Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

TALES OF

A VANISHING RIVER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

SKETCHES IN DUNELAND

THE DUNE COUNTRY

THE VOICES OF THE DUNES

ETCHING: A PRACTICAL TREATISE

(See Page [15])
A Kankakee Bayou

Tales of A Vanishing River

by

EARL H. REED

Author of

“The Dune Country”

“Sketches in Duneland”

etc.

Illustrated by the Author

NEW YORK ~ JOHN LANE COMPANY

LONDON ~ JOHN LANE. THE BODLEY HEAD

MCMXX

Copyright, 1920,

By John Lane Company

Press of

J. J. Little & Ives Company

New York, U. S. A.

To

MY FRIEND

H. W. J.

FOREWORD

The background of this collection of sketches and stories is the country through which flowed one of the most interesting of our western rivers before its destruction as a natural waterway.

This book is not a history. It is intended as an interpretation of the life along the river that the author has come in contact with during many years of familiarity with the region. Names of places and characters have been changed for the reason that, while effort has been made to adhere to artistic truth, literary liberties have been taken with facts when they have not seemed essential to the story.

E. H. R.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

I
THE VANISHING RIVER

Somewhere in a large swampland, about fifty miles east of the southern end of Lake Michigan, the early French explorers found the beginning of the river.

A thread-like current crept through a maze of oozy depressions, quagmires, seeping bogs and little pools, among patches of sodden brush, alders and rank grass. With many intricate windings, the vagrant waters, swollen by numberless springs and rivulets, emerged from the tangled morass, became a living stream, and began its long and tortuous journey toward the southwest, finally to be lost in the immensity of unknown floods beyond.

The explorers called the stream the Theakiki. In the changing nomenclature of succeeding years it became the Kankakee. It was the main confluent of the Illinois, and one of the first highways of the white man to the Mississippi.

The crude topographic charts of the early voyagers on the river naturally differ much in detail and accuracy, but, in comparing them with our modern maps, we wonder at their keen observation and the painstaking use of their limited facilities.

The annals of their journeys are replete with description, legend, romance, disheartening hardship, and unremitting battle at the barriers of nature against her would-be conquerors.

The name of LaSalle, that resplendent figure in the exploration of the west, will be forever associated with the Kankakee. There are few pages of historic lore more absorbing and thrilling to the admirer of unflinching fortitude and dauntless heroism than the dramatic story of this knight errant of France, and his intrepid followers. Among the woods and waters, and on the desolate frozen wastes of a strange land, they found paths that led to imperishable renown. They were avant-coureurs of a new force that was to transform a wilderness into an empire, but an empire far different from that of their hopes and dreams.

LaSalle’s little band had ascended the St. Joseph, and had portaged their belongings from one of its bends about five miles away. They launched their canoes on the narrow tide of the Theakiki and descended the river to the Illinois. The incentives of the expedition were to expand the dominions of Louis the XIV, to extend the pale of the cross, and to find new fountains that would pour forth gold.

For gold and power man has scarred the earth he lives upon and annihilated its creatures since the dawn of recorded time, and for gold and power will he struggle to the end, whatever and wherever the end may be, for somewhere in the scheme of creation it is so written. The moralist may find the story on the Vanishing River, as he may find it everywhere else in the world, in his study of the fabric of the foibles and passions of his kind.

The old narratives mention a camp of Miami Indians, visible near the source of the river, at the time of LaSalle’s embarkation. We may imagine that curious beady eyes peered from the clustered wigwams in the distance upon the newcomers, the wondering aborigines little knowing that a serpent had entered their Eden, and thenceforth their race was to look only upon a setting sun.

The river flowed through a mystic land. With magnificent sweeps and bends it wound out on open fertile areas and into dense virgin forests, doubling to and fro in its course, widening into broad lakes, and moving on to vast labyrinths of dank grass, rushes, lily pads, trembling bogs and impenetrable brush tangles. The main channel often lost itself in the side currents and in mazes of rank vegetation. Here and there were little still tarns and open pools that reflected the wandering clouds by day and the changing moons at night.

There were great stretches of marshy wastes and flooded lowlands, where millions upon millions of water fowl found welcome retreats and never failing food. During the migrating seasons in the spring and fall, vast flocks of ducks were patterned against the clouds. They swooped down in endless hordes. Turbulent calls and loud trumpetings heralded the coming of serried legions of geese, swans and brant, as they broke their ranks, settled on to the hospitable waters and floated in gentle contentment.

The wild rice fields were inexhaustible granaries, and intrusion into them was followed by hurried beating of hidden wings. A disturbance of a few birds would start a slowly increasing alarm; soon the sky would be darkened by the countless flocks swarming out of miles of grasses, and the air would be filled with the roar of fleeing pinions. Gradually they would return to enjoy their wonted tranquility.

The feathered myriads came and went with the transient seasons, but great numbers remained and nested on the bogs among the rushes, and on the little oak shaded islands in the swamps.

Coots, grebes, rails, and bitterns haunted the pools and runways among the thick sedges. Sudden awkward flights out of concealed coverts often startled the quiet wayfarer on the currents and ponds of the swamps. The solitary loon’s weird calls echoed from distant open waters.

Swarms of blackbirds rose out of the reeds and rice, and, after vicarious circlings, disappeared into other grassy retreats, enlivening the solitudes with their busy clamor.

In the summer and autumn the flowers of the wet places bloomed in luxuriant profusion. Limitless acres of pond lilies opened their chaste petals in the slumberous airs. Harmonies of brilliant color bedecked the russet robes of autumn, and far over the broad fenlands yellow and vermillion banners waved in the soft winds of early fall.

In these wild marshlands was the kingdom of the muskrat. The little villages and isolated domiciles—built of roots and rushes, and plastered with mud—protruded above the surface over the wide expanses, and were concealed in cleared spaces in the high, thick grasses. The pelts of these prolific and industrious little animals were speedily converted into wealth in after years.

The otter and the mink hunted their prey on the marshes and in the dank labyrinths of brush and wood debris along the main stream. Beavers thrived on the tributary waters, where these patient and skilful engineers built their dams and established their towns with the sagacity and foresight of their kind.

On still sunshiny days the tribes of the turtles emerged from their miry retreats and basked in phlegmatic immobility on the sodden logs and decayed fallen timber that littered the course of the current through the deep woodlands. The muddy fraternity would often seem to cover every low protruding object that could sustain them. At the passing of a boat the gray masses would awake and tumble with loud splashings into the depths.

The fish common to our western streams and lakes were prolific in the river. Aged men sit in hickory rocking chairs and enliven the mythology of their winter firesides with tales of mighty catfish, bass, pike and pickerel that once swam in the clear waters and fell victims to their lures.

The finny world has not only supplied man with invaluable food, but has been a beneficent stimulant to his imaginative faculties.

The choruses of the bull frogs in the marshes and bayous at night are among the joys unforgettable to those who have listened to these concerts out on the moonlit stretches among the lily pads and bending rushes. The corpulent gossips in the hidden places sent forth medleys of resonant sound that resembled deep tones of bass viols. They mingled with the rippling lighter notes of the smaller frog folk, and all blended into lyrics of nocturnal harmonies that lulled the senses and attuned the heart strings to the Voices of the Little Things.

Colonies of blue herons nested among the sycamores and elms in the overflowed bottom lands bordering on the river. A well known ornithologist has justly called this stately bird “the symbol of the wild.” Visits to the populous heronries were events long to be remembered by lovers of bird life. Sometimes eight or ten of the rudely constructed nests would occupy one tree, and within an area of perhaps twenty acres, hundreds of gawky offspring would come forth in April to be fed and guarded by the powerful bills of the older birds.

These nesting retreats were often accessible from the river, and a canoe floating into the placid and secluded precincts roused instant protest from the ghostly forms perched about on the limbs. The great birds would circle out over the trees with hoarse cries, but if the intruder became motionless they would soon return and resume their family cares.

The perfect reflections in the clear still waters, with the inverted tracery of the tree tops against the skies below, decorated with the statuesque figures of the herons, pictured dreamlands that seemed of another world, and tempted errant fancy into remote paths.

The passenger pigeons came in multitudes to the river country in the fall and settled into the woods, where the ripe acorns afforded abundant food. The old inhabitants tell wondrous tales of their migrations, when the innumerable flocks obscured the clouds and the sound of the passing of the gray hosts was that of a moaning wind. The gregariousness of these birds was their ruin. They congregated on the dead trees in such numbers as to often break the smaller limbs. Owls, hawks, and four-footed night marauders feasted voraciously upon them. They were easy victims for the nets and guns of the pot hunters and the blind destructiveness of man wherever nature has been prodigal of her gifts. For years these beautiful creatures have been extinct, but the lesson of their going is only now beginning to be heeded.

The black companies of the crows kept watch and ward over the forests and winding waters. Their noisy parliaments were in constant session, and few vistas through the woods, or out over the open landscapes, were without the accents of their moving forms against the sky.

Among the many feathered species there are none that appear to take themselves more seriously. They are ubiquitous and most curious as to everything that exists or happens within the spheres of their activities, and are so much a part of our great out of doors that we would miss them sadly if they were gone.

Wild turkeys and partridges were plentiful in the woods and underbrush. Eagles soared in majestic flight over the country and dropped to the waters and into the forests upon their furtive prey.

In the spring the woodlands were filled with melodious choirs of the smaller birds. Their enemies were few and they thrived in their happy homes.

Deer were once abundant. Elk horns have been found, and there are disputed records of straggling herds of buffalo. Panther tracks were sometimes seen, and the black bear—that interesting vagabond of the woods—was a faithful visitor to the wild bee trees. Wolves roved through the timber. Wild cats, foxes, woodchucks, raccoons, and hundreds of smaller animals, dwelt in the great forests.

In this happy land lived the Miami and Pottowattomie Indians. Their little villages of bark wigwams and tepees of dried skins were scattered along the small streams, the borders of the river, and on the many islands that divided its course.

They sat in spiritual darkness on the verdant banks until the white man came to change their gods and superstitions, but the region teemed with fish, game and wild fruits, and, with their limited wants, they enjoyed the average contentment of humankind. Whether or not their moral well being improved or deteriorated under the teachings and influence of the Franciscan and Jesuit fathers and the protestant missionaries, is a question for the casuists, but the ways of the white man withered and swept them away. Unable to hold what they could not defend, they were despoiled of their heritage and exiled to other climes.

Their little cemeteries are still found, where the buried skeletons grimly await the Great Solution, amid the curious decayed trappings of a past age that were interred for the use of the dead in mystical happy hunting grounds. Their problem, like ours, remains as profound as their sleep. Occasionally curious delvers into Indian history have unearthed grisly skulls, covered with mould, and fragments of bones in these silent places.

Many thousands of stone weapons, flint arrowheads, implements of the red men’s simple agriculture, and utensils of their rude housekeeping, have been found in the soil of the land where once their lodges tapered into the green foliage.

Traces remain of the trails that connected the villages and threaded the country in every direction.

The relations between the first settlers and the Indians seem to have been harmonious, but friction of interests developed with the continued influx of the whites, until the primitive law of “might makes right” was applied to the coveted lands. Sculptured monuments have now been erected to the red chieftains by the descendants of those who robbed them—empty and belated recognition of their equities.

Many hunters and trappers came into the wild country, lured by the abundant game and fur. The beavers and muskrats provided the greater part of the spoil of the trappers.

Gradually the pioneer farmers began clearing tracts in the forests, where they found a soil of exuberant fertility.

With improved methods and firearms the annihilation of the wild life commenced. Many hundreds of tons of scattered leaden shot lie buried in unknown miry depths, that streamed into the skies at the passing flocks. The modern breech loader worked devastating havoc. The water fowl dwindled rapidly in numbers with the onward years, for the fame of the region as a sportsman’s paradise was nation wide.

The inroads of the trappers on the fur bearing animals practically exterminated all but the prolific and obstinate muskrat, destined to be one of the last survivors.

In later years the trappers lived in little shacks, “wickyups” and log cabins on the bayous, near the edges of the marshes, and on the banks of the tributary streams. Many of them were strange odd characters. The almost continual solitude of their lives developed their baser instincts, without teaching the arts of their concealment possessed by those who have social and educational advantages.

With the increasing markets for wild game they became pot hunters and sold great quantities of ducks and other slaughtered birds.

The rude habitations were often enlarged or rebuilt to accommodate visiting duck shooters and fishermen, for whom they acted as guides and hosts. They began to mingle in the life of the little towns, and occasional isolated cross road stores, that came into being at long distances apart, where they went to dispose of their pelts and game.

Queerly clad, long haired and much bewhiskered, they were picturesque figures, standing in their sharp pointed canoes, which they propelled with long handled paddles that served as push poles in shallow water. Dogs that were trained retrievers and devoted companions, often occupied the bows of the little boats. In the middle of the craft were piled wooden decoys, dead birds, muskrats or steel traps, when they journeyed to and from the marshes, where they appeared in all weathers and seasons except midsummer. During the hot months they usually loafed in somnolent idleness at the stores, puttered about their shacks, or did odd jobs on the farms.

There are tales of lawlessness in the country characteristic of the raw edges of civilization in a sparsely settled region. Horse stealing appears to have been a favorite industry of evil doers, and timber thieves were numerous. In the absence of convenient jails and courts the law of the wild was administered without mercy to these and other miscreants when they were caught.

Moonshiners, whose interests did not conflict with local public sentiment, were seldom interfered with. The infrequent investigations of emissaries of the government met with little sympathy except when they were looking for counterfeiters.

The Kankakee of old has gone, for the lands over which it spread became valuable. A mighty ditch has been excavated, extending almost its entire course, to deepen and straighten its channel, and to drain away its marshes. The altered line of the stream left many of the rude homes of the old trappers far inland. Their occupations have ceased and they sit in melancholy silence and brood upon the past. For them the book is closed. They falter at the threshold of a new era in which nature has not fitted them to live.

