignantly out of his wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the edge of the box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least. Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round and wide, and sits cocking his little head at me reflectively.”
When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out bright, Hum became entirely well, and seemed resolved to take the measure of his new life with us. Our windows were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames with mosquito gauze [3], so that the sun and air found free admission, and yet our little rover could not pass out. On the first sunny day he took an exact survey of our apartment from ceiling to floor, humming about, examining every point with his bill–all the crevices, mouldings, each little indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair and stand; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside apartment, his scrutiny was soon finished. We wondered at first what this was all about; but on watching him more closely, we found that he was actively engaged in getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither and thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects which in summer time are to be found in an apartment. In short, we found that, though the nectar of flowers was his dessert, yet he had his roast beef and mutton-chop to look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was not made out of a simple vegetarian diet. Very shrewd and keen he was, too, in measuring the size of insects before he attempted to swallow them. The smallest class were whisked off with lightning speed; but about larger ones he would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes, darting hither and thither, and surveying them warily, and if satisfied that they could be carried, he would come down with a quick, central dart which would finish the unfortunate at a snap. The larger flies seemed to irritate him, especially when they intimated to him that his plumage was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail; when he would lay about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a sword. A grasshopper that strayed in, and was sunning himself on the window-seat, gave him great discomposure. Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to long to make a dive at him; but, with characteristic prudence, confined himself to threatening movements, which did not exactly hit. He saw evidently that he could not swallow him whole, and what might ensue from trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay [4].
Hum had his own favourite places and perches. From the first day he chose for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across the corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established himself with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. He did not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between his shoulders, with his bill almost straight up in the air. One evening one of us, going to use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line. Another evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off; but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself again, and was found clinging, like a little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the window.
A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up over the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it had been there five minutes, flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here, now there, till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and after that he roosted there every night. Who does not see in this change all the signs of reflection and reason that are shown by us in thinking over our circumstances, and trying to better them? It seemed to say in so many words: “That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird; I get frightened, and wake from bad dreams to find myself head downward; so I will find a better roost on this twig.”
When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white muslin gown embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards her, and with his bill made instant examination of these new appearances; and one day, being very affectionately disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat some time. On another occasion, while Mr. A—- was reading, Hum established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds [5], making him look as if dressed out for a party. Hum’s most favourite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch his little claws. There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to the conversation or reading.
Hum had his different moods, like human beings. On cold, cloudy, gray days he appeared to be somewhat depressed in spirits, hummed less about the room, and sat humped up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much like a bird in a great-coat as possible. But on hot, sunny days, every feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked natty and trim, his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was impossible to come near him, for his agility. Then let mosquitoes and little flies look about them! Hum snapped them up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal familiarity with a saucy alacrity.
Hum had his established institutions in our room, the chief of which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood–sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler; which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians that he would fall in some day and be drowned. For which reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved; for the next morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum over my head, but by a sharp little flutter, and found Mr. Hum beating his wings in the tumbler, –having actually tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get his morning coffee before I was awake.
Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters, — but one day, when the door was left open, he made a dart out, and so into the open sunshine. Then, to be sure, we thought we had lost him. We took the mosquito netting out of all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of sugar and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual occupations. We saw him joyous and brisk among the honeysuckles outside the window, and it was gravely predicted that he would return no more. But at dinner-time in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to his spoon as if nothing had happened. Instantly we closed our windows and had him secure once more.
At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic House, about a mile from my boarding-place. I left all secure, as I supposed, at home. While gathering moss on the walls there, I was surprised by a little green humming-bird flying familiarly right towards my face and humming above my head. I called out, “Here is Hum’s very brother.” But, on returning home, I saw that the door of the room was open, and Hum was gone. Now certainly we gave him up for lost. I sat down to painting, and in a few minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tumbler in a social, confidential way, which seemed to say, “Oh, you’ve got back then.” After taking his usual drink of sugar and water, he began to fly about the ceiling as usual, and we gladly shut him in.
