Barnes, Dr. Thomas G. Prairie Gentian and Grey Goldenrod Flowers. Public Doman.
The careful store of summer days The earth with bounty yields, And goldenrod [1], the fairies’ torch, Is glowing in the fields.
When early gentians [2] peeping out Reflect the heaven’s dome, Across the golden fields we hear The cry of, “Harvest home!”
And now the farmer toiling on His distant homestead sees, And once again we hear them shout Beneath the shading trees.
And now they turn along the road And gaily onward come To gather for the yearly feast The joyous harvest home.
Webb, Doris. “Harvest Home.” St. Nicholas Magazine Vol. 28, no. 11 (september 1901): 1051.
[1] Goldenrod is a native flower that grows throughout the United States. It blooms in the late fall and has very bright yellow flowers that truly glow like a torch.
[2] Gentian is a fall-flowering herb with trumpet-shaped flowers, usually of an intense blue, which are reminiscent of a deep blue sky.
Gentian is native in alpine habitats in temperate regions of Asia, Europe and the Americas. Some species also occur in northwestern Africa, eastern Australia, and New Zealand.
Contexts
Doris Webb was sixteen when this poem was published in the September 1901 issue of St. Nicholas in the St. Nicholas League section.
The St. Nicholas League, with the motto “Live to learn and learn to live,” was a monthly feature in the magazine. The editors encouraged children to join the League and participate in competitions in prose, verse, drawing, photography, and both puzzle-making and puzzle-solving. The League’s founder and editor from 1899-1908, Albert Bigelow Paine, served as a mentor and tutor to the League’s members. He and the magazine’s longtime editor, Mary Mapes Dodge, judged the submissions and awarded prizes in the form of gold and silver badges. In the early twentieth century many Americans farmed for a living. St. Nicholas published “Harvest Home” in September 1901 among other autumnal-themed work.
Resources for Further Study
Anna M. Recay’s essay “‘Live to learn and learn to live’: The St. Nicholas League and the Vocation of Childhood” is an in-depth analysis of the St. Nicholas League and its founding editor Albert Bigelow Paine. In the essay Recay explores the paradox inherent in Paine’s approach to training children in the arts: celebration of a child’s freedom and relationship with nature paired with an insistence in learning adult forms of literary expression.
E. B. White, the author of Charlotte’sWeb and Stuart Little, was active in the St. Nicholas League as a young writer, and later wrote “The St. Nicholas League” [password protected], an essay reflecting on its role in nurturing many young writers, among them Edna St. Vincent Millay, who had seven poems published.
An example of a contemporary version of St. Nicholas is Cricket Magazine, which began publishing in 1973. Founded by Marianne Carus,Cricket has a target audience of children from six to fourteen. It includes works from notable artists, including original stories, poems, folk tales, non-fiction articles, and illustrations. As did St. Nicholas, Cricket also runs contests and publishes work by its readers.
In 2011 a Canadian digital education platform, ePals Corporation, purchased Cricket and brought it into the digital age. The target audience has expanded to include children from birth to the age of fourteen. It is still alive and well and is now part of the Cricket Media enterprise.
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.
Early twentieth-century Rosh Hashanah Greeting Card. Yeshiva University Museum. Public domain.
Our year begins with burnished leaves, That flame in frost and rime, With purple grapes and golden sheaves In harvest time. [1]
Our year begins with biting cold, With winds and storms and rain; The new year of the Jew grows old In strife and pain.
When others say the year has died, We say the year is new, And we arise with power and pride To prove it true.
For we begin where others end, And fight where others yield; And all the year we work and tend Our harvest field.
And after days of stormy rain And days of drought and heat, When those that toiled have reaped their grain, And all’s complete.
Oh then, when God has kept his word, In peace we end our year. Our fruit is certain from the Lord. We shall not fear. [2]
SAMPTER, JESSIE E. “THE JEWISH YEAR.” IN AROUND THE YEAR IN RHYME FOR THE JEWISH CHILD, 12. NEW YORK: BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1920.