Ugly steam dredges, with ponderous iron jaws, came upon the river. Hoary patriarchs of the forest were felled. Ancient roots and green banks, mantled with vines, were ruthlessly blasted away. The dredge scoops delved into mossy retreats. Secret dens and runways were opened to the glaring light and there were many rustlings of furtive feet and wings through the invaded grasses.

The limpid waters reflected Mammon’s sinister form. The despoiler tore relentlessly through ferny aisles in the green embowered woods and across the swamps and flowery fens. The glittering lakes, the meandering loops and bends disappeared, and the fecund marshlands yielded their life currents. The thousand night voices on their moon flooded stretches were stilled. The wild life fled. Wondering flocks in the skies looked down on the strange scene, changed their courses and winged on.

The passing of the river leaves its memories of musical ripplings over pebbly shoals, murmurous runes among the fallen timber, tremulous moon paths over darkened waters, the twinkling of wispy hosts of fireflies in dreamy dusks, blended perfumes of still forests, heron haunted bayous, enchanting islands, with their profusion of wild grapes and plums, and the glories of afterglows beyond the vast marshes.

The currents that once widened in silvery magnificence to their natural barriers, and wandered peacefully among the mysteries of the woods, now flow madly on through a man-wrought channel. In sorrow the gloomy waters flee with writhing swirls from the land where once they crept out over the low areas and rested on their ways to the sea. In the moaning of the homeless tide we may hear the requiem of the river.

Fields of corn and wheat stretch over the reclaimed acres, for the utilitarian has triumphed over beauty and nature’s providence for her wild creatures. The destruction of one of the most valuable bird refuges on the continent has almost been completed, for the sake of immediate wealth. The realization of this great economic wrong must be left to future generations. The ugly dredges are finishing the desecration on the lower reaches of the stream.

The Vanishing River moves on through a twilight of ignorance and error, for the sacrifice of our bird life and our regions of natural beauty is the sacrifice of precious material and spiritual gifts.

In the darkness of still nights pale phantom currents may creep into the denuded winding channels, guided by the unseen Power that directs the waters, and fade into the dim mists before the dawn.

Under the brooding care of the Great Spirit for the departed children, ghostly war plumes may flutter softly among the leaves and tassels of the corn that wave over the Red Man’s lost domain, when the autumn winds whisper in the star-lit fields, for the land is peopled with shadows, and has passed into the realm of legend, romance and fancy.

II
THE SILVER ARROW

The story of the arrow was slowly unravelled from the tangled thread of interrupted narrative related to us by old Waukena. She sat in her little log hut among the tall poplars and birches, beyond the farther end of Whippoorwill Bayou, and talked of the arrow during our visits, but never in a way that enabled us to connect the scattered fragments of the tale into proper sequence until we had heard various parts of it many times.

She was a remnant of the Pottowattomies. She did not know when she was born, but, from her knowledge of events that happened in her lifetime, the approximate dates of which we knew, she must have been over ninety.

Her solitary life and habitual silence had developed a taciturnity that steals upon those who dwell in the stillness of the forest. There was a far away look in the old eyes, and a tinge of bitterness in her low voice, as she talked sadly in her broken English, of the days that were gone.

She cherished the traditions of her people, and their sorrows lingered in her heart. Like shriveled leaves clinging to withered boughs, her memories seemed to rustle faintly when a new breath of interest touched them, and from among these rustlings we culled the arrow’s story.

The little cabin was very old. Its furnishings were in keeping with its occupant and sufficient for her simple needs. There was a rough stone fireplace at one end of the single room. A flat projecting boulder on one side of its interior provided a shelf for the few cooking utensils. They were hung on a rickety iron swinging arm over the wood fire when in use. A much worn turkey wing, with charred edges, lay near the hearth, with which the scattered ashes were dusted back into the fireplace. A bedstead, constructed of birch saplings, occupied the other end of the room. Several coon and fox skins, neatly sewed together, and a couple of gray blankets, laid over some rush mats, completed the sleeping arrangements. With the exception of a few bunches of bright hued feathers, stuck about in various chinks, the rough walls were bare of ornament.

The other furniture consisted of a couple of low stools, a heavy rocking chair and a small pine table. A kerosene lantern and some candles illumined the squalid interior at night.

In an open space near the cabin was a small patch of cultivated ground that produced a few vegetables. Sunflowers and hollyhocks grew along its edge and gave a touch of color to the surroundings.

Waukena

The old settlers and their families, who lived in the river country, provided Waukena with most of her food supplies and the few other comforts that were necessary to her lonely existence.

Many times I studied the rugged old face in the fire light. Among the melancholy lines there lurked a certain grimness and lofty reserve. There was no humility in the modelling of the determined mouth and chin. The features were those of a mother of warriors. The blood of heroes, unknown and forgotten, was in her veins, and the savage fatalism of centuries slumbered in the placid dark eyes. It was the calmed face of one who had defied vicissitude, and who, with head unbowed, would meet finality.

My friend the historian had known her many years, and had made copious notes of her childhood recollections of the enforced departure of her tribe from the river country. She and several others had taken refuge in a swamp until the soldiers had gone. They then made their way north and dwelt for a few years near the St. Joseph, where a favored portion of the tribe was allowed to retain land, but finally returned to their old haunts.

When she was quite young her mother gave her the headless arrow, which she took from one of the recesses in the log wall and showed to us. It was a slender shaft of hickory, perfectly straight, and fragments of the dyed feathers that once ornamented it still adhered to its delicately notched base. At the other end were frayed remnants of animal fiber that had once held the point in place. There were dark stains along the shaft that had survived the years. The old squaw held it tenderly in her hands as she talked of it, and always replaced it carefully in the narrow niche when the subject was changed.

Nearly a hundred years ago the shaft was fashioned by an old arrowmaker up the river for Little Turtle, a young hunter, who hoped to kill a particular bald eagle with it. For a long time the bird had soared with unconquered wings over the river country, and seemed to bear a charmed life. It had successfully eluded him for nearly a year, but finally fell when the twang of Little Turtle’s bow sent the new weapon into his breast, as he sat unsuspectingly on a limb of a dead tree that bent over the river.

The victor proudly bore his trophy to his bark canoe and paddled down the stream to Whippoorwill Bayou. He pulled the little craft up into the underbrush at twilight, and sat quietly on the bank until the full moon came out from among the trees.

On the other side of the bayou were heavy masses of wild grape vines that had climbed over some dead trees and undergrowth. Through a strange freak of nature the convoluted piles had resolved themselves into grotesque shapes that, in the magic sheen of the moonlight, suggested the head and shoulders of a gigantic human figure, with long locks and overhanging brows, standing at the edge of the forest. The lusty growth had crept over the lower trees in such a way that the distribution of the shadows completed the illusion. An unkempt old man seemed to stand wearily, with masses of the tangled verdure heaped over his extended hands. It was only when the moon was near the horizon that the lights and shadows produced the strange apparition. The weird figure, sculptured by the sorcery of the pale beams, was called “The Father of the Vines” by the red men, and he was believed to have an occult influence over the living things that dwelt in the forests along the river.

Under one of the burdened hands was a dark grotto that led back into the mysteries of the woods, and from it came the low cry of a whippoorwill. Little Turtle instantly rose, dragged out the concealed canoe, paddled silently over the moonlit water, and entered the grotto. A shadowy figure had glided out to meet him, for the whippoorwill call was Nebowie’s signal to her lover.

For months the grotto had been their trysting place. Rose winged hours were spent there, and the great hands seemed to be held in benediction, as the world old story was told within the hidden recesses.

Nebowie’s father, Moose Jaw, a scarred old warrior and hunter, had told White Wolf that his dark-eyed willowy daughter should go to his wigwam when the wild geese again crossed the sky, and White Wolf was anxiously counting the days that lay between him and the fruition of his hopes.

He was a tall, low browed, villainous looking savage. He had once saved Moose Jaw from an untimely death. The old Indian was crossing a frozen marsh one winter morning, with a deer on his shoulders, and broke through the ice. White Wolf happened to see him and effected his rescue. He had long gazed from afar on the light in Moose Jaw’s wigwam, but Nebowie’s eyes were downcast when he came. He lived down the river, and the people of his village seldom came up as far as Whippoorwill Bayou.

His persistent visits, encouraged by the grateful old Indian, and frowned upon by the flower he sought, gradually became less frequent, and finally ceased, when he learned the secret of Nebowie and Little Turtle, after stealthily haunting the neighborhood of the bayou for several weeks.

An evil light came into White Wolf’s sinister eyes, and the fires of blood lust kindled in his breast. He went on the path of vengeance. The savage and the esthete are alike when the coveted male or female of their kind is taken by another. He was too crafty to wage open warfare and resolved to eliminate his rival in some way that would not arouse suspicion and resentment when he again sought Nebowie’s smiles.

Old Moose Jaw smoked many pipes, and meditated philosophically over his daughter’s obstinate disregard of the compact with White Wolf. Nebowie’s mother had been dead several years, and the old Indian was easily reconciled to what appeared to be his daughter’s resolution to remain with him, for the little bark wigwam would be lonely without her. She went cheerfully about her various tasks, and never mentioned Little Turtle, until one day they came together and told him their story. As nothing had been seen of White Wolf for a long time, the old man assumed that his ardor had cooled, and finally consented to the building of the new Wigwam on the bayou bank near the Father of the Vines, where Nebowie would still be near him. He had no objections to Little Turtle and hoped that the obligation to White Wolf could be discharged in some other way.

He rejoiced when the small black eyes of a papoose blinked at him when he visited the new wigwam one afternoon during the following summer. He spent much time with the little wild thing on his knee when she was old enough to be handled by anybody but her mother. He would sit for hours, gently swinging the birch bark cradle that hung from a low bough near the bank, for he was no longer able to hunt or fish, and took no part in the activities of the men of the village. Little Turtle’s prowess amply supplied both wigwams with food and raiment, and there was no need for further exertion.

White Wolf had apparently recovered from his infatuation. He occasionally came up the river, but his connection with the affairs of the community, whose little habitations were widely scattered through the woods beyond the bayou, was considered a thing of the past.

Little Turtle was highly esteemed by the men of his village, and two years after his marriage he was made its chief.

The following spring delegations from the various villages along the river departed for a general powwow of the tribe, near the mouth of the St. Joseph, in the country of the dunes, about eighty miles away. Little Turtle and White Wolf went with them. Time had nurtured the demon in the heart of the baffled suitor, but there were no indications of enmity during the trip. The party broke up on its way home and took different trails. Little Turtle never returned.

Nebowie pined in anguish for the home coming, and White Wolf waited for her sorrow to pass. She spent months of misery, and finally carried her aching heart to the “Black Robe,” who ministered to the spiritual needs of her people, after the formula of his sect, in the little mission house up the river. He was a kindly counselor and listened with sympathy to her story.

He belonged to that hardy and zealous band of ecclesiastics who had come into the land of another race to build new altars, and to teach what they believed to be the ways to redemption. He told Nebowie to take her sorrow to the white man’s deity and gave her a small silver crucifix as a token that would bring divine consolation and peace. Forms of penance and supplication were prescribed, and she was sent away with the blessing of the devout priest.

Nebowie carried her cross and, during the still hours in the little wigwam, she held it to her anguished breast. The months brought no surcease. In the quiet ministry of the woods there crept into her heart a belief that the magic of the Black Robe’s God was futile.

The inevitable atavism came and she departed into the silences. For a long time her whereabouts were unknown. During the bitter months her intuitive mind worked out the problem. Something that she found in the wilderness had solved the mystery of her loved one’s disappearance, and, when she returned, she hammered her silver crucifix into an arrow head, bound it with deer sinew to the hickory shaft of the arrow with which Little Turtle had killed the bald eagle, and meditated upon the hour of her revenge. White Wolf was doomed, and his executioner patiently bided the time for action.

He renewed his visits and condoled with the sad old man, but made no progress with Nebowie, although she sometimes seemed to encourage his advances.

One evening in the early fall he returned from a hunting trip over the marshes. He followed one of the small trails that skirted the woods near his village. A shadowy form moved silently among the trees. There was a low whir, and something sped through the dusk.

When they found White Wolf in the morning the hair on one side of his head was matted with blood, and a small hole led into his stilled brain, but there was no clue to the motive or to the author of the tragedy. He was duly mourned and buried after the manner of his fathers. His taking off was numbered among the enigmas of the past, and was soon forgotten.

Nebowie continued her home life with her father and her little one, but tranquility was in her face. She felt within her the glow that retribution brings to the savage heart—whether it be red or white. A recompense had come to her tortured soul that softened the after years. The silver of the arrow point had achieved a mission that had failed when it bore the form of a cross.

During our exploration of the sites of the old Indian villages in the river country, we discovered a large pasture that had never been ploughed. Traces of two well worn trails led through it, and, on a little knoll near the center of the field, we found what appeared to be burial mounds.

We were reluctant to desecrate the hallowed spot, but finally yielded to the temptation to open one of them. We unearthed two skeletons. They were both in a sitting position. I picked up one of the skulls and curiously examined it. Something rattled within the uncanny relic and dropped to the grass. The small object proved to be a silver arrowhead, and Waukena’s story came home to us with startling reality. We replaced the bones and reshaped the mound as best we could, but carried with us the mouldy skull and its carefully wrought messenger of death.

Nearly all of the Indians in the river country were buried in a sitting position. The grim skeletons of the vanished race belong to the world that is under ground. In countless huddled hordes, they sit in the gloom of the fragrant earth, with hands outstretched, as if in mute appeal, and wait through the years for whatever gods may come.

In the darkness that may be eternal, the disputations of theologians do not disturb the gathering mould. The multitudinous forms of reward and punishment, that play in empty pageantry upon the hopes and fears of those who walk the green earth, touch not the myriads in its bosom.

The self appointed, who bear the lights of man born dogma, and the blessings and curses of imaginary deities, into the paths of the unknowable, grope as blindly among pagan bones as through cathedral aisles.

That evening we rowed up the river to carry our story to Waukena. She held the mouldy skull in her lap for a long time and regarded it with deep interest. Sealed fountains within her aged heart seemed to well anew, for there were tears in her eyes when she raised them toward us.

