the john muir exhibit - writings - the_story_of_my_boyhood_and_youth - chapter 7
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
by John Muir
Chapter VII
Knowledge and Inventions
I LEARNED
arithmetic in Scotland without understanding any of it, though
I had the rules by heart. But when I was about fifteen or sixteen years
of age, I began to grow hungry for real knowledge, and persuaded father,
who was willing enough to have me study provided my farm work was kept
up, to buy me a higher arithmetic. Beginning at the beginning, in one summer
I easily finished it without assistance in the short intervals between
the end of dinner and the afternoon start for the harvest-and-hay-fields,
accomplishing more without a teacher in a few scraps of time than in years
in school before my mind was ready for such work. Then in succession I
took up algebra, geometry, and trigonometry and made some little progress
in each, and reviewed grammar. I was fond of reading, but father had brought
only a few religious books from Scotland. Fortunately, several of our neighbors
had brought a dozen or two of all sorts of books, which I borrowed and
read, keeping all of them except the religious ones carefully hidden from
father's eye. Among these were Scott's novels, which, like all
other novels, were strictly forbidden, but devoured with glorious pleasure
in secret. Father was easily persuaded to buy Josephus's "Wars of
the Jews," and D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation,"
and I tried hard to get him to buy Plutarch's Lives, which, as I told him,
everybody, even religious people, praised as a grand good book; but he
would have nothing to do with the old pagan until the graham bread and
anti-flesh doctrines came suddenly into our backwoods neighborhood, making
a stir something like phrenology and spirit-rappings, which were as mysterious
in their attacks as influenza. He then thought it possible that Plutarch
might be turned to account on the food question by revealing what those
old Greeks and Romans ate to make them strong; and so at last we gained
our glorious Plutarch. Dick's "Christian Philosopher," which
I borrowed from a neighbor, I thought I might venture to read in the open,
trusting that the word "Christian" would be proof against its
cautious condemnation. But father balked at the word "Philosopher,"
and quoted from the Bible a verse which spoke of "philosophy falsely
so-called." I then ventured to speak in defense of the book, arguing
that we could not do without at least a little of the most useful kinds
of philosophy.
"Yes, we can," he said with enthusiasm, "the Bible is
the only book human beings can possibly require throughout all the journey
from earth to heaven."
"But how," I contended, "can we find the way to heaven
without the Bible, and how after we grow old can we read the Bible without
a little helpful science? Just think, father, you cannot read your Bible
without spectacles, and millions of others are in the same fix; and spectacles
cannot be made without some knowledge of the science of optics."
"Oh!" he replied, perceiving the drift of the argument, "there
will always be plenty of worldly people to make spectacles."
To this I stubbornly replied with a quotation from the Bible with reference
to the time coming when "all shall know the Lord from the least even
to the greatest," and then who will make the spectacles? But he still
objected to my reading that book, called me a contumacious quibbler too
fond of disputation, and ordered me to return it to the accommodating owner.
I managed, however, to read it later.
On the food question father insisted that those who argued for a vegetable
diet were in the right, because our teeth showed plainly that they were
made with reference to fruit and grain and not for flesh like those of dogs
and wolves and tigers. He therefore promptly adopted a vegetable
diet and requested mother to make the bread from graham flour instead of
bolted flour. Mother put both kinds on the table, and meat also, to let
all the family take their choice, and while father was insisting on the
foolishness of eating flesh, I came to her help by calling father's attention
to the passage in the Bible which told the story of Elijah the prophet
who, when he was pursued by enemies who wanted to take his life, was hidden
by the Lord by the brook Cherith, and fed by ravens; and surely the Lord
knew what was good to eat, whether bread or meat. And on what, I asked,
did the Lord feed Elijah? On vegetables or graham bread? No, he directed
the ravens to feed his prophet on flesh. The Bible being the sole rule,
father at once acknowledged that he was mistaken. The Lord never would
have sent flesh to Elijah by the ravens if graham bread were better.