[1] There are four “new year” observances in the Hebrew calendar: one for civil purposes, one for certain agricultural laws, one for animals, including people, and one for trees. Rosh Hashana (September 6 in 2021) is the formal New Year holiday and celebrates the creation of humans.
[2] The Hebrew year ends after the harvest.
Contexts
Zionism was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann. Jessie E. Sampter was American Zionism’s foremost educator during the time between WWI and WWII. She organized Hadassah’s School of Zionism, training young leaders for Zionist girls’ clubs and adult speakers for Hadassah and the general Zionist organizations, including the Federation of American Zionists. As a young woman from an assimilated Jewish family, Sampter became a spiritual seeker and eventually a passionate Zionist. She was also a pacifist and a poet, with a special interest in educating Jewish children. This poem was published in a collection of her poems for children, organized around the theme of the important events on the Jewish calendar, which is different than the one commonly used in the United States.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
Zionism: Originally: a movement among Jewish people for the re-establishment of a Jewish nation in Palestine. Later: a movement for the development and protection of the state of Israel.
Hadassah: An American Zionist women’s organization, founded in 1912, which contributes to welfare work in Israel.
Definition from Dictionary.com:
Hadassah: a benevolent organization of Jewish women founded in New York City in 1912 by Henrietta Szold and concerned chiefly with bettering medical and educational facilities in Israel, forwarding Zionist activities in the U.S., and promoting world peace.
Learn more about the history of American women in the Zionist movement.
Contemporary Connections
Zionist issues continue to be polarizing throughout the world. Israel and Palestine are engaged in perpetual conflict that contributes to the political instability in the Middle East. Seeds of Peace is an organization with the goal of bringing students and educators from both sides of the conflict together. They believe that through education and dialogue new leaders will develop with shared goals and mutual respect. This brief video explains their philosophy and their mission.
Curtis, Edward S. Umatilla Child. Photograph, 1910, Library of Congress.
Little Light Moccasin swings in her basket,
Woven of willow and sinew of deer,
Rocked by the breezes and nursed by the pine tree,
Wonderful things are to see and to hear.
Wide is the sky from the top of the mountain,
Sheltered the canon from glare of the sun,
Ere she is wearied of watching their changes,
Little Light Moccasin finds she can run.
Brown is her skin as the bark of the birches,
Light are her feet as the feet of a fawn,
Shy little daughter of mesa and mountain,
Little Light Moccasin wakes with the dawn.
All of the treasures of summer-time canons,
These are the playthings the little maid knows,
Berry time, blossom time, bird calls, and butterflies,
Columbine trumpets, and sweet brier rose.[1]
Bear meat and deer meat, with pine-nuts and acorns,
Handsful of honey-comb dripping with sweet,
Tubers of joint grass the meadows provide her,
Bulbs of wild hyacinth, pleasant to eat.[2]
When on the mesa the meadow lark stooping,
Folds her brown wings on the safe hidden nest,
Hearing the hoot of the owlets at twilight,[3]
Little Light Moccasin goes to her rest.
Counting the stars through the chinks of the wickiup,
Watching the flames of the campfire leap,
Hearing the songs of the wind in the pine trees,
Little Light Moccasin falls fast asleep.
Pair of Moccasins. Hide and beads, early 20th century, Brooklyn Museum, NY.
[1] The Eastern Red Columbine is a branching perennial known for its drooping flowers which attract long-tongued insects and hummingbirds. According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s website, Native American men rubbed their palms with its crushed seeds as a love charm.
[2] Wild hyacinth bulbs have a nutty flavor and can be used like potatoes. They were an important food source for Native American tribes and early European settlers.
