The Boy Woodcrafter
THE BOY WOODCRAFTER
Introductory
Why Every Boy Should Be a Naturalist
EVERY boy should be a naturalist because the out of doors world is his kingdom and he takes to it as gracefully as the newly hatched, downy, little duck does to water. A boy is naturally a primitive little man, and that means that he is more or less of a little savage. He harks back more naturally to the days when man lived in a tent or a wigwam, or even in a cave, than does his father, because the man is old and spoiled by training and education, while the boy is fresh and unspoiled by the ways of the world.
Every normal boy is more or less of a Hiawatha, although I am inclined to think that even Hiawatha was a model Indian youth.
The boy's first instinct is to subdue the wild creatures of the fields and forest. But fortunately for him, and also for the birds, squirrels and bunnies, the new school of nature wiriters has taught him that there is a better way than killing or subduing his furred and feathered friends.
More and more will he be taught as time goes on, that there are priceless secrets in the head of each bird and squirrel that cannot be gotten from them with a gun or a slingshot, for it is only by gaining the confidence of our forest friends that we can find out these secrets.
One such secret that you can impart to your friends and to the boy's world is worth many well filled game bags.
I am inclined to think that this longing for the out of doors is the very first impulse that a boy has. That is why when he is still in skirts he runs away, seeking with unsteady feet the world of nature outside. Picking flowers, is usually supposed to belong to the domain of girls,but before a boy gets really into pants, while he is still in skirts, he may be excused if he does girlish things. So you will frequently find him with both chubby fists tightly clutched about the heads of a bouquet of dandelions and buttercups.
He holds them so tightly that he has shut off their breath, and their heads droop sadly in his chubby fist. You can mark his way aU down through the mowing to the pasture by the buttercups and daisies scattered along the way. In his eagerness to pluck them he only gets an inch or two of stem, so they are constantly falling from his clutch.
Now you boys may think that is a very childish, girlish amusement, but it shows the drift of the boy's mind. He begins subduing all nature by subduing the flowers of the fields. From the wild flowers it is but a step to the wintergreen patch in the pasture, and then but another round up the ladder of nature to the nut gathering expeditions of the Autumn time, and I think that even you will admit that these expeditions to the forest in the golden Autumn are a real boy's sports.
Whenever any one mentions going for chestnuts, butternuts or shag-barks, I always fall to laughing away inside me where no one can hear. Such conversations remind me of two boys who once went for beechnuts. They found them in abundance and filled their baskets. When all the receptacles had been filled there were still plenty of nuts in sight, and daylight for two hours more picking, but nothing to put the nuts in. Finally the older boy persuaded the younger to take off his undershirt and tie up the armholes and the neck and that was filled with beechnuts.
When they arrived home the boys slipped up to the garret without being seen, and emptied the shirt and the small boy again put it on.
That night they had company but not even the excitement of being admitted to the parlor, where the family received in state, could dispel from the mind of the urchin the terrible fact that something was the matter with his undershirt. Ten thousand needles seemed to be sticking into him, and every time that he moved or tried to scratch himself the number was increased to twenty thousand. When the company had gone, the boy rushed frantically to his bedroom and tore off his undershirt and found that it was bristling with the prickers from the burrs of the beechnuts.
Did I ever tell you of the small boy, a close relation of the youngster who filled his shirt with beechnuts, who thought he could kick the pan of a woodchuck trap, when it was set and still get his bare toe out of the way before the jaws of the trap came together? It is a sorrowful tale and I hate to tell you very much about it. The trap certainly was very spry, and the boy must have tried the experiment with his slow foot, for he was just a second too late.
It is mighty funny what a difference a second's time will make on such an occasion. Anyhow the boy learned a great lesson about being on time, and what a fine thing punctuality is, especially when you are kicking off woodchuck traps with your bare toe.
Why is it that the first time a small boy runs away, he always runs to the brook if there is a brook within running distance?