I remember as a great and sudden discovery that the poetry of the Bible,
Shakespeare, and Milton was a source of inspiring, exhilarating, uplifting
pleasure; and I became anxious to know all the poets, and saved up small
sums to buy as many of their books as possible. Within three or four years
I was the proud possessor of parts of Shakespeare's, Milton's, Cowper's,
Henry Kirke White's, Campbell's, and Akenside's works, and quite
a number of others seldom read nowadays. I think it was in my fifteenth
year that I began to relish good literature with enthusiasm, and smack
my lips over favorite lines, but there was desperately little time for
reading, even in the winter evenings--only a few stolen minutes now and
then. Father's strict rule was, straight to bed immediately after family
worship, which in winter was usually over by eight o'clock. I was in the
habit of lingering in the kitchen with a book and candle after the rest
of the family had retired, and considered myself fortunate if I got five
minutes' reading before father noticed the light and ordered me to bed;
an order that of course I immediately obeyed. But night after night I tried
to steal minutes in the same lingering way, and how keenly precious those
minutes were, few nowadays can know. Father failed perhaps two or three
times in a whole winter to notice my light for nearly ten minutes, magnificent
golden blocks of time, long to be remembered like holidays or geological
periods. One evening when I was reading Church history father was particularly
irritable, and called out with hope-killing emphasis, "John, go
to bed! Must I give you a separate order every night to get you to
go to bed? Now, I will have no irregularity in the family; you
must go when the rest go, and without my having to tell you."
Then, as an afterthought, as if judging that his words and tone of voice
were too severe for so pardonable an offense as reading a religious book,
he unwarily added: "If you will read, get up in the morning
and read. You may get up in the morning as early as you like."
That night I went to bed wishing with all my heart and soul that somebody
or something might call me out of sleep to avail myself of this wonderful
indulgence; and next morning to my joyful surprise I awoke before father
called me. A boy sleeps soundly after working all day in the snowy woods,
but that frosty morning I sprang out of bed as if called by a trumpet blast,
rushed downstairs, scarce feeling my chilblains, enormously eager to see
how much time I had won; and when I held up my candle to a little clock
that stood on a bracket in the kitchen I found that it was only one o'clock.
I had gained five hours, almost half a day! "Five hours to myself!"
I said, "five huge, solid hours!" I can hardly think of any other
event in my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy so transportingly
glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours.
In the glad, tumultuous excitement of so much suddenly acquired time-wealth,
I hardly knew what to do with it. I first thought of going on with my reading,
but the zero weather would make a fire necessary, and it occurred to me
that father might object to the cost of fire-wood that took time to chop.
Therefore, I prudently decided to go down cellar, and begin work on a model
of a self-setting sawmill I had invented. Next morning I managed to get
up at the same gloriously early hour, and though the temperature of the
cellar was a little below the freezing point, and my light was only a tallow
candle, the mill work went joyfully on. There were a few tools in a corner
of the cellar--a vise, files, a hammer, chisels, etc., that father had brought
from Scotland, but no saw excepting a coarse crooked one that was unfit
for sawing dry hickory or oak. So I made a fine-tooth saw suitable for
my work out of a strip of steel that had formed part of an old-fashioned
corset, that cut the hardest wood smoothly. I also made my own bradawls,
punches, and a pair of compasses, out of wire and old files.
SELF-SETTING SAWMILL
Model built in cellar
My workshop was immediately under father's bed, and the filing and tapping
in making cogwheels, journals, cams, etc., must, no doubt, have annoyed
him, but with the permission he
had granted in his mind, and doubtless hoping that I would soon tire
of getting up at one o'clock, he impatiently waited about two weeks before
saying a word. I did not vary more than five minutes from one o'clock all
winter, nor did I feel any bad effects whatever, nor did I think at all
about the subject as to whether so little sleep might be in any way injurious;
it was a grand triumph of will-power over cold and common comfort and work-weariness
in abruptly cutting down my ten hours' allowance of sleep to five. I simply
felt that I was rich beyond anything I could have dreamed of or hoped for.
I was far more than happy. Like Tam o'Shanter I was glorious," O'er
a' the ills o' life victorious."
Father, as was customary in Scotland, gave thanks and asked a blessing
before meals, not merely as a matter of form and decent Christian manners,
for he regarded food as a gift derived directly from the hands of the Father
in heaven. Therefore every meal to him was a sacrament requiring conduct
and attitude of mind not unlike that befitting the Lord's Supper. No idle
word was allowed to be spoken at our table, much less any laughing or fun
or story-telling. When we were at the breakfast-table, about two weeks
after the great golden time-discovery, father cleared his throat preliminary,
as we all knew, to saying something considered important. I
feared that it was to be on the subject of my early rising, and dreaded
the withdrawal of the permission he had granted on account of the noise
I made, but still hoping that, as he had given has word that I might get
up as early as I wished, he would as a Scotchman stand to it, even though
it was given in an unguarded moment and taken in a sense unreasonably far-reaching.