Waukena was the little girl that played around the stricken wigwam on the bayou, and she had treasured the stained shaft as a heritage from those she had loved. To her it was a sacred thing. The life currents it had changed had passed on, but they seemed to meet again as the gray haired woman sat before her flickering fire, with the mute toys of the fateful drama about her. We left her alone with her musings.

When we came one evening, a week later, the door was open, but the ashes on the hearth were cold. On the rough table lay the mouldy skull, that was once the home of relentless passion, and near it, before its eyeless caverns, was the blood stained shaft, with the silver point neatly fitted back into its place.

Waukena may have stolen away through the solitudes of the dim forest, and yielded her tired heart unto the gods of her people, for she was never again seen in the river country. Her chastened soul may still wander in the shadowy vistas of the winter woods, when the sun sinks in aureoles of crimson beyond the lacery of the tall trees—that stand still and ghostly—their slender boles tinged with hues of red, like the lost arrow shafts of those who are gone.

Sadly and thoughtfully we walked down the old trail that bordered the bayou. We sat for a long time on the moss covered bank and talked of the arrow and the destinies it had touched. The pearly disk of the full moon hung in the eastern sky. A faint mist veiled the surface of the softly lisping water. An owl swept low over the bayou into the gloom of the forest. The pond lilies had closed their chalices and sealed their fragrance for another day. Hosts of tiny wings were moving among the sedges. Fireflies gemmed the dark places and vanished, as human lives come out of the void, waver with transient glow, and are gone.

There was a tender eloquence and witchery in the gentle murmurings of the night. Mystic voices were in the woods. Beyond the other shore the hoary form of the Father of the Vines seemed transfigured with a holy light. From somewhere in the gloom of the grotto came the plaintive notes of a whippoorwill.

As one crying in the wilderness, Nebowie’s spirit was calling for her lost lover from among the embowered labyrinths.

In the twilights of drowsy summers, the wild cadence still enchants the bayou. The moon still rides through the highways of the star strewn skies, and, with pensive luster, pictures the guardian of the trysting place of long ago. The shadows below the lofty forehead have deepened, and the great silent figure bends with the weight of the onward years.

Out yonder, in the moonlit woods,

With humble mien he stands,

With the burden of the fruitage

In his vine entangled hands;

Where the hiding purpling clusters

Are caught by silver beams,

That revel in the meshes

Of his leafy net of dreams.

With the weariness of fulfillment,

His tendril woven brow

Is bowed before the mystery

Of the eternal Why and How.

III
THE BRASS BOUND BOX

Jerry Island was formed by one of the side currents of the river that wandered off through the woods and lowland and rejoined the main stream above the Big Marsh.

The herons, bitterns and wild ducks swept low over the brush entangled water course and dropped into the quiet open places. Innumerable clusters of small mud turtles fringed the drift wood and fallen timbers that retarded the sluggish current. The patriarchs of the hard shelled brotherhood—moss covered and intolerant—spent their days on the half-submerged gray logs in somnolent isolation.

Kingfishers, crows and hawks found a fecund hunting ground along the winding byway. Squirrels and chipmunks raced over the recumbent trunks, and whisked their bushy tails in the patches of sunlight that filtered through the interlacing boughs above them.

At night the owls, coons, minks and muskrats explored the wet labyrinths, aged bull frogs trumpeted dolefully, and stealthy nocturnal prowlers came there to drink. Sometimes the splash of a fish broke the stillness, and little rings crept away over the surface and lost themselves among the weeds and floating moss.

Long ago the trails of wolves, deer, and other large animals appeared in the snow on the island during the winter; bear tracks were often found, and there is a legend among the latter day prosaics that a couple of panthers once had a den in the neighborhood. In later years most of the winter pathways were made by foxes and rabbits and their human and canine pursuers.

Near the bank of the main stream stood a decayed but well constructed old house. It was built of faced logs with mortar between them. There were three rooms on the ground floor, and some steep narrow stairs led into an attic next to the roof that sloped to the floor along its sides.

My friend “Buck” Granger, a gray haired old trapper and hunter, whose grandfather built the house about a hundred years ago, ushered me up the creaky stairs late one night.

The alert eyes of a red squirrel peered at us from the end of a tattered mink muff that lay on an oak chest close to the roof, and vanished. Apparently the small visitor was not greatly disturbed, for, after two or three gentle undulations, the muff was motionless.

After conventional but cordial injunctions to make myself at home, Buck departed to his quarters below.

Familiar Haunts

The quaint and picturesque attic was full of interest. An old fashioned bedstead stood in the room, a cumbrous, home made “four poster.” Over its cord lacings was a thick feather bed, several comforters, and a multicolored patchwork quilt. The sheets and pillow slips were of coarsely woven linen.

Bunches of seed corn and dried herbs were suspended from pegs along the roof timbers; near the oak chest was a spinning wheel, and a broken cradle—all veiled with mantles of fine dust and cobwebs. The cradle, in which incipient genius may once have slumbered, was filled with bags of beans, ears of pop corn, and hickory nuts. Squirrels and white footed mice from the surrounding woods had held high revel in the tempting hoard.

The cradle had guarded the infancy of many little furred families after its first usefulness had ceased, for there were cosy tangled nests of shredded cotton and woolen material among its mixed contents.

Moths had worked sad havoc in the row of worn out garments that festooned the cross beams. Some rusty muskrat traps and obsolete fire arms were heaped in one corner, with discarded hats and boots.

Close to the roof, near the edge of the unprotected stairway, was a tall silent clock. It was very old. Most of the veneering had chipped away from its woodwork, parts of the enameled and grotesquely ornamented dial had scaled off, and across the scarred face its one crippled hand pointed to the figure seven. The worn mechanism had not pulsated for many years.

Innumerable tiny fibers connected the top and sides of the old clock with the sloping roof timbers, and a sinister watcher, hairy and misshapen—crouched within the mouth of a tubular web above the dial.

Tenuous highways spanned the spaces between the rafters. Gauzy filaments led away into obscurities, and gossamer shreds hung motionless from the upper gloom. There were mazes of webs, woven by generations of spiders, laden with impalpable dust, and tenantless. The patient spinners had lived their little day and left their airy tissues to the mercy of the years. Like flimsy relics of human endeavor, the frail structures awaited the inevitable.

There was an impression of mistiness and haziness in the wandering and broken fibers, and the filmy labyrinths—as of a brain filled with fancies that were inchoate and confused—an abode of idle dreams.

The web spanned attic pictured a mind, inert and fettered by dogma and tradition, in which existence is passive, and where vital currents are stilled—where light is instinctively excluded and intrusion of extraneous ideas is resented. Occupants of endowed chairs in old universities, pedantic art classicists, smug dignitaries of established churches, and other guardians of embalmed and encrusted conclusions, are apt to have such attics. Like the misshapen watcher within the tubular web above the dial, they crouch in musty seclusion.

I opened the queer looking bed, that had evidently been made up a long time, and lay for half an hour or so, trying to read by the light of the sputtering candle. The subtle spell of the old attic at length overcame the charm of my author, and I gave myself over to a troop of thronging fancies.

Although the invisible inmate of the muff gave a life accent to the room, the quiet was oppressive. A sense of seclusion from realities pervaded the human belongings. Intimate personal things, that only vanished hands have touched, seem to possess an indefinable remoteness—as if they pertained to something detached and far away—and lingered in an atmosphere of spiritual loneliness.

When the moon beams came through the cobwebbed window frame, and crept along the floor to the ghostly old clock, it haunted the room with a vague impression of weariness and futility. It seemed to stand in mute and solemn mockery of the eternal hours that had passed on and left it in hopeless vigil by the wayside.

The watcher in the web—grim and silent, like a waiting sexton—awakened uncanny thought. There was gruesome suggestion in the dark stairway hole at the foot of the clock—as if it had been newly dug in the earth.

Like evil phantoms into an idle mind, a pair of bats glided swiftly in through the open window, circled noiselessly about, and departed.

The moon rays touched something in the rubbish at the further end of the room that reflected a dull light. After restraining my curiosity for some time, I arose, crossed the floor, and picked up a strange looking box. It was about fourteen inches long, nine inches high, and a foot wide. Its hasp and small handle on the cover appeared to be of wrought iron, but the embossed facing that covered the sides and ends, and the strips that protected the edges, were of brass, studded with nails of the same metal. It seemed in the dim light to be much corroded by time.

Hoping that something might be learned of its history in the morning, I placed the box on the floor near the bed, and was finally lulled to belated slumber by the crickets in the crevices of the logs, and the rustlings of tiny feet among the contents of the cradle. Speculations regarding the brass bound box softly blended into dreams.

During breakfast the next morning my host told me that the box had once belonged to a Jesuit priest; some Indians who formerly lived on the island had given it to his grandfather, and it had been in the attic ever since the house was built. He had often looked at its contents but could make nothing of them, and considered that “they were not of much account.” He said he would be glad to have me go through them and see if they were of any value. He also said that there was a bundle of old papers in the oak chest that he hoped I would look over, as his grandfather had written much concerning the river and the Indians that might interest me.

Filled with anticipation of congenial occupation during the rainy day, I went with Buck to the attic after breakfast. We dragged a decrepit walnut table to the window and dusted it carefully. Buck brought from the chest a small bundle that was tied up in brown paper and left it with me. The tenant of the muff had decamped, probably resenting the intrusion into his domain. I brought the brass bound box, found a comfortable hickory chair, lighted a tranquilizing pipe, and was soon absorbed in the stack of closely written manuscript that I found in the bundle.

Some parts of it were illegible and the spelling was unique. The old man probably considered correct spelling to be an accomplishment of mere literary hacks, and that it was not necessary for an author who had anything else to think of to pay much attention to it.

There was much information regarding the Indian occupation of the river country. It appeared that there were about fifty wigwams on the island when the red men were compelled to leave by the government. Most of them were taken to a reservation out west, and a number went to some lands of their kindred along the St. Joseph river in Michigan. Eventually a few returned and lived in scattered isolation, but their tribal organization was broken up.

The head of the village on Jerry Island was a venerable warrior named “Hot Ashes.” He was a friend of Buck’s grandfather, and it was he who gave him the brass bound box when the Indians left. He said it had been brought to the island by the “Black Robe” many years before, and that he had left it in the mission house when he went away.

The box had been treasured by the Indians, for it was supposed for a long time to be a “great medicine,” but when they departed they considered it a useless burden. There had been much misfortune after the Black Robe left and their faith in its powers gradually ceased.

The going away of the kindly priest was much mourned by his dusky flock. He was supposed to have departed on some mysterious errand, and to have met fatality in the woods, but they were never able to find any traces of him.

Hot Ashes believed that the Black Robe had a great trouble, as, before his disappearance, he neglected the work of his mission for several days, and walked about on the island, carrying a little bundle which he was seen to throw into the river the day he left.

There was no further reference in the manuscript to the Black Robe, or to the brass bound box, which I now opened.

There were two compartments, divided into sections, one on either side of a larger opening in the middle. These contained various small articles. Two of them fitted low square bottles, one of which was half filled with a black powdery substance. On the label, that fell off when I removed the bottle, I deciphered the word ENCRE. Experiment justified the conclusion that the powder had been added to water when ink was needed. A dry coating on the inside of the other bottle indicated that it had been used for this purpose.

In a larger section were some beads that were once a rosary, fragments of a silk cord that had held them together, and a crucifix.

At the center of each end of the box, were half circular rests, probably designed to hold a chalice. The space contained a breviary, bound in leather, and much worn, some ink stained quill pens, a small box of fine sand that had been used for blotting, and some loosely folded papers. They consisted mostly of letters from the Superior of the Mission, and pertained to routine affairs, suggestions regarding the work of the little mission, and congratulations on its successful progress.

Comparison of the depth of the opening with the outside of the box revealed the existence of a secret space, and it was only after long study and experiment that I discovered the means of access to it. On lifting its cover I found a flexible cloth covered book and a letter enclosed in oiled silk, that was much tattered.

The book, which was yellow with age, and frayed at the edges, contained closely written pages in French, many of them much faded, obscure, and in some places entirely obliterated.

The chirography was in the main neat and methodical, but apparently the writing had been done under many varying conditions that made uniformity impossible. Several small drawings were scattered through the text. Some of them showed considerable skill and care, and the others were rough topographic sketches and memorandums of routes.

The book was the journal of Pierre de Lisle, a young Jesuit missionary who left France in 1723 to carry salvation to the heathen in the remote wilderness of the new continent.

The early entries related to his novitiate in Paris, his work in the Jesuit college, and the preparations for his departure for America. They reflected his hopes for the success of his perilous undertaking.

There were vague references to a deep affliction, and to periods of heart sickness and mental depression, by reason of which he had taken the long and difficult path of self denial and self effacement that led him into the activities of the Society of Jesus.

He had spent the required years in the subjugation of the flesh and the sanctification of mind and soul, when he went on board the vessel that was to take him to Quebec.

In the hope of finding a clue to Pierre’s sorrow, I extracted the letter from its silk covering. It had evidently been cherished through the vicissitudes of purification and the perils of arduous journeyings. It was signed by Marie d’Aubigney, and told of her love, that was undying but hopeless, and of her approaching compulsory marriage to “M. le Marquis.” His name did not appear in the letter.

Mingled with the musty odor of the ancient missive, I thought I detected a faint lingering perfume—at least there was one in the message, if not in the paper that bore it.

Several pages of the journal were devoted to the tempestuous voyage across the Atlantic, and a gloomy week spent in the fog off the Grand Banks. The vessel finally reached Quebec, where Pierre reported to the Superior of the Canadian Mission.

He and several other missionaries, accompanied by voyageurs and Indian guides, made a long and eventful trip up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers to Georgian Bay. They skirted its shores to Lake Huron, where a violent gale scattered their boats, and wrecked two of them.