When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was time to go home, we had great questionings what was to be done with Hum. To get him home with us was our desire; but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling by railroad? Great were the consultings. A little basket of Indian work was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, and a bottle of sugar and water provided, and we started with him for a day’s journey. When we arrived at night the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and water in Boston. We found him alive and well, but so dead asleep that we could not wake him to roost; so we put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his tumbler for morning. The next day found him alive and humming, exploring the room and pictures, perching now here and now there; but as the weather was chilly, he sat for the most part of the time in a humped-up state on the tip of a pair of stag’s horns. We moved him to a more sunny apartment; but, alas! the equinoctial storm came on, and there was no sun to be had for days. Hum was blue; the pleasant seaside days were over; his room was lonely, the pleasant three that had enlivened the apartment at Rye no longer came in and out; evidently he was lonesome, and gave way to depression. One chilly morning he managed again to fall into his tumbler, and wet himself through; and notwithstanding warm bathings and tender nursings, the poor little fellow seemed to get diptheria, or something quite as bad for humming-birds.
We carried him to a neighboring sunny parlour, where ivy embowers all the walls and the sun lies all day. There he revived a little, danced up and down, perched on a green spray that was wreathed across the breast of a Psyche, [6] and looked then like a little flitting soul returning to its rest. Towards evening he drooped; and, having been nursed and warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green twig laid on the piano. In that sleep the little head drooped–nodded–fell; and little Hum went where other bright dreams go–to the Land of the Hereafter. [7]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Hum, the son of Buz,” In our young folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, No. 1 (January 1865): 1-7.
[1] Rye Beach is a coastal town in New Hampshire, only an hour away from Boston (by today’s means of conveyance).
[3] Mosquito gauze was used to create a window screen.
[4] He choose not to pursue the insect further.
[5] During the Victorian era many stylish women wore hats adorned with stuffed birds and feathers. In 1886 Sometime in 1886, Frank Chapman (1864–1945), an accomplished ornithologist, found more than 40 species of stuffed birds in New York City, all adorning ladies hats. In Boston, Massachusetts, in 1896 Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall led a campaign against this practice. Steadily attracting more and more supporters, they formed the Audubon Society–today one of the largest bird protection charities in the world–and took on the millinery trade. Although some protective legislation was passed in the US after a few years, the importation of feathers wasn’t banned until 1918, when the US Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
[6] In Greek mythology, Psyche was a beautiful princess who fell in love with Eros (Cupid), god of love, and went through terrible trials before being allowed to marry him. The story is often understood to be about the soul redeeming itself through love.
[7] The Land of the Hereafter refers to Heaven, and tells us that little Hum has died.
Contexts
Harriet Beecher Stowe is most famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which brought the daily horrors of slavery to a wide audience and is credited by scholars with contributing to the start of the American Civil War. She was a passionate abolitionist and a prolific writer. She found time to raise a family of seven children and add stories for children to her portfolio of work. Her first published book, in 1833, was Primary Geography for Children (you can find the 1855 revised edition, titled A New Geography for Children at Hathi Trust). Learn more about Stowe’s life and work.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
chaffed: To banter, rail at, or rally, in a light and non-serious manner, or without anger, but so as to try the good nature or temper of the person “chaffed.”
cambric: A kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray in Flanders. (Also applied to an imitation made of hard-spun cotton yarn.)
chestnut burr: The large edible seed or “nut” of the chestnut-tree, two or more of which are enclosed in a prickly pericarp or “burr.”
Chestnut burrs. Photo courtesy of pxfuel.com.
diptheria: An infectious disease that is characterized by severe inflammation of mucous membranes, esp. of the throat but often also of the nose, larynx, trachea, and bronchi, with formation of a thick layer of exudate sometimes causing obstruction to breathing, and which is caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Also: infection of other sites, especially the skin, by this bacterium.
palpitate: (of the heart) to beat rapidly and/or in an irregular way especially because of fear or excitement.
rills: shallow channels cut by water flowing over rock or soil.
spiraea: One or other species of an extensive genus of rosaceous plants or shrubs, many of which are largely cultivated for their handsome foliage and flowers.
Climate change is threatening hummingbirds by disrupting their patterns of migration and feeding routines. As bloom times change they may arrive at a known source of nutrition too early or too late. In short, they have lost their synchronization with nature. Scientists are still studying the problem and possible remedies, but you can help by turning your home into a hummingbird haven and following other tips in the article “Turn Your Yard Into A Hummingbird Spectacular,” published in Audubon Magazine.
