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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http : //books . google . com/| Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Courtesy of Little, Brown, and Company FRANCIS PARKMAN Digitized by CjOOQ IC HIGH ADVENTURERS MARY R. PARKMAN Author oj "Heroes of To-da^,** **Htroinei oJSeivice,*' etc. Illustrated with Photographs THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK LONDON Digitized by CjOOQ IC COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ST. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY THE CENTURY CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR PORTIONS THEREOF, IN ANY FORM First Printing PRINTED IN U. S. A. Digitized by CjOOQ IC E 505614 FEB 1 3 1942 3V«'5 H To the memory of SAMUEL SPALDING PARKMAN a lover of "adventures with history" Digitized byCjOOQlC Digitized by CjOOQ IC CONTENTS 9AQU Adventures with History . francis parkman 3 Adventures with Science . . michael pupin 29 Wings op Adventure . . charles a. Lindbergh 51 From Pole to Pole . . richard evelyn byrd 79 The Poet op Intrepid Daring vilhjalmur stepansson 111 A New-World Poet op Sound edward macdowell 153 A Master Painter op Eomance edwin austin abbey 175 The Fbiendly Sculptor . . . Harriet hosmer 195 Adventuring por Beauty edward william bok 217 A Champion op Labor . . margaret bondfield 243 Adventures in Everyday Living dorothy canfield pisher 271 Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC ILLUSTRATIONS Francis Parkman Frontispiece VAOIVO PAOB Michael Pupin 32 Charles Augustus Lindbergh 65 Bichard Evelyn Byrd 97 Vilhjabnur Stefansson 112 Edward MacDowell 160 Edwin Austin Abbey 177 "Eomeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both'* . 192 Harriet Hosmer 209 Puck 213 Edward William Bok 220 Margaret Bondfield 256 Dorothy Canfield Fisher 272 vii Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTUEES WITH HISTORY FRANCIS PARKMAN Digitized by CjOOQ IC There will never be such a story to write again, for the frontier of forest and prairie has disappeared. It is now in the midst of cities where civilizations grapple in their smoke and turmoil. So shall we hold even more precious his gift and thank Heaven for ''sending us such a scholar, such an artist, such a genius, before it was too late to catch the fleeting light and fix it upon immortal canvas.'' John Finlby Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTURES WITH HISTORY FRANCIS PARKMAN 1823-1893 Fbancis Parkman knew when he was a lad of seventeen that he would find the adventure of his life through putting the story of the past into liv- mg histories. ^*It will be great sport to hunt among old rec- ords, letters, and other unexplored documents for facts which nobody has taken time to dig out,** he said. He had loved hxmting from his early boyhood and this new sport, he soon realized, was going to bring together the spoils of adventure not only in Old World libraries but also in the heart of the New World wilderness. He had made up his mind that he must explore the country which the men who discovered America found, if he wanted to understand their experiences. In his school-boy days he made it his goal to equal the Indian in strength and woodcraft as well as to acquire the knowledge of the white man's world. He wanted to be as much at home in the forest and by camp-fires as among scholars and 3 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 4 HIGH ADVENTUEEBS leaders of human affairs. Rapid walks through the open country, rifle in hand, were enjoyed not only for the sport of the moment but also as a conscious preparation for independent adventure apart from civilization. Like all alert boys, he enjoyed the stories of Leatherstocking and other Cooper heroes of the frontier. He lived over their exploits in dramatic imaginings. Evenings at home gave opportunity for acting before his friends some of the scenes of conflict and triumph that his vivid imagination pictured. The success of these performances en- couraged the boy to turn the loft of an idle barn into a playhouse. Here with some of his compan- ions he painted scenery and devised properties for their ''Star Theatre, '* where productions were given every Saturday afternoon. This early interest in character as shown in dramatic action was one which grew with the years, along with his delight in nature. It is certain that the wild country which he loved to explore was a stimulating background for reproductions in im- agination of the stirring events of the past. Al- ways he had an instinct for living over in fancy the stories of the printed page. He knew how to look through words to the absorbing drama they presented — ^a drama full of life and color that was even more vivid as painted by his imagination than objects which he could see and touch. So he learned Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 5 to see as in the living present the dramatic events of the past. ** When did yon begin to study about the Indians, Cousin Frank f asked a kinswoman who held in memory some happy visits to the historian's home* **I can hardly remember when I did not like to read and hear Indian stories/* replied Francis Parkman. *^When I was a lad of twelve a most vivid impression was made on my mind when some braves from the tribes of the Sacs and Foxes vis- ited Boston and danced their war-dance on the Conunon in full costume. Perhaps it was about this time that I delighted in fancying myself one of Cooper's noble savages. On my walks through the woods I would imagine that I could match the red- skin's woodcraft, and in my sense of prowess I even indulged in wild leaps over rocks and brooks, sometimes whooping or of tener imitating the cries of birds and beasts. Oh, I could behave like an In- dian and no mistake ! Once I remember when I was tramping through Vermont in the summer vaca- tion before my junior year at Harvard that an old farmer accused me of being an Indian. When I assured him that he was mistaken he shook his head and regarded me with dignified disfavor. ** *It's my practice and principle never to con- tradict,' he remarked impressively. ^But I'll say this as I consider it no disgrace to be an Indian. I've known well-edicated Indians afore now!' Digitized by CjOOQ IC 6 HIGH ADVENTURERS **It was good fun after that to humor his belief and play the part to his satisfaction and that of the others in the company at the tavern.'* The vacations of his college years were, however, by no means all play. On this trip, when he played the Indian so convincingly, he went along Lake George and Lake Champlain, studying forts and battle-fields and encouraging the graybeards of the country-side to narrate for his benefit the tra- ditions of each historic place. At Sabbath Day Point he remained a whole day in order to glean what he could from the memories of an old Rev- olutionary pensioner, Captain Patchen. Other va- cations were spent in similar quests in Canada, New Hampshire, and Maine, where he gathered in- formation about the Indians in the neighborhood of Bangor, particularly the accounts of their wars with the Mohawks. He was always vitally interested in learning what he could from his own experience in a coun- try, through getting acquainted with its rivers, mountains, rocks, and trees as he set himself to the task of discovering all that he could from books, letters, old records, and popular traditions relat- ing to the history of the inhabitants — ^Indians and early settlers — of each region. In the preface to his history **The Conspiracy of Pontiac*' we find a paragraph that gives a clue to the way the inter- Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 7 ests of his boyhood and college days bore fruit in the books which were his life-wort **The conquest of Canada was an event of mo- mentous consequence in American history. It pre- pared a way for the independence of the British colonies. . . . Yet to the red natives of the soil its results were wholly disastrous. Could the French have maintained their ground, the ruin of the In- dian tribes might long have been postponed; but the victory of Quebec was the signal of their swift decline. . . . They saw the danger, and, led by a great and daring champion, struggled fiercely to avert it. The history of that epoch, crowded as it is with scenes of tragic interest • . • has been, as yet, unwritten, buried in the archives of govern- ments, or among the obscurer records of private adventure. To rescue it from oblivion is the object of the following work. It aims to portray the Amer- ican forest and the American Indian at the period when both received their final doom.'* * * To know the Indians one must first know the forests and make himself at home with both,** he used to say. **Why did you determine to write about the In- dians and the struggles of the French and English in America t** Parbnan was asked on more than one occasion. **It was a hidden story that fascinated me. I Digitized by CjOOQ IC 8 HIGH ADVENTURERS knew if the clues to be found in out-of-way places were not soon brought together the real facts would never be known. The forests and the Indians were vanishing together, and it seemed my partic- ular destiny to rescue an important chapter of America's story from oblivion.** He read, as he said, ** everything that had been written about the Indians,** and the more he read the more he was impressed with the difficulty of reconciling the different accoxmts. ** Their char- acter will always remain more or less a mystery to one who does not add practical observations to his studies,** he wrote to a friend at the close of his college days. **In fact, I am more than half re- solved to devote a few months to visiting the dis- tant tribes.** Then came the adventure of the * * Oregon Trail. * * It will be recalled that at this time the whole unex- plored country west of the Rockies was called Oregon, the ** trail'* being the more or less uncer- tain track that had been followed by Indians and fur-traders. He set out on the great adventure with his cousin Quincy Adams Shaw, another youth just out of college, who like himself wished to pass from the knowledge found in books to that which might be won at first hand from life itself. These young ad- venturers decided to journey to the West, where Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 9 Indians still lived in their native fashion untouched by the ways of the white men. ^*I wished,*^ he explained, **to satisfy myself with regard to the position of the Indians among the races of men ; the vices and virtues that have sprung from their innate character and from their modes of life; their government, their supersti- tions and their domestic situation. To accomplish my purpose it was necessary to live in the midst of a village, and make myself an inmate of one of their lodges.'' This was the great moment for which his tramps in the woods and the rigorous training in the col- lege gynmasium, including boxing lessons and other trials of strength and alertness, had been a well-planned preparation. There had also been dur- ing his student years much practice in rowing, to- gether with riding lessons from the manager of a circus. Now he was for several months to share the life of Indians, unaided by the comforts or pro- tection of civilization. We may read to-day his accoxmt of that year — 1846 — ^when he had thrown in his lot with the Da- kotas in the Black Hills, in the region about the Platte Eiver, and along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. He called this story of high ad- venture **The Oregon Trail.*' Here we get vivid pictures of the West and of the red Americans be- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 10 HIGH ADVENTURERS fore both had been conquered by the settlements of the white men. To the edition of this book (which first appeared in a magazine as chapters of travel experiences) that the author prepared for publication in 1872, he added these words : **A summer *s adventures of two youths just out of college might well enough be allowed to fall into oblivion, were it not that a certain interest will al- ways attach to the record of that which has passed away never to return. . . . I remember that, as we rode by the foot of Pike's Peak, when for a fort- night we met no face of man, my companion re- marked that a time would come when those plains would be grazing country, the buffalo give place to tame cattle, farmhouses be scattered along the water-courses, and wolves, bears, and Indians be numbered among the things that were. We con- doled with each other on so melancholy a prospect, but we little thought what the future had in store. . . . The wild cavalcade that defiled with me down the gorges of the Black Hills, with its paint and war-plumes, fluttering trophies and savage em- broidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be seen again. . . . The mountain trapper is no more, and the grim romance of his wild, hard life is a memory of the past. . . . Two or three years ago, I made a visit to our old guide . . . [who] told me that the Indians with whom I had Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 11 been domesticated, a band of the hated Sioux^ had nearly all been killed in fights with the white men. * * Twenty years later, when his thrilling story of adventure with the Indians was brought out in a new dress with drawings by the famous artist of Western scenes, Frederick Remington, the author remarked as he reflected on the changes which a few years had brought to pass: **For Indian teepees, with their trophies of bow, lance, shield, and dangling scalp-locks, we have towns and cities, resorts of health and pleasure seekers, with an agreeable society, Paris fashions, the magazines, the latest poem, and the last new novel. . . . The buffalo is gone, and of all his mil- lions nothing is left but bones. Tame cattle and fences of barbed wire have supplanted his vast herds and boundless grazing grounds. The Wild West is tamed and its savage charms have with- ered. If my book can help to keep their memory alive, it will have done its part.** The young student paid dearly for the rare ad- ventures that crowded his days of sojourn in the Indian lodges on the prairies and in the heart of the Black Hills. His strength was put to such a se- vere test that it was only by dint of superhuman endurance and resolution that he emerged from the venture with his life. His health was never re- stored, and all of the labors of the subsequent years were carried through in spite of a handicap that Digitized by CjOOQ IC 12 HIGH ADVENTURERS might well have daunted the most courageous spirit. After giving a vivid and eloquent picture of sev- eral thrilling experiences, Parkman added these words, which give some notion of the cost in physi- cal suffering: **I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. At this time, I was so reduced by illness that I could seldom walk without reeling like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat upon the ground, the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and lodges seemed to sway to and fro, and the prairie to rise and fall like the swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is not enviable anywhere. In a country where a man^s life may at any moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is more particularly inconvenient. Nor is sleeping on the damp ground, with an occasional drenching from a shower, very beneficial in such cases. I sometimes suffered the extremity of ex- haustion, and was in a fair way of atoning for my love of the prairie by resting there forever. '* The greatest hardship was the lack of food that could be easily digested. The rough fare that was all that the conditions of life among Indians and trappers offered made his state daily more des- perate. His constitution never recovered from the strain put upon it at this time, and to the end of Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PABKMAN 13 his days he suffered from an impaired digestion^ which brought in its train sleeplessness and re- peated attacks of a serious malady affecting brain and eyesight. The way he met his ills, not only with cheerfulness but with resolution to make the best use possible of bits and shreds of opportunity for work, is one of the most inspiring chapters in all the undying story of those heroic souls who have kept their faith in life and human effort in spite of the most relentless odds. It may be appropriate to note here one or two of the unforgettable pictures he has given of the more striking types of the Indians among whom he had cast his lot. There was the formidable yoxmg brave Mahto-Tatonka, whose good-will the wander- ing students had succeeded in winning. He was the best of all their Indian friends. Hour after hour through the long days he never relaxed his vig- ilance in their behalf. **When swarms of savages of every age, sex, and degree beset our camp, he would lie in our tent, his lynx-eye ever open to guard our property from pillage, '^ Parkman remarked gratefully. This is the word-picture which he gave of their friendly warrior : **He never arrayed himself in gaudy blanket and glittering necklaces, but left his statue-like form, limbed like an Apollo of bronze, to win its way to favor. His voice was singularly deep and Digitized by CjOOQ IC 14 HIGH ADVENTURERS strong, and sounded from his chest like the deep notes of an organ. Yet, after all, he was but an In- dian. See him as he lies there in the sun before our tent, kicking his heels in the air and cracking jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero t See him now in the hour of his glory when at sunset the whole village empties itself to behold him, for to- morrow their favorite young partisan goes out against the enemy. His head-dress is adorned with a crest of the war-eagle's feathers, rising in a wav- ing ridge above his brow, and sweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs at his breast, with feathers radiating from the centre like a star. His quiver is at his back ; his tall lance in his hand, the iron point flashing against the declining sun, while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter from the shaft. Thus, gorgeous as a champion in panoply, he rides round and round within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a graceful buoy- ancy to the free movements of his war-horse, while with a sedate brow he sings his song to the Great Spirit. Young rival warriors look askance at him ; vermilion-cheeked girls gaze in admiration; boys whoop and scream in a thrill of delight, and old women yell forth his name and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge. '^ On one occasion when Francis Parkman was rid- ing his horse, Pontiac, at a gallop after a herd of buffalo, he suddenly awoke to the realization that Digitized by CjOOQ IC PBANCIS PARKMAN 15 he had completely lost track of his guide and com- panions. His mount had been urged beyond its strength by the excitement of the hunt. It was a serious moment for both horse and rider. **The breath blew hard from Pontiac's nostrils, and the sweat rolled in big drops down his sides ; I felt myself as if drenched in warm water . . . What course ought I to pursue 1 1 might as well have looked for landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had run, or in what direction, I had no idea. Around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches, without a single distinc- tive feature to guide me . . . I began now to think myself in danger of being lost, and, reining in my horse, summoned the scanty share of woodcraft that I possessed (if that term be applicable on the prairie) to extricate me. It occurred to me that the buflfalo might prove my best guides. I soon found one of the paths made by them in their passage to the river; it ran nearly at right angles to my course; but turning my horse's head in the direc- tion it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears as- sured me that I was right. . . . Free now from anxiety, I was at leisure to observe minutely the objects around me ; and here for the first time I noticed insects wholly different from any of the varieties found farther eastward. Gaudy butter- flies fluttered around my horse's head; strangely formed beetles, glittering with metallic lustre, were Digitized by CjOOQ IC 16 HIGH ADVENTURERS crawling upon plants I had never seen before ; mul- titudes of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over the sand.*' Observations of nature kept pace with his study of the ways of the tribes who lived by their knowl- edge of other wild dwellers in the primeval wil- derness. Animals, reptiles, birds, and insects ; trees, herbs, and blossoming plants — all had their part in the story of struggle for life over the far- stretching prairies and forests. He had always felt a special fondness, which had in it a real sense of kinship, for trees. How enduring were their rugged trunks that ever patiently pushed upward, vainly striving to lift their leafy crowns above the thwart- ing nearness of their fellows into the free sunlight ! How persistent was the instinct to go on with their business of growing through all discouragements, with an all but invisible ring of added girth to show for the ceaseless effort ! Then perhaps, one sultry day, there would come a blinding zigzag of light, and ** With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls One crash, the death hynm of the perfect tree.'* In **A Half Century of Conflict,'* which is Part VI of that noble series of spirited histories which tell of the dramatic struggle of France for first place in the destinies of the North American Col- onies, we find this record of his sympathetic ob- Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 17 servations in the Maine woods, which may be taken as an instance of the way in which his understand- ing of nature helped him to reconstruct the scenes of his human dramas. **For untold ages Maine had been one unbroken forest, and it was so still. Only along the rocky sea- board or on the lower waters of one or two great rivers a few rough settlements had gnawed slight indentations into this wilderness of woods ; and a little farther inland some dismal clearing around a blockhouse or stockade let in the sunlight to a soil that had lain in shadow time out of mind. • • . Seen from above, [the mingled tree-] tops spread in a sea of verdure basking in light ; seen from be- low, all is shadow, through which spots of timid sunshine steal down among legions of lank, mossy trunks. ... A generation ago one might find here and there the rugged trunk of some great pine lift- ing its verdant spire above the undistinguished myriads of the forest. The woods of Maine had their aristocracy; but the axe of the woodman has laid them low, and these lords of the wilderness are seen no more.'* The historian has told us in the notes appended to a chapter in his history of * * La Salle and the Dis- covery of the Great Wesf a story that shows clearly the manner in which his observations, made during journeys through the country about which he wrote, supplemented his study of the records Digitized by CjOOQ IC 18 HIGH ADVENTUEEBS left by explorers and early settlers. He is telling of the occasion when he determined beyond the shadow of a doubt the precise location of the Great Village of the Hlinois tribe. From a study of old maps and documents he was of the opinion that the branch of the Hlinois Eiver called **Big Vermil- ion'* was the stream named *^Aramoni'' by the French explorers, and that a cliff called by the English *' Starved Eock'' was known to the French as the * * Eock of St. Louis. ' * If this was proved true, he knew that he had located correctly the site of the Indian settlement, which a number of the old records stated was on the north side of the Ara- moni Eiver, below the Eock of St. Louis. It would never do to leap to a conclusion. The first care of the writer of history must be to weigh the accuracy of each statement. As a study of the map showed that the village of TJtica was near the place in question, he made a trip there, and climbed a high hill that commanded a view of the Illinois Valley for miles. Far to the right, in a gap through wooded hills, flowed the Big Vermilion on its way to join its waters with those of the Illinois ; and a little to the left, about a mile away, a sheer cliff towered above the opposite bank of the river. This he decided was the Eock of St. Louis, made famous by the French explorers. In general, the scene was just at he had pictured it from his reading of La Salle's account of his adventures. Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 19 As he rested later on the porch of the village inn, together with a group of farmers and others, he talked with Mr. James Clark, one of the first settlers of the region, * * Are there any Indian remains in this neighbor- hood T' asked Parkman. * * Yes, plenty of them, ' ' was the reassuring reply. **Is there any one spot where they seem to be most numerous f questioned the historian, who was anxious to get further proof concerning the location of the Illinois tribe. ** There,*' Clark answered, pointing to the ter- ritory that the student of La Salle's narrative had decided from his point of vantage on the hilltop was in all likelihood the stretch of country once occupied by the Indian lodges. **That is my farm yonder by the river. My tenant farmer, who works the place, plows up teeth and bones by the peck every spring, besides arrow-heads, beads, stone hatchets, and other things of that sort.'' **Just as I expected!" exclaimed Parkman. **That shows that I have indeed found the spot which the Illinois tribe occupied in La Salle's days of discovery, and the great rock beyond the river is the one which served the first explorers as a fort. I can describe it to you from their accounts of it, though I have never seen it, except from the top of the hill where the trees on and round it prevented me from seeing any part but the front." Digitized by CjOOQ IC 20 HIGH ADVENTUEERS The men of the company at the inn drew up closer to listen. **The rock,*' Parkman went on with animation, **is nearly a hundred and fifty feet high, and rises directly from the water. The front and two sides are perpendicular and inaccessible; but there is one place where it is possible for a man to climb up, though with difficulty. The top is large enough and level enough for horses and fortifications.