After much danger and hardship the party landed on the wild coast, but the food supplies had been lost in the turbulent waters. In an attempt to find sustenance, Pierre and one companion wandered a considerable distance from the camp and lost their way in a snowstorm. They found an Indian village that had been depopulated by small pox, and took refuge in one of the squalid huts, where they were besieged by a pack of wolves for several days. Had it not been for some scraps of dried fish that they fortunately found in the hut, they would have starved. They were finally rescued, and Pierre ascribed their deliverance to St. Francis.

The Indians succeeded in killing some game in the woods, and, after a hazardous journey, the party reached Mackinac. Pierre went from there to Green Bay. He stayed a few months and departed for the mission on the St. Joseph river, where he remained a year.

The journal gave many details of his life as an assistant at this mission, where he baptized numerous converts, and greatly increased the attendance at the mission school.

In the hope of enlarging his usefulness, he sent a letter to Quebec, asking permission to found a new mission among the Indians inhabiting the river country south of the St. Joseph. With the doubtful means of communication the letter was a long time in reaching its destination, and he had about given up hope when a favorable reply came.

With one of his converts as a guide, he departed for the field of his new labors. They ascended the St. Joseph in a canoe, made the portage from its headwaters, and descended the Kankakee.

Frequent mention was made in the journal of the faithful guide, who proved invaluable, and of the beautiful scenery of the route. Camps were pitched on the verdant banks at night, but once, in passing through one of the vast marshes, they lost the uncertain channel and were compelled to sleep in the canoe.

They stopped at a few Indian villages along the river and were received with kindness. The journey was continued down stream beyond Jerry Island. The populous communities above and below that point commended it to his judgment. He returned and began the work of establishing his mission.

Although he found the manifold vices of paganism in the villages, he was treated with bountiful hospitality. Successive feasts were prepared in his honor, in which boiled dog was the “piece de resistance.” Willing hands assisted in the construction of the mission house, and the date of the first mass was recorded in the journal.

There was much sickness among the Indians when Pierre came, the nature of which did not appear. Orgies and incantations continued day and night to conjure away the epidemic. He performed the consolatory offices of his church in the afflicted wigwams. Soon after his arrival practically all of the sickness disappeared. Their recovered health convinced the credulous savages that the Black Robe possessed a mysterious power, and the small bottle of black powder was thought to be a mighty magic.

Ink has swayed the destinies of countless millions, but here its potency seems to have played a strange role.

Much of the journal was devoted to happenings that now seem trivial, but to the zealous disciple of Loyola—a protagonist of his faith on a spiritual frontier—they were of great moment. Detached from their contemporary human associations, events must affect the emotions or the interests of the mass of mankind if their records endure.

Pierre assisted in the councils, gave advice on temporal affairs, and patiently inculcated the precepts of his religion in the minds of his primitive flock. Impressive baptisms and beautiful deaths were noted at length. Converts who strayed from the fold, and were induced to return, were given much space.

Here and there poetic reflections graced the faded pages, and pious musings were recorded. Original verse, and quotations from favorite authors, that seemed inspired by melancholy hours, mingled with the text. The names of the various saint’s days were often used as captions for the entries, instead of calendar dates.

In the back of the book was a list of names of converts, dates of baptism, marriages and deaths, and a vocabulary of about three hundred words of the Pottowatomie dialect of the Algonquin language, with their French equivalents. Variations in the chirography indicated that the lists had grown gradually, as additions were made with different pens.

A gloomy spirit seemed to pervade the dim pages. The broken heart of Pierre de Lisle throbbed between the lines of the story of his life in the wilderness. He had carried his cross to the far places, and, in isolation, he yearned for the healing balm of forgetfulness on his fevered soul. There were evidences of a great mental conflict among the last entries. He mentioned the arrival at the island of Jacques Le Moyne, a Jesuit priest, who was on his way to a distant post on the Mississippi, and spent several weeks with him. They had been boyhood friends in France and had entered the Jesuit college at about the same time. His coming was a breath of life from the outer world.

Le Moyne told him of the death of the Marquis de Courcelles, whose existence had darkened Pierre’s life, and all of the precepts, tenets, and pageantry of the Church of Rome floated away as mists before a freshening wind.

Pierre was born again. The dormant life currents quickened, and his virile soul and body exulted in emancipation and new found hope.

The entries in the journal closed with a sorrowful farewell to his spiritual charges, of which they probably never knew, and an expression of pathetic gratitude to his friend Jacques, who had opened a gate between desolation and earthly paradise, for warm arms in France were reaching across the stormy seas, and into the wilds of the new world for Pierre de Lisle.

It seemed strange that he had left the journal and the letter of Marie d’Aubigney. He was probably obsessed by his one dominant thought, and naturally excluded everything not needed for his long journey, but if his mind had not been much perturbed and confused he might have taken or destroyed the journal, but he surely would have carried the precious letter with him.

The little bundle that he threw into the river, the day he left the island, may have contained his sacramental chalice, for in it his lips had found bitter waters.

He probably dissembled his apostasy and utilized such Jesuit facilities as were available in getting back to his native land, lulling his conscience with one of the maxims of the Society of Jesus—“the end justifies the means”—but be that as it may, the chronicles in the attic had come to an end.

I sat for a long time, listening to the patter of the rain on the old roof, and mused over the frail memorials.

There is but one great passion in the world. With it all human destiny is entwined. Votaries of established religion have ever been recruited from the disconsolate. The gray walls of convents and monasteries have lured the heart stricken, and in remote fields of pious endeavor unguents have been sought for cruel wounds. In the waste places of the earth have been scattered the ashes of despair, but while life lasts, it somewhere holds the eternal chords. At hope’s vibrant touch the enfeebled strings awake and attune to the sublime strains of the Great Lyric.

The faint echo of a song lingered in the brass bound box. The silk covered letter intoned a dream melody that the years had not hushed.

IV
THE “WETHER BOOK” OF BUCK GRANGER’S GRANDFATHER

My friend “Buck” told me something of his grandfather’s history as we sat in the genial glow of the stone fireplace the evening after I had examined the contents of the brass bound box.

The old pioneer, with his wife and two sons, had come west in 1810 and located on the island. He found many Indians there and his relations with them were very friendly. A small area was cleared and cultivated on the island, but the main source of livelihood was hunting, fishing and trapping. The woods and waters teemed with life and nature yielded easily of her abundance.

The old man lived alone for many years after the death of his wife. His sons married and went farther west. Two years before he died one of the sons, Buck’s father, returned with his wife and little boy, to the old home. Buck was now the only surviving member of the family.

His recollections of his grandfather were rather vague. He remembered him as an old man with a white bushy beard, frowsy coon skin cap, ear muffs, and fur mittens. He had spent much time with him fishing along the river, and in trips through the woods. From him he had learned the ways of the big marsh, and much of the unwritten lore of the forest. His stories of the old pioneer gave an impression of one who was much given to having his own way, rather crusty at times, but whose sympathy and kindness of heart were often imposed upon by those who knew him.

Buck said that in the old oak chest in the attic was a lot of stuff that had belonged to his grandfather. We went to the attic the next morning and took out of the chest the odd assortment of things we found in it. Most of them were of no special interest. There were some old account books, several cancelled promissory notes for small amounts, and a package of receipts. One note, payable to the old man, was marked across its face “Debt forgiven—Can’t Collect.”

I was pleased to find a bag of Indian arrow heads, many of them beautifully made, a couple of spear heads, and a tomahawk.

There was a section of a maple tree root, about a foot long, in the chest, that Buck said he had chopped out one winter in the woods near the marsh. A steel trap was imbedded in it, and between the jaws were two bones of a coon’s foot. The uneven hammer marks on the metal indicated that the trap was probably home forged. Buck had identified it as one belonging to his grandfather, and there were others like it in the chest. Apparently the victim had dragged the trap to the foot of the tree, which it was unable to climb. He had died with his leg across the young exposed root that had grown around and through the mechanism, until only a portion of the rusty chain, the end of the spring, and the upper parts of the jaws that held the little bones remained. The story of the tragedy was plainly told.

The Old Log House

In the bottom of the chest was a thick leather bound book. On the cover was some crude lettering in black ink, with labored attempts at ornamentation. On removing the dust I deciphered the inscription:

WETHER BOOK—JOSIAH GRANGER

Evidently its author had spent much time in keeping a record of the weather and of his life on the island. Innumerable thermometer readings filled columns at the right of the pages. After most of the dates were weather observations, comments on intrusive friends, and various things that had come within the sphere of a lonely existence.

Diaries are pictures of character—unsafe repositories of intimate personal things that enlighten and betray. Among the pages were traces of petty jealousies and much harmless egotism. Here and there were patches of sunlight, touches of irony and unconscious humor. At times a tinge of pathos shadowed the lines of the “wether book,” and under it all was the human story of one who, in this humble form of expression, had sought relief from solitude.

As I perused the faded chronicles the figure of the old man, sitting before his fire at night, with his pipe and almanac, diligently recording the happenings of the days that passed in his little world, seemed a reality.

The record covered a number of years, but extracts from the entries of 1852 will convey a general idea of the contents of the old book.

Jan 1st—This is the first of the yeare & I start in not very well. Cold prevales & a good dele of snow. Snow drifts stacked around the house. Cant see out. I stay mostly in my blankett.

Jan 10th—Lots of snow. Froze hard last nite. Big wind. Stade in & must hole up for rest of winter if this keaps up. Rumetiziam bad. Hiram Barnes com today with feet froze. It is blowing bad. Looks worse outside. Moon eclips was predicted for the 8th but nuthing of the kind sene.

Jan 12th—I notis by my almanack Lady J. Gray behedded today in 1555 but what for does not say & hevy rain storms predicted but nuthing of the kind. It has never ben colder. I got to melt som more snow and get the pump going. She is froze hard.

Jan 14th—Was out som today & it looks thawy. Thaw coming. Som deer traks on iland. Will get after deer soon.

Jan 16th—Got a buck today & fixed the meat. Sunup & Sunsett both according to clock. Evrything on skedule. Som sweling white cloudds off in W. The cold abates som.

Jan 20—We are geting storms in these parts & a good dele of wether comes at nite. Som days are cleare & cold with merkery stedy at Zero. The moon is around but nites dark & clouddy. Moon must hav ben full the 7th but not sene.

Jan 31st—Month closes mild yet flying snow. River ice som places over a ft. thick. This has ben a remarkabel month. Thare was too much wether in Jan. The merkery gets funny now and then. I dont think eny thermomter is akkerate.

Feb 2nd—Big thaw has com & erly in the morning a shour of rain. Got a buck on the ice at the marsh & got the meat home late. This was yesterdy. Snow is all mushy. This has ben a quere day. It is now 5 P.M.

Feb 3rd—Snow flurrys mixed with rain. Ice braking som. I heare meney cracks out on the river. As I sett down to rite in my wether book I beleve the back bone of the winter is broke.

Feb 5–6–7–8–9–10—Had 1 nice brite day & ever sence a whopping big storm. Big drifts. Cant see out. Must get some backake ointmint. Full moon was on the 5th. Good thing I got a lot of wood in. I notis in my almanack storms probabel this month & this is rite.

Feb 15th—Out yesterdy & 20 inches snow in woods. Shot 3 patriches near the house. Wolves yelld all nite. Sene gese flying N. but they beter go back. It is warmer thow. Som deer crossed river last nite. This is being a remarkabel month. Cool & misty air prevales as I rite.

Feb 20—I was down to the marsh. This was yesterdy. Got 36 rats from 42 trapps. 2 trapps lost. Som rat houses near chanel butted out by ice moving along. Sene som gese very high going N. One I think was a flock of swanns. Fogg & sleat tonite.

Feb 21–22–23–24–25—All bad days. G. Washington had a birthday on the 22nd. That was my birthday too. The politicks would make him sick if he could see them now. Thares lots of dead pepil that would not like what is now going on, and we would not like som things they done if we was thare.

Feb 28—Snow most gone & hard rain. Lot of ice moving in river. I sene 4 flocks gese 5 of ducks, mostly bloobills. Thare has ben few deer this winter. I got 2 bucks & 1 doe all fat in good condition & I got a small bear. This was over neare Wild Catt Swamp on the 18th & I forgot to rite it down. Old Josiah & the dog was thare on that date.

Feb 29th—This is leap yeare. Hav not ben out today. I am geting throw the winter all rite. Feb a changabel month. It closes with foggs & high water. S. Conkrite com today on his way to the marsh. His noos is Ed Baxter & Fanny Noonan got marrid Jan 6th. Probly she asked him. Wether tonite looks thick. Cloudds both big & black are in the West.

March 5th—Gese coming rite along now & thousans of ducks. Rats on the marsh ben prety fare. Got a lot so far but probly will find prices bad. Your uncle Josiah was all over the oak tract in boat for malards. Got over 50. He had on his shooting shirt. They was after the acorns in about 2 ft. of watter. This was yesterdy. Meney ducks going on N. & som gese gone too but som will stay & make nests.

March 11th—2 egals lit today on the iland & stade around all P.M. They may think of nesting heare. Old Josiah will take a popp at them. Dense cloudds are around.

March 15th—I notis in my almanack big flodes all over the south & sweling rivers predicted. Big flode heare too as I rite & evrything overflode. River ice all gone. Lots of dead timber coming down & floting bushes. Most of the noos you read in the almanack is bad. On most all of the dates bloodshed & fires & famins are notised & meney batels & deaths of Kings & Quenes. Funy no Jacks are spoken of. Shot 62 ducks 11 gese. Lost aminition on a big flock. Snipe are around & som plover coming in. Got 34 rats & a wolf. This was yesterdy. Saw 2 deer at Huckelbery Byou. They left on time. Thare was wild catt traks on the iland Monday morning after a lite bust of snow. Would like to get that cuss. He beter look out for the old man. His skin would make a good vest. Moon was full on the 6th but I ben busy rite along & not evrything ritten down. This is a bad day & I stade in. Awful hard rain going on as I rite. You get a buckett full in the face if you open the door. High wind & probly a lot of damage somwhare. It is now 8 P.M. & your uncle Josiah to bed.

