After the sawmill was proved and discharged from my mind, I happened to think it would be a fine thing to make a timekeeper which would tell the day of the week and the day of the month, as well as strike like a common clock and point out the hours; also to have an attachment whereby it could be connected with a bedstead to set me on my feet at any hour in the morning; also to start fires, light lamps, etc. I had learned the time laws of the pendulum from a book, but with this exception I knew nothing of timekeepers, for I had never seen the inside of any sort of clock or watch. After long brooding, the novel clock was at length completed in my mind, and was tried and found to be durable and to work well and look well before I had begun to build it in wood. I carried small parts of it in my pocket to whittle at when I was out at work on the farm, using every spare or stolen moment within reach without father's knowing anything about it. In the middle of summer, when harvesting was in progress, the novel time-machine was nearly completed. It was hidden upstairs in a spare bedroom where some tools were kept. I did the making and mending on the farm, but one day at noon, when I happened to be away, father went upstairs for a hammer or something and discovered the mysterious machine back of the bedstead. My sister Margaret saw him on his knees examining it, and at the first opportunity whispered in my ear, "John, fayther saw that thing you're making upstairs." None of the family knew what I was doing, but they knew very well that all such work was frowned on by father, and kindly warned me of any danger that threatened my plans. The fine invention seemed doomed to destruction before its time-ticking commenced, though I thought it handsome, had so long carried it in my mind, and like the nest of Burns's wee mousie it had cost me mony a weary whittling nibble. When we were at dinner several days after the sad discovery, father began to clear his throat to speak, and I feared the doom of martyrdom was about to be pronounced on my grand clock.

"John," he inquired, "what is that thing you are making upstairs?"

I replied in desperation that I didn't know what to call it.

"What! You mean to say you don't know what you are trying to do?"

"Oh, yes," I said, "I know very well what I am doing."

"What, then, is the thing for?"

"It's for a lot of things," I replied, "but getting people up early in the morning is one of the main things it is intended for; therefore it might perhaps be called an early-rising machine."

After getting up so extravagantly early, all the last memorable winter to make a machine for getting up perhaps still earlier seemed so ridiculous that he very nearly laughed. But after controlling himself and getting command of a sufficiently solemn face and voice he said severely, "Do you not think it is very wrong to waste your time on such nonsense?"

"No," I said meekly, "I don't think I'm doing any wrong."

"Well," he replied, "I assure you I do; and if you were only half as zealous in the study of religion as you are in contriving and whittling these useless, nonsensical things, it would be infinitely better for you. I want you to be like Paul, who said that he desired to know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified."

To this I made no reply, gloomily believing my fine machine was to be burned, but still taking what comfort I could in realizing that anyhow I had enjoyed inventing and making it.

After a few days, finding that nothing more was to be said, and that father after all had not had the heart to destroy it, all necessity for secrecy being ended, I finished it in the half-hours that we had at noon and set it in the parlor between two chairs, hung moraine boulders that had come from the direction of Lake Superior on it for weights, and set it running. We were then hauling grain into the barn. Father at this period devoted himself entirely to the Bible and did no farm work whatever. The clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it strike, one of my sisters told me that he left his study, went to the parlor, got down on his knees and carefully examined the machinery, which was all in plain sight, not being enclosed in a case. This he did repeatedly, and evidently seemed a little proud of my ability to invent and whittle such a thing, though careful to give no encouragement for anything more of the kind in future.

But somehow it seemed impossible to stop. Inventing and whittling faster than ever, I made another hickory clock, shaped like a scythe to symbolize the scythe of Father Time. The pendulum is a bunch of arrows symbolizing the flight of time. It hangs on a leafless mossy oak snag showing the effect of time, and on the snath is written, "All flesh is grass." This, especially the inscription, rather pleased father, and, of course, mother and all my sisters and brothers admired it. Like the first it indicates the days of the week and month, starts fires and beds at any given hour and minute, and, though made more than fifty years ago, is still a good timekeeper.

My mind still running on clocks, I invented a big one like a town clock with four dials, with the time-figures so large they could be read by all our immediate neighbors as well as ourselves when at work in the fields, and on the side next the house the days of the week and month were indicated. It was to be placed on the peak of the barn roof. But just as it was all but finished, father stopped me, saying that it would bring too many people around the barn. I then asked permission to put it on the top of a black-oak tree near the house. Studying the larger main branches, I thought I could secure a sufficiently rigid foundation for it, while the trimmed sprays and leaves would conceal the angles of the cabin required to shelter the works from the weather, and the two-second pendulum, fourteen feet long, could be snugly encased on the side of the trunk. Nothing about the grand, useful timekeeper, I argued, would disfigure the tree, for it would look something like a big hawk's nest. "But that," he objected, "would draw still bigger bothersome trampling crowds about the place, for who ever heard of anything so queer as a big clock on the top of a tree?" So I had to lay aside its big wheels and cams and rest content with the pleasure of inventing it, and looking at it in my mind and listening to the deep solemn throbbing of its long two-second pendulum with its two old axes back to back for the bob.