The solemn sacramental silence was broken by the dreaded question:--
"John, what time is it when you get up in the morning? "
"About one o'clock," I replied in a low, meek, guilty tone
of voice.
"And what kind of a time is that, getting up in the middle of the
night and disturbing the whole family? "
I simply reminded him of the permission he had freely granted me to
get up as early as I wished.
"I know it," he said, in an almost agonized tone of
voice, "I know I gave you that miserable permission, but I
never imagined that you would get up in the middle of the night."
To this I cautiously made no reply, but continued to listen for the
heavenly one-o'clock call, and it never failed.
After completing my self-setting sawmill I dammed one of the streams
in the meadow and put the mill in operation. This invention was speedily
followed by a lot of others--water-wheels, curious doorlocks and latches,
thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks, a barometer, an automatic
contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a lamp-lighter
and fire-lighter, an early-or-late-rising machine, and so forth.
|
THERMOMETER
|
BAROMETER
Invented by the author in his boyhood
|
After the sawmill was proved and discharged from my mind, I happened
to think it would be a fine thing to make a timekeeper which would tell
the day of the week and the day of the month, as well as strike like a
common clock and point out the hours; also to have an attachment whereby
it could be connected with a bedstead to set me on my feet at any hour
in the morning; also to start fires, light lamps, etc. I had learned the
time laws of the pendulum from a book, but with this exception I knew nothing
of timekeepers, for I had never seen the inside of any sort of clock or
watch. After long brooding, the novel clock was at length completed in
my mind, and was tried and found to be durable and to work well and look
well before I had begun to build it in wood. I carried small parts of it
in my pocket to whittle at when I was out at work on the farm
using every spare or stolen moment within reach without father's knowing
anything about it. In the middle of summer, when harvesting was in progress,
the novel time-machine was nearly completed. It was hidden upstairs in
a spare bedroom where some tools were kept. I did the making and mending
on the farm, but one day at noon, when I happened to be away, father went
upstairs for a hammer or something and discovered the mysterious machine
back of the bedstead. My sister Margaret saw him on his knees examining
it, and at the first opportunity whispered in my ear, "John, fayther
saw that thing you're making upstairs." None of the family knew what
I was doing, but they knew very well that all such work was frowned on
by father, and kindly warned me of any danger that threatened my plans.
The fine invention seemed doomed to destruction before its time-ticking
commenced, though I thought it handsome, had so long carried it in my mind,
and like the nest of Burns's wee mousie it had cost me mony a weary whittling
nibble. When we were at dinner several days after the sad discovery, father
began to clear his throat to speak, and I feared the doom of martyrdom
was about to be pronounced on my grand clock.
"John," he inquired, "what is that thing you are making
upstairs?"
I replied in desperation that I did n't know what to call it.
"What! You mean to say you don't know what you are trying to do?"
"Oh, yes," I said, "I know very well what I am doing."
"What, then, is the thing for?"
"It's for a lot of things," I replied, "but getting;
people up early in the morning is one of the main things it is intended
for; therefore it might perhaps be called an early-rising machine."
After getting up so extravagantly early all the last memorable winter,
to make a machine for getting up perhaps still earlier seemed so ridiculous
that he very nearly laughed. But after controlling himself and getting
command of a sufficiently solemn face and voice he said severely, "Do
you not think it is very wrong to waste your time on such nonsense?"
"No," I said meekly, "I don't think I'm doing any wrong."
"Well," he replied, "I assure you I do; and if you were
only half as zealous in the study of religion as you are in contriving
and whittling these useless, nonsensical things, it would be infinitely
better for you. I want you to be like Paul, who said that he desired to
know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified."
To this I made no reply, gloomily believing my fine machine
was to be burned, but still taking what comfort I could in realizing that
anyhow I had enjoyed inventing and making it.
After a few days, finding that nothing more was to be said, and that
father after all had not had the heart to destroy it, all necessity for
secrecy being ended, I finished it in the half-hours that we had at noon
and set it in the parlor between two chairs, hung moraine boulders that
had come from the direction of Lake Superior on it for weights, and set
it running. We were then hauling grain into the barn. Father at this period
devoted himself entirely to the Bible and did no farm work whatever. The
clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it strike, one of my sisters
told me that he left his study, went to the parlor, got down on his knees
and carefully examined the machinery, which was all in plain sight, not
being enclosed in a case. This he did repeatedly, and evidently seemed
a little proud of my ability to invent and whittle such a thing, though
careful to give no encouragement for anything more of the kind in future.