I think it is because the brook is calling to him, and that he hears its low sweet voice from afar. Certainly the little stream is destined to play an important part in his after life.
Three great lessons of life the boy can learn from the little brook. The first of these is purity. No matter how much you defile the little stream to-day, tomorrow it is just as pure and sweet as ever, reflecting the blue sky above and the willows upon its banks like the wonderful mirror it is.
The second lesson is that of industry. The brook is never idle, but always pushes on to its fulfillment. Over dams and down flumes it rushes, doing its appointed work.
The third lesson is that of helpfulness. No matter where the little stream wanders, the country through which it passes is always richer for its coming.
To the wide-awake boy the life in the stream and upon its banks is a wonderful book and he never tires of reading it.
It is divided into four chapters, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and the story for each is quite different.
In the Spring, he can tell you where the pussy-willows first shake out their catkins, and where the sweet flag grows; just where the noisy old kingfisher digs a hole in the bank for his nest, and which stub tree along the bank is his favorite fishing perch. He knows where the mink brings forth her family and how they frolic, darting in and out among the stones; just when the suckers begin to run and when the spearing is best; the favorite holes for trout, and the best pools for swimming.
All these things and many more the boy reads in the Spring chapter of that story about the brook.
You boys all remember the old mill. The one that has now fallen into disuse. It was a famous spot to spend a Summer afternoon in my boyhood. The water came tumbling over the dam with a pleasant sound, and the pond above was as transparent as the sky.
Upon the pond was a contrivance that we boys used to call a boat. It was watersoaked and heavy and it leaked like a sieve, but that made no difference. The best canoe in the world, with all its paint and nickel, could not have given us half the pleasure the old tub did. If it was leaky that gave just the proper thrill about going out in her. One boy for the bailing can, and two to row. That constituted a crew for the Pride of the Wave, as we called her. Of course she could be run short-handed, but one man had to always keep the bailing going, no matter what happened.
The Autumn and Winter chapters of the brook's story were not as long and interesting as the other two. It was fun though, to explore the stream for muskrat houses, and see how industriously the rats had builded against the coming of Winter.
In Winter, skating and fishing through the ice were the essential things in this water story, so you see there was no time of year that the stream and the ponds which it fed were not calling to the boy.
Learning to swim and to paddle a canoe or row a boat are an essential part of every boy's education. More and more as time goes on will boys be taught these useful accomplishments. For this reason alone, the boys' camps, that are becoming so numerous all over the country,are performing a splendid service.
When you can so combine a boy's work with his play that he cannot tell where one begins and the other leaves off, work becomes play and is no longer irksome. Berry picking in the country is such work. There is so much to learn while one is berry picking that the labor is tempered with pleasure and never ending surprises.
A score of birds are flying to and fro in the blue-berry lot, and the boy must know all their names. If there is a bird whose name he does not know he will not rest until he has found it out.
It is just along the edge of the woods where the blackberries grow that the partridge brings forth her brood to get their share of the luscious fruit. The gray rabbits also hop out and in among the blackberry patches. Dut on the cran-berry bog are some of the largest muskrat houses that were ever built by a rat family.
Beechnutting, chestnutting and walnutting are all work that is play. Days that are full of surprises and wonderful secrets to be learned from the book of nature.
In the Winter, the book of life in field and woods is even more interesting than in the Summer, although there is not so much going on.
Then each little four-footed denizen of the forest leaves his name and his address written in the new snow. Not only this, but he often tells you his business, and upon what errand he is intent.
In the Winter a desperate game is being played by all these forest kin. It is the game of catching the other fellow and not being caught yourself.
Often a feather and a drop of blood in the snow tells its pitiful tale. All of these things are as interesting to the wide-awake boy as the most exciting book, once he learns to read the signs in the snow. But you may say, these things apply only to the country boy. They are not for the city youth.