One of my inventions was a large thermometer made of an iron rod, about three feet long and five eighths of an inch in diameter, that had formed part of a wagon-box. The expansion and contraction of this rod was multiplied by a series of levers made of strips of hoop iron. The pressure of the rod against the levers was kept constant by a small counterweight, so that the slightest change in the length of the rod was instantly shown on a dial about three feet wide multiplied about thirty-two thousand times. The zero-point was gained by packing the rod in wet snow. The scale was so large that the big black hand on the white-painted dial could be seen distinctly and the temperature read while we were ploughing in the field below the house. The extremes of heat and cold caused the hand to make several revolutions. The number of these revolutions was indicated on a small dial marked on the larger one. This thermometer was fastened on the side of the house, and was so sensitive that when any one approached it within four or five feet the heat radiated from the observer's body caused the hand of the dial to move so fast that the motion was plainly visible, and when he stepped back, the hand moved slowly back to its normal position. It was regarded as a great wonder by the neighbors and even by my own all-Bible father.



Boys are fond of the books of travelers, and I remember that one day, after I had been reading Mungo Park's travels in Africa, mother said: "Weel, John, maybe you will travel like Park and Humboldt some day." Father overheard her and cried out in solemn deprecation, "Oh, Anne! dinna put sic notions in the laddie's heed." But at this time there was precious little need of such prayers. My brothers left the farm when they came of age, but I stayed a year longer, loath to leave home. Mother hoped I might be a minister some day; my sisters that I would be a great inventor. I often thought I should like to be a physician, but I saw no way of making money and getting the necessary education, excepting as an inventor. So, as a beginning, I decided to try to get into a big shop or factory and live a while among machines. But I was naturally extremely shy and had been taught to have a poor opinion of myself, as of no account, though all our neighbors encouragingly called me a genius, sure to rise in the world. When I was talking over plans one day with a friendly neighbor, he said: "Now, John, if you wish to get into a machine-shop, just take some of your inventions to the State Fair, and you may be sure that as soon as they are seen they will open the door of any shop in the country for you. You will be welcomed everywhere." And when I doubtingly asked if people would care to look at things made of wood, he said, "Made of wood! Made of wood! What does it matter what they're made of when they are so out-and-out original. There's nothing else like them in the world. That is what will attract attention, and besides they're mighty handsome things anyway to come from the backwoods." So I was encouraged to leave home and go at his direction to the State Fair when it was being held in Madison.



VIII

THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY

Leaving Home—Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville—A Ride on a Locomotive—At the State Fair in Madison—Employment in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien—Back to Madison—Entering the University—Teaching School—First Lesson in Botany—More Inventions—The University of the Wilderness.

When I told father that I was about to leave home, and inquired whether, if I should happen to be in need of money, he would send me a little, he said, "No; depend entirely on yourself." Good advice, I suppose, but surely needlessly severe for a bashful, home-loving boy who had worked so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my grandfather had given me when I left Scotland, and a few dollars, perhaps ten, that I had made by raising a few bushels of grain on a little patch of sandy abandoned ground. So when I left home to try the world I had only about fifteen dollars in my pocket.

Strange to say, father carefully taught us to consider ourselves very poor worms of the dust, conceived in sin, etc., and devoutly believed that quenching every spark of pride and self-confidence was a sacred duty, without realizing that in so doing he might at the same time be quenching everything else. Praise he considered most venomous, and tried to assure me that when I was fairly out in the wicked world making my own way I would soon learn that although I might have thought him a hard taskmaster at times, strangers were far harder. On the contrary, I found no lack of kindness and sympathy. All the baggage I carried was a package made up of the two clocks and a small thermometer made of a piece of old washboard, all three tied together, with no covering or case of any sort, the whole looking like one very complicated machine.

The aching parting from mother and my sisters was, of course, hard to bear. Father let David drive me down to Pardeeville, a place I had never before seen, though it was only nine miles south of the Hickory Hill home. When we arrived at the village tavern, it seemed deserted. Not a single person was in sight. I set my clock baggage on the rickety platform. David said good-bye and started for home, leaving me alone in the world. The grinding noise made by the wagon in turning short brought out the landlord, and the first thing that caught his eye was my strange bundle. Then he looked at me and said, "Hello, young man, what's this?"

"Machines," I said, "for keeping time and getting up in the morning, and so forth."

"Well! Well! That's a mighty queer get-up. You must be a Down-East Yankee. Where did you get the pattern for such a thing?"

"In my head," I said.

