Wisconsin in Story and Song; Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Badger State Writers

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Title: Wisconsin in Story and Song;

       Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Badger State Writers

Author: Various

Editor: Charles R. Rounds

        Henry Sherman Hippensteel

Release Date: November 11, 2012 [EBook #41344]

Language: English

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Wisconsin in Story and Song

SELECTIONS FROM THE PROSE AND POETRY

OF BADGER STATE WRITERS

EDITED BY

CHARLES RALPH ROUNDS

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH OF THE

MILWAUKEE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

AND

HENRY SHERMAN HIPPENSTEEL

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND DIRECTOR

OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER TRAINING OF THE

STEVENS POINT NORMAL SCHOOL

PUBLISHERS

THE PARKER EDUCATIONAL COMPANY

MADISON, WISCONSIN

COPYRIGHT, 1916

BY

THE PARKER EDUCATIONAL CO.,

MADISON, WISCONSIN

To the authors of today and of former days, whose genius and co-operation have made this book possible, and to the young people who may, by reading these pages, be inspired to carry the banner of our state still farther into the realm of literature,

WISCONSIN IN STORY AND SONG

is affectionately dedicated.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

In preparing this book the editors have had two main purposes in view. Their first purpose has been to furnish some definite knowledge concerning literary productions of Wisconsin people. They have been surprised, and they feel that their readers will be surprised, to find how many authors of national repute have been intimately associated with Wisconsin life; and further, to find that many writers who have not as yet gained fame outside the state have written things that are beyond doubt highly creditable.

The second purpose has been to kindle the surprise just mentioned into wholesome effort, particularly among our young people, to appreciate what literature is and how it is produced, and to encourage these readers to study the life round about them with a view to expressing their observations in literary language. In other words, they hope that this book may stimulate Wisconsin authors to still greater literary activity.

The difficulties in the preparation of such a compilation as this may be readily imagined. First, there is the problem of selection or rejection on account of geographical eligibility. The editors have not drawn the line at nativity or at present residence, but have rather defined it thus: Anyone who, in his mature life, has become identified with Wisconsin, both through residence and through literary, educational, or other activity, is geographically eligible.

Literary eligibility is still more difficult to determine. In general, the editors have been guided in their decisions by the judgment of the reading public, which is, after all, in many ways one of the best critics. There is, however, the problem of early writers who had considerable vogue in their day; and likewise that of young authors whose works are just now beginning to appear. They can scarcely hope to have done exact justice in either one of these two fields. New writers of promise are arising. Perhaps some that have held the center of the stage will soon have to give place. Literary estimates are inherently a changing quantity. Absolutely just criticism of today will be warped judgment tomorrow.

Further, it is possible that there may be serious oversight in this collection. For any such error the editors wish beforehand to make due apology. It has not been their intention to discriminate against any person or group or section. They will be placed under obligation by any persons who will, upon reading the selections here noted, write them with respect to other authors whose works, they feel, should have been represented.

While this book, it is hoped, will have a general interest for all Wisconsin readers, it is believed that it may prove of particular use as supplementary reading in the seventh and eighth grades and the early years of the high school. To the end that the selections may prove available for this use, brief biographical and critical explanations have been given with nearly every selection.

The editors acknowledge with gratitude the ready co-operation of both authors and publishers in permitting the use of copyrighted material, specific credit being given in each case in the proper connection. Particular mention should also be made of the Bibliography of Wisconsin Authors, prepared in 1893 for the Wisconsin Historical Society by Emma A. Hawley, under direction of Reuben Gold Thwaites; and of The So-called School of Wisconsin Authors, Miss Zona Gale's thesis, under the same date.

C. R. R.

H. S. H.

GENERAL WRITERS.

HAMLIN GARLAND.

Hamlin Garland was born in the beautiful La Crosse valley, September 16, 1860, and lived there until he was eight years old. Twenty-three years ago he purchased the old homestead near West Salem, La Crosse County, and to this he delights to return each year for part of his summer. As one reads his description of the trip to West Salem over the Northwestern Line in his story, Up the Cooley, he is compelled to see how much Mr. Garland loves the scenes of Wisconsin.