March 16th—Clearing wether. Was out but rumetiziam som worse. Lost aminition on 2 gese that flew over at evening. My almanack says the planatary aspecks for planting potattoes will be faverabel in 4 weeks now. I notis thare has ben a lot of small animils around. Som skunks & foxes. Must put out som trapps.

March 20—Clear brite & calm & no wether now for foar days. It is a new moon like a mellin rine tonite & I sene it over my left sholder. It hangs wet in the west & this menes rain. Fixed the chickin house against all skunks & foxes but weezels may get in. A wolf has ben around the iland. A fogg prevales tonite.

March 21—Bad day but it gets into spring now.

March 22—Good wether for ducks but they fly high. Beter for gese. Gusty looking sky tonite.

March 24th—I went after them yesterdy. Got no ducks but it was good wether for them. Shot 22 gese. Bad day for gese too. Got 40 rats. Perhaps a small snow tonite. Looks likely.

March 26th—Got a boat full of rats. Will skin tomorrow. This was yesterdy I got the rats. Bad storm today. Cant see out. Wether foul & bad. Old Josiah gets mushrats all rite when he goes out in his little trapping boat.

March 27th—Cold day. Thermomter busted March 10. Cant tell how cold it is but it is cold. The merkery must be way down. Lite bust of snow as I rite. Must get som Magic Oil for stif joints.

March 28th—River is froze along edges but open in the curent. Ducks & Gese moving thick. Big bunches went over today flying high. Som deer around. Must go after deer tomorrow. A lot of Jaybirds round the house. Crows & Jaybirds make rackett. Must hav quiet. Must get bag of small shot.

March 30th—Got no deer yesterdy. Sene one but too far off. If could hav shot with a spy glass I could hav got him if I had one. Got som sasafras. Must cook som spring medicin. I now have all ingrediments.

March 31st—Foggy today. Snipe around. Lite sprinkel of rain. Lost aminition on bunch of plover flying over. Chopped som wood. Caught 2 weezels & a skunk. This was yesterdy. Froggs are around. Got a new thermomter but I think it not akkerate. The merkery is red. Probly all rite for sumer wether. Am now taking Sistom Tonick. Good dele of baptist wether & som snow this month but in general a fine month. Ducks & gese hav ben thicker than hare on a dog & I done well on rats too. Got all trapps out of marsh & som not mine. Spring is rite on skedule. Tomorrow is April fools day & a lot of them are around.

April 6–7–8–9–10—All fare days with no wether, but a mushy bust of snow has com as I rite. On the 9th was Good Friday. Our Lord was Crucufied in my Almanack on that date. That was a big mistake. I notis for 3 days sunup & sunsett late compard with clock so hav sett clock. Sun & clock now on skedule acording to almanack & with my noon marker on the stump & notch in window sill evrything is all rite up to date. Your uncle Josiah knos the time of day.

April 11th—I see that Henry Clay was born today in 1776. I was always a Henry Clay man. This is Easter Sunday the day on which Our Lord is Risen. Thare is a lot of pepil that should take notis.

April 15th—Buds are well out & on skedule. Thare are freckels around the trees showing we had a hard winter. Froggs are around thick. It was bad wether for rats in Jan & Feb but they wintered well. I must go after supplys & som spring medicin. I got som bisness to tend to.

April 18th—Must plant all gardin sass now. Moon is right tonite & this is the time. A man com up from Beaver Lake & says hard winter thare. Wm Hull a stedy helthy man of good bild & sober was froze with cold. He was coming home from mil & he lived over neare West Creek. This was Jan 12th. He was found by 2 squas out after wood. He was found froze. He owed me som money. This was a bad day. Sky looks all chesy tonite.

April 20th—Befoar sunup a lite spatter of rain that turned into bad storm with high wind. All this must dry out then must plant. Lots of herons nesting up to herontown this yeare same as usual in the sickamores. Your uncle Josiah was all in thare in a boat. A hooting owl was up the cottonwood last nite over the house. I got up with the gunn & made a bloody mess of him. They cannot hoot above your uncle while he sleeps.

April 24th—Jaybirds & crows ben jawing a good dele round the house & making a rackett & thare is a lot of fox squorls & coons bobbing around the iland when the wether is still & a bear com across. Would like to get that cuss. Lots of wolves around. Big spring for ducks & gese but most hav left. Meny staying to bild nests. Must see in the attic what seeds I hav then must plan. Must plant erly stuff. It is now 5 P.M.

April 26th—Got all seeds in yesterdy. Robbins & Bloobirds & a lot of Woodpekers & Chipping birds are around & they are mostly bilding nests. I must plant som mellins. A good mellin in the shade on a hot day is a fine thing. Almanack predicted April would be seasonable & this is rite so far.

April 30th—Thares skunks on the iland maybe 3 or 4. Froggs are prety noisy. Them crokers keap it up. Considrabel snipe around & some plover. April has ben a remarkabel month. Mostly wet but meney fare days. Thare was a lot of wether betwene the 1st & 15th. Lots of froggs & enybody that wants a bullfrogg pie could get one rite heare if they went after it. This is the place.

May 4th—No wether now sence the 30th. Fare & nether warm or cold. Florida & Iowa admited into The Union yesterdy in 1845. Them are twin states. The line of beens has sprouted & must look out for Jaybirds they will get into these. The weeds will com along all rite. You Bet.

May 5th—N. Bonapart died in 1821. He was a bad egg.

May 8th—Sumery wether & fishing in the river is good. S. Conkrite was down & says he got a pike of 17 lbs. I got one of 19. Pike are thick. I can cetch all I want rite in front of the house & bass & cattfish. It is knoing whare they are. He can not tell me eny thing he is a wind bag. Old Josiah was not born yesterdy or the day befoar ether.

May 10th—Vegetition greening up & evrything lively & on skedule. Pete Quagno & his squa com today to see how I was & if I had eny tobaco. Him & the other inguns down the marsh all had a bad winter. They got a lot of rat skins & coons & som Foxes. They et the bodies of all them animils & smoaked som. Thare is nuthing not et by savidges. Thare was a lot of sickness around thare. It shoured hard again to day as well as yesterdy & this may wash them off som. Unusual shours along with thunder & litening all P.M. Them inguns went back in the rain.

May 12th—Plum blosoms plenty. Potattoes up. All sines say a hot sumer. Good meny snakes around som prety long ones. Som drizzel in the air as I rite.

May 13–14–15–16–17—Spatters of rain a good dele now. Looks like a wet May if this keaps up.

May 18th—Fishing prety good. Got a boatfull of pike & bass yesterdy. I heare S. Conkrite has caught nuthing up to his place even if he uses netts. Must salt down som for winter. Thares lots of sukkers in the river. Evry litle while you get one & thare are a few eles. Must smoak som.

May 19th—I put som 70 lbs. of fish in the pork brine that is all empty now. Must get another barel for pork in the fall. Sprinkels as I rite.

May 23rd—Sombody stole my minnie box or it floted off. On this day my almanack says Capt Kidd a famous pirate was hung in London & this was rite. Thares a lot around now but not famous. Thick & sticky air tonite.

May 25th—Think I sene a lite frost this morning. Funy for this time of yeare. Went after the skunks on the iland last nite & got som. The chickins & me do not want skunks around. I got 3 in trapps & 1 with gunn & 1 got me. You Bet. Thares too meney skunks. Som clouddy tonite with wobblie sunsett.

May 27th—Foxes & skunks both got into the chickins last nite. Thares too meney of both & if the chickins would only roost in the trees. It is hard work to rase chickins & they get lots of things the mater with them. Frisky looking sky tonite.

May 29th—Ed Baxter & his noo wife Fanny Noonan com today. It is hard to see why them 2 got marrid. They wanted to see how I was & to borro som things. Ed has got a sqwint in one eye & I gues that is why he got fooled. Ed & her are both red hedded & she did not draw much when she marrid him. I notis the temperature remains about the same with litle or no drop or rise.

May 31st—These are fine days. S. Conkrite com down & I tell him I hav 4 barels of pike & bass that I caught & pikeled at odd times. He brought som noos. He says thare was timber theves working down the river all the winter & spring & them logs that went out was all stole. They was all cut by the theves & floted down to the Illinoi when high watter com. Next winter something will be done by the owners if they begin again. He says over a thousan logs was floted out & partys are not knone. Looks som like rain as I rite. He says if the theves get caught they will be convicted by the laws of both states. The sherifs hav all ben given notis. Almanack predicted May would be seasonabel & this is rite. This has ben a remarkabel month.

June 2nd—Fine still day but all fish biting stoped when it thundered in P.M. A swizzel of rain at evening.

June 10th—All this month so far fine days & sumery. Eny who do not like this wether should have no wether at all. I got the gunn & blowed a noo hornet nest in the tree by the pump. Will not need them. They are worse than democrats. I notis flys are around.

June 11–12–13–14–15—All fine days. Nuthing hapened.

June 17th—On this day in 1775 was the Batel of Bunker Hill. Bad day for England. Fish hav bit well. No wether to rite down. All fine. Your uncle Josiah enjoys this. I must tell S. Conkrite of a catt fish I sene in the river today 4 ft long. This fish was probly 6 ft if he sene it when it passed his place. It was slopping in the shallo watter out on the sand bar. It was probly astonished at all my empty medicin botles that are all over the botom out thare.

June 27th—It rained catts & dogs & pitchforks today & I fore saw this in the wether breeding cloudds of last nite. A hooting owl was around but too dark to bust him. Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet murdered in the almanack today in 1844. Som wife troubel probly.

June 30th—Good month all through. Potattoes begin to carry buggs. Must brush them off. June is a bugg month. Gardin fine if the woodchucks would keap out. Shot severil & will shoot these rite along. Must get them off the iland & the skunks too. You Bet. Coppery looking sunsett tonite.

July 2nd—Geting hot wether. I do not kno whare all the potattoe buggs are from. Thare must be a big bugg town somwhare that they all hale from. We need som rain. The moon is now full.

July 4th—This is the Nation’s birth day but thare are too meney forriners. J. Podnutt S. Conkrite & Amos Horner Ed Baxter & Peleg S. Mason all com down. I think Podnutt is a forriner. Thares lots of miskitos now & they bit well in the shade & plenty of flys. These men all say it has never ben so dry. Thares no watter up the byous & the marsh is drying out. Conkrite says thare are big fish left swiming in puddels back in the woods whare the watter went down & left them in April & he says pike & bass as long as your arm are thare. I tell him he beter drop some salt in them puddels. Tally 1 for old Josiah. Sam Green & a man named Wasson com in the P.M. to see if thare was eny hay around. Wasson I think is a forriner. On Jan 5th 1828 it says in the almanack the Turks banished all forriners from their empire. Thare was too meney thare like thare is heare. Green says catel not geting filled on grass yet can live. When my tobaco was gone these men all left in boats. They went home by bugg lite at nite. Such a pack of lies hav never ben told as today. I think Wasson should cut som whiskers this fall. It is prety hot as I rite & thare is too much tumoil & visiting & too much going on heare & thare. Thares too much passing to & fro. Thares too meney flys & thares too dam meney pepil. God bless all departing travelors. I rite this on the 5th.

July 11th—It has never ben hotter even in the shade. Hamilton & Burr had a duel this day in 1804. Burr was a good shot but a bad man. For a week it has ben to hot to rite in my wether book. & the nites are sticky.

July 12th—We are having a bad dry spell & I fore saw this erly in the month. Only 1 lite spurt of rain sence erly June. I stay in the shade for I do not want eny body to get sun struck. This is a big miskito month & they are at it constant. Eny body that wants miskitos & natts can get them rite heare. Take notis. This is the place & dog days is the time.

July 13—Hottest we ever had. At Nantuckett rite close to the watter 300 bildings burnt today in 1846. Took fire from the sun probly. A big snapping turkel was around the pump today. Maybe he was chased out of the river by the heat.

July 15th—My almanack says Jeruselum was taken today in 1029. It is probly hot thare now. If the almanack would go as far foreds as it goes back it would be a valubel record. It says also W. Penn died in 1718 on the 20th. I keep my almanack heare with me in the shade. Penn was a grate man. I com from his state. It has never ben so hot as sence the 10th. Your uncle Josiah has got the thermomter on the tree by the pump now to cool it som.

July 16–17–18–19–20—When it is hot I sett genraly out of the sun & smoak. That old yellow pipe is prety hot & it works all day. This has ben going on for a week now. You can lite a match by sticking it in the river now if you want to. It is sissing hot. You can cook eny thing by setting it out doors. No frost in the air now. You Bet. I wattered all gardin sass from the river with a buckett at evening & all grows well, but some probly cooked. The merkery will hav to climb the tree if this keaps up.

July 31st—Too hot to rite in wether book. Still dry. I mostly stay down by the pump & the flys like this. I slep out on the grass sence the 15th & the miskitos liked that. This has ben a remarkabel month.

Aug. 1st—In August on the 1st in 1798 was the Batel of the Nile so my almanack says. Must have ben hot out on the watter in Egipt at that time. Meteors which are bals of fire in the sky are predicted for August. They should begin dropping soon & your uncle Josiah will keap his eye open. It is so dry now that Ed Baxter says the mushrats hav all left the marsh & they are all going out round the country for watter to qwench their thirst. He says thare are cases whare they went to wells & fell in & 1 com to the watter buckett in his house. Bad sumer for rats. A good catt nap in the shade is a fine thing now.

Aug. 2nd—This is Monday & I have stade in the shade now sence this thing commenced. This wether will probly blister the buggs off the potattoes. They wont get off no other way until it gets cool if they are waiting for your uncle to brush them. Everything well het up. Lots of smoak. Big fire in the woods somwhare I bet.

Aug. 5th—Nuthing ritten now sence the 2nd. Thare is thunder off in the west tonite & she is coming up. Som wind & all sines say a soking storm of rain.

Aug. 7th—Raining hevy as I rite. Rained all nite long & yesterdy. Must patch the roof som. Had to put a buckett under a leak last nite. Good thing I got plenty of bucketts. Litening struck all around in woods hard all nite.