Some one down the street happened to notice the landlord looking intently at something and came up to see what it was. Three or four people in that little village formed an attractive crowd, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the greater part of the population of Pardeeville stood gazing in a circle around my strange hickory belongings. I kept outside of the circle to avoid being seen, and had the advantage of hearing the remarks without being embarrassed. Almost every one as he came up would say, "What's that? What's it for? Who made it?" The landlord would answer them all alike, "Why, a young man that lives out in the country somewhere made it, and he says it's a thing for keeping time, getting up in the morning, and something that I didn't understand. I don't know what he meant." "Oh, no!" one of the crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for something else—something mysterious. Mark my words, you'll see all about it in the newspapers some of these days." A curious little fellow came running up the street, joined the crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder, quickly made up his mind, and shouted in crisp, confident, cock-crowing style, "I know what that contraption's for. It's a machine for taking the bones out of fish."

This was in the time of the great popular phrenology craze, when the fences and barns along the roads throughout the country were plastered with big skull-bump posters, headed, "Know Thyself," and advising everybody to attend schoolhouse lectures to have their heads explained and be told what they were good for and whom they ought to marry. My mechanical bundle seemed to bring a good deal of this phrenology to mind, for many of the onlookers would say, "I wish I could see that boy's head,—he must have a tremendous bump of invention." Others complimented me by saying, "I wish I had that fellow's head. I'd rather have it than the best farm in the State."

I stayed overnight at this little tavern, waiting for a train. In the morning I went to the station, and set my bundle on the platform. Along came the thundering train, a glorious sight, the first train I had ever waited for. When the conductor saw my queer baggage, he cried, "Hello! What have we here?"

"Inventions for keeping time, early rising, and so forth. May I take them into the car with me?"

"You can take them where you like," he replied, "but you had better give them to the baggage-master. If you take them into the car they will draw a crowd and might get broken."

So I gave them to the baggage-master and made haste to ask the conductor whether I might ride on the engine. He good-naturedly said: "Yes, it's the right place for you. Run ahead, and tell the engineer what I say." But the engineer bluntly refused to let me on, saying: "It don't matter what the conductor told you. I say you can't ride on my engine."

By this time the conductor, standing ready to start his train, was watching to see what luck I had, and when he saw me returning came ahead to meet me.

"The engineer won't let me on," I reported.

"Won't he?" said the kind conductor. "Oh! I guess he will. You come down with me." And so he actually took the time and patience to walk the length of that long train to get me on to the engine.

"Charlie," said he, addressing the engineer, "don't you ever take a passenger?"

"Very seldom," he replied.

"Anyhow, I wish you would take this young man on. He has the strangest machines in the baggage-car I ever saw in my life. I believe he could make a locomotive. He wants to see the engine running. Let him on." Then in a low whisper he told me to jump on, which I did gladly, the engineer offering neither encouragement nor objection.

As soon as the train was started, the engineer asked what the "strange thing" the conductor spoke of really was.

"Only inventions for keeping time, getting folk up in the morning, and so forth," I hastily replied, and before he could ask any more questions I asked permission to go outside of the cab to see the machinery. This he kindly granted, adding, "Be careful not to fall off, and when you hear me whistling for a station you come back, because if it is reported against me to the superintendent that I allow boys to run all over my engine I might lose my job."

Assuring him that I would come back promptly, I went out and walked along the foot-board on the side of the boiler, watching the magnificent machine rushing through the landscapes as if glorying in its strength like a living creature. While seated on the cow-catcher platform, I seemed to be fairly flying, and the wonderful display of power and motion was enchanting. This was the first time I had ever been on a train, much less a locomotive, since I had left Scotland. When I got to Madison, I thanked the kind conductor and engineer for my glorious ride, inquired the way to the Fair, shouldered my inventions, and walked to the Fair Ground.

When I applied for an admission ticket at a window by the gate I told the agent that I had something to exhibit.

"What is it?" he inquired.

"Well, here it is. Look at it."

When he craned his neck through the window and got a glimpse of my bundle, he cried excitedly, "Oh! you don't need a ticket,—come right in."

When I inquired of the agent where such things as mine should be exhibited, he said, "You see that building up on the hill with a big flag on it? That's the Fine Arts Hall, and it's just the place for your wonderful invention."

So I went up to the Fine Arts Hall and looked in, wondering if they would allow wooden things in so fine a place.

I was met at the door by a dignified gentleman, who greeted me kindly and said, "Young man, what have we got here?"

"Two clocks and a thermometer," I replied.

"Did you make these? They look wonderfully beautiful and novel and must, I think, prove the most interesting feature of the fair."

"Where shall I place them?" I inquired.

"Just look around, young man, and choose the place you like best, whether it is occupied or not. You can have your pick of all the building, and a carpenter to make the necessary shelving and assist you every way possible!"