Among the other states which may share in the right to claim Hamlin Garland are Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, and South Dakota. In Iowa he learned what the rural school, the academy, and the farm could teach him. It was in the Boston Public Library that he formed much of his literary style and determined that the material for his future literary work should be the western life that he knew so well. In Illinois he began his work as a teacher and a lecturer. Here he met the girl who was to become his wife, Miss Zulima Taft, sister of the artist, Lorado Taft. Chicago is his present home. Mr. Garland visited his parents in South Dakota in 1883 and took up a claim there. Here he got material which he incorporated into some of his stories, among which the Moccassin Ranch is the most notable.

The experience in these several states gave Hamlin Garland an excellent opportunity to understand all phases of country life. He has expressed his observations in description of boys' games, the labor on the farm, the work of the rural school, and the varied activities of the rural community. He knew that the work of the farm in an early day furnished as much opportunity for the display of resistance and the determination to use the last bit of strength to win as does the game of the present. The work of binding the wheat after a reaper became a game requiring honesty as well as skill and rapidity. Perhaps no boy of today shoots a basket, makes a touch-down, or hits out a home run with more pride than did the youth of this pioneer life retire from the harvest field at noon or night with the consciousness that he had bound all his tricks without being caught once by the machine as it made its successive rounds of the field.

Hamlin Garland knew the joys of these contests on the pioneer farm, and he also knew the sordid side of the narrow and cramped life of the early settler. He describes both with equal vividness and sympathy. Wisconsin owes him much for the work he has done in preserving pictures of her early pioneer life. His hero and heroine are those ancestors who travelled forth into the new regions in covered wagons, and by the use of axe and plow conquered a seemingly unconquerable forest or a stubborn prairie sod. In his book of short stories, Main Travelled Roads, he makes the dedication of it to his heroic parents in these words:

To my father and mother, whose half-century pilgrimage on the main travelled road of life has brought them only toil and deprivation, this book of stories is dedicated by a son to whom every day brings a deepening sense of his parents' silent heroism.

To illustrate Mr. Garland's ability to picture the joyous and the irksome in the life of the pioneer two selections are given at this place. The first sets forth the joy of farm activity, the second, the disheartening influence of abject toil.

HAMLIN GARLAND

HAYING TIME

From BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE. Published by permission of Harper Bros.

Haying was the one season of farm work which the boys thoroughly enjoyed. It usually began on the tame meadows about the twenty-fifth of June, and lasted a week or so. It had always appealed to Lincoln,[1] in a distinctly beautiful and poetic sense, which was not true of the main business of farming. Most of the duties through which he passed needed the lapse of years to seem beautiful in his eyes, but haying had a charm and significance quite out of the common.

At this time the summer was at its most exuberant stage of vitality, and it was not strange that even the faculties of toiling old men, dulled and deadened with never ending drudgery, caught something of exultation from the superabundant glow and throb of Nature's life.

The corn fields, dark green and sweet-smelling, rippled like a sea with a multitudinous stir and sheen and swirl. Waves of dusk and green and yellow circled across the level fields, while long leaves upthrust at intervals like spears or shook like guidons. The trees were in heavy leaf, insect life was at its height, and the air was filled with buzzing, dancing forms and with the sheen of innumerable gauzy wings.

The air was shaken by most ecstatic voices. The bobolinks sailed and sang in the sensuous air, now sinking, now rising, their exquisite notes ringing, filling the air like the chimes of tiny silver bells. The kingbird, ever alert and aggressive, cried out sharply as he launched from the top of a poplar tree upon some buzzing insect, and the plover made the prairie sad with his wailing call. Vast purple-and-white clouds moved like bellying sails before the lazy wind, dark with rain, which they dropped momentarily like trailing garments upon the earth, and so passed on in stately measure with a roll of thunder.

The grasshoppers moved in clouds with snap and buzz, and out of the luxurious stagnant marshes came the ever thickening chorus of the toads and the frogs, while above them the kildees and the snipe shuttled to and fro in sounding flight, and the blackbirds on the cattails and willows swayed with lifted throats, uttering their subtle liquid notes, made mad with delight of the sun and their own music. And over all and through all moved the slow, soft west wind, laden with the breath of the far-off prairie lands of the west, soothing and hushing and filling the world with a slumbrous haze.

The weather in haying time was glorious, with only occasional showers to accentuate the splendid sunlight. There were no old men and no women in these fields. The men were young and vigorous, and their action was swift and supple. Sometimes it was hot to the danger point, especially on the windless side of the stack (no one had haybarns in those days) and sometimes the pitcher complained of cold chills running up his back. Sometimes Jack flung a pail full of water over his head and shoulders before beginning to unload, and seemed the better for it. Mr. Stewart kept plenty of switchel (which is composed of ginger and water) for his hands to drink. He had a notion that it was less injurious than water or beer, and no sun strokes occurred among his men.