Mary Austin’s poem appeared in The Southern Workman magazine, an American journal “devoted to the interests of the black and red races of this country,” according to its cover page. The magazine included sections on education and suggestions for school lessons. The U.S. Congress had passed several Indian Appropriations Acts (in 1851, 1871, 1885, and 1889) that made Native American lands available to white settlers and confined their original inhabitants to reservations they could not leave without permission.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
canon: An alternate spelling of cañon (together with cannon and canyon), a deep gorge or ravine at the bottom of which a river or stream flows between high and often vertical sides; a physical feature characteristic of the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, and the western plateaus of North America.
mesa: A flat-topped hill of plateau of rock with one or more steep sides, usually rising abruptly from a surrounding plain and common in the arid and semi-arid areas of the United States.
moccasin: A kind of soft-soled leather shoe originally worn by North American Indians.
wickiup: A dwelling used by certain North American Indian peoples of the west and south-west consisting of a dome-shaped frame covered with brushwood.
Ph.D. Elisabeth Pearson Waugaman offers background on the fluid Native American naming tradition and its connection with nature, spirituality, and personal growth.
The mini-series We Shall Remain (2009), a collaboration between Native and non-Native American filmmakers, examines significant moments from U.S. history from a Native American perspective.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.”1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 105. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., http://www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
IF you live in the country, you can have many interesting experiences with birds. One morning, at about seven o’clock, last March, I discovered a fawn-colored screech owl perched disconsolately upon the upper sash of a window which had been left lowered from the top all night. [1] The owl, uttering faint croons, peered about as if trying to discover where he had spent the night. It was many minutes after my finding him, that he fluttered heavily away. My first cry of surprise seemed in no wise to have disturbed him.
Once, at this same window, I found a chimney swift, clinging desperately to the screen. The bird had flown in at the top of the window and landed just inside, against the screen below. He was quivering with fear.
For countless springs, the swifts, or swallows, had taken up their abode in a south chimney of our house. We could hear them often at night, in the brick-walled home. They seemed always to be “cuddling down”, yet never to get quite “cuddled” to their satisfaction. The little bell-like twitterings would be sounding, I imagined, whenever I awoke.
At dusk, when the sky was lavender, the swallows would flutter in graceful groups, trilling, swirling high over our heads. [2] How well I can see them now!––grouping themselves, breaking ranks, then flitting together. But as to having come into close contact with our neighbors, the swifts, that pleasure had not been mine till I found the frightened bird on the window screen. [3]
“Ah, here you are at last, little lodger,” I thought, and my heart bounded as it had when I first discovered an oriole’s nest. “We have slept in the same house many nights,” I said gently. “You should not fear me now.”
But the swallow said, with its every twitch, “Oh, please don’t touch me,––don’t touch me!” [4]
I watched it a minute, before setting it free. Swallows in motion, gnat-catching, are more pleasing to look upon than swallows in repose. When one is clinging to your screen, you think, “What a queer, little, long-winged bird; dark, with here and there touches of weather-beaten-shingle gray; tiny black beak and strange stubby tail, with extended spines that seem to hold it to the screen like black basting threads!”
Rather a mousy-looking little creature, somehow, it seemed to me. Its prominent black eyes appeared to add to the suggestion.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.”1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 106. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., http://www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
Speaking of bright dark eyes, reminds me of the humming-bird that was imprisoned one August day on my back porch. [5] She––for the little bird lacked the crimson throat that marks the male hummer––frantically imagined herself a captive, till she found that only the west end of the porch was incased in glass, and all the rest consisted of railing and lattice work. But while she was discovering this, I had an opportunity to watch her.
For a long time, I saw only a blinding grayish blur of perpetual motion. Then the hummingbird paused on the framework of the window, and I noticed the sheen on her splendid moss-green feathers, and marvelled at tiny black claws, minute enough to have been fashioned from wire hairpins. I heard a faint, “Chirp, chirp.” Yet, when I was a child, someone had told me that humming-birds made no sound aside from the buzzing produced by their wings in motion.