So I quickly had a shelf made large enough for all of them, went out on the hill and picked up some glacial boulders of the right size for weights, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the clocks were running. They seemed to attract more attention than anything else in the hall I got lots of praise from the crowd and the newspaper-reporters. The local press reports were copied into the Eastern papers. It was considered wonderful that a boy on a farm had been able to invent and make such things, and almost every spectator foretold good fortune. But I had been so lectured by my father above all things to avoid praise that I was afraid to read those kind newspaper notices, and never clipped out or preserved any of them, just glanced at them and turned away my eyes from beholding vanity. They gave me a prize of ten or fifteen dollars and a diploma for wonderful things not down in the list of exhibits.

Many years later, after I had written articles and books, I received a letter from the gentleman who had charge of the Fine Arts Hall. He proved to be the Professor of English Literature in the University of Wisconsin at this Fair time, and long afterward he sent me clippings of reports of his lectures. He had a lecture on me, discussing style, etcetera, and telling how well he remembered my arrival at the Hall in my shirt-sleeves with those mechanical wonders on my shoulder, and so forth, and so forth. These inventions, though of little importance, opened all doors for me and made marks that have lasted many years, simply, I suppose, because they were original and promising.

I was looking around in the mean time to find out where I should go to seek my fortune. An inventor at the Fair, by the name of Wiard, was exhibiting an iceboat he had invented to run on the upper Mississippi from Prairie du Chien to St. Paul during the winter months, explaining how useful it would be thus to make a highway of the river while it was closed to ordinary navigation by ice. After he saw my inventions he offered me a place in his foundry and machine-shop in Prairie du Chien and promised to assist me all he could. So I made up my mind to accept his offer and rode with him to Prairie du Chien in his iceboat, which was mounted on a flat car. I soon found, however, that he was seldom at home and that I was not likely to learn much at his small shop. I found a place where I could work for my board and devote my spare hours to mechanical drawing, geometry, and physics, making but little headway, however, although the Pelton family, for whom I worked, were very kind. I made up my mind after a few months' stay in Prairie du Chien to return to Madison, hoping that in some way I might be able to gain an education.

At Madison I raised a few dollars by making and selling a few of those bedsteads that set the sleepers on their feet in the morning,—inserting in the footboard the works of an ordinary clock that could be bought for a dollar. I also made a few dollars addressing circulars in an insurance office, while at the same time I was paying my board by taking care of a pair of horses and going errands. This is of no great interest except that I was thus winning my bread while hoping that something would turn up that might enable me to make money enough to enter the State University. This was my ambition, and it never wavered no matter what I was doing. No University, it seemed to me, could be more admirably, situated, and as I sauntered about it, charmed with its fine lawns and trees and beautiful lakes, and saw the students going and coming with their books, and occasionally practising with a theodolite in measuring distances, I thought that if I could only join them it would be the greatest joy of life. I was desperately hungry and thirsty for knowledge and willing to endure anything to get it.

One day I chanced to meet a student who had noticed my inventions at the Fair and now recognized me. And when I said, "You are fortunate fellows to be allowed to study in this beautiful place. I wish I could join you." "Well, why don't you?" he asked. "I haven't money enough," I said. "Oh, as to money," he reassuringly explained, "very little is required. I presume you're able to enter the Freshman class, and you can board yourself as quite a number of us do at a cost of about a dollar a week. The baker and milkman come every day. You can live on bread and milk." Well, I thought, maybe I have money enough for at least one beginning term. Anyhow I couldn't help trying.

With fear and trembling, overladen with ignorance, I called on Professor Stirling, the Dean of the Faculty, who was then Acting President, presented my case, and told him how far I had got on with my studies at home, and that I hadn't been to school since leaving Scotland at the age of eleven years, excepting one short term of a couple of months at a district school, because I could not be spared from the farm work. After hearing my story, the kind professor welcomed me to the glorious University—next, it seemed to me, to the Kingdom of Heaven. After a few weeks in the preparatory department I entered the Freshman class. In Latin I found that one of the books in use I had already studied in Scotland. So, after an interruption of a dozen years, I began my Latin over again where I had left off; and, strange to say, most of it came back to me, especially the grammar which I had committed to memory at the Dunbar Grammar School.

During the four years that I was in the University, I earned enough in the harvest-fields during the long summer vacations to carry me through the balance of each year, working very hard, cutting with a cradle four acres of wheat a day, and helping to put it in the shock. But, having to buy books and paying, I think, thirty-two dollars a year for instruction, and occasionally buying acids and retorts, glass tubing, bell-glasses, flasks, etc., I had to cut down expenses for board now and then to half a dollar a week.