*' Several of the group spoke up excitedly. ** That's just it. YouVe hit it exactly!'' **One moment, please,'* the historian inter- rupted. **Is there any other rock in this part of the country which would answer to that description?" ** Nowhere — on either side of the river, at any point on its entire course," he was assured. **Then," continued Parkman, *^as it seems cer- tain that the Indian town was really in the place where I suppose it to have been, I can tell you the nature of the country which lies behind the hills on the farther side of the river, though I know noth- ing of it except what I have learned from writings nearly two centuries old. From the top of the hills, you look out upon a great prairie reaching as far as you can see, except that it is crossed by a belt of woods, following the course of a stream which enters the main river a few miles below." **You are exactly right again," replied Mr. Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 21 Clark. **We call that belt of timber the * Vermilion Woods' and the stream is the Big Vermilion.** ** There is no longer a doubt,'* replied the his- torian, **that your farm is on the site of the great town of the Illinois tribe, and the precipice you call * Starved Rock* is the same height on which the French built a fort that they called *St. Louis,* in the year 1682.** Let us turn now to the chapter about the Illinois town in Parkman*s history dealing with La Salle *s discoveries. Here we have the fruit of his painstak- ing studies of old records and letters, together with his own observations of the actual scenes about which he wrote. How vividly he saw it all, and how vividly his words paint the scenes for his readers ! **Go to the banks of the Illinois where it flows by the Village of Utica, and stand on the meadow that borders it on the north. In front glides the river, a musket-shot in width; and from the far- ther bank rises, with gradual slope, a range of wooded hills that hide from sight the vast prairie behind them. A mile or more on your left these gentle acclivities end abruptly in the lofty front of the great cliff called by the French the Rock of St. Louis. . . . Now stand in fancy on this same spot in the early autumn of the year 1680. You are in the midst of the great town of the Illinois, — ^hun- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 22 HIGH ADVENTURERS dreds of mat-covered lodges, and thousands of con- gregated savages. Enter one of their dwellings; they will not think you an intruder. Some friendly squaw will lay a mat for you by the fire. . . . Three or four fires smoke and smoulder on the ground down the middle of the long arched structure. . . . A squaw sits weaving a mat of rushes ; a warrior . . . tattooed with fantastic devices, binds a stone arrow-head to its shaft, with the fresh sinews of a buffalo. . . . Not far off is the graveyard, where lie the dead of the village, some buried in the earth, some wrapped in skins and laid aloft on scaffolds, above the reach of wolves. In the corn-fields around, you see squaws at their labor, and children driving off intruding birds ; and your eye ranges over the meadows beyond, spangled with the yel- low blossoms of the resin-weed and the Eudbeckia, or over the bordering hills still green with the fo- liage of summer." As has been noted in connection with the Oregon Trail adventure, young Frank Parkman's zeal for learning through actual experience the conunon lot of Indians and pioneers led him to go beyond the limits of his bodily strength. He paid dearly for his rashness by years of illness, when his work was carried forward under the greatest difficulty. There were months and years when **the enemy '^ (so he referred to his handicap) kept him helpless in a wheeled chair. Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 23 To one of his restless and energetic tempera- ment, exercise was as necessary as food and fresh air. ^*If I cannot walk or ride, perhaps I can dig,'* he said, as he urged his wheeled chair about his garden. ^'When legs fail, we must see what arms may accomplish/' '^ Frank, with all your getting, get roses,'' sug- gested his wife, with the quenchless spirit that al- ways helped him through his dark days. It came to pass, then, that the writer of books, who was forbidden to read or study, took a fresh start in life by cultivating roses on the three acres that surrounded his summer cottage at Jamaica Pond. There were results which led to assistants, hotbeds, greenhouses, glowing blossoms, and the invitation to give lectures on horticulture at Har- vard. We may read the story of some of his garden adventures in his * * Book of Roses. ' ' Here he warns those who long for results and roses : ** Never attempt to do anything which you are not prepared to do thoroughly. A little done well is far more satisfactory than a great deal done care- lessly. . . . The amateur who has made himself a thorough master of the cultivation of a single spe- cies or a variety has, of necessity, acquired a knowl- edge and skill which, with very little pains, he may apply to numberless other forms of culture." As patiently as he carried on his labor from a wheeled chair with hoe, rake, or pruning-knif e, so Digitized by CjOOQ IC 24 HIGH ADVENTURERS he went on, as the fates permitted, to work, some- times only for a few minutes at a time and at long intervals, upon his beloved histories. During the seventy years of his life he gradually completed the story of the French in America. One may see in the library of Harvard Univer- sity the Parkman Collection, which contains the books among which he worked in his study, for he left to his college the volumes that had held a place on his home shelves. In a cabinet treasured by the Massachusetts Historical Society may be seen many manuscripts that throw light on his painstak- ing work. Here are copies of letters and documents that he had made from the originals in England and France. He explains, for instance, in the pref- ace to his ** Montcalm and Wolfe '^ ** A very large amount of unpublished material has been used in the preparation of this book, consisting for the most part of documents copied from the archives and libraries of France and England." His tireless search for the truth led him to un- dertake seven journeys to Europe, where he made careful research into the reports of those who, like La Salle and Father Marquette, had been eye- witnesses of the events about which he intended to write. His helpers prepared under his direction copies of precious manuscripts. He was as pains- taking in his scholarly research as he was faith- ful in acquiring the lore of woodland and prairie. Digitized by CjOOQ IC FRANCIS PARKMAN 25 About the purpose of his work he once said: **I planned to include the whole course of the Amer- ican conflict between France and England, or, in other words, the history of the American forest; for this was the light in which I regarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with wil- derness images day and night/' As for the results of Francis Parkman's life- adventure in the cause of an enduring history of the struggle of the French and English in the North American wilderness, we may take this estimate in the words of the historian, John Fiske : * * Strong in its individuality and like to nothing beside, his work clearly belongs, I think, among the world's few masterpieces of the highest rank, along with the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Gibbon." In a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, we read these lines of tribute to Parkman's unique service in the cause of American history and literature : **He told the red man's story; far and wide He searched the unwritten records of his race ; He sat a listener at the Sachem's side. He tracked the hunter through his wildwood chase. **A brave bright memory! his the stainless shield No shame defaces and no envy mars I When our far future's record is unsealed. His name will shine among its morning stars." Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTUEES WITH SCIENCE MICHAEL PUPIN Digitized by CjOOQ IC Every mediaBval cathedral has a soul ; it is part of the soul of its designer and of the souls of the pious men who built it. So every modern machine has a soul ; it is a part of the soul of its inventor and of the patient souls of the men who developed it. Michael Pupin Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTUEES WITH SCIENCE MICHAEL PUPIN 1858- It is a winter evening in a peasant's cottage of Idvor, a little Serbian village. The center of warmth, about which a lively company have as- sembled, is a curious sort of stove, with an annex of a large bench made of the same soft heat- conserving bricks as the fire-box itself. The center of interest is a group of white-haired elders who sit enthroned in this chief niche of honor and com- fort. Watching the smoke that rises from their pipes, they seem to conjure up visions of the stir- ring times when Serbian heroes defended their land against attacking hordes of Turks. One of their number begins to recite with dramatic fer- vor a tale that all true Serbians know and love. The old days live again for the company that fills the room. At the feet of the old men sit the husky middle-aged peasants on low stools, shell- ing ripe yellow com into baskets that they hold between their knees. The women have their stools ranged against the walls, where they sit spinning wool or flax. 29 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 30 HIGH ADVENTURERS Little Michael Pupin, sitting close to his mother, feels a glow of strange delight as he pictures the mighty deeds of Karageorge, the leader of the Serbian revolution. He loves, too, the stories of golden adventure that the women contribute in the form of old ballads and folk-songs. ** Those were the finest history lessons that a boy could ever know,'^ Michael used to say years afterward when he tried to tell friends in Amer- ica about his early experiences. He said that he remembered also his first lessons in science, when he watched at night with other village boys to keep the oxen from straying beyond their pasture into the fields of tall corn and falling prey to the cattle-thieves who lay there in hiding. The young herdsmen were trained by their leader to send signals through the ground to each other in time of danger. With their long wooden- handled^lHiives plunged deep in the earth, they made a sound by rapping on the stout handles. This their comrades, listening with ears pressed close to the ground, could hear at a considerable distance. The boys discovered that the rap-rap of their signals could not be carried through the air, nor could it be heard over the soft plowed land of the corn-fields. But they became expert in sending warnings to each other through the hard earth of the open fields, knowing that the Bumanian Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 31 thieves who might be lurking among the com could not overhear the sounds and locate the watchers. Michael wondered why the sound was lost in the air and among the broken clods of the culti- vated fields. He asked his teacher, who shook his head in a puzzled fashion, as he often did when the boy plied him with questions. ** There are many things we cannot explain,'* he used to say. Michael, however, was not content to leave the matter in the air. Over and over the question about the strange ways of sound came to hinL Years afterward when he made discoveries and inven- tions that were important in the development of the radio he said : **My life as a scientist began with the questions I asked myself in the blackness of midnight when I lay with my ear pressed to the ground listening to the secret code of our little band of village boys.'* At first Michael did not think school would give him much help with the things that he hoped to do. He told his mother one day that he wanted to give up the bother of book-learning and spend all of his time in real work. That mother was a wise woman, though she could neither read nor write. **My son,*' she said solemnly, * * don 't make the mistake of thinking that your two eyes can see everything. If you want to Digitized by CjOOQ IC 32 HIGH ADVENTURERS be at home in the great world that you love to hear about in our neighborhood gatherings, you must be able to see many things. You will need to use an- other pair of eyes — ^the eyes of reading and writ- ing. Knowledge is the golden ladder over which we climb to heaven.'' The boy looked into her face wonderingly, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. Then he be- gan to understand that this good mother, who was always working day and night cheerfully at her household tasks, would have liked something more than the stories by the fireside as her busy hand turned the spinning-wheel in the long evenings. **My eyes can see what is doing in the cottage and in the fields,'' she went on, **but I feel as if I were a blind person because I cannot read. I shall never be able to find my way about in the world beyond our village. You must have these eyes that the school can help you to use, and you can have the chance to go where you will over the wide earth." After this Michael Pupin never spoke of leav- ing school. He worked hard and had his reward when he was able to find for himself in books more wonderful things than the wise men of the village were able to tell. These were fine things to repeat and think over under the starry sky as he watched in the fields. One verse of a well-known Russian poet he liked to say over many times : Digitized by CjOOQ IC © Underwood d: Underwood MICHAEL PUPIN Digitized by CjOOQ IC i ( / / / Digitized by CjOOQ IC I MICHAEL PXJPIN 33 "Lonely I wander over the country road And in the darkness the stony path is glimmer- ing; Night is silent and the plains are whispering To God, and star speaketh to star." If he could only understand the language of the stars shining steadfastly through the long hours, he thought, he might find there the answer to many questions. As he watched the glory of the sunrise, he felt as if he were witnessing the creation of a world, and repeated to himself the words : **God said, Let there be light. . . .'* '*The heavens declare the glory of God . . .'* ''The two wonders of the world are light and sound. I must try to understand what they are and how they work,^' he resolved. Surely he did not dream at the time how much of his life would be spent in searching for the answers to questions that began to puzzle him as a boy. There was an interesting story of a young man in far-off America who a long time ago had been asking questions about lightning, one of which was answered by a kite-and-key experiment that proved the flash in the sky to be an electrical spark darting from cloud to cloud. Michael began to feel that Digitized by CjOOQ IC 34 HIGH ADVENTUEBBS this Benjamin Franklin had been a wiser person than the elders of Idvor, with all their wonder- tales. They repeated stories as they had been told them from the past. Franklin had been proving things that were taking place in the present. The lad wondered if America might not be a fine coun- try for young men who wece anxious to go ahead on some new path. The same teacher who told the story of how the American Franklin drew from the clouds with his kite a proof of the nature of lightning explained to Michael that sound is really the active vibra- tion of bodies. The boy used to think of this when, to amuse himself out in the fields with the oxen, he tried to play tunes on a flute. He was sure he could feel the air trembling as it left the pipe. As he watched a bagpipe-player manipulate his instru- ment so that the air from the sheepskin bellows passed through the pipes with a tone that sang now high, now low, he fancied that he could see the waves and ripples of sound. In particular he was fascinated by the way in which the player went to work to regulate and tune his bagpipes. The ques- tions that he asked himself then led years after- ward to important experiments that resulted tri- umphantly in his invention known as ^^ electrical tuning.'' *^You wonder how an inventor arrives at his results,'' he remarked once to a group of his pu- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 35 pils. **I will say that he begins by asking questions and applying both common sense and imagination to the facts he observes. The operation and also the term * electrical tuning* were suggested to me twenty years before I made the invention in 1892, while I was serving as a herdsman during my sum- mer vacation in the Serbian fields, and began to observe thoughtfully the movements of a bagpiper in tuning his instrument. What I have done since has been simply the follow-up of the lead which came to me then, through questions which I put to myself in regard to the nature and meaning of an everyday performance. ' * The eager questions of the boy called out the in- terest of the teachers who were unable to satisfy him with explanations. *^ This lad uses his eyes and thinks about what he sees,** said Kos, the schoolmaster who knew about Franklin. *^He should have the chance to go to the schools in Prague, because he shows that he will be able to apply a higher education to good advan- tage.** The day came not long after when the Serbian lad set off on his voyage into the great world. First there were two days by steamer on the Danube to Budapest, where he was to take a train to Prague — ^another day*s journey. He carried two hand- woven bags, as brightly colored as Joseph *s coat, one containing a change of linen, the other food Digitized by CjOOQ IC 36 HIGH ADVENTURERS for the trip, consisting of a big loaf of snowy bread and a roast goose. Over his only suit of clothes he wore an overcoat of yellow sheepskin with an embroidered border of red and black. Some students returning to their seminary after vacation were probably attracted by his unusual costume no less than by the savory odor of the roast goose. They pointed out places of interest on the banks of the river, and while Michael Pupin gazed in delight at the first moun- tain he had ever seen at close range, they decided it would be a good joke to play a trick on the green- horn. When they had said good-by at Karlovac, the town where their seminary was located, the boy suddenly bethought him that it was a long time since his breakfast. He opened the lunch-bag and took out the loaf of bread, but alas ! there was no goose to keep it company. A fellow-passenger who noticed his distress said: **I saw one of those stu- dents carry it off while the others were pointing out to you their school. If I had known then it wasn't his property I would have said something, but after all perhaps this experience will be worth more than a roast goose to you. In a world of strangers, you always have to keep one eye on what you have, and with the other eye look out for things you do not have.^' The next day on the train Michael Pupin had an Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 37 adventure that showed him the kindness of stran- gers. He had fallen asleep and been taken past the place where he should have changed cars. When he awoke he found himself in Vienna with no money to pay his fare back to Prague. A gray-haired man who was traveling with his wife consoled him in halting German, and gave the conductor the price of a first-class ticket. As they journeyed together the boy told his new friends about his home and learned that they were Americans. His face glowed as he cried in a voice that trembled with excite- ment: *^You are from America! Then you must know all about Benjamin Franklin and his kite and about Lincoln, the hero who is like our Serbian Prince Marko.*' There followed a wonderful hour of story-telling, when Michael described the neighborhood gather- ings and recited some of the ballads he had learned about Prince Marko and Karageorge, while the Americans told about Franklin, Lincoln, and other heroes of their country, which their kindness, no less than their answers to his questions, had brought very near to the young student. Indeed, that wonderful America had been brought so near by the kindness of these traveling- companions that a few months later, when he was reading the poster of an ocean steamship line, Michael Pupin all at once knew that he must get Digitized by CjOOQ IC 38 HIGH ADVBNTUEBRS together the money for a steerage ticket and seek his fortune in the new land. Selling his books, watch, clothing — even his sheepskin coat and cap — ^he found there was just enough for the passage. He wrote to his mother that he was going to a land where there were far better schools than those in Prague. Then the youth found himself one stormy March day on the deck of an ocean liner hugging a smoke-stack for warmth. All of his warm clothing had been sold and he was taking with him to the new adventure only a few changes of linen, a red Turkish fez, and golden dreams. A young im- migrant who is ready to brave the sort of hard- ships that this student suffered in the steerage through that stormy voyage for the sake of a new start in life has in him the resolution and endur- ance to make dreams merge into golden realities. When young Pupin was cross-examined by the immigration officials at Castle Garden, at first they shook their heads and looked very forbidding. The new-comer had to confess that he knew no trade, had only five cents as capital, and had no relatives to receive him in a country whose ways and lan- guage were strange to him. *^Have you no friends in this country! Is there nobody at all that you know anywhere in Amer- ica?'' one of the officials asked him in German. **0h, yes, I know Franklin and Lincoln very well,'' was the eager reply. **I also know Harriet Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 39 Beecher Stowe, because I was able to read her book * Uncle Tom's Cabin,' which was translated into our Serbian language/' he added. The officer looked at the applicant with attention and real interest. **You showed good taste when you picked your American acquaintances," he said with a kindly smile. **We may be able to make an exception in your case, but you must look sharp and get a job as soon as possible." The first job that the new country offered young Michael was on a farm in Delaware. Here he drove a team of mules and did various tasks connected with the spring planting. A blue-eyed girl at the farm-house, who seemed able to read the thoughts of the foreign helper, pointed one evening to a table in the dining-room where there were writing- materials. As he forgot his homesickness while writing about his fortunes to his mother, he de- cided that the graceful, fair-haired American girl was like a lovely Vila — a fairy nymph who flitted through many of the adventures celebrated in old Serbian ballads. ^ ^ No youth ever failed to find happiness who had the help of a Vila," he said to himself hopefully. One evening while he was lingering near the stove in the dining-room, he heard a cheery ^^Good evening!" and tried to echo the greeting. Vila cor- rected his pronunciation, and then, like the good fairy she was, began teaching him English words Digitized by CjOOQ IC 40 HIGH ADVBNTUEBRS for the articles of food and furniture in the room. Other lessons followed, and before two months had passed the Serbian youth was telling in the new language old stories of Serbia and Prague, and his adventures on the immigrant steamer that had brought him to America. Vila's mother was one of those who listened and encouraged the young man to seek new opportunities. **You are a good farm-worker,'* she said, **and you have done well here in learning to speak Eng- lish. You must find work now in a place where you can go on learning while earning your way. America is a land which gives freely opportunities to those who are ready to make use of them.'* America had long ago seemed to the dreams of the Serbian youth a country of great-hearted people. After his landing in New York it seemed to him a place of the most thrilling adventures. What could be more wonderful than the elevated railroad and the span of slender wires rising high over the East Eiver forming a suspended highway between two cities — ^the Brooklyn Bridge? Could there be found schools in America where the questions that such wonders called forth might be answered? Two years after young Pupin arrived in America he visited the Centennial Exposition in Philadel- phia and stood long before the greatest marvel shown there — ^BelPs newly invented telephone. His first thought was one of discouragement. Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 41 * * No chance for me, * ' he said to himself, * * in this country of magic where men can make a simple steel disk speak the English language better than a Serbian greenhorn can speak it, in spite of all the efforts of his clumsy vocal organs/' This mood did not last long, however. The youth who had begun to ask questions about the myste- rious laws of soimd when he watched in the fields near his native village through the velvety dark- ness of midnight, ready to send signals that would give warning of the approach of cattle-thieves, was determined to learn from the schools of the new land. Many days of work in a New York cracker- factory led to the golden chance for membership in evening classes at Cooper Union. There a picture that hung in the library where he studied attracted his attention. It was called **Men of Progress, '^ and showed- inventors like Morse, who gave the world the telegraph, and McCormick, who devel- oped the reaper, in company with the great scien- tist, Joseph Henry, and Peter Cooper, who founded the institution that bears his name. Young Pupin read eagerly the stories of these great men and dis- covered that each one had achieved success through a steady determination to reach his goal in spite of all difficulties. **When a man has something ahead that is worth striving for, work can become a splendid Digitized by CjOOQ IC 42 HIGH ADVENTURERS adventure,'^ said this student worker to himself. There were adventures with the steam-engine in the boiler-room of the factory, under the guidance of Jim, who found time, when he was not stoking the fires or otherwise meeting the needs of the turning wheels, to act as young Pupin^s first pro- fessor of engineering. Here he began to ponder over the marvels of heat, as he had since his boy- hood wrestled with problems concerning the nature of light and sound. Thef e were holiday hours spent in walks along Broadway, where the windows of book and art stores were adventures in themselves. Here were glimpses of new ways that he was preparing to ex- plore during long evenings of study at Cooper Union and in his room over the cracker-factory. He was sure now that he meant to go to Columbia Col- lege. A precious hoard was growing in a savings- bank and precious minutes were jealously guarded for study. At last there came the great moment which brought the news from the registrar at Columbia that he had been enrolled as a student who had earned through high rank in the entrance examinations freedom from tuition-fees. There were many happy adventures for Michael Pupin during the four years of college, but the most important were his achievements in science, which won for him a fellowship at Cambridge Uni- versity in England. Here he was to have the chance Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PTJPIN 43 to study in the country of the two great masters of physics, Faraday and Tyndall, and try to find an- swers to his questions concerning sound, light, and electricity. Here many things opened out in such a bewildering fashion that he felt, as he said, **like a goose in a fog/^ Just where he was going he could not see, but at least he trusted that he might be on the way ! Then came a wonderful ray of light. A letter from President Barnard of Columbia College brought news that the great scientist, Tyndall, had set aside the money earned by his lectures on light in America to give some American students the same opportunity for study in German universi- ties that he himself had enjoyed. Young Pupin was told to introduce himself to Tyndall as the candi- date Columbia had decided to send for the special training in physics. There was a wonderful visit with the master scientist, who gave the student some special hints for study and research that were like a road-map in a new country. He began to see where the next stage in his journey must lead. *^ You are now no longer like a goose in a fog, as your quaint Serbian saying puts it,^^ declared Tyndall, when he sent him to begin his studies in Berlin. **We must let Helmholtz decide whether or not you are a swan.^' A holiday in Scotland was spent in a quiet spot Digitized by CjOOQ IC 44 HIGH ADVENTURERS where Pupin studied Faraday's ** Experimental Researches in Electricity '^ and understood why Tyndall had particularly urged him to read them because *Hheir story is just as new and stirring to- day as it was when the volumes were first printed. ' ' This proved an excellent preparation for the first year in Berlin, when he attended Helmholtz's classes in experimental physics. Michael Pupin found himself breaking into poetry when he tried to tell this chapter of his story. **Helmholtz threw the search-light of his giant intellect upon the meaning of the experiments, and they blazed up like the brilliant colors of a flower garden when a beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds, and tears up the dark shadows which cover the landscape on a cloudy summer day,'' he said. At the end of the year in Berlin came a summer in his boyhood home with his mother. There were days of rest after the most golden harvest that Idvor had gathered in many years, when, refreshed by melons cooled at the bottom of a deep well, or grapes and peaches picked in the dewy freshness of early morning, he talked with his mother — ^who seemed to share the patient wisdom of Nature itself — about the wonders of his scientific studies. Lying in his mother's vineyard, where he could study the starry sky through many nights spent in the open, he found himself living again in imagi- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PTJPIN 45 nation the experiences of fifteen years before, when he had passed watchful hours as a herdsman and wondered about the mysteries of light and sound. Now, thanks to Faraday and Helmholtz, he had made the discovery that sound and light were alike manifestations of force, sound being a vibra- tion of matter and light a vibration of electrical energy. Busy years followed for the young man as a teacher of electrical engineering at Columbia. He did not cease, however, to be a student adventurer in the unexplored territory of science, though there seemed small opportunity for the patient ex- perimentation that was demanded for real re- search. It was while spending a vacation in Switzerland that the answer to a question that had long been knocking at the door of his attention came to him as in a moment of clear vision while he was climb- ing a steep trail over a mountain pass. He knew that a light silk cord weighted at regular intervals with heavy bird-shot would carry sound-waves as effectively as a much thicker cord that was not re- inforced by the weights. He now found himself saying, as he climbed briskly along the winding Alpine trail, ** Since the motion of electricity through a wire is like that of the vibratory waves passing over a stretched string, the use of weights or coils at regular intervals along the course of a Digitized by CjOOQ IC 46 HIGH ADVBNTUEEBS telephone cable would greatly increase its effec- tiveness/* It was, he saw, a part of the same law that he had discovered in part when as a boy he learned the art of sending signals through the ground. Sound is transmitted much more effectively through water than through the air, and more sat- isfactorily carried through the solid earth than across plowed fields. These facts he had long known. It was through following the careful ex- periments which he made in order to understand more fully the working of this law that he arrived at his invention of loading a telephone wire with inductance-coils. For the right to use this discov- ery, the American Telephone and Telegraph Com- pany paid the inventor half a million dollars. It was estimated by one of the heads of the company that in twenty-two years this invention had saved over a hundred million dollars by making possible the use of small wires instead of large ones in tele- phone cables. In his own story of his life, which he called **From Immigrant to Inventor,** Michael Pupin called attention to an important fact : ** Where are those one hundred million dollars which the invention has saved!** he asks. **I know that not even a microscopic part of them is in the pockets of the inventor. I have figured out also, with the same accuracy with which I once figured Digitized by CjOOQ IC MICHAEL PUPIN 47 out the invention, that those hundred million dol- lars are not in the pockets of the telephone com- pany. They must be, therefore, in the pockets of the American public. The invention made it pos- sible to give the telephone service, which is now being given, at a lower rate than would otherwise have been possible/^ So it is that every good invention which is brought to practical use through the persistent ef- fort of some adventurer with science is a benefit to millions of people in their daily lives. Another invention of Michael Pupin, which he called ** elec- trical tuning,^* was bought by the Marconi Com- pany and forms an important link in the chain of the adventures with the transmission of sound- waves that have made possible the development of the radio as we have it to-day. In this invention, as in the one that is used with the telephone, we have the answer to questions that a peasant boy asked himself as he noticed herdsmen sending signals in the fields, or watched a bagpiper tuning his instrument. Through many years he never stopped trying to find an answer to these questions, pressing on through many ad- ventures with science which, like a search for the end of the rainbow of promise, brought that best reward of hard work in which all people have a share. Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC WINGS OF ADVENTURE CHARLES AUGUSTUS LINDBERGH Digitized by CjOOQ IC Wings and the Boy ! Companions linked as one^ Prince of the Air, Columbia's bravest son, Modest as brave — ^the glory of his deed Joyously sharing with his wing^ steed. Oliveb Hebfobd Digitized by CjOOQ IC WINGS OP ADVENTURE CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 1902- It seemed almost as if a kindly fate put young Charles Lindbergh from his earliest years in train- ing for his wings of adventure and good-will. Two months after he was bom, on February 4, 1902, his parents moved to a farm in Minnesota, and the boy^s first glimpses of a world of large spaces were followed by more changes in home place and more chances for travel than come to many chil- dren. He was a small lad when his father was elected to Congress, which meant journeys each year to Washington and back again to the West. This con- stant migration kept him from completing school terms but had the advantage of giving him a real interest in different kinds of living. He never had the chance to take root firmly in one place and feel that there he belonged. Instead, his natural long- ings were all for travel — for going on and discov- ering what life held for people in new places. **I always knew I wanted to fly since I saw my first airplane in Washington, D. C, in 1912,** he 51 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 52 HIGH ADVENTURERS said, **but it was ten years later when I was en- rolled in a flying school before I was near enough to a plane to touch one/' During those ten years his chief opportunities for adventure came through motor-cycle trips. Part of the vacation that followed his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin was spent at an artillery school at Camp Knox, Kentucky. The rest was passed journeying to Jacksonville, Florida, and back to Madison on his motor-cycle. He spent in all just seventeen days and thirty-nine dollars on this grand tour, which gave him a new sense of mastery over himself and the ways of a machine, as well as the freedom of new trails. During his university days, his chief interest was for science, and particularly mechanics. At this time he longed intensely to take a course in aviation. After completing the first half of his sophomore year, the young man decided that the training he wanted most would have to be acquired elsewhere. He left Wisconsin for Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was entered as a flying student with the Ne- braska Aircraft Corporation. Those days of learning the use of wings seemed to him later most memorable for the delays that tried his eager spirit. Because of the strong winds that swept the Nebraska prairies during the day, the right flying weather for beginners was usually Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 53 found only in the early morning and at night. Young Charles Lindbergh ^s instructor was op- posed to early rising, which left all too few hours for air-work. Moreover, at that time there was no ground-school course, and the pupil who wanted to know every turn and screw of his motor had to pick up what he could around the factory on his own initiative. On the great day when the instructor declared that the student was equipped to go up alone, and it seemed as if he might be permitted to make good use of those wasted early hours, there loomed an- other obstacle. The head of the company would not risk the planes without a bond to insure them against loss, and this guarantee the young man was without the means to secure. Another avenue must be tried. When he learned that his instruction plane had been sold for use to a *'barn-stormer^' to draw the interest of crowds in different parts of the State and make a business of taking people on trial trips in the air, he volun- teered to go along without wages, as mechanic and helper. All he wanted was the chance to fly and learn through actual experience the ways of motors under different conditions. Soon he was doing stunts such as wing-walking and parachute-jumping. It was abundantly proved that his nerve was as steady and his brain as clear when he was standing poised on the wing-tip of Digitized by CjOOQ IC 54 HIGH ADVENTURERS his plane or letting himself down with a double drop from a height of two thousand feet as they were when he was riding his motor-cycle over solid ground. Indeed, it was before long apparent that he was one of the really air-minded people who are never at a loss when voyaging through the atmosphere. He seemed to have a special sense for air-currents no less than for the moods of air- craft. Because he was ** air-wise*' when skimming alone through the heights, he won the name ^^Lone Eagle.** It was doubtless true that he possessed by natu- ral endowment an air-sense, as it is sometimes called, but it is also true that he became wise in the ways of wings and air-navigation through much hard work. During the days when he was doing stunts that would entertain crowds enough to make them forget the effort of craned necks, and lead the more daring among them to pay five dol- lars for the experience of a five-minute sail above the country-side that they had known only from the ground, he was carefully investing his time in learning all that might be picked up about the mechanism and control of planes under a great variety of conditions. * * Of course I was careful not to mention it at the time, but the fact was that I had never made a solo flight when I bought my first plane — ^a Jenny that Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 55 had seen much wartime service in the training of air-men,^* Lindbergh confessed when he and some brother aviators engaged in a little friendly ** ground-flying/' **The plane cost five hundred dollars, but extra flying lessons would have cost more and there was no chance to get the practice I wanted by trying things out for myself/* The Jenny made good. She soon proved that she could carry enough passengers at five dollars each to pay for the gasoline and other expenses of a barn-storming tour, and leave a surplus with the enterprising young pilot. There was much experi- ence gained through coaxing the old Jenny to try altitudes that a new plane would have hummed past at the start; but after a time Lindbergh de- cided to sell her to another beginner and enlist as a flying cadet in the Army. Here was the one way to get the chance to use new and improved wings with the power to take him into the sky at any height and rate he might elect *4nstead of having to be wished up over low trees at the end of a landing-field.'* It was great news when he learned that he had passed the stiff physical and mental tests that ad- mitted him to enter the Army flying school. It was an even greater day when after a year's hard study and practice at Brooks and Kelly fields in Texas, young Lindbergh was one of eighteen out Digitized by CjOOQ IC 56 HIGH ADVENTURERS of an entering class of one hundred and four cadets to win the wings and commissions of second lieutenants in the Air Service Reserve. The next opportunity for steady work in the air came through the air-mail service between St. Louis and Chicago. Here in winter, with early darkness closing in, an unlighted route, and poor air-ports, there was much to try the courage and resourcefulness of the young pilot. In explaining that during the first five months the mail went through on schedule on ninety-eight per cent of the trips, Lindbergh said: ** There are two enemies which the air mail can- not meet. They are fog and sleet. When a ceiling of mist thickens around, a pilot cannot continue after the earth becomes invisible and all traces of landing-fields disappear. When sleet begins to freeze on the wings and wires of a plane there is nothing to do but sign off and send the mail for- ward by train. There is at these times of worst chance the satisfaction of knowing that it has gone through as quickly as if it had been carried by rail from the start.'' While winging his way with Uncle Sam's letter- bags it was always the care for the day's work that counted. If he happened to be hard pressed by the enemy, fog, and had tried in vain to find a way around or a hole through the curtain of cloud until his gasoline-tanks were running dry, there was Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 57 nothing to do but drop to earth with his parachute. In these dark moments he never lost his head and neglected to shut off the engine and cut off the gasoline to keep the plane from catching fire when the crash came. Always the mail-sacks must be rescued and sent on at the earliest moment. There were many plans made for safer and bet- ter air-work when America should wake up to the opportunities that aviation was making possible ; there were many glorious pictures of high adven- ture flashed before the inner vision of the young pilot as he made his flights with the mail. One night in the autumn of 1926 the idea came to him of at- tempting a non-stop voyage from New York to Paris to carry off the prize of $25,000 offered to the first flyer who succeeded in accomplishing this feat. He counted the chances with cool foresight and decided that the modern air-cooled radial en- gine and bird-like construction of planes with high-lift air-foils made it humanly possible under fair-weather conditions to accomplish this feat. He had planned each detail so carefully that he was successful in interesting a group of public- spirited citizens of St. Louis to the extent of pro- viding the financial backing for the venture. The first step was a trip to New York to go over carefully the merits of various planes and motors in order to make the best selection for the great adventure. He decided that a monoplane could Digitized by CjOOQ IC 58 HIGH ADVENTUEEBS carry a greater load at a higher speed than a bi- plane because there would be no loss through inter- ference between wings. In the same way he decided that a plane with but one motor had bet- ter chances than those equipped with three, be- cause of the lessened head-resistance and the consequent longer cruising range. If the engine and all the other factors could be provided accord- ing to well-considered specifications, he would even dispense with a navigator in order to carry extra fuel, which would mea^n an added possibility of three hundred miles. He placed his order for a monoplane equipped with a Wright Whirlwind motor and Pioneer navigating instruments, to- gether with the earth-inductor compass. During the two months that this plane, which, in honor of the city that had given him his chance, he called The Spirit of St. Louis, was under con- struction in San Diego, California, he stayed by, ever vigilant and intent on working out each de- tail of the trip over land and sea to the air-port in France. The spirit of the young pilot seemed to have been communicated to the mechanics at work on the wonderful plane. Sometimes they worked for twenty-four hours without rest, and the chief engineer was known to have kept at his drafting- board on one occasion for thirty-six hours. No wonder the finished plane was one of the most air- Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 59 worthy and efficient ships that ever sailed the blue above earth and ocean. The level-headed care with which Lindbergh had made his initial plans, together with his proved ability as a pilot, were followed np by an extraor- dinary attention to the least detail of naviga- tion. Day after day and far into the night of the weeks when the plane was taking shape at the fac- tory, his plans were taking shape on maps and charts. Lieutenant Maitland, who visited San Diego soon after the whole world was talking of Lind- bergh and his flight, remarked: **I inspected the factory where The Spirit of St Louis was built and went over the maps, charts, and other data which he studied while the ship was under construction. It was amazing. I gave up the idea of luck then and there. This young man was no child of fortune; he had attained his end by hard work coupled to his amazing flying ability.^' It was a capacity for taking pains in the prepa- ration of all factors — ^those concerned with knowl- edge of land formations, of weather areas at sea, of the minute tricks of the navigating instruments, and the quirks of his own mind and temper of body, as well as his instinctive command of his plane, which put him in line for success. The most Digitized by CjOOQ IC 60 HIGH ADVENTURERS careful tests were made under different conditions before the take-off for the flight. Then when all was in readiness he could still wait for the right moment. A storm held him in San Diego for four days. All of the time of enforced waiting, as well as that spent in making the overland hop to St. Louis and on to New York, was taken as opportu- nity for gathering additional data that might prove valuable in the days ahead. We read the modest account of that voyage in his own story of his experiences, which he called *'We,'^ because he always shared the honor with the beloved plane that came to work in such har- mony with his every touch that it seemed another self. There was the final check-up of plane and instruments at the flying-field in New York. Then came the word from the Weather Bureau tiiat in spite of a light rain and overcast skies, general conditions over the North Atlantic promised well for the next few days. Besides, the moon had just reached its full round and might be counted on as an important ally. A further wait, moreover, would mean increased liability of fog off New- foundland. Surely the moment had arrived. He went to his hotel to snatch two and a half hours of sleep before the start, but some other de- tails of preparation thrust themselves forward as of greater importance. People who wondered how he was able to keep awake during the hours when Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBEEGH 61 lis plane was going along the way of sea-gulls over the ocean are nevertheless not able to imagine how many things he had to be alive to at every moment. He was glad of every hour he had spent in hard work while his plane was growing under the hands of engineers and mechanics, and in study under weather experts of the charts of the North Atlantic. He had now some guide to the movement of winds, to temperature changes, and he felt real triumph in being his own navigator. There was, of course, his genius for flying, that air-wisdom which can only be compared to the in- stinctive adaptation to atmospheric conditions of a bird in its native medium. But there was besides the hardly won experience of a master mechanic, who knew the language of his motor down to the least quiver and hum inaudible to others. This had been gained in testing and repairing, as well as in controlling, all sorts and conditions of planes from hard-pressed war survivors to the most approved new models purchased for Government use. Besides, there was a kind of uncommon common sense that he readily applied, as when he flew around clouds that he could not go through be- cause of the sleet that began to collect on his wings. He was alert also to the opportunity of making up for time lost when obliged to turn aside from his dburse by taking advantage of the ** cushion of air near the surface of land or water through which Digitized by CjOOQ IC 62 HIGH ADVENTURERS a plane flies with less effort than when at a high altitude.'' There was another compensating factor when flying close to the water. He could tell the di- rection and rate of the wind, as well as the nature of the cross-currents, by the way the foam was blown from the whitecaps. So it was that in spite of fog and sleet he reached the southwestern part of Ireland, which his study of his maps helped him to recognize, got his bearings from Cape Valentia and Dingle Bay, and set a straight course by compass for Paris. Two hours after leaving the coast of Ireland he was enjoying his first glimpse of the neat, garden- like farms of England, marked off with stone walls and hedge fences. He reflected that since the air was clear he had, after crossing the English Chan- nel and passing over Cherbourg, France, probably seen more of that part of Europe than many people who had passed their entire lives in the country-side over which he had flown. **Tou never know what a place is really like tmtil you see it from the air,*' he said. **It is when they are on the ground that people find it difficult to see the woods for the trees and the relation of roads and water-ways.'' At ten o'clock on the night of May 21, 1927, the Columbus of the air-trail across the Atlantic had seen the lights of Paris and was circling about the Eiffel Tower trying to decide whether the beacons Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 63 of the flying-field that he saw close to the city were indeed those of Le Bourget, to which he was bound. After assuring himself that there was no other field which might be the spot he sought, he flew close to the ground, made out the line of hangars, the surrounding roads packed with cars, and the field covered with a surging mass of people running toward him as he circled around and landed. He had made the air-trip in thirty-three and a half hours from New York, with the fac- tors of both time and place accorcUng to plan. Our well-beloved ambassador to France, Myron T. Herrick, was one of the first to greet the Lone Eagle. ** Young man, I am going to take you home with me and look after you,'* he said. Lindbergh looked into the eyes that met his in fatherly kindness, and drew nearer. **I can^t hear you very well; the sound of the motor is still in my ears,*^ he said. The ambassador repeated the invitation, and that was the beginning of a real friendship between two real men, in spite of almost fifty years ^ difference in age. Those who saw them together declared that they seemed to **fall in step'^ easily with each other's point of view, like old familiar friends. Among emergency equipment, the aviator had not included clothes for social occasions. So it was in a suit provided by the ambassador that Lind- bergh was received by the President of France, Digitized by CjOOQ IC 64 HIGH ADVENTURERS who kissed him on both cheeks in the French man- ner and pinned to his coat the Cross of the Legion of Honor. To Lindbergh one of the most interesting events was a luncheon where he was guest of honor to- gether with the famous French aviator, Monsieur Bleriot, who made in 1909 the first airplane flight across the English Channel. He then drove with Ambassador Herrick to the Chamber of Deputies. **What will happen now?