August 9th—Awful rains sence the nite of the 5th. We are geting too much rain. Seems like something has busted up above and all thare is is coming down. Som should be saved up & sprinkeled along the rest of the calender. What is the use of all this. This is a very wet time. Thare are no flodes predicted for this time of the yeare. I must read the bible som if this keaps up & bild an ark. This is a grate lesson to us all. In 1812 on this date a caravan of 2000 Turks from Mecca was destroyed in the Desert by lack of watter. I bet they wished they had som of this. Too bad all the Turks were not thare. All Turks are wicked men & it says som whare in the bible that they shall have their part in Hell Fire. Hell Fire & Turks will mix well. The litening was after your uncle again last nite.

August 10th—Clearing now with som wind & again warm. Looks wet in the west. Thares watter enough to swim the young ducks around now all rite & plenty of it for eny body that wants it. My potattoe buggs all floted away. This shows that trubels of all kinds will quit som time if you wait & do nuthing. You could swim all over the country now. Ed Baxter & S. Conkrite com in a boat today to see how I was & if I was still above watter & to borro tobaco & cowcumbers. When eny body coms around it is always somthing for them. They both say They never sene so meney snakes around as this yeare. Ed Says he killed 4 rattlers & Conkrite says he got 6. These men will both see more snakes next year than they did this if they do not quit. Conkrite’s biggest snake was 5 ft with 6 ratles. I showed them a skin I took off of 6 ft with 9 ratles & they lit som more of my tobaco & told of erly days. I notis they all get into the trees when your uncle Josiah comences to talk. His feet are mates & he drinks nuthing but pump watter. Snakes do not com around him much but when they do they are Whoppers. Drizzeled som at nite.

Aug. 15—It is hot again & the Old Bull Eye now glares stedy on the crops. Thare was a pop corn sky last nite. No cloudds today. Full bugg lite at nite.

Aug. 21st—Thare com up a hale storm today that was over in 5 minits with hale stones big as pidgun eggs & a strong wind that would blow bark off a bass wood. I do not kno whare it com from. Somthing must hav hapened up above to do all this. Hale turned to rain & it drizzels as I rite. Meney litle ded todes & froggs are all over the iland whare they probly rained down. Maybe fish & small live stock will com next.

Aug. 22nd—Cleared off all rite but cloudds in the north look like wether breeders tonite & it is a mackral sky all over. Ed Baxter & Conkrite com today in a boat that looks like the one that got loose & floted off away from my place 3 years ago. It is now painted up & the ores changed. They com to see how I was & to borro som big fish hooks for their sett lines. I tell them to use an axe for big fish same as I do. Could not find eny hooks after I sene that boat. My eye sight got bad. The old man’s mind is foggy. He does not kno how to do.

Aug. 31st—Your uncle Josiah went down to the marsh yesterdy to see how mushrats are. They sumered well. Young ones are thick & well grown & geting lots of clams. Meney wood ducks around & the ducks hatched in the marsh all are flying well. Cloudded up at nite & had a dark time geting back. The moon was around but it was so dark a cat could find nuthing. Thares an awful lot of new thick grass in the marsh. I do not like watter with so much whiskers on it. This has ben a quere month & thermomter has jumped around a good dele. This has ben a remarkabel month.

Sept. 1st—The meteors in my almanack did not fall in August & predictions not reliabel. Nuthing of the kind around. It is geting along toreds fall. Pidguns are around. They broke som ded lims on the iland this week whare they roosted. Thares slews of them. This is a good yeare for pidguns. I got 33 with 2 shots. They did not kno that your uncle Josiah was around with a gunn. I notis in my almanack Oisters are now in season. Nuthing of the kind around heare.

Sept. 4th—Soon after sunup it looked like streky black cloudds up above but it was pidgun flocks coming south. Pidguns are all over now. Big droves roosted around last nite. I must salt down som. They are in the woods after the young akerns. Pidguns still going over. Cant tell if it is clouddy. Warm day thow.

Sept. 10th—Must get a houn pupp. Old Tike is geting wobblie in the nose & he looses his nose now & then. He is sick som & not lively. He is a good dog but he has erned his money. He is now going on 13 yeares & has ben over the country som sence I had him. S. Conkrite had some pupps last week & I must go up. They may be all spoken for thow. Must get som supplys & som backake ointmint. Hell I broke my pipe. Wether breeding clouds in the west tonite as I rite.

Sept. 12th—A sorel mare was stolen by 2 men & a buggy Tuesday nite from Ed Baxter who had just bote the mare. They caught these men over 18 miles off on the Hickery Top Road & they are now locked in jale. He was down at evening to see how I was & to get some eggs. The sherif & a possy was what nabbed the theves. I hear from Ed that Henry Clay died last June & that a chese facktory & brick kill are to be bilt neare West Crick. I fore see a church next. This country is geting too much setled up. Thares too dam meney pepil. It rained som today but cleared at noon. Ed had a lot of noos. He went off home by bugg lite about 9. He kep me up. I rite this on the 13th.

Sept. 14—A wolf has ben on this iland frequent & has ben after chickins & eny thing he can get. I set a trapp & he turned it over & got the bate evry time. Last nite I set it botom sid up & he turned it over & I got that cuss. He did not kno the trapp was botom upwards & he was astonished. You can not fool much with your uncle Josiah. Som drizzel in the air tonite & som colder. It is geting into fall all rite. I kno whare 2 bee trees are. Your uncle has them spotted. Thare will be honey heare in about a week. You Bet.

Sept. 17th—The merkery took a sudden jump & it is hot as July & August. I slep out on the grass last nite. A good mush mellin in the shade is a fine thing now. Conkrite & Baxter com yesterdy when I was not within & left a buckett they borowed Saturday to take down the river. I must put a date on that for its the first thing they ever brought back.

Sept. 20th—I got a cubb bear that was 1–2 in & 1–2 out of a bee tree after honey & got him home well chained with a colar. I got about 60 lbs honey. This was yesterdy & the day befoar. The animil eats well & acts tame but scared. I name him Jim Crow.

Sept. 21st—S. Conkrite & Ed Baxter & Wife com today to see how I was & to see if I got eny honey yet. They are rite on skedule. Also they wanted to borro som small shot & to get som fouls. Ed’s wife made beleve she was scared of the bear. Probly so Ed would save her from it. Conkrite says he got a wild catt over to the swamp that was 37 inches tip to tip. I got one 40 inches last winter that I spoke nuthing of. Mine was a feerce animil. Conkrite blows a good dele. The pupp I got from Conkrite houls all the time & has et his hed off up to date. Jim Crow got a peice of the pupp yesterdy when he got neare. The pupp tried to bite Conkrite & I think this shows he was treated bad at home. I asked Conkrite about pork for winter pikel but he semes to think my place is whare money dripps off the roof & shakes out of the trees. At killing time it will be diferent. Ed Baxter says he has dug a deeper well. His other he says is full of mushrats that com for watter in dry spell in July to qwench their thirst & now living thare. I tell him to sett & fish for them with a pole. It is now 8 P.M. & your uncle is reddy for his blankett.

Sept. 25th—I went after supplys. Old Josiah now has plenty of evrything. Thare is Backake Remedy Foot Ointmint Magick oil for Stif Joints & Pain Killer & 2 kinds of Bitters & Sistom Tonick & pills both blue & pink. I got Condition Powders for chickins if sick. I got som tobaco black as Egipt for those who com to borro. It is strong enough so you can pull nales with it. I got all they had and some candels. Jim Crow is well & he likes all swete things. I got Jim som stripped candy 3 sticks. The Pacific Ocean was discovered in 1513 by my almanack on this day. Funy they missed it befoar. When I com by Ed Baxter’s place last nite the boat that used to be mine got loose & com along down with me. I find certain marks on it that I will show Ed. I reckonize my own boat & it now seeks its home. A drizzel of mosture as I rite. I tended to a lot of bisness today. Conkrite says the Sistom Tonick I ben buying is loaded but does not say what with. He says mix a lot of pump watter with it & not take to much or darkness will com.

Sept. 28th—The wether stays moist. Today in 1828 in the almanack the sultan proceeds to the Turkish Camp with the sacred standard. Probly stole from som whare.

Sept. 29th—These cold stormy drizzels may bring in a few ducks. Would like som ducks. Moon full last nite but not sene.

Oct. 1st—Sept. was a quere month without much wether other way. Oct. now opens clear with frost that nipped the vines last nite. Had the pupp out for a run on rabbitts. His nose is good & he may learn. I never sene a good dog that com from S. Conkrite’s yet. Was down to the marsh yesterdy & meney noo rat houses. They are bilding thick & high & this menes a hard winter & high watter in the spring. All sines say a hard winter. Snipe are skitting around & thare is a lot of mudd hens & loons in the marsh. 2 deer swum the marsh & dove into the timber. They kno when Old Josiah has got a gunn & when he left it home. Sam Green & his friend Wasson com in a boat tonite to see how I was & to get som honey. The pupp bit Wasson. Tally 1 for the pupp. These men also wanted to borro tobaco. Gave them som of the black. I tell them smoaking that kind makes me strong.

Oct. 6th—Stormed & I stade in. Conkrite com in the rain to see how I was & to borro powder & see if I had eny thing in my medicins for boils. He says he com yesterdy & nocked but I was not within. I was then in the woods traning the pupp. His noos is Ed Baxter claims he has 2 twins that com erly this morning & I bet they look like young mushrats. He spoke of pork but old Josiah is keaping prety still until after the snow flys. He says of Ed’s twins they are both boys & red hedded. Thares too meney Baxters now. S. C. Says them 2 twins will be named James & John.

Oct. 12th—In the full of the moon & on a frosty nite your uncle Josiah goes after coons & I note this down. It will be the 27th if nite is clear. I notis Columbus landed today in the almanack in 1492. He was the first of the forriners.

Oct. 18th—Nuthing happened sence the 12th, but last nite a killing frost & today a swizzel of rain & sleat with N.W. Wind. This will bring down ducks & gese. Stade in today & clened up shot gunn & rifel & all trapps. Saw to all aminition. Evrything all fixed up as I rite. Put all potattoes & vegitibels in sod celer & evrything all tite up to date. Cleared off som today & som ducks are coming & som gese are in the sky. Unusual wether for Oct. Gese honks all nite long as I slept. This was last nite. I got 25 lbs tobaco in the sod celer too. When I need tobaco this winter I kno whare som is.

Oct. 19—Blowing strong from N.W. Rain & sleat. Sky all speckeled with ducks & gese. They are coming in slews now. Gese honk all nite can not sleep. Active wether will come rite along now. No more lofing for your uncle Josiah. He gets on his sheap skin coat now. Take notis. He is in the field.

Oct. 20–21–22–23–24–25—I ben busy all this time. Josiah is around with a gunn. He makes fethers fly & he fetches in the birds. Fine gese & duck wether. The marsh is black with them evry morning at sunup. The Irish Rebelion was on the 23rd of this month in 1641. They begun coming heare then.

Oct. 30th—Duck & Gese wether has stoped & ingun sumer is upon us. I fore saw this. They are around som whare but shooting is poor. No duck & gese wether for a while yet. I stoped at S. Conkrite’s. I got to hav pork, but he said nuthing of pork & neither did your uncle Josiah. He has 9 squeeling around all fat in good condition.

Oct. 31st—This has ben a remarkabel month & changabel at times as almanack predicted. Jim Crow is well. He has et well. I see hevy bunches of cloudds in west that I fore see will breed duck & gese wether as I rite. I notis in my almanack that meney thousans of pepil died of sickness in India at this time of the yeare in 1724. Thare is too many pepil. No sickness heare much at eny time. This is a helthy section only 3 died in 5 yeares. I see deer are around.

Nov. 2nd—Althow a stormy day Ed Baxter com in P.M. to see how I was & to get honey & som tobaco if I hed eny. He told all the noos of them 2 twins James & John & you would think nobody ever had eny befoar. It is all about them 2 red heds all the time how they et & how they are smart & how much they way. All the branes in the country are setled in James & John. He says he will bring them & show me. They must be som site & I will be struck blind in 1 eye probly. You would think the world had com to the end in them 2 & they was Danl Webstor. Thare was an awful famin in Italy in the yeare 450 when parents et their children.

Nov. 3rd—Lite snow bust in the nite & I found bear traks all around this morning. Som friend com to see Jim Crow probly. The pupp now sleeps with Jim in the dog house & he howld in the nite. Som rain sputtering as I rite.

Nov. 4th—Roring wind from the North today. A hevy sky & sleat. I notis meney duck flocks & gese.

I will be busy now rite along. Must get a deer. A little venzon rite now would be fine. Your uncle Josiah has apitite for som.

Nov. 6th—Got a buck rite on the iland. They will go poking their heds in the window to get shot if I dont watch out. This was yesterdy. Jim Crow is loose now & spends time mostly on the roof & up the cottonwood. He was in the chickins Tuesday nite & today he was in the house & upsett things. Might as well be a horse loose in the house. Must put him back on chain. If you want to keap busy you want to keap a bear. He is a quere cuss & probly smells the honey. She still blows & tomorro I go for ducks. Wish I had all the lead I spattered around on that marsh in my time. Must have raised the watter som.

Nov. 7–8–9–10–11–12—Was on the marsh all these days & tired at nite. Wether lite winds & drizzeley. No finer duck & gese wether ever sene. Your uncle was among them & he shook them loose. I com in wet tonite & must sett around a while. I see traks showing sombody has ben heare. Probly Conkrite or Ed Baxter to see how I was & to borro somthing & tell me of them 2 twins. Must wrap up in my blankett & take som strong medicin. I got a cold & I got wether pains. Will stay in & rite in my wether book. On Nov. 9th in 1837 the quene of England dined at Guildhall. Good meal probly.