One winter I taught school ten miles south of Madison, earning much-needed money at the rate of twenty dollars a month, "boarding round," and keeping up my University work by studying at night. As I was not then well enough off to own a watch, I used one of my hickory clocks, not only for keeping time, but for starting the school fire in the cold mornings, and regulating class-times. I carried it out on my shoulder to the old log schoolhouse, and set it to work on a little shelf nailed to one of the knotty, bulging logs. The winter was very cold, and I had to go to the schoolhouse and start the fire about eight o'clock to warm it before the arrival of the scholars. This was a rather trying job, and one that my clock might easily be made to do. Therefore, after supper one evening I told the head of the family with whom I was boarding that if he would give me a candle I would go back to the schoolhouse and make arrangements for lighting the fire at eight o'clock, without my having to be present until time to open the school at nine. He said, "Oh! young man, you have some curious things in the school-room, but I don't think you can do that." I said, "Oh, yes! It's easy," and in hardly more than an hour the simple job was completed. I had only to place a teaspoonful of powdered chlorate of potash and sugar on the stove-hearth near a few shavings and kindling, and at the required time make the clock, through a simple arrangement, touch the inflammable mixture with a drop of sulphuric acid. Every evening after school was dismissed, I shoveled out what was left of the fire into the snow, put in a little kindling, filled up the big box stove with heavy oak wood, placed the lighting arrangement on the hearth, and set the clock to drop the acid at the hour of eight; all this requiring only a few minutes.

The first morning after I had made this simple arrangement I invited the doubting farmer to watch the old squat schoolhouse from a window that overlooked it, to see if a good smoke did not rise from the stovepipe. Sure enough, on the minute, he saw a tall column curling gracefully up through the frosty air, but instead of congratulating me on my success he solemnly shook his head and said in a hollow, lugubrious voice, "Young man, you will be setting fire to the schoolhouse." All winter long that faithful clock fire never failed, and by the time I got to the schoolhouse the stove was usually red-hot.

At the beginning of the long summer vacations I returned to the Hickory Hill farm to earn the means in the harvest-fields to continue my University course, walking all the way to save railroad fares. And although I cradled four acres of wheat a day, I made the long, hard, sweaty day's work still longer and harder by keeping up my study of plants. At the noon hour I collected a large handful, put them in water to keep them fresh, and after supper got to work on them and sat up till after midnight, analyzing and classifying, thus leaving only four hours for sleep; and by the end of the first year, after taking up botany, I knew the principal flowering plants of the region.

I received my first lesson in botany from a student by the name of Griswold, who is now County Judge of the County of Waukesha, Wisconsin. In the University he was often laughed at on account of his anxiety to instruct others, and his frequently saying with fine emphasis, "Imparting instruction is my greatest enjoyment." One memorable day in June, when I was standing on the stone steps of the north dormitory, Mr. Griswold joined me and at once began to teach. He reached up, plucked a flower from an overspreading branch of a locust tree, and, handing it to me, said, "Muir, do you know what family this tree belongs to?"

"No," I said, "I don't know anything about botany."

"Well, no matter," said he, "what is it like?"

"It's like a pea flower," I replied.

"That's right. You're right," he said, "it belongs to the Pea Family."

"But how can that be," I objected, "when the pea is a weak, clinging, straggling herb, and the locust a big, thorny hardwood tree?"

"Yes, that is true," he replied, "as to the difference in size, but it is also true that in all their essential characters they are alike, and therefore they must belong to one and the same family. Just look at the peculiar form of the locust flower; you see that the upper petal, called the banner, is broad and erect, and so is the upper petal of the pea flower; the two lower petals, called the wings, are outspread and wing-shaped; so are those of the pea; and the two petals below the wings are united on their edges, curve upward, and form what is called the keel, and so you see are the corresponding petals of the pea flower. And now look at the stamens and pistils. You see that nine of the ten stamens have their filaments united into a sheath around the pistil, but the tenth stamen has its filament free. These are very marked characters, are they not? And, strange to say, you will find them the same in the tree and in the vine. Now look at the ovules or seeds of the locust, and you will see that they are arranged in a pod or legume like those of the pea. And look at the leaves. You see the leaf of the locust is made up of several leaflets, and so also is the leaf of the pea. Now taste the locust leaf."

I did so and found that it tasted like the leaf of the pea. Nature has used the same seasoning for both, though one is a straggling vine, the other a big tree.

"Now, surely you cannot imagine that all these similar characters are mere coincidences. Do they not rather go to show that the Creator in making the pea vine and locust tree had the same idea in mind, and that plants are not classified arbitrarily? Man has nothing to do with their classification. Nature has attended to all that, giving essential unity with boundless variety, so that the botanist has only to examine plants to learn the harmony of their relations."

This fine lesson charmed me and sent me to the woods and meadows in wild enthusiasm. Like everybody else I was always fond of flowers, attracted by their external beauty and purity. Now my eyes were opened to their inner beauty, all alike revealing glorious traces of the thoughts of God, and leading on and on into the infinite cosmos. I wandered away at every opportunity, making long excursions round the lakes, gathering specimens and keeping them fresh in a bucket in my room to study at night after my regular class tasks were learned; for my eyes never closed on the plant glory I had seen.