*' asked Lindbergh, whose policy was preparedness. ** There will be speeches, of course, and you will have to say something in reply to the addresses which will surely be made in your honor,*' Mr. Herrick told him. In describing the occasion afterward the ambas- sador remarked that Lindbergh's speech showed how ready he was to turn to good account ideas that had come up in conversation. ** Something brought up Franklin's name and I told Lindbergh about my great predecessor's in- terest in balloons when he was here. He liked that and asked me several questions. I then told him the story of some one's asking Franklin what was the use of a balloon, and his reply, * What is the use of a new-born babyt' '' There was a breathless moment afterward in the hall of the French House of Representatives when General Gouraud greeted the hero of the hour as Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC o t— ' o W Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 65 ** belonging to the glorious band of which Monsieur Bleriot standing there beside you is one, which has opened up the great spaces.'^ Lindbergh waited quietly until the outburst of applause had entirely spent itself, and then replied calmly and with simple directness in the first speech of his life : ** Gentlemen, one hundred and thirty-two years ago Benjamin Franklin was asked, *What good is your balloon? What will it accomplish?' He re- plied, *What good is a new-bom child?* Less than twenty years ago when I was not far advanced from infancy, M. Bleriot flew across the English Channel and was asked, * What good is your aero- plane? What will it accomplish?' To-day those same skeptics might ask me what good has been my flight from New York to Paris. My answer is that I believe it is the forerunner of a great air service from America to France, America to Europe, to bring our peoples nearer together in understanding and friendship than they have ever been.'' Lindbergh was always thinking of things ahead to be accomplished rather than of himself. It seemed hard for him to understand the meaning of the enthusiasm of which he was the center. **Why, look at all the American flags every- where!" he exclaimed as he drove through the streets of Paris. **They are hung out in your honor," Ambassa- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 66 HIGH ADVENTURERS dor Herrick said, as he tried to make him under- stand the wish of every one to congratulate him on his great feat. Lindbergh looked troubled. '*I find myself thinking of the two brave French flyers who lost their lives in trying to cross from this side,^^ he said. **Tou know it is much easier to fly from New York to Paris than from Paris to New York.^' He paid a visit to Madame Nungesser, the mother of one of the missing aviators, who seemed to think he bore a charmed life and begged him to find her son. He also visited the sick and helpless veterans of the World War, cheering them by a glimpse of young courage, triumphant over diffi- culties and unspoiled by praise. More remarkable than his mastery of his ma- chine, and the other factors that contributed to his marvelous success as an aviator, were the human qualities that enabled him to steer a straight course through the bewildering fog of publicity, which all at once closed about him. It was apparent that here was a man who cared more for his work than for honors or rewards. The one thing he asked was the chance to live his life untroubled by curious crowds and use his wings of adventure in a way to further the cause close to his heart — ^the development of air-travel in America. When in London the Prince of Wales asked the hero of the hour what he intended to do, Lind- Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 67 bergh replied without hesitation: **I am going to keep on flying.'' Later, when he was welcomed in America by his new title of Colonel and decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Cross of Honor, and the Medal of Pioneers, his brief speeches showed that his first wish was to carry on as a flying-man in the service of his country. * * Some things should be taken into consideration in connection with our flight that have not hereto- fore been given due weight, *' he said. **That is, just what made this flight possible. It was not the act of a single pilot. It was the culmination of twenty years of aeronautical research and the as- sembling together of all that was practicable and best in American aviation. It represented Ameri- can industry.'* True to his purpose to work for the cause of aviation in America, Lindbergh undertook in the summer following his return a ** circus" or tour of the country. From June twentieth to October twenty-third he flew, visiting all the forty-eight States and stopping in the capitals of about half as many, where the crowds were made happy by parades, speeches, and other gala events, chief among which was the chance to see the Lone Eagle soaring over their city in The Spirit of St. Louis. The use of the same plane that had carried him across the ocean was taken as a practical evidence of the safety and durability of modern aircraft. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 68 HIGH ADVENTURERS Many people were educated by this tour to the idea that air-travel is not only a delightful but also a dependable mode of transportation. In Detroit, a special seat was contrived next the pilot of the famous plane built for one, to give Henry Ford his first trip in an airplane. **I have of course been interested in developing the best and safest kinds of aircraft,'^ remarked Mr. Ford, **but still I am of the opinion that when it comes to a guarantee of safety the factor of the machine counts only one tenth ; the human factor counts nine tenths. In the last analysis, the acci- dents have been in nine cases out of ten due not to motor but to man failure.'^ Here was a case when both factors seemed to have been perfectly matched. It was evident to Henry Ford, as to others who knew Lindbergh, that he was no master performer intent on ** stunts ^^ and speed-records, but a true scientist keenly interested in the development of air-travel. Christmas time of the year 1927 was memorable for Lindbergh's good-will trip to Mexico. In de- ciding on the route, it was made clear to all that the fearless pilot did not take risks without count- ing the cost and studying the necessity of the moment. "A shorter way might have been chosen by go- ing part of the distance over the Gulf,'* he ex- plained, '*but it is not necessary. As planes have Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 69 not yet been developed in a way to make travel over the water safe, it is better to take the over- land trail. The really dependable transatlantic flights will be made in my opinion with improved flying boats, since motors are not yet proof against the dij£culties to which any mechanism is at times liable.'' The flight to Mexico was in some respects more difficult than the crossing to Paris, because when over the ocean there were only five hours of abso- lute darkness when the flyer had to rely entirely on his instruments to determine at each moment the height and the direction of the plane. On the other trip, at the time of longest nights, there were thirteen and one half hours of darkness when skill and vigilance in the use of instruments were required of the pilot. When questioned as to the risks he was taking in making the Mexico flight at the time he did, Lindbergh replied : ** Flying at night is not hazardous to the trained and careful pilot. That is proved by our air-mail pilots who make flights regularly through hours of darkness. Flares are used to help in locating a suitable landing-place in case it proves necessary to come to earth during the night.'' When questioned as to his reasons for making the visit to Mexico, Lindbergh explained that from the time he was in training at the Texas flying- fields he had longed to see the land of our southern Digitized by CjOOQ IC 70 HIGH ADVENTURERS neighbor. The fact that most people in the United States know so much more about Canada than they know of the country over the southern boundary was a challenge to him. He wanted to see the land both because of its natural interests and because of its fascinating history. He wanted to get ac- quainted with its people. ** While in Arizona and also at El Paso, Texas, on my tour of America, I met Mexican officials in- terested in aviation, and brother pilots who treated me with great courtesy and urged me to fly over the border,*' Lindbergh said, in giving an account of the trip. **Tou know there is a genuine spirit of comradeship between airmen everywhere. When more people come to fly there will be a bet- ter understanding between nations. Since ocean travel by the air-trail is not now practicable, we cannot do better in the cause of acquaintance and good-will between peoples than to promote friend- ship with those near us. There is nothing which stirs people at the present time as much as flying. It is in the air generally. Therefore our good-will should go on wings.'' The start for the good-will flight to Mexico, Cen- tral America, and the West Indies was made December 13, 1927, when The Spirit of St. Louis took oflf from Washington, D. C, at 12 : 26 p. m. and after a non-stop flight landed twenty-seven hours later at Mexico City. As in his ocean flight, Lind- Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 71 bergh had consulted the leading Government ex- perts in working out the chart that was to guide him in the matter of weather conditions and the nature of the country over which he would pass. He made the two-thousand-mile hop in but one hour more than the time reckoned in his plans. This delay was due to two hours lost through fog, which closed about him after leaving Tampico. An aviator cannot always avoid getting off his course, but his mastery of his science is measured by his ability to get back on the trail without mishap. While in Mexico, Lindbergh had the opportunity to get acquainted with the general features of the country as it is only possible to do from the air, when the map becomes alive and one views a panorama of coast-line, forest, fields, mountains, and rivers in relation to one another. After enjoying the landscape from above, the guest of the nation was taken by General Obregon to see some of the points of interest. He visited the ancient Aztec pyramids of the sun and moon and was entertained at a luncheon in a cave — a beginning of some care-free hours that he enjoyed like a boy. A delegation of Boy Scouts received the Lone Eagle as a member of the Mexican troop and gave him highest honors, since he was made at once a Knight of the Order of the Eagle, of the Lion, and of the Tiger. There is nothing that a happy airman would Digitized by CjOOQ IC 72 HIGH ADVENTURERS want after such events but to fly. So slipping away to the field where The Spirit of St. Louis was wait- ing for him, he prepared for a frolic in the air. This meant, of course, that he first went over the plane carefully in every detail. Then in a moment he zoomed off and circled about the field, going through an amazing series of evolutions. After soaring upward at such an angle that he seemed almost to shoot up vertically, he skimmed the earth on downward swoops and indulged in breath- taking side-slips, loops, and climbs. Christmas Day was spent in Mexico City as the guest of Ambassador Morrow. It was at this time that he met the lovely and gifted daughter of the ambassador, Anne Morrow, who in May, 1929, be- came his wife. In demonstrating the special use of airplanes in the work of exploration, Lindbergh has enjoyed some unusual adventures in the country of the cliff- dwellers and among the ruins of the ancient Maya civilization of Central America. He proved that it is possible to locate readily from the air places of first importance to the student of the past, which it would take months or years to discover from the ground. A group of archaeologists who were at work in the Indian country of Arizona were surprised one day to see a beautiful blue airplane with orange wings skimming low over the canyon where they Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 73 had made camp mider a ledge of overhanging rock. They waved a greeting, but as the plane disap- peared above the canyon walls they could not de- termine if their signals had been noted. Soon, however, they were joined by Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh, who were enjoying some rare adven- tures with a camera among the remains of the ancient peoples. From the air Lindbergh had picked out the only possible landing-place for his plane in a far stretch of rugged country. He had noted, too, an all but hidden trail along the walls of the canyon — ^a climb with footholds used centuries before by the cliff-dwellers, but so nearly worn away by weathering that the scientists working near by had not discovered it. "It seems like a lot of work to map the canyon from the ground, when it would be so easy from the air,*' said Colonel Lindbergh. "My ship is not equipped for aerial photography. I simply snap pictures over the side while Mrs. Lindbergh man- ages the ship. I can't take the vertical shots used in mapping, but a person equipped for the purpose could map the whole canyon in fifteen minutes. '* There followed a steep climb to a cave that he had spotted and photographed from the air — which the scientists at once entered on their map as Lindbergh Cave. Colonel Lindbergh is fond of maps, but among the many which he uses there is one friend that Digitized by CjOOQ IC 74 HIGH ADVENTURERS carries a record of all his trips, for after each air- journey a new line is added to its maze of trails. **I bought this map in 1922 for fifty cents, when I began my bam-storming adventures, '* he ex- plained. **You see the way I preserved it by mounting it on airplane cloth, using the special aeronautical mucilage we call *dope.' '* There is a bold dash-line on this map marking the great journey from San Diego to New York ; there are heavy black lines for the tour of the forty-eight States ; special markings for the good- will visits to Mexico, Central America, and South America; and a variety of light lines for shorter trips. **Maps begin to come alive when we travel, par- ticularly if we journey through the air,*' said Colonel Lindbergh. ** Centuries of isolation have caused us to judge distances by imagination rather than by miles. Few people realize that the Panama Canal is more than a thousand miles closer to New York than is San Francisco, or that the plains and forests of Venezuela are nearer to Manhattan than are the ranches of New Mexico or the timberland of Oregon. '* Always working to bring about improved com- munication between peoples through advance in aviation, on Easter Day, 1930, Colonel Lindbergh made with his wife a flight from Los Angeles to New York in order to test the flying conditions for Digitized by CjOOQ IC CHARLES A. LINDBERGH 75 high-altitude trips. Maintaining a height of from ten thousand to fifteen thousand feet, they made the record of two thousand five hundred miles in fourteen hours and twenty-three minutes flying- time, or one hundred seventy-two miles an hour. A stop of twenty-two minutes was made at Wich- ita, Kansas, to take on fuel and oil. The pilot and his wife had their meals in the air. **We were not beating a record because it was not a non-stop flight, *' explained Colonel Lind- bergh. **The trip was a test in the interest of com- mercial flying. We were able to make the distance faster than it had been accomplished before be- cause of our equipment. That is progress in avia- tion. I think we ought to be able to cross the country each year in progressively better time. As long as we continue to get better aircraft and en- gines we cannot fail to get better results. '* So it is that Lindbergh ever shares the honors with those who have had part in the work of mak- ing his *' wings of adventure.^' Our great scientist, Michael Pupin, said of him, ** Whenever you speak of this land as the land of machines, remember the machine and its pilot who with a honey-hearted smile carry our American message of good-will to the nations of the earth. The gentle soul of the pilot is so closely welded to the soul of his ma- chine that the union cannot be better described than by the affectionate title *We.' '' Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC FEOM POLE TO POLE RICHARD EVELYN BIRD Digitized by CjOOQ IC I want to clear up that large white space on the bottom of the globe for the school children. RiCHlBD EVELTN BtBD Digitized by CjOOQ IC PROM POLE TO POLE BICHABD EVELYN BTBD 188&- Have you ever wanted to do anything so much that nothing could stop you, and no words discourage you? And have you hoped that you might some day accomplish something that had never been done before? If you have, tiien you will understand how Richard Evelyn Byrd has felt as during the course of his life he has gone from one adventure to an- other. Eichard Byrd began at the age of eight to prove that he was a true descendant of that adventurous Colonel William Byrd who was among the first settlers of Virginia and wrote for his friends in England an account of the new country and the strange Indian tribes. EHck Byrd was rather a lucky little boy, for not only did he live in a small town near the open country where endless fields were close at hand, but he had the sort of parents who believed that a child should learn how to take care of himself. No fussy people kept constant watch over him. He was free to explore and make discoveries for himself in the great out-of-doors. 79 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 80 HIGH ADVENTURERS Many a stiimy day would find the lad and his little dog, Judy, trudging across the meadows on trips of exploration. Often, too, there were adventures with new kinds of kites, for with him, as with a great many people, the toys of childhood became the tools of manhood. His greatest pleasure, however, was found in exploring the unknown. Being by himself held no terrors for him, and while the other boys were playing ball, he was often following some new trail. His home was in Winchester, Virginia, in the lovely Shenandoah Valley, not far from the Shen- andoah Caverns and other famous caves. The story is told that once when he was ten, an old colored man who met him in a field asked if he had seen **the big cave.'* This promised new adventure and Richard was instantly eager to find it. Many of us would have hesitated to follow such vague direc- tions as these: **Go around the mountain, down the valley, across the broad fields close to the river. *' But Dick was ready to start out at once. The old man had promised that he would see a cave as big as the whole town of Winchester. The next morning, armed with two sandwiches, an apple, and a bone for Judy, he started out. It was summertime, and the climb up the mountain was long and hot. Dick was glad to rest and eat his lunch when he reached the top, but he did not Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 81 forget his quest. Going further, he met two men who thought it was a good joke to direct the small boy to a point two miles farther along the river. Can you imagine Dick^s disappointment when he found that the **cave as big as Winchester '* was only an old sink-hole? It must have been hard to keep the tears back, but there were other things besides caves to think of. He had still to make the return trip, which must have seemed to him twice as long with disappoint- ment behind him and weariness ahead. He never forgot that homeward journey, which proved dan- gerous as well as trying when a severe storm drove him to look for shelter under a great oak. Trees in an electrical storm are not a safe refuge, as the boy discovered within a few minutes, when op- posite him one was struck by a huge ball of fire. **I^11 remember next time that it's safer out in the rain when it thunders than it is in the woods, *' he said to himself. Shivering and wet, Dick and Judy waited until night for the storm to subside. Then a fitful moon half hidden by clouds lighted the wanderers through the woods and across the fields, until at last they reached home. What a welcome they re- ceived! When night came his family had feared that the wild storm might have swept Dick away with the bridge that had been destroyed in the angry torrent of the river. And in the joy and re- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 82 HIGH ADVENTURERS lief over having come to the end of his hard journey, Dick ahnost forgot the failure of his search for the cave. Hard experiences sometimes leave lifelong im- pressions. Sometimes they spur us on to new ad- venture. Each difficulty overcome is a promise of greater success. So it was with Dick Byrd. A short two years after his unlucky search for the big cave, he was ready to go across the world alone. Here was a rare opportunity for a lad of twelve years. It was in 1900, shortly after the Spanish- American war, that a letter to the Byrds from their friend Captain Carson, in the Philippines, asked them to send Dick to visit him. Even to Mr. and Mrs. Byrd this seemed a hazardous venture. Half the world would be between them and their boy. Many thoughts for and against the trip crowded their minds. Perhaps Dick's eagerness and com- plete lack of fear finally turned the tables in favor of his going. Reluctantly Mrs. Byrd packed his trunk, with the tears streaming down her cheeks. Dick saw his mother crying and his heart was torn between pain at seeing her unhappiness and desire to go. * * If it hurts you that much. Mother, I shan 't go, ' ' he said, **but if I don't go, you know I'll be sorry the rest of my life." Mrs. Byrd was a wise mother. She smiled at Dick through her tears and a few days later said good- Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 83 by to him bravely at Richmond. From there on the boy was to make the whole trip alone. His eyes flashed with joy and pride. Years afterward he said, **I don't think I shall ever feel as big or as im- portant again in my life, as I did when I pulled out of Richmond on the train for San Francisco. '' At San Francisco he took a boat for Manila. Can you imagine him with his eyes fairly popping out of his head, trying to see as much of the great world as he could? Can you imagine him watching the machinery of the boat, trying to understand the nautical instruments that enabled the captain to steer a straight course over the ocean, learn- ing to interpret the ship's log, and also beginning to interpret the language of the sea and the sky? There was excitement a-plenty too, when they ran into a typhoon, that most feared of all storms at sea. How the wind shrieked as the water lashed against the sides of the boat, piling mountain-high and then sweeping over the deck in fury ! At last Japan was reached and Dick saw for him- self scenes that were like book-adventures. He could hardly believe that the paper houses, the jinriMshas, and the yellow men and women in colorful costumes were entirely real. He would have been sorry to leave them if other adventures and Captain Carson had not been waiting. This was not long after the war and the people of the Philippine Islands, which had so recently Digitized by CjOOQ IC 84 HIGH ADVENTURERS come under the flag of the United States, were not yet accustomed to the ways of peace. Indeed in parts of the country the inhabitants were still engaged in active skirmishing. The days for Dick were full of interesting discoveries but for Captain Carson it was probably a matter of regret, more than once, that he had urged his friends to send their young son to such an unsettled country. When the danger of cholera was added to other hazards, Dick was told that there was no choice but to leave for home as soon as possible. To take oflf the edge of the boy ^s disappointment his friend arranged that he should return by a different route and see new scenes. This time he crossed the Indian Ocean, cruised along the Medi- terranean shores, and then crossed the Atlantic, landing in New York. When the train brought him back to Eichmond he had **put a girdle around the earth'' and felt that he was able to share with Magellan the thrill of high adventure. After the exciting lessons of travel, it was hard to devote himself whole-heartedly to book-learning. School might have proved a sad grind if it had not been for the lad's interest in active sports. There was discipline, too, at the military school where he got the preparatory training that helped him to realize the desire of his heart — ^an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. There Eichard Byrd excelled in the navigation Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 85 courses and applied himself with enthusiasm to technical subjects such as applied physics, engi- neering, and mechanical design. These stood him in good part later when he became a pioneer in the field of aviation. There were times at Annapolis, however, when it seemed that the athletic interests took more than their fair share of attention. Young Byrd was es- pecially strenuous in his efforts to uphold the honor of the Academy on the football-field and in track- meets. Above all he longed to be prepared to defeat Yale, and to that end spent as much time as pos- sible in special gymnasium training. In particular he practised a sort of double somersault as he flung himself through the air from one flying-ring to the next. This achievement was designed to give a final flourish to the triumph of the ** Middies'' over all competitors. Alas for his hopes and the long hours of hard training! On the last day of practice in the gymnasium, when glorious victory was almost within his grasp, his foot failed to catch in the flying-ring and the young athlete was flung to the floor in defeat. There were many weary days in the hospital, when Dick wondered if the broken foot and ankle would ever allow him to take an active part again in the life for which he had been preparing. It was at least some consolation to him, however, to know that Annapolis had come off with flying colors in spite of everything. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 86 HIGH ADVENTURERS **It was a tough lesson, of course,'^ he used to say, **but I had learned this, at least, never to take myself too seriously and attach undue importance to my place in the scheme of things.'' He learned in time an even greater lesson — ^that seeming defeat often leads the way to triumph in the end. There were, however, days and nights of bitter anxiety and suffering before that victorious dawn. Though he had been able in the face of all dif- ficulties to graduate with his class and receive an appointment in the Navy, he was retired five years later when his lame foot still proved to be a handi- cap. At the age of twenty-nine, he saw himself cast aside as unfit for the life which at that time was all that he knew and cared for. The hardest time of all came when the World War broke out and Eichard Byrd toiled at office work in the Navy Department, hoping against hope that he might some day get the chance to begin life all over again as an aviator. He knew that his experience and his mechanical training were the right sort of preparation for this new adventure, and that the injured foot, which had been a handi- cap on the deck of a man-of-war, would not prevent his carrying on with the leaders in the field of aviation — a science then in its pioneer days. It seemed, however, as if this door was also to be closed to him. Hard work and anxiety had worn Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 87 down his bodily health and endurance. The examin- ing board of doctors turned down his application for a place in an aviation school and advised him * * to take a long rest. ' ' When the young man pleaded desperately, with all his soul in his eyes, to be given a chance for a month ^s trial in the service on which he had set his heart, the examiners relented. **I agree to withdraw at the end of the trial period if I fail to prove that I can come up to all the tests in health requirements as well as on the flying-field, '* he promised. We all know that the joy of this new adventure brought back hope to Eichard Byrd's spirit and health to his body. His skill with engines proved itself equal to the demands of the hour, and his love of adventure was satisfied. No wonder he made good. In a short time he was sent down to the flying-field at Pensacola. Byrd went to Pensacola in 1917. At that time airplanes were far from perfect, and accidents occurred with terrible frequency. Think what it must have meant to a man just entering a service, to see an airplane fly bravely out across the shining waters of a bay, only to burst into flames a few minutes later, and fall helpless into the devouring waves ! This experience marked the arrival of Byrd at the Florida aviation-field. Within a few minutes of the accident, one of the experienced aviators asked Byrd to go up with Digitized by CjOOQ IC 88 HIGH ADVENTURERS him and the recruit accepted the invitation. Per- haps the young man knew that the best way to overcome any future fear was to fly in the face of it before it got the best of him. Perhaps that was also in the mind of the aviator who took him up, for he put him immediately through the most hair- raising experiences. How his heart must have thumped as they sailed high into what seemed the very heavens, soaring in great circles and then sweeping rapidly earthward ! As if this were not enough, the aviator made Byrd take over the con- trols, and it was only as they came at great speed dangerously close to the ground that the pilot came to the rescue. The initiation over, Byrd began his regular in- struction in flying. We can realize how splendidly alert and mechanically well equipped he was when we learn that after six hours ' teaching he was ready to fly alone. He was told to remain in the air only twenty minutes on the first solo flight, but once up, his love of experiment and adventure got the best of him. He would try out the possibilities of his plane. He would see what the motor was capable of; and before his curiosity was satisfied, he had stayed aloft four times twenty minutes. What a thrill he must have known during that daring ex- perience as a lone bird, far above the earth 1 Re- membering this adventure, perhaps, Byrd used Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 89 often to say, ^^The first flight alone is the greatest event in an aviator *s life/' In the next few weeks he made endless experi- ments. He felt that the cause of aviation could be advanced only by making flying safer. The hurry and fever of the war had made men reckless, and many lives were lost in useless and careless flying. The lover of adventure is sometimes not only indifferent to his own life, but also heedless of the cost to others. Byrd, however, seems to com- bine the spirit of daring with the scientist's zeal for advancing knowledge. He wanted to fly for the joy of flying, but he also wanted to discover the laws that would make aviation a controlled science. To this end, he made a careful study of the structure of motors and of their behavior under all condi- tions. He worked without hurry, calmly and pains- takingly. It did not take long before his ability was recognized. He became first instructor, and then assistant superintendent, at the aviation- field. When it was thought that night flying might become useful, Byrd was chosen for the task of experimentation and training. No one was better prepared than he to attempt the new with courage and skill. Under his tuition one hundred men learned to fly at night. So, during the time of the World War and in the first years of reconstruction after the peace. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 90 HIGH ADVENTURERS Byrd gave himself heart and soul to furthering the cause of aviation by making flying a more exact science and by gaining for it an established place in public interest and support. In 1924, when Cap- tain Bob Bartlett, who had been skipper under Admiral Peary, the discoverer of the North Pole, came to Washington to get Government aid for a new trip to the Arctic, Byrd agreed enthusiasti- cally to take pari; in an expedition that had as its goal the conquest of the Farthest North of the earth by airplane. The Navy Department approved of the plan but Congress refused to appropriate funds for a venture of certain danger but doubtful value. However, Lieutenant Byrd^s distinguished ser- vices as a pioneer and organizer in the field of aviation were recognized by his promotion through special act of Congress to the rank of Lieutenant- Commander. It was characteristic of the man that he saw in this honor just an opportunity for greater service. **I knew that I could axjcomplish more as a Lieutenant-Commander, ' ' he said. * * I acted at once. My eyes were on the North Pole.*' He decided to enlist the support of two men who had shown their willingness to devote their wealth to the advancement of science. As he described the possibility of mapping out the vast unknown terri- tory of Arctic America by airplane expeditions and making important studies of ocean currents Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 91 and weather conditions, his enthusiasm, knowl- edge, and sound reasoning won the day. The money was advanced to make possible this expe- dition under Byrd^s leadership. The Navy Depart- ment helped by supplying two well-equipped airplanes, together with a crew of mechanics and pilots. Everything was carefully planned and mapped out to take the best advantage of the few weeks of brief Arctic summer. Leaving Wiscasset, on the coast of Maine, June 20, 1925, the expedition set out for Etah, an Eskimo settlement on the north- western shore of Greenland, which they reached the first of August after a trip of eight thousand miles. Here they made their homes near the most northern group of Eskimos, a primitive tribe num- bering not more than two hundred in all, who hunt along the coast of Greenland, living in tents during the summer and in igloos during most of the year. These were the people who helped Byrd build his camp and airplane-base, proving especially useful in carrying heavy loads. This beach was by no means favorable from the aviator 's point of view. It was so narrow and rough that the planes were anchored on buoys several hundred feet from shore, while during three days of severe cold, with snow-flurries thrown in for good measure, the men toiled to construct runways for their amphibian planes, which were provided Digitized by CjOOQ IC 92 HIGH ADVENTURERS with wheels for landing on ground and boats for descent on the water. With his airplane carrying radio equipment to keep him in conmiunication with his men, Byrd set out on a flight of more than five thousand miles, over a part of the earth's surface that had never before been seen because it could not be reached by land-travel. Not all of the Arctic regions are covered with ice and snow throughout the year. In the lowlands and valleys of some sections grass and thousands of brilliant flowering plants spring up as if by magic in the unfailing daylight of the brief time of polar sununer when the sun never sets. The growth of the Arctic vegetation must in- deed be rapid, as the time of light and warmth is short. In some years when the season is stormy and clouds veil the sun there is no **smnmer.'* In 1925 Byrd's expedition had the advantage of only fifteen sununer days and of these less than four afforded good flying-weather. Each flight had to be carefully planned. There were first scouting trips to discover if possible safe landing-places. As none was found, it was necessary to establish airplane-bases where it would be possible to store food, and gasoline for the motors. North of Etah where they had hoped to find suitable landing-places stretched the open sea, but at last the plane was secured near a shore where enough supplies were stowed away under a Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 93 sheltering pile of rocks to meet the needs of a group of men for about two months. With the canned food they packed a stove, camping-outfit, ammunition, and matches. There followed another trip, which met with the same di£Sculty in making a descent, but at last a second base within five hundred miles of the Polar Sea was established. The leader knew he could not risk making a flight to the Pole without first planting a supply-base on the edge of the sea, since the distance was too great for a non-stop trip. The explorers faced, therefore, the possibility of having to push their way back over the ice if for any reason their plane should fail them. August and smnmer were now coming to a close together, but Byrd could not withdraw without a bird's-eye view of the Greenland ice-cap. **I es- pecially enjoyed that flight over the world's great- est iceberg factory, ' ' the explorer declared. * * Think of an expanse of gleaming ice about fifteen hundred miles long and about five hundred miles wide and on an average of a mile in height. Near the foot are glaciers with deep crevasses which would make it impossible for landing a plane equipped with skis as I had hoped but inland some fifty miles it seemed as if stretches flat enough for the needs of an aviator might be found.'' It was during the preliminary scouting trips about Greenland that Byrd discovered the unusual Digitized by CjOOQ IC 94 HIGH ADVENTURERS qualities of Floyd Bennett, who afterward accom- panied him to the Pole. He was not long in realiz- ing that this mechanic had in him the making of a remarkable pilot. ^^ Bennett was one of the finest men in the Navy when it came to handling an air- plane 's temperamental mechanisms, and above that he was a real man, fearless and true — one in a million,'* Commander Byrd declared. After the preparatory expedition, Byrd was more determined than ever to reach the Pole by air. With Floyd Bennett he planned for the great flight. This time they chose Spitzbergen, Norway, as the hopping-off place. The cold at this point was so much tempered by the warm current of the Gulf Stream that a trip might be started in April. King's Bay, on which Spitzbergen is located, is just seven hundred and fifty miles from the Pole. Byrd planned to explore the northern end of Greenland with a view to landing on skis and establishing a base for supplies. He was equipped now, through the co- operation of the Shipping Board, with the steamer Chantier, which was able to carry the enormous Fokker monoplane, equipped with three engines, any two of which could keep the great plane afloat. Interest in polar flight was spreading all over the world. Amundsen and Ellsworth had already started on their expedition. When Byrd's plans were made known, he was beset by a throng of people, young and old, who were eager to share the Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 95 great adventure with him. It may be a matter of some surprise to learn that only a few of the men chosen were sailors. Byrd knew he needed above all men with good spirit and bodies strong enough to endure hardship. When we know the character of their rations it is easy to realize that they needed good digestions. The most important item was pemmican, a combination of chopped-up dried meat, suet, sugar, and raisins, rich in food-value, which had served Admiral Peary excellently in his previous adventures. Of course they would have to be deprived of fresh meats, fruit, and vegetables for a long time. Of course, too, they were provided with the right sort of clothing — ^f ur even to the boots, which were lined with straw and excelsior, an excellent insula- tion against the cold. On April 5, 1926, the Chantier, with fifty men, the monoplane Josephine Ford — ^named for Edsel Ford's three-year-old daughter — and six months' food aboard, sailed out of New York Harbor. On April 29, the party landed at Spitzbergen, where they were greeted by Amundsen, Ellsworth, and Nobile, who were awaiting their own craft, the Norge, which was to take them to the North Pole. It was beginning to look like a race with a some- what awkward start, since Amundsen's boat had taken the only available harbor and they had to anchor nine hundred yards from shore. Faced with Digitized by CjOOQ IC 96 HIGH ADVENTURERS the diflSculty of landing the plane, they determined to float it through the drift ice on a raft made by- lashing several life-boats together and overlaying them with timbers. A blinding snow-storm made this a difficult task, but Arctic explorers do not look for easy conditions. This was just another good-natured battle between Nature and those who were determined to win against odds. Since they had only the one plane, they must defend it at all hazards. With continuous daylight to help them, they worked steadily, as the Eskimos could do in time of need, for eighteen hours, and brought in their plane after dynamiting a huge berg that had threatened to destroy it. Then came more experimentation. With seven hundred and fifty miles between them and the North Pole, and the uncertainty as to being able to make a landing, they had to reckon carefully the amount of gasoline needed. To their delight, they discovered that they would be able to carry fuel for the entire trip. Now the Josephine Ford must be loaded. Amund- sen gave them a sled with which they could return over land, if disaster should overtake their own plane. Besides this, they had a rubber collapsible boat, fur clothing, primus stove, firearms, ammu- nition, a tent, an ax, some knives, a first-aid kit, and smoke bombs, together with enough food for ten weeks. They felt ready to meet almost any Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Photograph by Swing OaUoway RICHARD EVELYN BYRD Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 97 emergency, as they taxied down the long runway. But alas I they discovered that their plane was too heavily loaded. Instead of rising as it should, it buried its nose sadly in a snowdrift. All hands were called to the task of pulling the giant back up the long hill, and the last of their supply of timber was used in lengthening the runway. Then, with a somewhat lightened load, the great bird finally decided to take off for the Pole. It was a half -hour after midnight, with the Arc- tic sun still giving light but not enough heat to thaw the hard surface of the ground, when they made their start. The men, who had been awake almost continuously for thirty-six hours, were sleepy, and had to relieve each other at the controls in order to keep awake. Byrd, because of his train- ing, did most of the navigating, Bennett acting as pilot. Navigating is not so simple in the polar regions as in other parts of the world, since the magnetic pole disturbs the action of the ordinary compass. They were going forward, however, with the aid of other instruments, when a leak developed in the oil-tank. Here was need for quick decision. They were nearer to the Pole than to Spitzbergen. On the other hand their danger was great if the leak proved serious before they could make the long trip back. For only a few minutes they hesitated ; then with the spirit of adventure that all good explorers Digitized by CjOOQ IC 98 HIGH ADVENTURERS must have, they decided to believe in the best and keep on their way. Their faith in the general sound- ness of their plane was not misplaced; the leak, like a minor wound, healed itself, and within an hour they were flying over the Pole. The great day was May 9, 1926, and the time nine in the morning. Being a careful navigator, Byrd wanted to prove to himself beyond a doubt that he had flown over the Pole itself, so he made a wide circle over it, taking at the same time both still and moving pictures. They then flew out from the Pole, in a southerly direction — ^which was of course the only thing they could do, since all directions from the Pole are towards the south. Next, they flew around the world. Jules Verne, in his book ^* Around the World in Eighty Days,'' gave a wonder-tale of travel at a speed undreamed of in the days before airplanes. Commander Byrd flew in a few minutes around the narrow belt that circles the earth near the Pole. It was a strange experience. He said : **Time and direction become topsy turvy at the Pole. We felt no larger than pin points and as lonely as the tomb; as remote and detached as a star. We felt impersonal, disembodied. On and on we went. It seemed forever onward.'' Thirteen minutes after arriving at their goal they headed back for Spitzbergen. So accurate were Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 99 their instruments, and so true their navigation, that they landed exactly where they had taken off. The secrets of the remote and inaccessible Arctic had been forced to yield to aviation. With what shouts the explorers were greeted by the comrades who had been left behind 1 With what enthusiasm they were lifted on willing shoulders and borne aloft in triumph ! One of the first to greet Byrd was Amundsen, the discoverer of the South Pole, who had also dreamed of being the first to win through flight the Farthest North of the world, but now was able to rejoice with the successful aviators. With hopes realized, they sailed home, where they were received by President Coolidge, and where great honor awaited the man who had reached the North Pole, flown around the earth, and made the trip back to Spitzbergen, all in little more than fifteen hours. The explorer is a man who is always looking for new worlds to conquer. When one goal is reached, new vistas of possible achievement lead on beyond. Eichard Byrd was among the pioneers of air-travel who tried to further the interests of commercial aviation by making a non-stop flight across the Atlantic to carry mail from the United States to France. He made the journey in the face of the worst that storm and fog could do to defeat Digitized by CjOOQ IC 100 HIGH ADVENTURERS his purpose. Difficulties become opportunities to those who are able, despite all discouragements, to carry on to the end. Soon came the call to new adventure. There was the challenge of the South Pole and the vast Ant- arctic Continent. Very little had been learned about the land lying beyond the great ice-cap, which looms sixty feet above the sea and extends for 150,000 square miles, except that it is constantly in the grip of terrific gales. Though the Pole itself had been reached in 1911 by Amundsen and a little later by Captain Scott, whose party met death in a blizzard while trying to return to their camp, almost no real exploration had been attempted. It was estimated that there were nearly five million square miles of the earth's surface — an area one and a half times the size of the United States — that might be forced to yield knowledge of great importance. What an opportunity for mapping an unknown world would be given by the first flight over this part of the globe ! Plans for the expedition went forward in a most encouraging way. Men and money were eagerly volunteered. Two vessels, the City of New York and the Eleanor Boiling, carried the sixty members of the party and their equipment from New York through the Panama Canal to Dunedin, New Zea- land. This was the point from which they em- barked on December 2, 1928, bound for the Ross Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 101 Sea. Three weeks later they had reached a point on the rim of the great ice-barrier at the Bay of Whales, not far from the site of Amundsen's camp. Here they constructed huts and cabins for their winter-quarters, which as a charm against home- sickness they named ** Little America. *' Their air- fleet included four planes, one a large trimotor airplane that had been christened Floyd Bennett, in memory of Commander Byrd's loyal comrade, who had lost his life while trying to bring help to a stranded group of aviators. This expedition, which was planned for careful observation and study in the cause of science, made use of the latest scientific achievements in a unique way. Through its wireless sending and receiving station it kept in constant communication with the outside world and also with the explorers while they were making their sledge-journeys and flights of discovery. Newspapers and radio brought the story day by day into millions of homes and school- children everywhere were following in imagination the adventures of the colony in far-off Little America. Towards the close of March, 1929, the **New York Times'' printed the story of a trip made by Dr. Laurence Gould, geologist of the party, to the Eockefeller Mountains, a range discovered on a scouting flight northeast of Little America and named in honor of one of the chief backers of the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 102 HIGH ADVENTURERS expedition. They had sighted fourteen peaks with bare boulders rising above the snow, and the ge- ologist was eager to study the rocks in the hope of finding material of value to science. Though March gives warning of the approach of the Ant- arctic winter, Dr. Gould decided to seize a time of good weather, and taking Bernt Balchen as pilot and Harold June as radio operator, landed at the base of one of the tallest peaks. For a few days only, the forces that determine wind and weather were kind. An interesting harvest of rock speci- mens was eagerly gathered. Then came a terrible storm that wrecked the plane and left the trio marooned in the white desert until Byrd was able to fly to their rescue — ^and it was difficult to find them, snow-covered as they were. On March 19, Dr. Gould wrote in his diary: **It was good to see the Commander again. I knew he would come when it was possible. He did not say a word about the loss of the plane. No one who has not experienced it can appreciate his sense of fairness and justice. It has attached all the men to him with a loyalty which is beyond my words to express, but it shows itself in the way men work in this desolate place.'