While writing of sounds, I think of a songbird, the brown thrasher, and a surprise that the thrashers once gave me. [6] On a sunny morning in spring, I came upon a pile of brush at the back of the orchard. Peeping at me through the mass of twigs, was a certain old Plymouth Rock hen, that I had always suspected of being a little daft. [7] Her ways were wild and strange. She delighted in hatching eggs in outlandish places. I went to discover upon what she was sitting. And what do you think I beheld just above Mrs. Plymouth Rock? I found a brown thrasher there, nesting complacently in what you might call the second story of the brush heap. Her glassy yellow eyes glared at me coldly, as if to say, “If it suits Mrs. Plymouth Rock and me–––”
But who can account for the whims of birds? One summer day, a most amazing sight met my eyes. Flat on the ground in the back pasture, I found the nest of a mourning-dove! [8] Mother Dove fluttered off, with that gentle, high-keyed plaint that she uses in flight, and left me to gaze at the nest of faded rootlets and two woefully ugly fledglings with long gray breaks. Their shallow nest was on a particularly damp-looking spot of earth. After one recovered from the little shock of finding the brood on the ground, one’s heart was filled with pity. The sight was so cheerless. [9]
I thought of the oriole’s comely basket, high in the golden light, where it swung from the tip of a poplar branch. [10] I thought of a neat song-sparrow’s nest that I had just seen hidden under the “eaves” of a Norway spruce hedge, where the song-sparrows spend the winter.
They come out on every mild morning to sing a little, even when Cardinal is silent. You recall their sharp knife-like notes. Ever ready to make cheer, the song-sparrows would seem to live a life free from trouble. Yet they know what it is to have their hedge haunted by wily cats, on winter evenings, when the cold birds are fluttering to shelter; and at dusk, in spring, when Mother Sparrow is directing her awkward, freckled birdlings to some nook for safety. [11]
Oh, I cannot tell how indignant it made me once to discover in the nest of Mother Song-Sparrow, two cowbird eggs, flecked with cocoa-brown like hers, but a trifle larger. Unsuspecting little Song-Sparrow, would have five instead of three eggs to tend, while the cowbird went swaggering with her noisy comrades up and down the pasture, in the wake of the cows.
As I write, this pasture is white with snow. For it is a January day, and cold. Five crows have come up from the woods, to peck at the corn stubble in what was once a pasture and then a cornfield. They strut over the snowy surface and pull at the bits of stalk. But they never come to feast when I feed Titmouse, with his golden hoard under each wing, and Chickadee, wearing the jaunty black skullcap, and making small sounds like corks screwing in bottles. [12]
Hawkins, Marcellus. Front cover. 1920. From the fourth volume of The Brownies’ Book, 97. W. E. B. Du Bois, ed., The Brownies’ Book, www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
Lee, Mary Effie. “The Birds at My Door.” The Brownies’ Book, ed. W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, no. 4, New York, N.Y.: DuBois and Dill, April 1920. 105-106. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/22001351/>.
Contexts
This nonfiction text blends both animal welfare and natural history. Lee describes and animates many different types of birds, but important to note is Lee’s evocation of readers’ sympathy. The young author “anthropomorphizes and feminizes” the animals throughout the text as a way to teach moral lessons to her young readers (Kilcup 306, full citation below). Lee’s nonfiction demonstrates her ability to write informally and with a child-like tone, while also drawing important and mature connections about animal welfare.
Resources for Further Study
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World: All About Birds
Kilcup, Karen. Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children’s Writing, Nature, and the Environment. University of Georgia Press, 2021.
‘Tis such a fun in autumn time
To play at making hay—
To romp in meadows full of grass
Until the evening of the day.
‘Tis fun to cut and rake the grass,
To stack it way up high,
And then to climb a-top of it
Till you almost reach the sky.
And when on top to deftly go
Down it’s [sic] loosening side;
Oh isn’t it the greatest sport,
Down a hay stack to slide.