Nevertheless, I still indulged my love of mechanical inventions. I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study. Besides this, I thought it would be a fine thing in the summer-time when the sun rose early, to dispense with the clock-controlled bed machinery, and make use of sunbeams instead. This I did simply by taking a lens out of my small spy-glass, fixing it on a frame on the sill of my bedroom window, and pointing it to the sunrise; the sunbeams focused on a thread burned it through, allowing the bed machinery to put me on my feet. When I wished to arise at any given time after sunrise, I had only to turn the pivoted frame that held the lens the requisite number of degrees or minutes. Thus I took Emerson's advice and hitched my dumping-wagon bed to a star.



I also invented a machine to make visible the growth of plants and the action of the sunlight, a very delicate contrivance, enclosed in glass. Besides this I invented a barometer and a lot of novel scientific apparatus. My room was regarded as a sort of show place by the professors, who oftentimes brought visitors to it on Saturdays and holidays. And when, some eighteen years after I had left the University, I was sauntering over the campus in time of vacation, and spoke to a man who seemed to be taking some charge of the grounds, he informed me that he was the janitor; and when I inquired what had become of Pat, the janitor in my time, and a favorite with the students, he replied that Pat was still alive and well, but now too old to do much work. And when I pointed to the dormitory room that I long ago occupied, he said: "Oh! then I know who you are," and mentioned my name. "How comes it that you know my name?" I inquired. He explained that "Pat always pointed out that room to newcomers and told long stories about the wonders that used to be in it." So long had the memory of my little inventions survived.

Although I was four years at the University, I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, and mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer. Anyhow I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring, Godful beauty.

From the top of a hill on the north side of Lake Mendota I gained a last wistful, lingering view of the beautiful University grounds and buildings where I had spent so many hungry and happy and hopeful days. There with streaming eyes I bade my blessed Alma Mater farewell. But I was only leaving one University for another, the Wisconsin University for the University of the Wilderness.

THE END



Index

America, early interest in, 51-53; emigration to, 53-59.

Anderson, Mr., 216, 217.

Anemone patens var. Nuttalliana, 119-121.

Animals, man's tyranny over, 83, 84, 109, 110, 181; accidents to, 133-136; the taming of, 185, 186; cleanliness, 187, 188; endurance of cold, 189, 190.

Apples, wild, 124.

Audubon, John James, on the passenger pigeon, 52, 53, 162-166.

Aurora borealis, 205, 206.

Badgers, 183.

Bathing, 16, 17; of animals, 187, 188; of man, 188, 189. See also Swimming.

Bear, black, 171, 183, 184.

Bees, 234-239.

Beetle, whirligig, 114.

Berries, 122, 123.

Bible, the, 242-244.

Birds, removing their eggs, 64, 65; met with in Wisconsin, 64-75, 137-167; accidents to, 131-135; bathing, 187, 188.

Birds'-nesting, 27, 28, 44-48.

Blackbird, red-winged, 142, 143; hunting, 175.

Blacksmith, the minister, 108; his cruelty to his brother, 214-217.

Bluebird, nest, 62, 139; a favorite, 138, 139.

Boat, 115.

Boatmen (insects), 115.

Bobolink, 140, 141.

Bob-white, or quail, accidents to, 133-135; habits, 151, 152.

Books, 241-245.

Botany, first lessons in, 280-283.

Boys, savagery of, 23-26.

Brush fires, 76, 77.

Bull-bat, or nighthawk, 69-71.

Bullfrogs, 74.

Butterfly-weed, 122.

Cats, a boy's cruel prank, 23-26; a cat with kittens, 77, 78; old Tom and the loon, 155-158.

Charlie, the feeble-minded man, 214-217.

Chickadee, 143, 144.

Chickens, prairie, 145, 146.

Chipmunk, 193, 194.

Choke-damp, 232, 233.

Chores, 202-204.

Christian Philosopher, The, by Thomas Dick, 242.

Clocks, 252-258.

Clover, 199, 200.

Combe's Physiology, 188.

Consumption, 212, 213.

Coons, 170, 184, 185.

Copperhead, 110, 111.

Corn, husking, 105, 106.

Cows, sympathy with, 94.

Crane, sandhill, 68, 97.

Crops, Wisconsin, 199, 200.

Cypripedium, 121, 122.

Dandy Doctor terror, the, 6-9.

Davel Brae, 28-30.

Deer, 169-174.

Desk, a student's, 283, 284.

Dick, Thomas, his Christian Philosopher, 242.

Dog, Watch, the mongrel, 77-83.

Duck, wood, 147, 148.

Ducks, wild, 147, 148.

Dunbar, Scotland, a boyhood in, 1-55; later visit to, 37, 38.

Dunbar Castle, 17.

Duncan, William, 233.

Eagle, bald, and fish hawk, 51, 52.

Early-rising machine, 252-256, 284.