But somehow it seemed impossible to stop. Inventing and whittling faster
than ever, I made another hickory clock, shaped like a scythe to symbolize
the scythe of Father Time. The pendulum is a bunch of arrows symbolizing
the flight of time. It hangs on a leafless mossy oak snag showing
the effect of time, and on the snath is written, "All flesh is grass."
This, especially the inscription, rather pleased father, and, of course,
mother and all my sisters and brothers admired it. Like the first it indicates
the days of the week and month, starts fires and beds at any given hour
and minute, and, though made more than fifty years ago, is still a good
timekeeper.
My mind still running on clocks, I invented a big one like a town clock
with four dials, with the time-figures so large they could be read by all
our immediate neighbors as well as ourselves when at work in the fields,
and on the side next the house the days of the week and month were indicated.
It was to be placed on the peak of the barn roof. But just as it was all
but finished, father stopped me, saying that it would bring too many people
around the barn. I then asked permission to put it on the top of a black-oak
tree near the house. Studying the larger main branches, I thought I could
secure a sufficiently rigid foundation for it, while the trimmed sprays
and leaves would conceal the angles of the cabin required to shelter the
works from the weather, and the two-second pendulum, fourteen feet long,
could be snugly encased on the side of the trunk. Nothing about the
grand, useful timekeeper, I argued, would disfigure the tree, for it would
look something like a big hawk's nest. "But that," he objected,
"would draw still bigger bothersome trampling crowds about the place,
for who ever heard of anything so queer as a big clock on the top of a
tree?" So I had to lay aside its big wheels and cams and rest content
with the pleasure of inventing it, and looking at it in my mind and listening
to the deep solemn throbbing of its long two-second pendulum with its two
old axes back to back for the bob.
CLOCK. THE STAR HAND RISING AND SETTING WITH THE SUN ALL THE YEAR
Invented by the author in his boyhood
One of my inventions was a large thermometer made of an iron rod, about
three feet long and five eighths of an inch in diameter, that had formed
part of a wagon-box. The expansion and contraction of this rod was multiplied
by a series of levers made of strips of hoop iron. The pressure of the
rod against the levers was kept constant by a small counterweight, so that
the slightest change in the length of the rod was instantly shown on a
dial about three feet wide multiplied about thirty-two thousand times.
The zero-point was gained by packing the rod in wet snow. The scale was
so large that the big black hand on the white-painted dial could be seen
distinctly and the temperature read while we were ploughing in the field
below the house. The extremes of heat and cold
caused the hand to make several revolutions. The number of these revolutions
was indicated on a small dial marked on the larger one. This thermometer
was fastened on the side of the house, and was so sensitive that when any
one approached it within four or five feet the heat radiated from the observer's
body caused the hand of the dial to move so fast that the motion was plainly
visible, and when he stepped back, the hand moved slowly back to its normal
position. It was regarded as a great wonder by the neighbors and even by
my own all-Bible father.
Boys are fond of the books of travelers, and I remember that one day,
after I had been reading Mungo Park's travels in Africa, mother said: "Weel,
John, maybe you will travel like Park and Humboldt some day." Father
over-heard her and cried out in solemn deprecation, "Oh, Anne! dinna
put sic notions in the laddie's heed." But at this time there was
precious little need of such prayers. My brothers left the farm when they
came of age, but I stayed a year longer, loath to leave home. Mother hoped
I might be a minister some day; my sisters that I would be a great inventor.
I often thought I should like to be a physician, but I saw no way of making
money and getting the necessary education, excepting as an inventor. So,
as a beginning, I decided to try to get into a big shop or factory
and live awhile among machines. But I was naturally extremely shy and had
been taught to have a poor opinion of myself, as of no account, though
all our neighbors encouragingly called me a genius, sure to rise in the
world. When I was talking over plans one day with a friendly neighbor,
he said: "Now, John, if you wish to get into a machine-shop, just
take some of your inventions to the State Fair, and you may be sure that
as soon as they are seen they will open the door of any shop in the country
for you. You will be welcomed everywhere." And when I doubtingly asked
if people would care to look at things made of wood, he said, "Made
of wood! Made of wood! What does it matter what they're made of when they
are so out-and-out original. There's nothing else like them in the world.
That is what will attract attention, and besides they're mighty handsome
things anyway to come from the backwoods." So I was encouraged to
leave home and go at his direction to the State Fair when it was being
held in Madison.
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