Once, one hot afternoon, the air took on an oppressive density, the wind died away almost to a calm, blowing fitfully from the south, while in the far west a vast dome of inky clouds, silent and portentous, uplifted, filling the horizon, swelling like a great bubble, yet seeming to have the weight of a mountain range in its mass. The birds, bees, and all insects, hitherto vocal, suddenly sank into silence, as if awed by the first deep mutter of the storm. The mercury is touching one hundred degrees in the shade.

All hands hasten to get the hay in order, that it may shed rain. They hurry without haste, as only adept workmen can. They roll up the windrows by getting fork and shoulder under one end, tumbling it over and over endwise, till it is large enough; then go back for the scatterings, which are placed, with a deft turn of the fork, on the top to cap the pile. The boys laugh and shout as they race across the field. Every man is wet to the skin with sweat; hats are flung aside; Lincoln, on the rake, puts his horse to the trot. The feeling of the struggle, of racing with the thunder, exalts him.

Nearer and nearer comes the storm, silent no longer. The clouds are breaking up. The boys stop to listen. Far away is heard the low, steady, crescendo, grim roar; intermixed with crashing thunderbolts, the rain streams aslant, but there is not yet a breath of air from the west; the storm wind is still far away; the toads in the marsh, and the fearless king-bird, alone cry out in the ominous gloom cast by the rolling clouds of the tempest.

Look out! here it comes! calls the boss. The black cloud melts to form the gray veil of the falling rain, which blots out the plain as it sweeps on. Now it strikes the corn-field, sending a tidal wave rushing across it. Now it reaches the wind-break, and the spire-like poplars bow humbly to it. Now it touches the hay-field, and the caps of the cocks go flying; the long grass streams in the wind like a woman's hair. In an instant the day's work is undone and the hay is opened to the drenching rain.

As all hands rush for the house, the roaring tempest rides upon them like a regiment of demon cavalry. The lightning breaks forth from the blinding gray clouds of rain. As Lincoln looks up he sees the streams of fire go rushing across the sky like the branching of great red trees. A moment more, and the solid sheets of water fall upon the landscape, shutting it from view, and the thunder crashes out, sharp and splitting, in the near distance, to go deepening and bellowing off down the illimitable spaces of the sky and plain, enlarging, as it goes, like the rumor of war.

In the east is still to be seen a faint crescent of the sunny sky, rapidly being closed in as the rain sweeps eastward; but as that diminishes to a gleam, a similar window, faint, watery, and gray, appears in the west, as the clouds break away. It widens, grows yellow, and then red; and at last blazes out into an inexpressible glory of purple and crimson and gold, as the storm moves swiftly over. The thunder grows deeper, dies to a retreating mutter, and is lost. The clouds' dark presence passes away. The trees flame with light, the robins take up their songs again, the air is deliciously cool. The corn stands bent, as if still acknowledging the majesty of the wind. Everything is new-washed, clean of dust, and a faint, moist odor of green things fills the air.

Lincoln seizes the opportunity to take Owen's place in bringing the cattle, and mounting his horse gallops away. The road is wet and muddy, but the prairie is firm, and the pony is full of power. In full flower, fragrant with green grass and radiant with wild roses, sweet-williams, lilies, pinks, and pea-vines, the sward lies new washed by the rain, while over it runs a strong, cool wind from the west. The boy's heart swells with unutterable joy of life. The world is exaltingly beautiful. It is good to be alone, good to be a boy, and to be mounted on a swift horse.

AMONG THE CORN ROWS

From MAIN TRAVELLED ROADS. Printed by permission of Harper Bros.

A corn-field in July is a sultry place. The soil is hot and dry; the wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm, sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzling light upon the field over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat seem the more intense.

Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was toiling back and forth between the corn-rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn plow, while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. Her heart was full of bitterness, her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, protected only by a calico dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with perspiration it soiled her till with a woman's instinctive cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. What matter to her that the king bird flitted jovially from the maple to catch a wandering blue bottle fly, that the robin was feeding her young, that the bobolink was singing. All these things, if she saw them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief.

Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her father—a big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian—at work also with a plow. The corn must be plowed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned, or, more properly, burnt, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness creak-cracked as he swung steadily and patiently forward, the moisture pouring from his hide, his nostrils distended.

The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road ran a river—a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point—and the eyes of the girl gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time that she turned at the fence.

This same contrast is expressed by Hamlin Garland in two poems presented here. The first, Ploughing, sets forth the irksome toll to which the undeveloped boy was subjected. The second, Ladrone, portrays the joy which the youth in the country acquires from association with the animals of the farm. These poems and all the following selections are taken from Boy Life on the Prairie, and are here published by permission of the Macmillan Company.

PLOWING

A lonely task it is to plough!

All day the black and clinging soil

Rolls like a ribbon from the mould-board's

Glistening curve. All day the horses toil

Battling with the flies—and strain

Their creaking collars. All day

The crickets jeer from wind-blown shocks of grain.

October brings the frosty dawn,

The still, warm noon, the cold, clear night,

When torpid insects make no sound,

And wild-fowl in their southward flight

Go by in hosts—and still the boy

And tired team gnaw round by round,

At weather-beaten stubble, band by band,

Until at last, to their great joy,

The winter's snow seals up the unploughed land.

LADRONE

And, What of Ladrone—do you ask?

Oh! friend. I am sad at the name.

My splendid fleet roan!—The task

You require is a hard one at best.

Swift as the spectral coyote, as tame

To my voice as a sweetheart, an eye

Like a pool in the woodland asleep,

Brown, clear, and calm, with color down deep,

Where his brave, proud soul seemed to lie—

Ladrone! There's a spell in the word.

The city walls fade on my eye—the roar

Of its traffic grows dim

As the sound of the wind in a dream.

My spirit takes wing like a bird.

Once more I'm asleep on the plain,

The summer wind sings in my hair;

Once again I hear the wild crane

Crying out of the steaming air;

White clouds are adrift on the breeze,

The flowers nod under my feet,

And under my thighs, 'twixt my knees,

Again as of old I can feel

The roll of Ladrone's firm muscles, the reel

Of his chest—see the thrust of fore-limb

And hear the dull trample of heel.

We thunder behind the mad herd.

My singing whip swirls like a snake.

Hurrah! We swoop on like a bird.

With my pony's proud record at stake—

For the shaggy, swift leader has stride

Like the last of a long kingly line;

Her eyes flash fire through her hair;

She tosses her head in disdain;

Her mane streams wide on the air—

She leads the swift herd of the plain

As a wolf-leader leads his gaunt pack,

On the slot of the desperate deer—

Their exultant eyes savagely shine.

But down on her broad shining back

Stings my lash like a rill of red flame—

Huzzah, my wild beauty! Your best;

Will you teach my Ladrone a new pace?

Will you break his proud heart in a shame

By spurning the dust in his face?

The herd falls behind and is lost,

As we race neck and neck, stride and stride.

Again the long lash hisses hot

Along the gray mare's glassy hide—

Aha, she is lost! she does not respond.

Now I lean to the ear of my roan

And shout—letting fall the light rein.

Like a hound from the leash, my Ladrone

Swoops ahead.

We're alone on the plain!

Ah! how the thought at wild living comes back!

Alone on the wide, solemn prairie

I ride with my rifle in hand,

My eyes on the watch for the wary

And beautiful antelope band.

Or sleeping at night in the grasses, I hear

Ladrone grazing near in the gloom.

His listening head on the sky

I see etched complete to the ear.

From the river below comes the boom

Of the bittern, the thrill and the cry

Of frogs in the pool, and the shrill cricket's chime,

Making ceaseless and marvelous rhyme.

But what of his fate? Did he die

When the terrible tempest was done?

When he staggered with you to the light,

And your fight with the Norther was won,

Did he live a guest evermore?

No, friend, not so. I sold him—outright.

What! sold your preserver, your mate, he who

Through wind and wild snow and deep night

Brought you safe to a shelter at last?

Did you, when the danger had end,

Forget your dumb hero—your friend?

Forget! no, nor can I. Why, man,

It's little you know of such love

As I felt for him! You think that you feel

The same deep regard for your span,

Blanketed, shining, and clipped to the heel,

But my horse was companion and guard—

My playmate, my ship on the sea

Of dun grasses—in all kinds of weather,

Unhorsed and hungry and sometimes, he

Served me for love and needed no tether.

No, I do not forget; but who