Ferns, 122.

Fiddler, story of a Scotch, 130, 131.

Fighting, boys', 28-30, 33-37.

Fireflies, 71, 72.

Fires, brush, 76, 77; household, 204; grass, 230; lighting the schoolhouse fire, 277-279.

Fishes, 115-117.

Fishing, 116, 117.

Flicker, 66.

Flowers, at Dunbar, 12-14; wild, in Wisconsin, 118-122.

Food question, the, 241-244.

Fountain Lake, 62, 115-118, 124-129.

Fountain Lake Meadow, 62, 71.

Fox River, 123, 141, 147.

Foxes, 182, 183.

Frogs, love-songs of, 74.

Fuller, 129.

Ghosts, 18, 19.

Gilrye, Grandfather, 2-4, 43, 54, 55.

Glow-worms, 72.

Goose, Canada, 149-151.

Gophers, 194-198.

Grandfather. See Gilrye, Grandfather.

Gray, Alexander, 60, 61.

Green Lake, 103, 104.

Griswold, Judge, 280-282.

Grouse, ruffed, or partridge, drumming, 72.

Grubs, 229.

Half-witted man, 214-217.

Hare, Dr., 7.

Hares, 181, 182.

Hawk, fish, and bald eagle, 51, 52.

Hawks, 66, 177.

Hell, warnings as to, 76, 77.

Hen-hawk, 66.

Hickory, 123.

Hickory Hill, purchase and development of the farm, 226-234; life at, 234-263; vacation work at, 279.

Holabird, Mr., 148.

Holidays, 174.

Honey-bees, 234-239.

Horses, the pony Jack, 95-102; Nob and Nell, 103-105, 107-109.

Hunt, the side, 168, 169.

Hunting expeditions, 171.

Hyla, 75.

Ice, whooping of, 207, 208.

Ice-storm, 206, 207.

"Inchcape Bell, The," 5, 6.

Indian moccasins (flowers), 121, 122.

Indians, hunting muskrats, 81, 82; killing pigs, 88, 89; stealing a horse, 103-105; getting ducks and wild rice, 147; hunting coons and deer, 170; fond of muskrat flesh, 180; rights of, 218-220.

Industry, excessive, 222-226.

Insects, 113-115.

Inventions, on the farm, 248-261; introduced to the world, 260-272; the clock fire, 277-279; at the University, 283-286.

Jack, the pony, 95-102.

Jay, blue, nest, 62-65.

Kettle-holes, 98.

Kingbird, 66, 67.

Kingston, Wis., 59-61.

Lady's-slippers, 121, 122.

Lake Mendota, 129.

Landlord, a friendly, 264, 265.

Lark. See Skylark.

Lauderdale, Lord, his gardens, 2.

Lawson, Peter, 13, 14.

Lawson boys, 126, 127, 175.

Lightning-bugs, 71, 72.

Lilium superbum, 122.

Linnet, red-headed, 187, 188.

"Llewellyn's Dog," 4, 5.

Locomotive, riding on a, 267-269.

Loon, 153-158.

Lyon, Mr., teacher, 30, 37.

Maccoulough's Course of Reading, 51.

McRath, Mr., 184, 185.

Madison, Wis., State Fair at, 260, 261, 269-272; life in, 273-287.

Mair, George, 218, 219.

Mallard, 147.

Marmot, mountain, 186.

Meadowlark, 143.

Meals, 42, 43; the Scotch religious view of, 249, 250.

Melons, 200.

Minister, the blacksmith, 108; his cruelty to his brother, 214-217.

Moccasins, Indian, 121, 122.

Mosquitoes, 113, 114.

Mouse, European field, with young, 3.

Mouse, meadow, or field, 106, 107; eaten by a horse, 107.

Muir, Anna, 56.

Muir, Anne (Gilrye) (mother), 11, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23, 28, 49, 256, 259, 260, 263.

Muir, Daniel (brother), 56, 115, 146, 223.

Muir, Daniel (father), 10, 11, 24, 31, 43, 44, 49, 53-56, 58-61, 83, 90, 94-96, 100-102, 115, 148, 191, 195, 203, 205, 218, 222, 224, 226, 231-234; admonitions, 76, 77; Scotch correction, 84-87; as a church-goer, 107, 108; his advice as to swimming, 124; his ideas about books and the Bible, 241-244; rules as to going to bed and getting up, 245-251; his religious view of meals, 249, 250; and his son's inventions, 253-258; his parting advice to his son, 262; theories on bringing up children, 263.

Muir, David, 11, 20-22, 43, 53, 54, 56, 62, 78, 85-87, 97, 110, 115, 125, 126, 223, 231, 263, 264; kills a deer, 172-174.