Blue Jay, from the Birds of America Series (N4) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands. Commercial color lithograph, 1888, The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick. Public Domain.
It was a hot, sultry day in May and the children in the little school in Virginia were wearily waiting for the gong to free them from lessons for the day. Furtive glances were directed towards the clock. The call of the birds and fields was becoming more and more insistent. Would the hour never strike!
“The Planting of the Apple-tree” had no interest for them. Little attention was given the boy as he read in a sing-song, spiritless manner:
"What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest."[1]
The teacher, who had long since stopped trying to make the lesson interesting, found herself saying mechanically, “What other birds have their nests in the apple-tree?”
The boy shifted lazily from one foot to the other as he began, “The sparrow, the robin, and wrens, and—the snow-birds and blue-jays—”
“No, they don’t, blue-jays don’t have nests,” came the excited outburst from some of the children, much to the surprise of the teacher.[2]
When order was restored some of these brown-skinned children, who came from the heart of the Virginian mountains, told this legend of the blue-jay.
Long, long years ago, the devil came to buy the blue-jay’s soul, for which he first offered a beautiful golden ear of corn. This the blue-jay liked and wanted badly, but said, “No, I cannot take it in exchange for my soul.” Then the devil came again, this time with a bright red ear of corn which was even more lovely than the golden one.
This, too, the blue-jay refused. At last the devil came to offer him a wonderful blue ear. This one the blue-jay liked best of all, but still was unwilling to part with his soul. Then the devil hung it up in the nest, and the blue-jay found that it exactly matched his own brilliant feathers, and knew at once that he must have it. The bargain was quickly made. And now in payment for that one blue ear of corn each Friday the blue-jay must carry one grain of sand to the devil, and sometimes he gets back on Sunday, but oftener not until Monday.[3]
Very seriously the children added, “And all the bad people are going to burn until the blue-jays have carried all the grains of sand in the ocean to the devil.”
The teacher must have smiled a little at the legend, for the children cried out again, “It is so. ’Deed it is, for doesn’t the black spot on the blue-jay come because he gets his wings scorched, and he doesn’t have a nest like other birds.”
Then, to dispel any further doubts the teacher might have, they asked triumphantly, “You never saw a blue-jay on Friday, did you?”
There was no need to answer, for just then the gong sounded and the children trooped happily out to play.
School Children Before a Log Schoolhouse. Photograph, circa 1895, Library of Virginia Special Collections.
Fisher, Ruth Anna. “A Legend of the Blue Jay,” IN THE UPWARD PATH: A READER FOR COLORED CHILDREN, ED. MYRON T. PRITCHARD AND MARY WHITE OVINGTON, 218-19. HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, 1920.
[1] American nature poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) wrote “The Planting of the Apple-Tree,” a poem included in school readers like The Rand-McNally List of Selections in School Readers (1896) and Constructive English for the Higher Grades of the Grammar School (1915).
[2] Blue jays do build nests. However, according to the Audubon Society‘s website, they are very quiet and inconspicuous when around them.
Job, Herbert Keightley. Blue Jay Nesting, Kent, Connecticut. Lantern Slide, 1900, Trinity College Watkinson Library: Ornithology Lantern Slides.
[3] According to folktales and fables that circulated within enslaved communities in the antebellum American South, the blue jay was never seen on Fridays because on those days he was carrying sticks to the devil to pay his debt. In other stories, the bird acted as the devil’s helper or messenger. Some of these accounts appear in Ernest Ingersoll’s Birds in Legend, Fable and Folklore (1923), Martha Young’s Plantation Legends (1902), and others.
Contexts
This short story was included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, published in 1920 and compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington. The volume’s foreword states that, “[t]o the present time, there has been no collection of stories and poems by Negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race.”
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
sing-song: To utter or express in a monotonous chant.
Resources for Further Study
Brief essay posted in The Conversation about the role of African American folklore in the preservation of history and cultural memory.
An overview of education in Virginia from 1869 to the present helps contextualize the school where Fisher’s story takes place. For example, under the Jim Crow system of education, “[o]ften transportation was provided to white schools but not to black ones. White teachers earned more money than black teachers, and male teachers were paid more than female teachers.”
A defense of the blue jay, a bird that “birders love to hate.”