Nov. 13—When your uncle Josiah takes medicin he doses up. I took 4 kinds today & kep my feet hot with my watter jug. I got a good fire. Storms hevy outside but that does not hurt me eny. I read all it says on all my medicin botles & I can get nuthing they will not cure. I got Jim Crow & the pupp in the house for company now. They sleep mostly. When they awake they make troubel. I fore see that these animils must be put out.

Nov. 14th—Somthing I took yesterdy or last nite has helped som. I slep well. Probly it was 1 of the bitters. Snow prevales outside & she falls hevy as I rite. I put Jim & the pupp out. Thare was too meney in the house. Jim has got honey coam & the pupp has got bones in the dog house so they are hapy. Nobody could want more than that unless they are crazy about money.

Nov. 15–16–17—I stade within mostly on these days. We are having a spell of wether. My bitters & my Sistom Tonick are most gone but I still got plenty of 2 kinds that I take internal & 3 kinds to rub on. Wolves howl around a good dele at nite. I keap my sasafras tea het up rite along but the bitters do most of the work. They are strong stuff & have som get app to them. Sky is full of ducks & gese do a lot of honking over the house. Probly to twitch me while I cant get out. Your uncle feals som beter but he is wise. He will not go out too soon. It would be beter for som body to go that would not be so much loss.

Nov. 18—S. Conkrite com today to see how I was & wanted to trade me a nice fat hogg for Jim Crow & I done this. Jim is geting a litle sassy & Conkrite’s will be a good place for him. Will now hav pork to put in pikel & to smoak. He is to kill the pork & bring it & after that is to take Jim home. I fore see that Jim will make troubel. I am up & around all rite now. Must go after supplys of bitters & Sistom Tonick soon & I must get a chese. A smitch of chese helps out a meal. Looks wethery tonite & snow probabel.

Nov. 19th—S. Conkrite com today with the pork & it is good pork. We fixed a crate to put Jim Crow in & he made a lot of fuss. Them 2 looked funy going off in the boat. Cold & freezing som & ducks & gese have lit out. Thare are deer around thow. I made soft soap today.

Nov. 20th—Ed Baxter com in P.M. to see how I was & to hang som meat in my smoak house. When he sene the soft soap he wanted to borro som. Probly to wash them red hedded twins. S. Conkrite also com at evening & Sam Green & Wasson all with pork to smoak. I got lots of friends. My pork must pikel a while befoar it smoaks but I got to fire up the smoak house now for these men’s pork. They all like this because its something for them. Ed told a lot about them twins. Thare has never ben such twins. Conkrite’s noos is Jim Crow got away. The traks stade around the chickins a while & then went to the woods whare fethers were found. Lite sift of snow to nite. The Cape of Good Hope was doubled in the almanack today in 1497. Quere they wanted 2 capes thare.

Nov. 21st—Jim Crow was up the cottonwood this morning when I went out. Him & the pupp are now in the dog house. Conkrite will probly com after Jim. She snows & blows hevy as I rite.

Nov. 23rd—My smoak house is well knone. Pete Quagno & 2 other inguns com today to see about puting things in it but I tell them I want to kno what they are. They say all sines show a hard winter coming. No danger of them inguns stealing my soft soap. Your uncle Josiah is now all well & feals fine. He was all over the iland today. He could pull up a tree or kick the chimbly off the house if it had to be. I notis too meney small animil tracks on the iland & I will now tend to these. The pupp is fine & he now goes with me. Lite snow last nite & I see a wild catt has ben across and I would like to get his fur.

Nov. 25th—Yesterdy I stade within with my medicins as I did not feal so well. I got a stummick misry. Conkrite was down & took Jim Crow back today. I do not think Jim likes Conkrite. He tried to get a peice out of Conkrite when they was in the boat. Me & Jim always got along all rite. Snow is faling.

Nov. 26–27–28—Snows all the time now. She dont know when to quit. My almanack says G. Washington crossed the deleware Nov. 28th. It missed saying what yeare but he got whare he wanted to go. Moon was full on the 26th but not sene.

Nov. 29th—S. Conkrite com with som meat to smoak today & it looks like bear meat. I fear Jim Crow is now in the smoak house. That man knos nuthing of how to keap pets. I was off in the woods when Conkrite com but I kno it is Jim all rite. He was a fine bear & affecksionet. I wish Conkrite had his dam pork back & I had Jim Crow.

Nov. 30th—That meat is not Jim at all for Jim is back & up the cottonwood this morning. He did not want to com down but him & the pupp are in the dog house as I rite. Jim likes it around heare. Mackarel sky tonite & changing wether probabel. Nov. a remarkabel month all through.

Dec. 1–2–3–4–5–6—I ben fealing porly now som time with the misry in my stummick. Tried som of all my internal medicins & feal som beter today. Hav rubbed my Rumatiziam with Pain Killer & took pills both blue & pink that are for liver complaint. Poor old Tike was sick too. I gave him the box of condition powders I got in the fall for the chickins but he quit that nite. This was on Saturday the 4th. The powders may not hav kep well or maybe not good for a dog. I lost my best friend. Bad wether now. I think animils should have no medicin at all of eny kind.

Dec. 7th—Ed Baxter com today to see how I was & to get his smoaked pork. I promis to take Christmas diner with Ed & Wife. I must take presents for James & John. Likely a buckett of soft soap will be good for them 2. Looks gusty & snowy tonite.

Dec. 8th—S. Conkrite & Green & his friend Wasson all com to see how I was today & get their smoaked stuff. Conkrite says would like me to keap Jim Crow a while longer for he is too meney up to his place. This I will do for Jim & me get along fine. Jim went up the cottonwood when he sene Conkrite. Thares too meney smoak houses on this iland & too much smoaking going on for other pepil. Snow storm slanting from the north west & drifting som as I rite. I fore saw this last nite. I think Conkrite is the one that is too meney up to his place instid of Jim Crow. I got wether pains in both back & legs now.

Dec. 9th—Now she snows. Big drifts. Can not see dog house from window. I now got Jim Crow & the pupp in the house. My wether pains som worse. Must stay in my blankett.

Dec. 10th—A soft thaw has come on sudden. A warm sun prevales & evrything all slushy. Good wether for wet feet. Your uncle still stays within.

Dec. 12th—Both S. Conkrite & Ed Baxter com today & brought me a new almanack for next yeare. This is the first time they ever com that it was not somthing for them. They said I don litle favers for them & they would like to make me this litle present. This all shows that if you keap being good to pepil all your life some day they will bring you a nice litle almanack. Probly they will want somthing next trip. I gave them som Sistom Tonick & they liked that. Ed Spoke of them 2 twins & they are both well & awful smart. He asked if my smoak house was still in good working order & if my hens ben laying well lately & if I had plenty of potattoes on hand.

Dec. 13th—Them 2 inguns that come heare last with Pete Quagno & his squa com today & their noos is that Pete & his squa are both sick & wanted tobaco. I sent Pete 2 pink pills. Them 2 inguns wanted me to send Pete & his squa a big lot of tobaco by them but they did not know that your uncle Josiah was setting around smoaking befoar eny of them was born.

Dec. 14th—Last nite I read in my noo almanack. I notis it predicts worse wether for next yeare. Storms & Tempests will prevale with intense frosts probabel at times, but thare will be much changabel wether & meney meteors that will betoken war. Thare will be awful winds on Parts of the Earth. In the back are som Prophesies made by the Seventh Son, which I copy down. He says thare will be wars and rumours of wars & Turbulence & Teror will apear on evry hand & cloudds of darkest hue will hang over the World in the East. Fires will abound & Tumults & Bloodshed & Plots & Uprores in som Nations. Subject Pepils will turn & bite the hoof that holds them down. A certain Luckless King may loose his hed & something may hapen to the Pope. Armed Men may march to & fro & meney will be smitten to the Dust. Blood will be shed in Ireland. Tyrants will shake their Rods & the Torch of Discord will be hurled in Crimea. The Couch of Mortality will be spred & meney pepil will die during the yeare. Low Moans of the Oppressed will be heard in Italy. It is all bad noos in the almanack for next yeare. The 7th Son predicts that Flocks of Boobies will assale the TRUTHS OF PROPHESY. He predicts no troubels for eny whare around here. Your uncle Josiah is in out of the wet.

Dec. 15th—Sam Green com & says his friend Wasson is sick & wants som medicin. I give him som of each kind but I ought to see the simptoms. Wasson does not kno what ales him but my medicin will probly fix him up. He probly has stummick complaint. Stedy freezing wether now.

Dec. 16–17–18—Evrything is froze tite & so is the pump. I ben out on trips & I think one ear is froze. I tended to a lot of bisness. I got supplys & same kind of almanack for next yeare that I ben having. I notis the predictions in it are not half so bad as the one that was fetched for the litle present by Conkrite. He probly wanted to scare me into the woods. I notis he keaps the same kind I do & he gave me the other. I stopped at his place today & I saw Green & Wasson & J. Podnutt thare. Wasson got well. Those were all good medicins I sent. Their noos is timber theves are at it again down the river. Wasson hunts down thare & he wants us all to form a possy and chase them out of the country but your uncle chases nuthing these days he does not want. I tell them the owners must be notified. I do not know what them old mud turkels talk about all the time up to Conkrite’s. I got som candy for Jim Crow & I paid Conkrite for his pork at a low price & Jim is now mine again. Jim is good company if you kno how to get along with a bear. I got a noo medicin. Instant Relief for Internal Disorders. Will try on sombody that coms to see how I am & to borro medicin. It looks like a good remedy. This has ben an active day.

Dec. 20—Think I got som cold on my trip Saturdy. Am taking the noo remedy but do not yet kno what it will cure. I notis that 2 things that are on the wrapper I am troubeled with. Big snow storm now going on.

Dec. 21–22–23–24—Your uncle Josiah has felt prety poorly for these 4 days. Hav taken my medicins stedy. Think I am now beter. Must go to Baxter’s tomorro. Wether clear & cold.

Dec. 26th—I took diner up at Baxter’s & it was a good diner. We had chickin fixings & cooked appels & a grate dele of other things & pie of all kinds. I took the chickins up. We talked & smoaked & in P.M. Ed got his fiddel out & playd hoppy tunes on it. A string was busted but he done well with the rest. I got along fine with them 2 twins. Their parents hav a lot of plesure with them babys. I had them on my lap & it took me back to when I had 2 litle boys that did not kno beter than to like to be around with their pa. I wish I had them litle boys back now. They grew up & went away probly looking for beter friends. It is lonesom heare on the iland with them & their mother all gone; once in a while I find somthing around they playd with & things their mother had & them things are what I got left. I must hav the Baxters down heare next Chrismas if I am around. I will cetch them twins some young rabbitts when they get old enough & som young mudturkels & pollywoggs to play with like I used to do. Full moon at nite on my way back to the iland & them 2 litle boys was asleep when I left.

Dec. 27–28–29–30—I ben too sick to rite in my wether book.

Dec. 31st—This was the last day of the yeare & whatever hapened is now all over. It is awful cold & still outside & once in a while I heare frost cracking in the woods. The yeare is now coming to its end in a few minits. It is prety late for me to be around but I am waiting for the old clock to strike 12. Maybe next yeare at this time I will be asleep. It is awful lonesom heare tonite & I wish I had my folks around or if them 2 litle boys was only heare or sombody. Maybe tomorro sombody will com. I notis by the looking glass that the old man’s hed is prety white. He has ben frosted som. He now goes into his blankett for the yeare ends as he rites.

V
TIPTON POSEY’S STORE

The unpretentious building stood just back from the road, near the end of “Bundy’s Bridge.” It was a lonely looking structure, for there were no near neighbors. Its sustenance was drawn from a thinly populated region, but its location made it easy of access from many miles around.

The winding thoroughfare that led over the decrepit bridge was an ancient Indian trail that, like the other cherished possessions of the red man, had been merged into the economies of his white brothers.

The plashing waters of the river lulled the ear with gentle tumult. They sighed softly under the old bridge, rippled against the decayed abutments with a dirge-like rhythm, and spread out in little swirls and scrolls over the tapering sand bar below.

During the hot summer forenoons barefooted boys in fragmentary costume appeared on the structure from unknown sources. They rested long cane fish poles along the side rails, and watched for the corks to bob that floated on the lazy current. They soon disrobed and remained naked the rest of the day, making frequent trips into the river, where they wallowed along the muddy margin and splashed in the shallow water.

The agile sun burned bodies, and the shouts of the noisy happy crew, gave a touch of vibrant life and human interest to the melancholy old bridge.

When night came the scant raiment was gathered up and the slender strings of small bull-heads and sun-fish—a meager spoil if judged from a material standpoint—were carried proudly away on the dusty road. Emperors—and particularly one of them—might well envy their innocence and happiness as they faded away into the twilight.

Lofty elms, big sycamores and bass-woods, interlaced with wild grape vines, shaded the approach to the bridge, and fringed the gently sloping banks of the river.

The store was a remnant of the past. When it was built, about sixty years ago, the location seemed to offer alluring prospects. While the expected town did not materialize in the vicinity of the bridge, the store had done a thriving business, before the railroads crossed the river country, and after the old trail was graded. Few of the frequent travelers along the road had failed to stop and contribute more or less to its prosperity. The trappers from up and down the river sold their pelts and obtained supplies there, some of which consisted of very raw edged liquor, that they often claimed ate holes in their stockings. Much of it had never enjoyed the society of a revenue stamp, but as stamps affected neither the flavor or the hitting quality of the goods, nobody ever inquired into these things.

Tipton Posey

The merciless years changed the fortunes of the place, and it was now in an atmosphere of decay. It was a gray unpainted two story affair, with a wooden awning over a broad platform in front, along the outer edge of which hung a small squeaky sign:

TIPTON POSEY

GENERAL MERCHANDISE

It was the general loafing place of the old muskrat trappers and pot hunters—known as “river rats,”—and old settlers, whose principal asset was spare time, but everybody for miles around came occasionally to “keep track o’ what’s goin’ on,” and to exchange the gossip of the river country.