Muir, John, fondness for the wild, 1, 49, 50; earliest recollections, 1-3; first school, 3-10, 28-30; favorite stories in reading-book, 4-6; favorite hymns and songs, 9, 10; early fondness for flowers, 12-14; an early accident, 15, 16; bathing, 16, 17; boyish sports, 17-26, 40, 41; grammar school, 30-39; birds'-nesting, 44-48; early interest in America, 51-53; emigration to America, 53-59; settling in Wisconsin, 58-62; life on the Fountain Lake farm, 62-226; escaping a whipping, 84-87; learning to ride, 95-100; learning to swim, 124-129; ambition in mowing and cradling, 202, 223; put to the plough, 220, 221; hard work, 221-224; running the breaking plough, 227-229; life at Hickory Hill, 230-263; adventure in digging a well, 231-234; educating himself, 240-247; early rising proves a way out of difficulties, 245-251; inventions, 248-261; deciding on an occupation, 259-261; determines to take his inventions to the State Fair, 260-262; starting out into the world, 262-269; at the State Fair, 269-272; enters a machine-shop at Prairie du Chien, 272, 273; odd jobs at Madison, 273, 274; enters the University, 274-276; life at the University, 276-287; teaching school, 277-279; vacation work at Hickory Hill, 279; first lessons in botany, 280-283; more inventions, 283-286; enters the University of the Wilderness, 286, 287.

Muir, Margaret, 56, 253.

Muir, Mary, 56.

Muir, Sarah, 15, 56, 127.

Muir's Lake. See Fountain Lake.

Muskrats, an Indian hunting, 81, 82; habits, 177-181.

Nighthawk, 69-71.

Nob and Nell, the horses, 103-105, 107-109.

Nuthatches, 144, 145.

Nuts, 123, 124.

Oriole, Baltimore, 143.

Owls, 145.

Oxen, humanity in, 90-94.

Pardeeville, Wis., 263-266.

Partridge, or ruffed grouse, drumming, 72.

Pasque-flower, 119-121.

Phrenology, 266.

Pickerel, 116, 117.

Pigeon, passenger, Audubon's account, 52, 53, 162-166; extermination, 83; in Wisconsin, 158-162; Pokagon's account, 166, 167.

Ploughing, 201, 202, 220, 221; the breaking plough, 227-229.

Plutarch's Lives, 241, 242.

Pokagon, his account of the passenger pigeon, 166, 167.

Portage, Wis., 93, 94, 108.

Prairie chickens, 145, 146.

Prairie du Chien, 272, 273.

Pucaway Lake, 147.

Quail. See Bob-white.

Rabbits, 181, 189.

Raccoon, 170, 184, 185.

Rails, splitting, 221, 222.

Rattlesnakes, 110.

Reid, Mr., 213, 214.

Ridgway, Robert, 64.

Road-making, 209.

Robin, American, 139.

Robin, European, 27, 28.

Scootchers, 20-22.

Scotch, the, their ideas of self-punishment, 130, 131.

Scotch, the language, 57.

Scottish Grays, 27.

Self-punishment, 130, 131.

Settlers in Wisconsin, 211-220, 222-226.

Shrike, a burglarious, 195-198.

Siddons, Mungo, 8, 9, 12, 30.

Skaters (insects), 115.

Skylark, 46-48.

Snake, blow, 111.

Snakes, 110-112.

Snipe, a case of difficult parturition, 134.

Snipe, jack, 73.

Snowstorms, 206.

Southey, Robert, his "Inchcape Bell," 5, 6.

Sow, the old, 88, 89.

Sparrow, song, 143.

Spermophile, or ground squirrel, a frozen, 135, 136.

Spirit-rappings, 210, 211.

Squirrel, flying, 192.

Squirrel, gray, 190-192.

Squirrel, ground. See Gophers and Spermophile.

State Fair, 260, 261, 269-272.

Stirling, Professor, 275, 276.

Strawberries, wild, 122.

Sunfish, 116.

Swamps, 208, 209.

Swans, wild, 149.

Swimming, 124-129.

Tanager, scarlet, 143.

Thermometer, a large, 258, 259.

Thrasher, brown, 139, 140.

Thrush, brown. See Thrasher.

Thunder-storms, 75, 76.

Trap, the steel, 180.

Tuberculosis, 212, 213.

Turk's-turban, 122.

Turtle, snapping, 80.

Vaccination, 11.

Water-boatmen, 115.

Water-bugs, 114.

Water-lily, 118, 119.

Well, digging a, 231-234.

Whippings, 84-87.

Whip-poor-will, 68, 69.

Wiard, an inventor, 272, 273.

Wilson, Alexander, account of fish hawk and bald eagle, 51, 52.

Wind-flower, 119-121.

Wisconsin, settling in, 58-62; life in, 62-287.

Woodpecker, red-headed, 66; drowning, 131-133; shot and resurrected, 175, 176.

Woodpeckers, nest-holes and young, 65, 66.

Wrecks, 38, 39.



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