* In his account to the Secretary of the Navy, re- porting the results of various trips of exploration during 1929, Byrd mentioned besides the Eocke- feller Bange a mountain monarch at least five Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 103 thousand feet high, which they thought might well be called ''Matterhorn/' This height proved to be the outpost of another lofty range in a new terri- tory, which the commander named ** Marie Byrd Land*' in honor of his wife. Pictures were taken from the plane Stars and Stripes by means of a surveying camera that could record on maps much more of the country than the keenest aviators were able to discover by vision alone. The great flight over the South Pole was made on November 28 and 29, 1929, sixteen hundred miles from Little America and back in nineteen hours — not quite eighteen hours in the air, as they stopped a little more than an hour at a supply-base to take on gasoline. It was Thanksgiving Day in the United States when they had the right weather conditions for the trip. Bright sunlight was needed to make the work of the surveying camera a success. Moreover, they knew they would never be able to ride safely past the barrier of mountains if the heights were veiled by clouds. A radio message from Dr. Gould's rock- hunting party, which had gone on ahead with dog- sledges to the mountains three weeks before, told them that flying weather was good over the plateau in the direction of their goaL Below the plane, the white expanse was marked here and there by the trail of the dog-team. Byrd and his comrades were able to trace this from a Digitized by CjOOQ IC 104 HIGH ADVENTUREES height of a thousand feet when the glint of sun- light was favorable. Nearing the mountains, they thrilled at the view of the summits rising in a golden glory of snow and fire. The red glow of the sun's rays on the gleaming whiteness had the effect of volcanic flames. Before reaching the mountains, however, the plane overtook Dr. Gould's party and dropped a parachute with a bag containing radio messages, letters, and photographs to indicate clearly a spot where supplies had been stored during the flight over the mountains to plant food- and fuel-bases on the way to the Pole. The great hazard of the trip came when they reached the guardian peaks that surrounded the polar plateau. Up, up they went. Would they be able to pass or would they be dashed against a perilous cloud-veiled summit? They must rise ever higher to go above the grim barrier, and their heavily laden airship could do no more. What must they sacrifice — some of their bags of food or cans of gasoline? If they gave up the fuel they could not reach their goal and* *^ make base'' again. The men might tighten their belts or return from their exploring flight earlier than planned, but the great bird that carried them forward could not go on short rations. ^'A bag of food overboard!" shouted the com- Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 105 mander above the roar of the motor to Harold June, the radio man. They watched a bag containing over a hundred pounds of nourishment for Arctic adventurers- hit the glacier that gleamed below them. A little later, a second bag followed. It was tragic to realize that a month's provisions for four men lay lodged on that unfeeling glacier, but they were able to get the plane over the hump of the mountain pass. With relief they saw that there were no more peaks ahead. On stretched the plateau, an unbroken white expanse, to where beyond the horizon lay the South Pole, now less than three hundred miles away. They exulted in the thought that the mighty eye of the surveying camera was making a record that would carry to millions of eager watchers the pictured story of this journey to the end of the earth. To their left amountain range towered above the plateau, which was itself ten thousand feet higher than sea-level. On the right was another range extending north and south. It seemed that the hoary peaks completely fringed the prodigious ice-cap of the plateau, at the center of which was that point they had struggled to reach. In honor of Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, and no less in recognition of the brave Norwegians of Little America, they carried the flag of Norway; and in memory of Captain Digitized by CjOOQ IC 106 HIGH ADVENTURERS Scott, whose bravery turned defeat into imperisli- able glory, they carried the British flag. When passing over the point that their instruments told them was **the bottom of the world,*' they opened the trap-door of the plane and let fall the Ameri- can flag, weighted with a stone from Floyd Ben- nett 's grave in Arlington National Cemetery. At the moment of triumph, in honoring the memory of the high-hearted pilot who had flown with him at the opposite end of the earth, Commander Byrd tried to share with other loyal helpers the glory of achievement. In his story of his life as an aviator, * * Skyward, ' ' the leader said: **The success of my North Pole expedition was due far more to the patriotism, unselfishness, and loyalty of a great many people than to any peculiar competence of Bennett and me, who simply had the divine privilege of riding the winning horse. A dozen times the half -hundred volunteers with me, by superhuman effort up in the bitter weather of the Arctic saved the day. I believe this wide dif- fusion of indispensable support is one of the chief peculiarities of a modern expedition.'* By special Act of Congress on December 21, 1929, Eichard Evelyn Byrd was given the rank of Rear- Admiral on the retired list of the United States Navy. He valued this honor as a recognition of success in which many shared and as an op- Digitized by CjOOQ IC RICHARD EVELYN BYRD 107 portunity for greater service. He had journeyed from Pole to Pole to extend human knowledge — **to clear up the large white places on the globe for the school children.'* Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC THE POET OF INTREPID DARINa riLHJALMUR 8TEFAN880N Digitized by CjOOQ IC "The explorer is the poet of action, and a great poet in pro- portion as he is a great explorer. He needs a mind to see visions, no less than he needs the strength to face a blizzard. ... A law of nature is an imperishable poem.'' Digitized by CjOOQ IC THE POET OF INTREPID DARING VILHJALMUR 8TEFAN880N 1879- I sHATJi always remember the first time I saw him. Though he was among a group of men, there was something unusual about him that set him apart. His great, tall, broad-shouldered body, with the large blond head and steel-blue eyes, was like that of an ancient Viking, but the gentle bearing, the low voice, and the long slender hands were those of an artist. Some one near me said, **Who is that manf The answer came, *^That is Vilhjalmur Stefans- son, one of the great poets of our time.'' **I have heard of no poems connected with that name,'* re- sumed the first voice. ''That is because you think of poems only in terms of rhythmic words and rhyme, perhaps,'' said the second. *'But the world contains as many kinds of poems as there are varieties of beauty, and each man is a poet who seeks to create or to find it. Vilhjalmur Stefansson is the poet of the Far North, the man who sought and found beauty where others had sensed only desolation and hardship. The story of his life is like an epic poeuL" 111 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 112 HIGH ADVENTURERS I shall relate this story to you as I subsequently learned it. In 1876 a small group of pioneers traveled in covered wagons the long, uncharted road between the west end of Lake Superior and the Bed Eiver. Traveling down its course, they settled in Winni- peg, Canada. No giant tractors on caterpillar rol- lers blazed the trail for them. No high-powered engines plowed their fields. Only the devoted labor of their hands, aided by simple axes and hand- plows, reduced a portion of the wilderness to a habitable farm. At the end of two years of unre- mitting toil, they had their first log cabin. Within its walls, in 1879, Vilhjalmur Stef ansson was born. Even as a baby he was to become acquainted with Nature at her wildest, for when he was less than a year old a great flood descended upon the little community, carrying away haystacks and killing cattle. In the famine that ensued, two of the Stef- ansson children died, but there was a vitality in the little Vilhjalmur that saved his life then as it did on many future occasions when food was scarce. His parents, grief -stricken at their loss, decided to leave the region that had been so cruel to them. In .1881, they again started forth, settling this time on the prairies of North Dakpta. But our Western prairies, too, demand great sturdiness of those who would make homes in their domain. Little Vilhjalmur had to get his small body accustomed Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 113 to an almost tropic heat in summer, and arctic cold in winter. He learned how to walk miles to the nearest school-house, no matter how hard it blew or rained or snowed. Nor did he seem to think it a particular hardship to brave a temperature of fifty below zero. He tells us that neither he nor any of the other children gave these matters any special thought. It was the only life they knew. Schools were uncertain in those days. Some- times one would close in the middle of a term, and Vilhjalmur would have to seek out another, per- haps twice as far away, to finish out the season. But even as a small boy he learned more from the great plains, where one saw bleaching buffalo-bones and roving Indian tribes, than from lessons out of books. He delighted, of course, in the adventures of Buffalo Bill, but his favorite hero was Eobinson Crusoe. The thought of this man alone on a desert island, cleverly making use of the gifts that Nature offered him, keeping friendly and contented in a situation that many would have considered hope- less and desolate, haunted the boy for many years. He dreamed that he, too, would be a Eobinson Crusoe ; and strangely enough, many of the experi- ences of his later life were much like those of his boyhood hero. Like him, too, he found friendliness and contentment where others had found only gloom and hardship. When Vilhjalmur was eighteen, he became, with Digitized by CjOOQ IC 114 HIGH ADVENTURERS three of his friends, the owner of a ranch. It did not prosper, and was soon given up, but it gave him one thrilling adventure. It came in the middle of winter. Great flakes of snow danced in a mad wind. A blizzard was upon the young owners of the ranch. Within the walls of their little hut they were safe enough, but the ponies on a distant hill were without food and drink. The boys looked out into the storm, only to find all the familiar landmarks gone. It was im- possible to tell hill from valley, because of the great drifts. A few yards from the house, all sense of direction would be lost. Fear gripped their hearts. Then the pioneer blood in Vilhjalmur spoke out. Perhaps some remote Icelandic ancestor whispered to him that he was made of sterner stuff than his comrades. At any rate, he volunteered to feed the ponies. Some inner knowledge must have guided him, for there was nothing to help his sight. It was no easy task, but he did find his way both to the stable and back again, a feat that many older ranch- men failed to accomplish, as he learned a few days later. It was the first of many experiences of find- ing his way in blizzards. At the age of twenty, Vilhjalmur felt a hunger for knowledge of the world that lay beyond the rim of the prairies. He had a craving to read the fine literature of all countries; a craving, too, to Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 115 write, perhaps to write poetry. He would go to college. But to go to college, one must have clothes such as the other students would be wearing, so he bought himself a suit for seven dollars. He then had fifty-three dollars left. Fifty-three dollars to cover the expenses of four years I But what boy of twenty with an honest ambition would let that stand in his way? He would earn his way through college. A way would be found — ^as indeed it was. Aoid now Vilhjalmur Stef ansson was on a train for the first time in his life I It was very different from riding on the back of a pony, this smooth gliding along on rails behind a screeching, whistling engine. Was it awe-inspiring, or was it tame? Per- haps his mind was too full of hopes for the future to be aware of how he was traveling. We shall have to imagine the answer, for Stefansson does not tell us. The University of North Dakota opened its doors to him, and there he steeped himself in foreign languages, for he wanted to become familiar with the literature of other countries at first hand. Then he read poetry — all the English poetry he could find and many poems in foreign tongues. And he began to write a bit, too. But literature did not altogether satisfy him. Nature, with whom he had lived on such intimate Digitized by CjOOQ IC 116 HIGH ADVENTUEBRS terms all of his life, beckoned him to return to her. She offered him endless mysteries that waited to be solved. He determined to become a scientist. As time went on, he began to feel that the most interesting of all the sciences is the science of man himself, the study of human development from its beginning. In short, after three years' postgradu- ate work at Harvard, he became an anthropologist. It seemed at one time as if his studies would take him to the heart of tropical Africa, where dwelt a primitive tribe, but an article he had written about the ancient Eskimos in Greenland attracted the attention of an Arctic exploring party. The men who made up this party felt that a man who could write so scholarly a work woxdd be a valuable member of their expedition, and they invited him to join them. For two years Stefansson had been preparing himself for the African trip. Now the compass seemed to veer from south to north. Should he change his plans? Why not? Primitive people were primitive people regardless of where they dwelt. What good were plans that were so rigid that they could not be changed? He determined to join the Mikkelsen-Leffingwell expedition into the wilds of Victoria Island, north of Canada, where dwelt a little-known race of Eskimos. Leflfingwell and Mikkelsen planned to sail from British Columbia up through the Pacific Ocean. But Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 117 Stefansson was interested in some Indian tribes and Eskimos in the interior of Canada. So he planned to begin the journey alone and to join the expedition on board the Duchess of Bedford, at Hershel Island, to the north of Canada. It was spring of 1906. Vilh jalmur Stefansson was twenty-seven years old when he left New York on his first venture of exploration. He traveled to Winnipeg, Canada, where the kindly oflScers of the Hudson's Bay Company gave him the services of their most experienced Arctic travelers. They journeyed first to Edmonton and then to the Atha- basca Eiver. Traveling here was still by stage- coach. On the river they had their choice of scow or steamer. The latter seemed a more modem and progressive means of transportation. Alas, they did not inquire into the nature- of the river ! That stream had most inconsiderately allowed its bed to remain too near its top, and the little ship had fairly to plow its way along, scraping bottom dis- mally every few miles. They were thirteen days going one hundred and thirty-five miles. Perhaps they would not have minded the delay so much if it had not been for the heat, which grew steadily worse the farther north they went. Instead of ap- proaching the Arctic Circle, one might have thought they were heading straight for the Equator. One humid day in June the thermometer shot up to 103° in the shade. Worse even than the oppressive Digitized by CjOOQ IC 118 HIGH ADVENTUEBES heat were the mosquitoes, which swarmed by thou- sands. Tempted by the weather to throw off their clothing, they were forced by the insects not only to wear heavy woolen garments but also to keep on sombreros, with mosquito-netting covering the brims and tucked in tightly under their collars. On their hands they had to wear heavy buckskin gauntlets. There was more than discomfort in this adven- ture, however. The traveler encountered facts that disagreed disturbingly with the statements of the geographies, which pictured a land entirely frozen, barren, and silent. How was one to reconcile their story with his experience of summer heat in a land of grass and flowers, alive with the songs of birds and the hum of insects? How splendid it would be to bring to the world a true picture of the Arctic I On Stefansson traveled with his companions until he reached the neighborhood of Fort Mac- pherson. But from there on his path was to be traveled alone. Contrary to his expectation, he was unable to meet the rest of the expedition at this stage of his travels, for the Duchess of Bedford was stuck fast in the ice many miles from her des- tination. The men aboard her must content them- selves with wintering where they were, but there was no reason, thought Stefansson, why he should not go alone to visit the Eskimos. Solitary and penniless, he found himself at last Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STBPANSSON 119 at the first Eskimo settlement, where he indicated his friendly intentions, and was welcomed gladly into the midst of the people he had come so far to see. Indeed, so kind was the reception the Eskimos gave him that he spent nearly the entire winter there. Because he came as a friend, and as one who had mnch to learn from them, they accepted him, and during the long winter instructed him in their ways and in their language. What a world of surprises lay ahead of him I The first was concerning the winter itself. Dark and unhappy had been his picturings of life during the many weeks when the sun never rises above the horizon. What was then his astonishment to learn that not only was the night never as dark as he had imagined it, but that it was a time of festivity for the Eskimos ! We might agree to call the winter a time of twilight, for it is never as dark as our winter nights. The reflection of the stars on the snow makes it possible to see a man dressed in dark clothing from ten to fifty feet away. You may wonder at the idea of passing the dark and cold time of the year in merrymaking, but the explanation is simple. During the short summer, or period of light, the Eskimos are obliged to work steadily. It is the time that all the food for the year must be secured. Every able-bodied man and woman is busy, the men hunting or fishing, and Digitized by CjOOQ IC 120 HIGH ADVENTURERS the women preparing the meat and curing the skins. No regular hours are kept. The Eskimos eat when they are hungry and sleep when they are tired. Since the sun neither rises nor sets, it does not limit their activities, and Eskimos often hunt with- out rest for eighteen or twenty hours at a time. When once they have obtained the animals they will require for food and clothing, they are at leisure to spend their time as they like. Visiting neighbors among the Eskimos does not mean a trip of just a mile or so. The Eskimo village itself is a small community of twelve or thirteen houses, where the members live in intimate contact with one another, like a large family. Neighbors are the members of other villages, which are often as much as a hundred miles distant. Great prepara- tions are made before going to pay a visit. Food enough for a number of days on the road must be loaded on the sledge. Then father, mother, and children set out on the long trip across the snow- crust. Mile after mile they travel, the men, women, and older children walking beside the sledges, with the little ones safely packed on the load. Hours and hours go by until at last, too weary to continue the march any longer, the family makes camp, the stronger members of it setting themselves to the task of building a snow house for sleeping-quarters. Here a fire is soon lighted, a meal is prepared, and in a short time the inside of the igloo is so warm Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STBPANSSON 121 that nearly all the furs can be dispensed with. After a refreshing sleep the travelers are off again, until finally they arrive at their destination. And what a welcome they are sure to have I In these isolated villages it means a great deal to learn what is going on among the neighbors, and tongues wag for many an hour relating what has happened to this or that family — ^how the little daughter of one is grown so tall; how the son of another has been bewitched by some evil spirit; how the winter came so early that the whalers were frozen in, and how therefore none of the groceries that are often exchanged for fresh meat and furs have been obtained. Sometimes (though the custom is more usual in the summer) all of the people, even including the children, will keep awake for as long as three days and three nights at a time. Stef ansson was ashamed of being such a sleepy- head by comparison with the Eskimos, but it was useless at first for him to try to emulate the en- durance of these people, though after he had grown accustomed to their mode of living, he found that he too could, without discomfort, remain awake for two or three days at a time. But there was one record he could not beat. He liked to tell about one little girl of eight who played continually for five days and five nights. Even when there are no guests, the Eskimos enjoy the winter months. They are great story- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 122 HIGH ADVBNTUEBES tellers. Stories of the actual events of the day or some folk-legend will hold the community together around the great fire for many hours. A fanciful tale is as important to them as a real adventure, for as Stef ansson was to learn later, the one is as true to them as the other. There is also dancing, in which every one joins. The Eskimos have only one musical instrument, the dioim. This, however, does not keep them from singing, for they are a happy people. The happiness of the Eskimos was a surprise to Stefansson. How, he thought, could human beings who spend so large a portion of their lives in dark- ness and in cold be happy? It had not occurred to him that they are as adapted to the world they know as we are to ours. It did not seem terrible to them, but natural, that the sun should behave in true Arctic fashion. Stefansson is the man, as we have said, who brought to our world the knowledge of everyday life in the Arctic. As for the everlasting cold, we have already learned that that is a myth. It is true that the ground is covered with snow for many months in the year, but it was never any colder on Hershel Island, many miles beyond the Arctic Circle, than in North Dakota. It was frequently forty degrees below zero, but while in his own coun- try Stefansson had often been chilled by the biting winds, here he was better protected against them Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STBPANSSON 123 by the excellent fur clothing that the Eskimo women make, sewing with sinew threads of caribou- skin and bone needles. His underclothing was made of caribou-skin with the fur side turned in. With fur boots and mittens similarly turned, with loose skin coat and trousers that had the fur turned out, the whole crowned by a skin hood, Stefansson would often sit quite comfortably on a block of ice while his friend Ovayuak gave him lessons in the Eskimo tongue. What a language it was to master I You will recall that while at college he had spe- cialized in languages, but while he was fluent in eight or nine, he found the tongue of the Eskimos more diflScult than any two he had ever studied. In the first place, the Eskimos use about ten thousand words in their daily conversation. (A moderately well-educated American uses about five hundred.) And next, most of these ten thousand words have more than one inflection, each with its separate meaning. Must it not seem an appalling task to the Eskimo baby to learn to talk? It was a terrific task at any rate for Vilhjalmur Stefansson to speak in the Arctic fashion, one that took him five years to complete. No explorer born outside the Arctic had ever accomplished it before. But if learning to converse with his new friends was diflScult, there was something else that was still more trying. As a little boy, he had somehow got the idea that he could not eat fish, and the Eskimos Digitized by CjOOQ IC 124 HIGH ADVENTUEEES on Hershel Island ate practically nothing but fish. They had it for breakfast, for supper, as an ap- petizer, and for dessert. To make matters worse they ate it without salt. **I cannot eat fish,'* said Vilhjalmur Stefansson to himself. He also said it to the Eskimos. Had it been another year, they could have offered him canned fruits and vegetables, and even coffee and tea, which they procured from the whaling-ships, but the whalers had been ice-bound this particular winter. At last they remembered a little flour that they had left over from the previous year. It was a bit soaked in gasoline, to be sure, but even that flavor might be better than the taste of fish. The Eskimos offered the explorer pancakes made of this flour and fried in seal-oil. Our explorer decided that fish was the lesser of the two evils. At first he tasted tiny bits at a time, which he seasoned with salt obtained by boiling down sea-water. What was his dismay when he learned that the sea contains many minerals be- sides common salt, some of which are bitter and entirely unpalatable I Hunger is a most excellent disciplinarian. At the end of three weeks the young man was eating unsalted fish, boiled in Eskimo fashion^ and in a short time longer he was really enjoying it. As the winter advanced, the fish was no longer boiled. It had been stored and frozen. As it was needed for Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 125 food it was brought in, partly thawed, and eaten raw. This, too, being strange to Stefansson, was repugnant to him at first, but when he remembered that in his own country oysters were eaten raw, and that both the Japanese and the Norwegians eat raw fish, he soon overcame his prejudice. September, October, and November went by. No white man set his foot in the village. No newspaper penetrated so far. Yet the time passed swiftly and happily. He was learning much in this open-air school of the Far North. As we have already seen, there was also much to ** unlearn.