Posey, the jovial and philosophic proprietor, who lived upstairs, was a sympathetic member of the motley gatherings. He was utilized in countless ways. He acted as stakeholder and referee when bets were made on disputed matters of fact, delivered verbal messages, and always had the latest news. He was a good natured, ruddy faced old fellow, with an eccentric moustache that curled in at one corner of his mouth, and seemed to be trying to make its escape on the other side. He seldom wore a hat and his gray hair stood up like a flare over his high forehead.

The confused stock of goods included a little of everything that any reasonable human being would want to buy, and lots of things that nobody could ever have any sane use for. Those who were unreasonable could always get what they wanted by waiting a week or two, for “Tip” declared that he would draw upon the resources of the civilized world through the mails, if necessary, to accommodate his customers.

Posey was reliable in everything except regular attendance. He “opened store” spasmodically in the morning, and closed it “whenever they was nobody ’round” at night. When his life-long friend, Bill Stiles, was unavailable as a substitute guardian he often locked up and left a notice on the door indicating when he would return. I once found one reading: “Gone off—back Monday.” It was Wednesday and it had been there since Saturday. Various lead pencil comments had been inscribed on the misleading notice by facetious visitors, among them “Liar!” “What Monday?” “Sober up!” “Stranger called to buy a hundred dollars’ worth of goods and found nobody home.” “The sheriff has been here looking for you twice,” and several other notations calculated to annoy the delinquent. Sometimes the notice would simply read “Gone off,” which, in connection with the fact that the door was locked, was convincing to the most obtuse observer. Tip usually found a fringe of patient customers and assorted loiterers sitting along the edge of the platform, discussing the burning questions of the day, when he returned.

During the shooting seasons he spent much time on the marsh down the river. Orders were stuck under the door, and during his brief and uncertain visits to the store, he filled them and left the goods in a locked wooden box in the rear, to which a few favored customers had duplicate keys.

While Tip’s affairs were not conducted on strictly commercial principles, he had no competition, and eventually did all the business there was to be done. “I git all the money they got, an’ nobody c’d do more’n that if they was here all the time,” he remarked, as he laid his gun and a bunch of bloody ducks on the platform and unlocked the door late one night, after several days’ absence. “I got ’em all trained now an’ they’d be spoiled if I took to bein’ here reg’lar.”

There were two “spare rooms” over the store, that were reached by a stairway on the outside of the building. I usually occupied one of them whenever I visited that part of the river. Bill Stiles slept in the other when he thought it was too dark for him to go home, or he was not in a condition to make the attempt. It was in use most of the time.

Bill was the genius loci, and gave it a rich and mellow character, which it would have been difficult for Posey to sustain alone. He was a grizzled veteran of the marshes. For many years he had lived in a tumble-down shack on “Huckleberry Island.” He trapped muskrats and mink over a wide area in the winter, and shot ducks and geese for the market in the spring and fall. When the fur harvests began to fail, and the game laws became oppressive, he concluded that he was getting too old to work, and was too much alone in the world. He moved up the river and built a new shack on “Watermelon Bend,” which was within easy walking distance from the store, where he could usually find plenty of congenial company when he wanted it. Here he had become a fixture.

Out of the ample fund of his experience, flavored and garnished by the rich and inexhaustible fertility of an imagination, that at times was almost uncanny, had come tales of early life on the river and marshes that had enthralled the loiterers at the store. They shared the shade of the awning with him during the hot summer days, and surrounded the big bellied wood stove in the dingy interior during the winter days and evenings when “they was nothin’ doin’” anywhere else in the region, and listened with rapt interest to his reminiscences. Any expression of incredulity met with crushing rebuke. “I didn’t notice that you was there at the time,” he would remark with asperity. “If you wasn’t, that’ll be all from you.”

The muskrat colonies still left along the river, and out on the marshy areas, were often drawn upon by adventurous youngsters, solely for the purpose of “seein’ Bill skin ’em.” Clusters of the unfortunates were brought by their tails and laid on the store platform. The old man would look the crowd over patronizingly, take his “ripper” from his pocket, and, with a few dexterous strokes, perform feats of pelt surgery that made the tyros gasp with admiration.

“I skun six hundred an’ forty-eight rats once’t, in five hours, that I’d caught on Muckshaw Lake the night before,” was Bill’s invariable remark after he had finished his grewsome performance.

The adulation of these small audiences was the glow that illumined his declining days.

When I first met the old man years ago, he was engaged in writing his autobiography, and at last accounts he was still at it. His shack and the little room over the store had gradually become literary temples. His complicated manuscripts and notes were kept in an old black satchel of once shiny oil cloth, that he called his “war bag.” On its side was the roughly lettered inscription: “HISTORIC CRONICELS—STILES.” He carried it back and forth between his abodes with much solicitude. During the many evenings I spent with him, he would frequently extract its contents and read aloud in the dim light of a kerosene lamp. He often paused and looked over the rims of his spectacles, with animation in his gray eyes, when he came to passages that he deemed of special importance. The masses of foolscap contained records that were only intelligible to the writer. His grammar and spelling were hopelessly bad, his methods of compilation were baffling, and his penmanship was mystic, but his collection of facts and near-facts was prodigious. He took long reflective rests between the periods of active composition. They were deathless chronicles in the sense that they seemed to be without end, and they appeared to become more and more deathless as he proceeded.

The first two or three hundred pages were what Bill called a “Backfire Chapter.” It began with the Creative Dawn, and was a general historical résumé down to the time of his appearance on earth. It skipped lightly over the great events, that loom like mountain peaks in the world’s history and tower away into the receding centuries. When he came to the Deluge he got lost among Noah’s animals for awhile and floundered hopelessly for adjectives. It was impossible to enumerate and describe all of them, but he did the best he could. Through a maze of wars and falling empires, he got Columbus to America. The Republic was established, and civilization finally flowered with the birth of Bill Stiles, A.D., 1836. From the dawn of time to the rocking of Bill’s cradle was a far cry, but his annals included what he considered the essential features of that dark period.

In addition to a vast amount of matter of purely personal interest, the work was designed to accurately record the happenings in the river country during Bill’s lifetime.

Much of his material was collected at the store. The year that Bundy’s Bridge was built, and the ferry ceased operations, was shrouded in historic gloom. Five times the year had been changed in the chronicles, for five eminent authorities differed as to the date, and each of them had at one time or another succeeded in impressing Bill. He seemed confident of all his other facts. The other bridges had given him no trouble.

There was no question in his mind as to when the Pottowattomies were relieved of their lands and forcibly removed from the country, or when the camp of horse thieves on Grape Island was broken up.

There was a tale of another band of horse thieves, whose secret retreat was on an island in the middle of a big lake of soft muck several miles south of the river.

The one route of access to it was a concealed sand bar known only to the outlaws. The unsavory crew collected their plunder on the island, where the pilfered beasts were cared for, and their markings changed with various dyes. In due time they smuggled them away in the darkness to distant markets. They once captured a too curious preacher, who was looking for his horse, and kept him in durance vile for several months. The expounder of the gospels labored so faithfully in that seemingly hopeless vineyard that the blasé bandits were finally “purified by the word of the Lord, gave up their dark practices, made restitution, and ever after lived model lives.”

There was a record of a mighty flood that drowned out everything and everybody, ran over the top of the bridge and carried part of it away, and following this were notations of approximate dates of sundry happenings—when the gang of counterfeiters that dwelt in Pinkamink Marsh were caught and “sent up”—the year that Bill killed a blue goose on “Boiler Slough”—when the tornado blew all of the water out of the river at “Ox Bow Bend” and left the channel bare for half an hour, and the year that “forty-six thousand rat skins was took off Shelby Marsh.”

A page was devoted to a reign of terror that lasted several weeks in 1877. For five nights an awful roar had come out of “Bull Snake Bayou.” The mystery was never explained, but Bill thought that the noise had been produced by a “whiffmatick” or a “hodad” that had come down with the spring flood, lost its way, and was shedding horns or scales in the vine-clad thickets.

The births, weddings and deaths of all the old settlers were carefully recorded, and many of their exploits detailed at length. There was an account of the capture of Hank Butts and his illicit still by the revenue officers, the failure of the jury to convict, owing to the reputations of the culprit’s two sons as dead shots, and the story of Hank’s death in a feather bed, with his boots on, when he went to visit a city relative and blew out the gas a few months later.

Bill’s experience with a “cattymount” was related with much detail. He had encountered it in the woods when he was young, and had spent two days and nights in a tree, living on crackers, plug tobacco, and a bottle of sage tea that he fortunately happened to have with him. The animal’s foot had been shattered by Bill’s only bullet and this prevented it from going into the foliage after him. The captive had chewed up over a pound of the plug and had carefully aimed the resulting juices at the baleful eye-balls that gleamed below him at night, hoping to blind his besieger. When the supply of this ammunition was exhausted the animal’s eyes were still bright, although Bill had scored many body hits and had decidedly changed the general color of his enemy.

Hunger finally compelled the savage beast to beat a retreat and the situation was relieved. The “cattymount” had evidently increased in size with the succeeding years, for in the manuscript its estimated length had been twice corrected with a pen, the last figures being the highest. Bill added that he had killed this “fierce an’ formidable animal” later, and that “its skin was taken east.”

Somewhere among the confused piles was the tale of the last voyage of the little stern-wheel steamer, “Morning Star” to the ferry, under command of “Cap’n Sink.” She had come up from the Illinois river, and the falling waters had left her stranded for a week on a sand bar. Her doughty commander paced the deck and blistered it with profanity. He swore by nine gods that he never again would go above “Corkscrew Bend,” that was so crooked that even the fish had sense enough to keep out of it. His vociferous impiety filtered intermittently through the green foliage that overhung the river, and desecrated the shadow-flecked aisles of the forest, until the Morning Star’s sister boat, the “Damfino,” came wheezing up stream. The unfortunate craft was pulled off the bar and navigation officially ended.

Reliable data was becoming scarce. Bill’s recollections were getting hazy. The old settlers, whose memories could be relied upon, were dying off, and the mists were absorbing his ascertainable facts, but, while life lasts the chronicles will go on, for Bill’s genius is not of the sort that admits defeat.

There is much human history that might with profit be entombed in these humble archives, and its obscurity would be a blessing to those who made it. As the world grows older it finds less to respect in the dusty tomes that are filled with the story of human folly, selfishness and needless bloodshed.

Bill and I were enjoying a quiet smoke on the store platform one July afternoon, and discussing his historical labors.

“We’r livin’ in ter’ble times, an’ the things that’s happenin’ now mops ev’ry thing else offen the map,” he declared, as he refilled his cob pipe. “I see things in my paper ev’ry week that oughta be noted down in my history, but I’m pretty near eighty, an’ if I try to put ’em all in I’ll never git through. There’s too damn much goin’ on. They’r ditchin’ the river an’ hell’s to pay up above. They’r blastin’ in the woods with dinnymite, an’ some o’ them ol’ codgers that lives in them shacks up above English Lake’ll be blown to kingdom come if they don’t watch out an’ duck. They better wake up an’ come down stream. Say, d’ye see that damn cuss comin’ over the bridge? That’s Rat Hyatt, an’ I’m goin’ to jump ’im when ’e gits ’ere. He lost my dog I let ’im take. That feller’s no good, an’ ’e’s ripenin’ fer damnation.”

“Muskrat Hyatt” was a tall, raw-boned, keen-eyed ne’er-do-well sort of a fellow, who had hunted and trapped on the river for many years. He lived in an old house boat that had floated down stream during high water one spring, and got wedged in among some big trees in the woods, about half a mile above the bridge. He moved into it when the waters subsided and found it an agreeable abode.

“I hope the owner never shows up,” remarked Rat, after I knew him. “I don’t think I’d like him. If the water ever gits that high ag’in an’ floats me off, I’m willin’ to go most anywheres in the old ark so long’s she don’t take a notion to go down an’ roost on the bridge with me.”

He greeted us, with rather an embarrassed air, as he came up, and the old man spent considerable time in attempting to extract some definite information about “Spot.” Rat was evasive and unsatisfactory.

“They ain’t no more patheticker sight than to see some feller that sets an’ flaps ’is ears, an’ can’t answer nothin’ that’s asked ’im without tryin’ to chin about sump’n else all the time,” declared Bill. “I don’t care nothin’ about its bein’ hot. I want to know where in hell my dog is.”

“That dog o’ your’n’s all right,” said Hyatt. “I reckon ’e’s off some’rs chas’n rabbits, an’ you needn’t do no worryin’. If anybody’s stole ’im you bet I’ll git ’im an’ the scalp o’ the feller with ’im. If ’e aint ’ere tomorrer I’ll take a look around. A dog like that can’t be kep’ hid long, an’ somebody’ll ’ave seen ’im. He ain’t no fool, an’ if ’e’s shut up anywheres, you bet ’e’ll come back w’en ’e gits out.”

“Well, you see that ’e gits out,” replied the old man with asperity. “I’m done havin’ heart disease ev’ry time I don’t see that dog w’en I go by your place, an’ I want ’im back where ’e b’longs. I didn’t give ’im to you, an’ if you don’t know where ’e is you aint fit to have charge o’ no animal. This aint no small talk that I’m doin’. Its the summin’ up o’ the court.”

Spot was a well trained bird dog. Hyatt had borrowed him from the old man about two years before, and, as his facilities for taking care of him were much better than Bill was able to provide, the animal was allowed to remain at Hyatt’s house boat on indefinite leave. He slept under the rude bed and seemed much happier there than at home.

Hyatt was now in rather a delicate position. The dog had not been seen in the neighborhood for over a week. An old trapper had come down the river in a canoe and stopped for an hour or so at the house boat. He announced his intention of leaving the country forever, and was on his way to the Illinois where he hoped to find enough muskrats to occupy his remaining days. He wanted a good quail dog, and, after much jockeying, had acquired Spot in exchange for a repeating rifle and a box of cartridges. The dog was tied in the front end of the canoe and departed with his new owner. Hyatt had an abiding faith that Spot would return in a few days, and that the stranger would be too far away down stream to want to buffet the strong current to get him back.