Perhaps they apply with more force to the country boy, but there is still a deal of nature in the average city, if you will only look for it. There are more night hawks in the city than in the country. Even in large cities like Boston and New York they rear their young high up on the roofs of the skyscrapers, and you may see them circling above the thickly thronged streets, uttering their hoarse cries. In every water spout, and nearly (every cranny the English sparrow has built her nest, and they swarm upon trees, telephone and telegraph wires. Squirrels abound in city parks, and they are tamer and not so hard to observe as the squirrels in the country.
Robins build their nests in the shade trees along the city street, and scold at the passer-by. Of all our American birds, Mr. Burroughs considers the robin the most social, and companionable.
A friend of mine reported hearing the hermit thrush pouring out his tender evening love song, in the very heart of Boston.
Another friend had a peculiar experience in the celebrated historical burying ground, King's Chapel, in the congested portion of Boston, He chanced to wander in there one Winter's twilight, and looking up into the boughs of the fir trees discovered that they were literally alive with sparrows. Hundreds and thousands of these little birds had come to the cemetery to roost in the trees during the cold winter night. Each tiny ball of feathers had its head tucked under its wing, and there they sat, like rows of feathery balls.
The naturalist struck his hands together and all the hundreds of heads came out from under the many wings like a flash, and bright eyes winked down at him, but in another moment all had disappeared under the wings again.
It is a matter of congratulation to the youth of America that boys are at last coming into their own. Their aims and ambitions are now being understood.
Each year thousands, and tens of thousands, of boys go forth to nature to spend happy and helpful weeks in the boys' camp. Here they are brought close to nature, and some of that primaeval happiness and knowledge, that civilization has robbed them of, is returned to them.
Here the city boy, less fortunate than his country cousin in many ways, may learn to row and swim, to fish and tramp the woods just as eagerly as his forebears did, when the country was young and all lived near to nature.
Here he is taught to paddle a canoe and pitch a tent, and to take care of himself under conditions quite different from those of his normal daily life.
Ernest Thompson Seton's "Little Savages," and Colonel Baden Powell's "Boy Scouts" are natural boys. Both of these movements are in the right direction.
It is a fine thing for a boy to be taught that primitive knowledge of the red man, which we are so rapidly forgetting. To know how to travel by the stars when no compass is at hand, or, if the night is cloudy, by the lean of the timber or by the moss upon the trees, may some day save the grown man's life. To build a fire in the forest when the boughs are drip- ping rain, or even when there is snow on the ground, may some time prove equally helpful. To build a camp fire without having any smoke, and then to be able to cook a good meal by it, are accomplishments that no boy need scorn.
These are accomplishments our ancestors knew. Arts that every man is glad to possess when his country's call comes, for they are very essential to the life of a soldier.
If boys would be strong of limb, quick to see and understand, self-reliant and happy, live in the open. Live near to nature and know all her secrets. That alone will give you a clear brain, a keen eye, and a heart like the oak, which the wind and the cold have toughened.
This will be no hardship for you, for as I have already observed the out-of-doors is a Boy's Kingdom. The open fields and the sweet, green woods are his world and once he has tasted their joys he will never be satisfied for the whole year with the restrictions of city life. For a few weeks at least each year he will break away from pavements and go back to the mold of the forest.
How well all the truly great men have understood these things. Tolstoi says that all of our strength comes up from Mother Earth through the soles of the feet. A gift from the heart of nature to the soul of man. It is for you boys to learn these things while you are still young in order that in your old age you may not know too late of the world of happiness you have missed. The child is father of the man, and the boy is richer in his happiness than he will ever be again. The poet Hood understood this when he sang:
"I remember, I remember the fir tree dark and high,
I used to think its slender top would reach unto the sky.
It was but childish ignorance, but now 'tis little joy
To know I'm further off from heaven than when I was a boy."
THE BOY WOODCRAFTER
CLARENCE HAWKES
AUTHOR OP "SHAGGYCOAT,*' "bLACK BRUIN," "THE TRAIL TO THE WOODS,*' ETC.
CHICAGO
F. G. BROWNE & CO.
1913