Dutton, eugene. “Playing and haying.” The REd Man 3 no. 5 (December 1910): 146.
Dutton’s poem was published in The Red Man, a publication of The Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Dutton, however, did not attend The Carlisle School, as the editor’s note clarifies, instead attending Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial School. Because the Carlisle School published this Native student’s poem and he attended another residential school that was likely responsible for sharing his work, we should recognize how power and censorship shape such texts.
On the author: The Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial School has very limited digital records, and I was only able to find that Dutton’s guardians were his grandparents and that several of his siblings also attended Mount Pleasant School. However, I was able ascertain some information about Eugene Dutton from local newspapers. In June of 1912, the Isabella County Enterprise evidences Dutton performing in school choir event. The next year, in October of 1913, the same newspaper reports that “Eugene Dutton…of Mackinaw Island” [now commonly called Mackinac Island] was visiting “the Government School.” Nothing else is printed of him until July 10, 1925 when he appears on the front page of the Isabella County Enterpriseand on page 3 of the Clare Sentinel.Both mentions note that he was “formerly [a] pitcher for the Mt. Pleasant Indian school [baseball] team” (1) and pitched for the “North Branch Indians” in their game against the “Delwin Indians.” (3) The baseball game was part of a Fourth of July picnic held the previous week “by the Indians east and north of Rosebush in the Chatfield grove” (3). His last mentions in the newspaper occur June 3, 1930, when he appears on pages one and three of the Mount Pleasant Daily Times; these are also the only public findings of his tribal affiliation. In the front page article, “Chippewa Indian Tribe Sues Federal Government For Large Sum Under Alleged Provisions of Aged Treaty,” Dutton is one of two names nominated to become a temporary Tribal chairman. He did not, however, win that role and was instead “elected for the position as assistant to the secretary” (3).
Interestingly, the 1913 mention of Dutton being “of Mackinaw Island” was not able to be confirmed nor disconfirmed through historical records, as his birthplace was always listed simply as “Michigan.” For most of his life though, records do show that he primarily lived in Saginaw, Michigan, where the Isabella Reservation for the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Indians is located.
Resources for Further Study
Adrian explores how the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial School has affected the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.
For additional insight regarding boarding schools and how they affected Native children, please see my other work.
Pedagogy
The name “Chippewa” is used less frequently than the terms “Ojibwe” and “Anishinaabe” (sometimes spelled with one ‘a’) nowadays, so in searching for lesson plans, the latter two terms will likely need to be included in search terms.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has some excellent lesson plans for teaching about Chippewa/Ojibwe, Anishinaabe cultures.
The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe also has created several lesson plans on the residential school system.
Contemporary Connections
While the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe was awarded a grant to install fencing around two buildings that were part of the Mount Pleasant Boarding School, part of the fencing was destroyed by vandals trying to access the empty buildings, which are on the National Register of Historic Places in Sept. 2020. The Tribe also has regular commemorations to remember the closing of the school.
Photograph of the Mvskoke (Creek) Council House, built in 1878. Photographer unknown.
'Neath the sheltering shades I linger,
Where cool summer breezes blow,
And list to the chirp of the song-birds
As my sires did moons ago.
I long to hear the bell’s loud note
From thy towers on high,
And feel again a joyous content,
As I felt in days gone by.
But now when I hear its music,
Pouring forth its tuneful lay,
It spreads o’er my heart a sadness
Which I can scarcely drive away.
Many summers have come and vanished,
Many suns passed o’er thy head,
Hands that carved thy towering walls,
Are numbered with the dead.
Within thy hallowed walls have gathered,
Many, many warriors bold,
Chieftains mighty—statesmen fearless,
Gift with wisdom—from nature’s fold.
Within thy walls there echoed voices
Raised for truth that ne’er will cease,
From thy halls spoke law and order,
From thy towers echoed peace.
There were recounted dear traditions,
Handed down from many ages;
There was worshipped the Great Spirit,
There preached the honored sages.
All has ceased where life once blossomed,
Like unto a fading flower;
Our nation’s grandeur has departed,
Thou but speak of bygone power.
Where once echoed voices eloquent,
Where wisdom’s voice did thrill,
All is now but gloomy silence,
Yet tender memory hangs there still.
Live on, oh dear old structure,
You have done your duty well,
For what once a noble race accomplished,
You alone must live to tell.
Eagle Eye Thompson. “Ye old council house.” Sturm’s oklahoma magazine. January 1909, 86.
[1] According to the publication, Eagle Eye Thompson was described as “a young Creek who seems to have inherited the love and pride of race which have ever been a leading trait of the Indian.” Unfortunately, no additional biographical info on Eagle Eye Thompson was found. “Creek” was the term frequently used in 1909 for what is now known as the Muscogee Creek Nation. The spelling of their name is Mvskoke in their language.
Contexts
The Council House described in the poem and pictured above was built in 1878 after the previous Council House suffered a fire. The structure is now a museum of the Nation’s culture and history called the Muscogee Creek Council House Museum and is a tourist attraction in the Okmulgee, Oklahoma area. The Council House was the seat of the Tribe and where it handled all of its governmental affairs. While issues of government may not have directly involved very young children, older children would have been aware of such goings-on, as Eagle Eye Thompson, described as “a young Creek,” clearly was.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Cultural Center’s website explores the history of the Nation’s Council House.
The Nation’s website provides an excellent history of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
This page on the Nation’s website has tabs that explore the different levels of the Nation’s governmental entities.
Pedagogy
The STEP program has lots of lessons plans for all grades that focus on Mvskoke history and culture, as well as broader Native American history. As a bonus, Oklahoma educators can even check out the educational trunk!
In teaching about Council Houses, it would be helpful to also explain the role that Native American governments played in shaping contemporary U.S. democracy. Terri Hansen (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) for PBS provides an excellent overview and several helpful comparison between the current U.S. Constitution and the Iroquois (now commonly called Haudenosaunee) Confederacy.
Artist Unknown. The Basin, cut by the Pemagewasset river from solid granite, Franconia Notch, White Mts., N.H., U.S.A. Photograph, 1909, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. [1]
The name – of it – is “Autumn” – The hue – of it – is Blood – An Artery – opon the Hill – A Vein – along the Road –
Great Globules – in the Alleys – And Oh, the Shower of Stain – When Winds – upset the Basin – And spill the Scarlet Rain –
It sprinkles Bonnets – far below – It gathers ruddy Pools – Then – eddies like a Rose – away – Opon Vermillion Wheels –
Dickinson’s handwritten version from the Emily Dickinson Archive.
The Youth’s Companion published this poem on September 8, 1892, with the title “Autumn.” Dickinson may have been writing with the Civil War in mind. The autumn of 1862 was particularly violent, most notably with the Battle of Antietam on September 17, which may have been near the same time Dickinson composed this poem. This is considered the authoritative version of the poem; while most of her poems are copyrighted by Harvard, they are available to everyone at the Emily Dickinson Archive, linked in “Resources” below. Dickinson made notes on possible changes, such as the alternative last line printed in The Youth’s Companion: “And Leaves me with the Hills.”
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
globule: a round drop (of water or other liquid); a small round particle of a substance.
ruddy: designating an emotion which causes the face to go red, as shame, anger, etc. Of the face, complexion, etc.: red or reddish, as indicative of good health; rosy.
vermilion: having the colour of vermilion; of a bright red or scarlet colour.
[1] Possibly the basin that Dickinson had in mind while writing. Cody, David. “Blood in the Basin: The Civil War in Emily Dickinson’s ‘The Name of It Is Autumn’.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 12, no. 1 (2003): 25–52.