** For example there was the idea of the snow house. The geogra- phy books had mentioned these as the only dwell- ings of the Eskimos. He discovered that only a small proportion of all the Eskimos in the world use snow houses and that a great many have never even seen one. His friends near Hershel Island at Tuktuyaktok lived in houses made of driftwood. These were covered over with sod and moss to make them weather-proof. Other groups lived in tents made either of caribou-skins or of canvas stretched over frames of willow. Still another group lived in houses made of logs. These were the Eskimos in- habiting the spruce-forests along the Mackenzie Eiver. Such log houses are made to lean slightly toward the center so that they hold the sod and moss that are used to line the crevices. The roof is covered first with moss and then with earth. In the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 126 HIGH ADVENTURERS center is an opening covered over with parchment. These houses are unique among Eskimo dwell- ings in that they have windows cut in the walls. The openings are filled with solid pieces of ice about an inch thick, which reach to the floor. This sounds cold, but as a matter of fact all Eskimo houses are extremely warnL Fires are kept burn- ing in them most of the time, so that the inside temperature ranges between seventy and ninety degrees. They are also kept ventilated and free of smoke. An Eskimo woman who allows her house to become smoky is considered a very bad house- keeper indeed. But what of the ice windows? The outside temperature of thirty degrees below zero successfully counteracts the inside influence. Should the weather get warmer, blankets are hung inside over the windows to protect them from the heat. Within the Eskimo dwellings, Stefansson was able to share with his friends the relief of shedding his warm furs and, stripped to the waist, basking in the pleasant warmth of the fire. Frequently it was so hot that all perspired freely, and this brings us to the story of how Vilhjalmur Stefansson learned to bathe in the Arctic fashion. The first step was to get his body thoroughly soaked in per- spiration, the Eskimo equivalent of a shower. The second step was to take handfuls of clean shavings and use them as towels. Each handful was used Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 127 once and then burned. The final step was a dash out into the snow as a refreshing stimulant. Mr. Stefansson assures us that this form of bathing is both cleanly and pleasant, and that he has never heard of any one's catching cold as a result of the icy plunge. We should look in vain for a set of laws among the Eskimos. So of course there are no lawyers and no policemen, no judges and no jails. Yet they live, no less than we, by a well-defined code of con- duct. Every able-bodied person is expected to be industrious. He is not punished if he is lazy, but the contempt of the community is usually sufficient to keep a slacker at his task. To deserve the good- will of his neighbors is really the guiding principle of Eskimo behavior. There is no king and no presi- dent, but there is usually a leader, chosen on ac- count of his superior intelligence or judgment. He has no real power over the others, but because he has shown special ability, they are glad to follow his advice and abide by his decisions. All of these things, and much more of value, Stefansson learned among this group of Eski- mos. But because, through much contact with the whalers, they had corrupted their language until it had become only a jargon, he determined to pene- trate further into the interior, where at Tuktuyak- tok, he had heard, they still spoke pure Eskimo. This language he was most anxious to learn. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 128 HIGH ADVENTUEEES Therefore, early in December, with one of his Eskimo friends as guide, he set off for Tuktuyak- tok with a team of dogs and provisions. The wind blew the snow in the faces of the travelers, the go- ing was diflScnlt, but the dogs were fresh and the miles fairly flew under their feet. On the third day, the men were surprised to see tracks in the snow, where, they were certain, no other travelers had passed. What was their dismay when they realized that they had come upon their own tracks, and had reached the encampment they had made on the first night out I The most serious aspect of the situa- tion was that while they must now live on reduced rations, for a time the dogs could not be fed at all. Weakened and discouraged, the animals finally re- fused to pull and the men had to take their places. At last fresh tracks were discovered in the snow, and these communicated to the sensitive noses of the animals the assurance that food and rest were not far off. They allowed themselves to be har- nessed once more, and with energy renewed, soon drew the little party safely into camp. There they were met by a group of people headed by Ovayuak, who was destined to become both teacher and friend to Vilhjalmur Stef ansson. This visit was a short one, for Christmas was near, and the lone white man was anxious to cele- brate it with one of his own people. Only a few days ^ journey to the south, a friend of his was spending Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 129 the winter. It was with him that Stef ansson passed the holiday season. Then after a few weeks, re- freshed by the joyous times he had had, he trav- eled back to Tnktuyaktok, where he was to practise again living in true Eskimo fashion. No longer treated as a guest, he now began to have a share in the common life of the community, and so ac- customed did he become to its ways that all earlier experiences seemed remote and almost unreal. He learned to travel too, as the Eskimos do, de- pending chiefly on his acute senses, which had had, as we know, excellent training in his youth. As he had earlier learned the secrets of the prai- ries, so he now entered upon the mysteries of the Arctic. He studied the prevailing winds and learned their effect on surface snow and how they molded it into little hillocks. He learned to detect half -buried igloos and snow walls, which had been the sites of former encampments, though they closely resembled the drifted snow. He learned, with the assistance of his knife, to distinguish be- tween land and sea ice, for in the north one cannot otherwise be sure whether he is on land or sea. In short, he used all the helps that Nature offered him. As the years went on, he became assured that rules for safe living were as clearly defined in the Arctic as anywhere else in the world, and once learned, should keep a man from harm. He came to feel that exciting experiences and hairbreadth Digitized by CjOOQ IC 130 HIGH ADVENTURERS escapes were a sign of incompetence. He never for- got, however, soine thrilling adventures in which he took part. It was a cold day of the winter season when Stefansson started out with some companions on a trip. Single file they marched through whirling snowflakes, in a driving wind which here and there had made huge drifts. Without warning, Ste- fansson 's dogs floundered into one of these drifts, overturning the sledge. The harness became hope- lessly tangled, so that before the sledge could be righted, all the dogs had to be freed. What a tedi- ous job it was I And when the team was finally ready to travel again, a greater problem presented itself. Stefansson was alone in a blinding blizzard, for his companions, unaware of his plight, had traveled on, and the wind and snow had obliterated their tracks. The dogs, discouraged by the absence of their mates and blinded by the snow, refused to go on. What was he to do? An explorer must have his wits about him, reasoned Stefansson — ^and he im- mediately set about to use his. The first step was to fasten the dogs to stakes that he drove into the ground. The next was to do some reconnoitering. Luck was with him, for not far off was a de- serted igloo where snow had sifted in through the roof, more than half filling it. No friendly shovel stood at hand, but there was a frying-pan on the Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 131 sledge. Soon the team was bronglit to the shelter and the long-handled pan was put to a new and original use. In due time, the little house was cleared of snow. Of course it was bitterly cold, but Stefansson knew that, contrary to our belief, it is quite safe to go to sleep in the cold, if one does it under proper conditions. One must not be overtired, for then the heart gives up the task of pumping warm blood and one freezes to death; nor must one be overheated, for then the moisture of the body sets the example of freezing. Dry and comfortable, however, Stefansson had often gone to sleep on long marches, waking soon when he grew cold, but finding himself much refreshed. Now, however, he had need of a long rest. A way must be found, and a way was found. Lifting two of the dogs into the igloo, and using one for a pillow and one for a back-warmer, he was soon blissfully asleep. Nor did he wake until morning, when the sky had cleared and he was able to make his way to his destination without difficulty. On another occasion it was the presence rather than the absence of a stove that nearly proved his undoing. He was camping in an igloo with a group of his friends. The day had been a successful one, and every one was in a happy frame of mind. They were devoting the evening to all sorts of jollity, one man doing acrobatic tricks, another telling amusing stories. Suddenly Stefansson no- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 132 HIGH ADVENTURERS ticed that the performer was reeling drunkenly. Another moment and he would have fallen peril- ously near the stove, if Stef ansson had not caught him. He was quite unconscious. Almost simultane- ously the other men grew weak and ill. They were being poisoned by carbon monoxide gas from the primus stove. Stefansson, who was himself begin- ning to feel queer, kept enough strength and pres- ence of mind to drag them all into the fresh air, which saved their lives. You may be sure that on all subsequent occasions he made sure of the ven- tilation when there was a primus stove in use. In these early years the young explorer experi- enced many adventures that had nothing in them of danger. There was, for example, much to be learned from the extreme cold. He found that when the thermometer registers between fifty and sixty degrees below zero, the air is so clear that one can see three or four times as far as he can in a tem- perate climate, or about as far as ordinarily with a pair of opera-glasses. Sound does even more miraculous things. A single caribou, peacefully grazing in the snow, can be heard at a distance of a whole mile, and the chopping of wood by a group of men was once heard ten miles away. One clear winter day, Stefansson was walking through an uninhabited section of land, when he saw a cloud of steam apparently rising from the ground. This was something to be investigated. Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 133 Approaching, lie saw that the steam was rising from the warm bodies of a herd of caribou, graz- ing on the far side of a hill. Even more remarkable was the instance when a single caribou in flight left a trail of steam that hung in the air for a mile behind him. The sea-ice had an interesting story to tell. When not sprayed by the salt waves it became fresh after the first winter and could be melted for drinking-water. This knowledge is of inestima- ble benefit to ice-locked navigators in northern waters. How beautiful it all was — ^this endless miracle of Nature! How like a noble saga sounded the thundering of the great ice-floes, often as large as houses, that the restless ocean currents tossed about as lightly as so many corks. The glittering stars made magic jewels on the gleaming ice as in the sky. The animals and birds, heavily furred and feathered, lived contentedly through the win- ter, with no need to seek a warmer climate. What friendliness Nature gave to the Arctic, where musk-oxen and caribou, foxes and bears, were comfortable and happy in the snow, together with the hundreds of ptarmigan, hawks, owls, and ravens ! Quite another poem is the springtime with the returning sun driving back the ice, calling into life a magic growth of grasses and flowers. With the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 134 HIGH ADVENTURERS sunlight shining down upon them twenty-four hours each day, plants grow with incredible speed and blossoms of many varieties and colors weave patterns on the green expanse. Thousands of birds — ^buntings, sandpipers, loons, cranes, ducks, swans, and countless others — rejoice in the brief northern summer. **A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company!^* How had the tidings of this spring life been kept so long from the knowledge of mankind? It was strange to reflect that this was the remote Arctic, where only snow and ice were expected to be at home. Stefansson found joy in tallying all the marvels of the spring- time, but there was now the responsibility of join- ing his expedition, which was surely ice-bound no longer. He must make his way to Flaxman Island, two hundred miles to the west, off the north shore of Alaska. Alas for the poor Duchess of Bedford! She was easy enough to find, but the relentless ice-pack had driven a hole in her side, and she would undoubt- edly sink as soon as she was freed. Nor was that the only tragedy. LeflSngweU and Mikkelsen, who had gone, with a few companions, some weeks earlier on a trip of exploration, had not since been heard of. The return of a lone dog from the team had convinced those who had been left on board that the men had met an untimely fate. Already Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 135 messengers were speeding back to civilization with the unhappy news. Then the party returned, neither injured nor famished, but so elated at the opportunity for ex- ploration that the time had not seemed long. The message of ill omen must be intercepted. Some one would have to race to the wireless station at Fort Yukon, hundreds of miles away, to bring the re- assuring news. Who could be better equipped for the journey than Vilhjalmur Stefanssont Within two hours he was on his way, traveling overland back across the trail to Hershel Island, and then by whaling-boat to Fort McPherson, two hundred and fifty miles away. That was a record trip, tak- ing only three days. But trouble lay ahead, for he had to follow the slow windings of a little stream. All alone on a raft he paddled the tortuous miles. Useless to chafe and fret at the delay. The river was unmindful of his need to hurry. Useless, too, to attempt towing the raft from the bank, where the underbrush made going even slower. An eter- nity seemed to pass before he finally arrived at an Indian village where an experienced native canoe- ist would take him further along his way. At last the stream met a sizable river, where a large boat lay ready to bring him to his destination. This was certainly an obstacle-race, for the wider river was so shallow that the boat was repeatedly grounded Digitized by CjOOQ IC 136 HIGH ADVENTURERS and precious hours were lost in the effort to float her again. Never before had Stefansson been so completely at the mercy of the elements. His good- news message lost the race by thirty-six hours. Though Stefansson was once more among white men, he knew that the North would lure him back again. Already new ideas were forming in his mind. There were rumors of blond Eskimos on Victoria Island, north of Canada, whom none but Eskimos had ever seen. Around them interesting legends had been woven. Now they invited the scientific study of the anthropologist. In the spring of 1908, two years after his first adventure into the Far North, he was again on his way. Another scientist accompanied him. Their equipment included writing-materials, two silk tents, cooking-utensils, and excellent rifles and am- munition. Dogs and sledges were to be purchased from the Eskimos. They carried no food, for in his previous experiences in the Arctic Stefansson had encountered so much game that he was convinced that they could live as the Eskimos did. Civilized men shivered at the idea and prophesied disaster. Such a thing had never been contemplated before. High time, then, thought this daring man, that one should put the resources of the Airctic to the test. The adventure was not without its hardships. Month followed month through more than one Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 137 round of seasons, and neither men nor dogs ever came to the point of real suffering; but lean days there were in plenty, for the Arctic, like certain barren places in other parts of the- world, has its areas devoid of animal life. Rations were often meager and sometimes strange. There were times when there was neither seal nor bear meat, but somehow they always managed to have sufficient seal-oil, which served as both fuel and food. Now seal-oil, though highly nutritious, is certainly un- palatable, and can only be consumed in small quan- tities. So these ingenious men dipped either ptar- migan feathers or dried caribou-skin into it, making what they called a salad, which they ate with what pleasure they could. The dogs ate it also, since it was a point of honor with Stef ansson never to let his dogs go hungry while there was food for any one. One very hungry day, they un- laced the leather thongs of their boots and con- verted them into salad. Concerning this meal, Stefansson remarked humorously that they real- ized fully how superior skin clothing was to gar- ments made of cloth, which could not be eaten in time of famine. Always, however, when doubt of their experi- ment was ready to creep into their minds, a seal or caribou was sure to be overtaken, and real want was once more put to flight. In the meantime, many obstacles had delayed Digitized by CjOOQ IC 138 HIGH ADVENTURERS them. But they were now going at last toward the interior of Victoria Island, where dwelt the un- known tribe. Can you picture the moment of tense excitement when they came in sight of the village that no white man had ever visited? It was indeed true that here was a lighter group of Eskimos, some of whom had brown hair instead of black, gray eyes instead of brown, and European instead of Mongolian features. How was this new type to be explained? Of the various theories, Stefansson thinks that the fol- lowing is the most plausible : In the tenth century Eric the Bed was exiled from his native Iceland, for murder. Sailing westward, he settled in Green- land, from which, after many years, he returned. His tales regarding the new land he had found were so rosy that many of his countrymen were tempted to migrate and settle there. In the course of time Eskimos who wandered into the country intermarried with the Icelanders. Their descend- ants, the blond or copper Eskimos, later migrated to Victoria Island. But though they had a heritage of European civilization, their isolation from all the haunts of white men had thrust them back to the way of life of men in the Stone Age. They lived exactly as did their remote ancestors, using implements of stone and native copper for spearing fish and game. Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 139 Yet animating them was the same kindly spirit that Stefansson had encountered among the other Eskimos. Though timid and fearful of strangers, they quickly responded to his friendly advances. From them he brought back an invaluable fund of folklore, together with specimens of their handi- craft. Now came the most daring experiment of all. Stefansson had lived in the Arctic for seven full years. He had become familiar with its land and sea ice, he was on intimate terms with its rain and wind and snow, with its sunlight and starlight. He had mastered the art of hunting food and of re- maining awake or asleep for long stretches of time. He was, in other words, on friendly terms with the Arctic. He felt that he could live, if he chose, even far out on the sea-ice, hundreds of miles north of the farthest Eskimo settlement. But when he proposed his theory to the men from whom he hoped to get assistance, he was met not only by stubborn opposition, but by ridicule and contempt. So have many of those who venture into the un- known been met since the world began. Nor were the men of science who opposed him without good arguments. Had not Peary and Nansen and all the other explorers of the Far North reported the land and sea to be barren and devoid of life? Had Digitized by CjOOQ IC 140 HIGH ADVENTURERS not scores of brave men lost their lives in the frozen waters when their food supplies were ex- hausted? Was not the fact that no tribe of Eskimos lived in these regions sufficient proof that life was impossible? But Stefansson, too^ had considered these facts, and he had answered the questions raised by them to his own satisfaction. Was it not reasonable to suppose that the explorers had found no life be- cause they had had no need to seek it, having brought sufficient food with them? Perhaps the men who lost their lives had perished because they were not skilled in methods of hunting in the Arctic. Perhaps it was fear and ignorance that had kept the Eskimos so close to shore. After all, only intelligent and highly civilized men seek ad- venture for its own sake, or knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. Still the men of science shook their heads and would not be convinced — all except Peary, who, despite the evidence of his experience, thought the experiment worth trying. Stef ansson was not guided by theory alone. He was familiar with an important scientific fact, which convinced him of the logic of his reasoning. He knew that the waters near the Equator contain less animal life per cubic foot than the waters at any other place on the earth ^s surface, and that there is more life in proportion as the distance Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 141 from this point increases. It is also true that the numbers of fish along the Atlantic coast increase when the Arctic currents sweep down. But untried theories are at best unconvinc- ing. It was many months before Stef ansson could find a band of men ready to test them out. In the spring of 1913 three ships set out on the quest. They kept together until they reached the Arctic Ocean. Then a great storm arose. When it abated, the Karluk, Stef ansson 's boat, was separated from her companion ships. Her captain had sought safety in the open sea, but the short sunmier was already drawing to its close, and the great ice- pack caught the unfortunate vessel in its grinding jaws. She was destined never to sail again. Here was indeed a dreary beginning to brave adventure. At the time there seemed nothing to do except to face an unpleasant situation coura- geously. But the Arctic never permits inactivity for very long. With the consumption of all their fresh food, they knew that their dread enemy, scurvy, would soon make its deadly inroads upon them. Only the vitamins supplied by untinned vegetables, fruit, or meat could ward it off. Of these conmiodities only meat was available. For meat they determined to hunt. About ten miles distant was a small island, which became the goal of the hunting expedition, led by Stefansson. Thinking to be gone but for a Digitized by CjOOQ IC 142 HIGH ADVENTURERS short time, the party took only a few of the dogs, and the most necessary equipment. Hunting was good, and their spirits high, but on looking sea- ward the second day, they discovered that the KarluJc, still tightly wedged in the ice-pack, was drifting on a strong current. Already she had gone a number of miles. They were marooned on the island. Would they ever see their ship again? Would they ever succeed in reaching their friends? They had left the sturdiest dogs and all their im- portant instruments behind. The resourceful explorer is not easily defeated. Nature had been his friend in the past, reasoned Stefansson, and surely he could trust her in his present need. His faith was justified. During the night there was a hard freeze, which joined the island to the mainland of Alaska. Toward this the men now made their way. When they had gone about six miles on the sea-ice, they discovered that one of their precious kerosene-tanks had sprung a leak. Fortunately a sound one had been left on the is- land. There was nothing for it now but to retrace their steps. Two men were sent ashore, while the rest of the party, including the commander, en- camped. What far-reaching effects a leak can have! While the men waited, their camping-ground, with a sudden loud wrench, tore itself from the main- Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 143 land, leaving them on a cake of ice that was drift- ing rapidly out to sea. By morning they were twenty miles from shore, being carried they knew not whither. A little food from the Karlvk still remained. To prove the possibility of maintaining life unaided in the Arctic became a more imme- diate necessity than they had planned for. If they really believed that food could be found, they could afford to eat what they had according to the dictates of their appetites. This the intrepid little party did, as though the greengrocer and the butcher were just around the comer. Yet day after day passed without a trace of game. Lighter and lighter grew their load. Darker and darker seemed their prospects. Yet reason kept insisting that there was no need to believe in the worst; and reason was right. Just when it was becoming necessary to resort to reduced rations, a seal was sighted. How the men re- joiced ! Had their hoods not been attached to their coats, they would surely have hurled them high into the air. But alas, for their dinner ! As soon as the seal was shot it disappeared into the unplumbed depths of the Polar Sea. A second seal shared the fate of the first, and now indeed belts had to be tightened. It was the spring season, when seals are often so heavy that they sink when shot. Two more seals were shot and lost. Now real gloom descended upon the men, although their leader Digitized by CjOOQ IC 144 HIGH ADVENTURERS grimly declared that at least their theory was still holding. When the fifth seal was shot it floated. Here was food and fuel at last, for seal-oil bums excellently. What a dinner they cooked! Nothing in the whole world could taste so delicious as seal- meat — ^that was the unanimous opinion of the party. The precious theory was holding. On they drifted steadily north and east toward a group of islands where they hoped to find an Eskimo settlement; and everywhere they found sufficient animal life to keep both men, and dogs in health. The expedition was tmique in that it never sacrificed a dog to the needs of the men. To Ste- f ansson the welfare of his animals is almost as im- portant as that of his human comrades. As the summer advanced they reached a floe that drifted in the desired direction. What a chance for a summer holiday! Men and huskies, when not hunting food, could rest on their boat of ice. In the long hours of sunshine they drowsed, and relaxed tired muscles. But ice-floes are not to be trusted too much. In the middle of the night, when men and dogs were fast asleep, the treach- erous ocean current clove the floe asunder. But the conmiander^s ear, even in sleep, was alert. Rous- ing his companions, he soon had the dogs har- nessed, and before the crack widened disastrously, the little party was on another floe. Now the going became hard indeed. Under the Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STBPANSSON 145 relentless sun, the ice grew softer and softer, the floes smaller and smaller. They had to learn the agility of goats that leap from crag to crag. They had to wade through snow, when the going seemed very much like walking through a bin of wheat, while the dogs floundered and the sledge sank. Al- ways there was the necessity of finding food. Now the ice became so rough that it cut the feet of the dogs, and the explorers had to make shoes for their animals. Sealskin proved excellent material for this, but when one does a little arithmetic and realizes that six dogs have twenty-four feet, and that each set of shoes could last but a day or two at best, one gets some idea of the difficulty of this task. Yet despite all these hardships, the men were happy. The bracing air kept their spirits up, the fresh-meat diet kept their bodies strong, and they rejoiced in the soundness of their great idea. Their experience was having a double value, for not only were they proving that few areas of the Arctic are without animal life, but also they were demonstrating that a supply of fresh meat, oil, and water can keep men healthy and strong over a long period of time. Still they bore north and east, fighting against the difficulties of sunmier travel on ocean-ice. Each day offered its problems, but the most diffi- cult was an open lead in the ice that yawned Digitized by CjOOQ IC 146 HIGH ADVENTURERS twenty feet before them. It was hard to summon any enthusiasm for swimming even twenty feet in icy water. Then, too, there was the sledge to con- sider. They would see what their equipment might of- fer. They had a ten-gallon tank, a five-gallon tank, and a brass water-bottle. Together these could hold considerable air and when lashed to the edges of the sled they should convert it into a good raft. The shovel would serve as a paddle. When the raft was ready to be lowered into the water, they sud- denly decided to attach a long rope to the rear in case of emergency. It was a happy thought, for no sooner was it well into the water, with the com- mander on it, than the craft began to sink. A few moments, and he was up to his waist in the icy flood. Pulling with all speed on the rope, his com- panions brought him back to the floe none the worse for his ducking. The cause of the trouble with the raft was a small hole in the larger tank, which was quickly plugged up. After this their ferry was thoroughly seaworthy, and plied back and forth twelve times until men and dogs were safely stowed on the next floe. Ohe glorious day they saw land-birds and re- joiced, for their travel on ocean-ice would soon be over. Now their instruments showed them that the waters were getting shallower, but another whole long week went by before Stef ansson sighted land. Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEPANSSON 147 Each man^s hands trembled as he took his turn in looking through the binoculars. They did not dare believe the blessed truth. Suppose it were a mirage, or a herd of caribou, or a polar bear! Each one invented an absurd theory for fear of the terrific disappointment that would follow if the commander should after all be wrong. He, however, convinced that he was right, led them on steadily over the ice in the direction of the dark spot. Through melting snow they walked, and through water often up to their waists. Twenty miles of the most arduous traveling was accom- plished on the home stretch. For home stretch it was, in very truth. There ahead of them, in plain sight now, was the hard-frozen, rocky soil. A mile away, and now a half-mile, then only a quarter, and now their feet touched it, the well-loved solid earth. Over was the painful trekking on tossing floes, over the struggle against the drift, over the restless ** nights ^^ — ^for they must be ever vigilant lest the camp-site be split in two. Their faith in the Arctic had held to the end. They had traveled over seven hundred miles of open sea. It had taken them ninety-six days, but both men and dogs were stronger and heavier than they had been when they set out. They had reached Banks Island at last. The island was soon lovely in its early summer dress, when meadows are golden with flowers. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 148 HIGH ADVENTUEBRS Here they saw a wolf, a fox, a herd of caribou, hares, ducks, geese, buntings, and numerous in- sects. Unaware of the notion that no life could be sustained so many hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, these creatures were living contentedly, and so, too, were the explorers. All through the short summer they relaxed, hunting when need arose, but for the most part enjoying the beauty of the rocky hillsides, the musical tinkling of the swift-running brooks, and the songs of the birds. The fall approached with rapid strides. They must now make their way south in search of the boats at Cape Kellett, as they had originally planned. They hoped earnestly that one of the sis- ter ships of the Karlvk would await them, but ten days of travel failed to bring them in sight of a friendly mast. It was the tenth of September, and already the ice was gripping both land and sea. Would they have to spend another winter in the Arctic! Thoughts of home with friends and family grouped about the fireside tantalized their souls. It was not easy to face the thought of another lonely year. It was then that their commander turned lec- turer. Who were they to be down-spirited after so magnificent an achievement! Of what good was it to oppose the inevitable! If going home was desir- able, then remaining another winter in the Arctic was full of promise for important geographical Digitized by CjOOQ IC VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 149 work. They could make their way into the un- charted regions of Victoria Island, much of which had never been accurately mapped. And since the men were good sportsmen, they soon overcame their disappointment and began formulating plans for the coming months. And then, for some reason, Stefansson had an irresistible desire to take one more look at Cape Kellett. As he was walking along the beach, he sud- denly saw the imprint of a heeled boot. That shoe belonged to a white man. Excited, he walked on and found another, and then another. Faster and faster he walked, until he was fairly running down the shore. There was the boat — ^his boat ! And there were men at work, building a house. One of them looked up, but intent on his task, thought Stefans- son was a passing Eskimo, and bent again to his labor. However, some instinct made him look up again, an unconscious feeling of something fa- miliar about the figure. Where had he first noted that swinging stride? No one stood so tall and blond in the morning sun except Conmiander Stefansson, but Stefansson had been dead for months! Had not the captain said there was not one chance in a thousand that he could have sur- vived the winter! Yet here indeed he was, bronzed, powerful, healthy. ** Stefansson is here!^' the man shouted, and out dashed the others, some with tears in their Digitized by CjOOQ IC 150 HIGH ADVENTURERS eyes, some speechless with emotion. Their dear commander was with them again, the commander with whom they had kept faith and for whom they had anchored their boat on this lonely shore, thongh they had thought him lost. With full hearts they listened to the story that seemed almost too miraculous to be believed — and yet his looks cer- tainly betokened a successful adventure. The discovery of the one boat brought hopes of finding the other, which contained their impor- tant instruments for exploration, but its captain, thinking Stef ansson long dead, had turned his ship toward home. Nevertheless the men, heartened by meeting their friends, stuck to their plan for win- tering again in the Arctic. They remained on Banks Island until spring, when they launched out again on the beckoning ocean-ice. Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent five more years in the Arctic, exploring new lands and studying new tribes. Though living **off the land'^ was never without hardship, he yet always found the Far North a friendly part of the world, when one lived with it on its own terms. He brought back to civi- lization, as he had hoped, truths that were more beautiful and satisfying than any legend. How the world will use this new knowledge of the Arctic lies with the future. Digitized by CjOOQ IC A NEW-WOELD POET OF SOUND EDWARD MACDOWELL Digitized by CjOOQ IC And I know not if , save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Robert Browning Digitized by CjOOQ IC A NEW-WORLD POET OP SOUND EDWARD MACDOWELL 1861-1908 Edward MaoDowbll was a very little boy when he discovered the magic of sound. Sitting one after- noon at the piano, he attacked his exercises with dutiful energy, but his thoughts were far away. All at once his fingers began to stray over the keys in a way of their own, softly, questioningly ; and they happened upon something quite different from anything that his pages of notes had ever given him. It was like a bit of a dream — something strange and haunting, something at once far away and very near. He had loved music before ; now he knew that it was the most wonderful thing in the world. **What is that you're playing T* demanded his teacher, sternly. The boy had been so absorbed in his dream that he had not heard any one come into the room. Now he started guiltily. **I have been practising my lesson, truly, '* he apologized, **but just now I was playing some- thing that I made up. It's great fun to make up things," he added eagerly, as he caught a kindly 153 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 154 HIGH ADVENTUEERS gleam in the look his music-master bent upon him. **I just kept running over the keys, so — ^and all at once there was music, music of my own; and then it seemed almost as if I was out in the woods, really! There were so many trees it was nearly dark, but a long streak of sunshine got through and lighted up one big oak-tree, and — '* **What^s thisT^ interrupted his teacher, with a laugh, **I thought we were talking of music, and now yon 're lost in the woods ! ' ' **I mean — ^I mean,'* the boy stammered, **I mean that the music made me think of the place where we were last summer; I felt the way I used to out under the trees. Don't you see! — ^Doesn't music ever make you feel things?'' * * Of course I understand, ' ' said the kindly musi- cian, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. ** That's why I am giving you these lessons. I had seen your eyes as you watched me play ; I knew you had the music in you. But the getting it out — ^ah, that's the trouble! Scales, scales, my boy; that is the only way. You cannot fly to success, you will have to scale the heights." And rubbing his hands together in silent enjoyment of his little joke, the good man forgot to scold. Edward was often sorely tempted to steal time from his scales for the snatches of dream melody that sang in his brain. It seemed that there were so Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWELL 155 many things within him longing for expression that none of them could really find a voice. Some- times even the powers of music were dumb; his keys gave back only a sounding nothingness. In these moods he often seized a pencil and tried with a few eager strokes to picture his thought on the margins of his music pages, and his nimble fancy seemed able to give an odd sort of life to the fugi- tive sketches. There were times when he was sure that he wanted to be a painter. *' Stick to your music, Son,^' reproved his father. **A jack of all trades is master of none. When I was your age I hoped to do something be- sides learning how to make money, but my good Quaker parents thought the way of business the only proper life for a man. Well, I have made enough to give you a chance for some of the things that I have missed.^' **We are living for you now, Edward,'' said his mother, earnestly. ^'We are hoping to find our dreams come true in your success.'' His mother begged her friend, Madame Teresa Carreno, the gifted Venezuelan pianist, to give the boy an occasional lesson, in the hope of kindling within him a new zeal for work. After she had spent an hour with the young dreamer, Madame Carreno 's interest needed no urging. **The boy is not a wunderkind, my friend," she Digitized by CjOOQ IC 156 HIGH ADVENTUEERS said, ** but he has the gift. Do not worry about his fancies — ^his love for stories and pictures. He will put them all into music. ^^ Instead of insisting on exercises, she began by playing Chopin and Schumann for the delighted boy, and it seemed to him that his *4ong, long thoughts ^^ had found a language at last. He felt that he would never tire of working to win such power. **The gift is yours to use or to lose, Edward,'' she would say, with her fascinating accent, fixing her intense, brilliant gaze on his. ** Remember, the gods take away their favor from those who do not know how to appreciate. ' ' When he was fifteen, Edward went with his mother to Paris, where he studied under Mar- montel and Savard at the conservatory. Claude Debussy, the most original of our modern tone- poets, was an interesting and stimulating fellow- pupil. Edward soon had occasion to regret his lame- ness in French. It was almost impossible to keep up with his lectures, and some special lessons in the language became necessary. Even with the in- centive of his immediate need, however, he found it hard to give his undivided attention to the ec- centricities of irregular verbs and irresponsible idioms. The exaggerated nose of his instructor was far more interesting; it suggested the possibility Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWBLL 157 of a most entertaining portrait. But just as he was putting the finishing touches on the sketch that he had been making under cover of his grammar, the victim pounced upon the cause of his pupil's inat- tention. The boy waited with bent head for the storm to pass, but all was still. Looking up fur- tively, he saw that his model was gazing at lus pic- tured self more in wonder than in anger. When he spoke, his French was too voluble and idiomatic to be readily understood by the astonished pupil, but it seemed that he wished to know where Edward had learned to draw, and that he could not be per- suaded to part with the sketch. A greater surprise was in store when, a few days later, the teacher called upon his mother, not to complain of the boy's trifling, but to declare that he had at once discovered in the impudent sketch an evidence of extraordinary talent. He had, therefore, taken it to a great artist — one of the instructors in the ficole des Beaux Arts — ^who had in turn been so impressed that he asked to have the boy come to him as a pupil, not only of- fering free instruction, but also undertaking to provide for his support during the time of his three-year course. Mrs. MacDowell was greatly perplexed. Could it be that in her ambition for her son she had been blindly working against his true destiny? She re- membered that his father had in his youth shown Digitized by CjOOQ IC 158 HIGH ADVENTURERS decided gifts as a draughtsman. Was this inher- ited ability indeed stronger in the boy than his musical talent? In her distress she consulted Mar- montel, who became greatly excited over the pros- pect of losing his interesting pupil. The boy had a remarkable gift — ^it might be genius, he declared. She would be doing a great wrong if she interfered with his career. At length the mother decided to leave the choice with her son. **Tou have come to the crossroads, Edward,'^ she said solemnly. **I cannot choose for you. You must make up your mind for yourself where your true path lies.'^ The boy looked at his mother's earnest face and his heart was stirred by the sense of a great crisis. The man's soul, with its fixed purpose and capac- ity for untiring effort, was born in that hour. **I am going on with my music, Mother,'' he said quietly, **and I'm really going to work now. You won't have to trouble about me any more." It has been said that what we call genius is just **an infinite capacity for taking pains," meaning that the devotion to a particular ideal is so great that the struggle to attain it is unending. Edward MacDowell now gave signs of this will **to labor and to wait." He was profoundly stirred at this time by hearing Eubinstein, the great Bussian pianist, give a powerful rendering of Tchaikov- sky's music. He felt, as he listened, as if he were Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWAED MACDOWELL 159 standing on the vast, solitary steppes, in the midst of a mighty rushing wind that sang and wailed and chanted. All the throbbing hopes and fears of which the human heart is capable were speaking in those strange, moving harmonies. The young musician felt the lure of new worlds. What fresh inspiration might be waiting for him across the Ehine in Wagner's country, where Eubinstein had studied and come to the fulness of his powers? After much consideration he decided to go with his mother to Stuttgart. A few weeks of that conservative German city, however, con- vinced them that the choice was not a happy one. **I believe they would make Eubinstein himself begin all over again and play scales after their own particular fashion, '^ said Edward. *^But at least I have gained this by coming: I have learned that Frankfort is the place for me. There I can study under Heymann, who plays the classics as if they were written by men with blood in their veins.** To Frankfort, therefore, they went. Here, after his mother's return to America, Edward Mac- Dowell, now a youth of eighteen, settled down to steady work. For two years he studied piano under Heymann and composition under Eaff. *^ Heymann let me do what I wanted,*' he said, **but in hearing him practise and play, I learned more in a week than I ever had before." Digitized by CjOOQ IC 160 HIGH ADVENTURERS The hours in theory and composition with Baff, however, gave him an even keener joy. Here was a master indeed, one who was at once a quicken- ing mentor and an understanding friend. When he played for Eaff, he opened his heart and let his eager fancies have their way. "Your compositions are interesting — ^yes,** said Bafif. **How long have you been working at these?'* **0h, I have stolen bits of time for it off and on ever since I was a little chap,'* said MacDowell. *^0f course, I knew there was nothing in it, but the lure was too strong for me; I've always been a bit of a dreamer." **Do you mean to say that you have not real- ized — ^that your teachers have not realized for you — ^that composition is your future? You will be a good performer, ja wohl, but you will be a great composer." "You don't think that these things I amuse my- self with are worth anything, really?" demanded the young man, wide-eyed. "My boy," said the master, solemnly, "your music will be played when mine, and that of many others whom we applaud to-day, is forgotten." A new world opened before Edward Mac- Dowell 's wondering eyes. It was good to be alive; each day would be "a bringer of new things." He could indeed find his life in his work. There was. Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWELL Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by LjOOQ IC ■ EDWARD MACDOWELL 161 however, so much that he longed to do all at once that it seemed as if he could find no place to begin. He remembered the words of his first master: **You have the music in you, but the getting it out — ^that^s the trouble 1** There indeed was the rubl It seemed that because there was so much that he longed to do, there was grave danger he might end by doing nothing. He was sitting helplessly before his piano one day, when there came a knock at his door, fol- lowed — ^wonder of wonders I — ^by the unheralded appearance of the great Eaff himself. The embar- rassed pupil looked uncomfortably from his vis- itor to the disorderly room, strewn with scattered papers and sheets of music. ^^What are you doing!*' asked the master abruptly. Scarcely knowing what he was saying, the young man stammered that he was at work on a concerto. ^* Bring it to me next Sunday,'* commanded the master. Now indeed it was do or die I The promising bits of inspiration from which he had hoped some day to evolve a concerto were desperately assembled and feverishly developed. He worked as he had never worked before. When Sunday came, there was the first movement complete — ^but only the first. A note with the best excuse that he could muster postponed his meeting with Eaff until the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 162 HIGH ADVENTURERS following week. ** Something happened then — ^my lucky stars fought for me, no doubt,*' said Mac- Dowell, **and Eaff himself put me off two days more; by that time the concerto was ready. '* **You must play it for Liszt,** said Eaff, when he had heard the new work to the end. ^ * I will make an appointment for you.** So, in fear and trembling before this ordeal, MacDowell journeyed to Weimar with his precious manuscript under his arm. The great man received him graciously, and praised his composition for its originality. He asked him, moreover, to play his first piano suite at the annual convention of the General Society of (Jerman Musicians, which was to be held that summer in Zurich. When the great day came, the young American was not so overcome by the honor that he failed to do himself justice. He was recalled again and again, with cheers and enthusiastic bravos. At last he realized that the music bom of his happy dream hours was speaking to the hearts of those who listened. People would find his fancies worthy of study and remembrance. **I would not have changed a note in one of my pieces for untold gold,** he said, *^for each seemed eternally to belong, and inside I had the greatest love for them; but the idea that any one else might take them seriously had never occurred to me.** The next two years were largely devoted to Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWBLL 163 composition. At this time he gave to the world *^The Calm of the Forest/* ^*The Witches' Dance/* **Play of the Nymphs/' **Wood Idylls/' and **The Dance of the Dryads." The boy who could wander at will in the Forest of Dreams, where fairies danced in their magic rings and the pipes of Pan called nymphs and fauns from their tree hiding-places, found it easy to sing with his hands the thoughts that had been set to music in his happy fancy. His days were not, however, all spent in study and in living aloud the music that sang in his brain. He had to face the problem of increasing his income, and so he added to his other work the task of teaching. He taught at the conservatory in a neighboring town, and also journeyed to a feudal castle, with moat and drawbridge that spoke of the days of the robber barons, to give in- struction to some particularly fat and stupid chil- dren of the nobility. He was a popular and inspir- ing teacher, this *^ handsome American," as he was called because of his alert blue eyes, fair sMn, and jet-black hair. The shy youth of nineteen could make people feel the inner harmony that sang through all things and found an echo in their hearts. One of his pupils was a gifted young American girl, whom Raff had put under his instruction be- cause of her small knowledge of German. The les- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 164 HIGH ADVBNTURERS son hours with Miss Marian Nevins turned the drudgery of his teaching days to music. Here he found complete understanding of the ideals that stirred him. On his return to America, in 1884, his pupil agreed to become his life-comrade. Soon after the wedding, they sailed for Europe, stopping for a time in London. Here MacDowell became absorbingly interested in the Egyptian col- lections in the British Museum; the romance and mystery of the past haunted him like a bit of half- forgotten melody. He also reveled in the Shake- sperean plays given by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, and longed to put something of their color and charm into his music. After seeing **Much Ado About Nothing,*' he set to work on a sym- phonic poem that he planned to call ** Beatrice and Benedick.'' This piece was finally used as the scherzo of his second piano concerto, which he completed some months later. The term ** scherzo," which is the Italian word for *^joke," is given to the light movement of compositions such as symphonies and concertos. This mood in MacDowelPs works is always de- lightful. How he loved fun and laughter! Many of his light, playful moments live in his tripping, lilting scherzos to quicken others to gladness. Though he had been warmly recommended for leading positions in conservatories of music, his glowing youth proved a serious drawback. The Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWELL 165 directors of these dignified institutions did not think that he looked the part of a Herr Professor. *^It is a fault that I would so surely overcome — in time!*' said MacDowell, with whimsical regret. Instead of allowing his disappointment to turn into discontent, however, he lived simply within his narrow means, giving over his days to composi- tion and his evenings to the enjoyment of poetry and romance. Often, as he read aloud from Shak- spere, Keats, and Tennyson, his face would glow and his voice thrill with delight, which frequently found expression later in music, as his symphonic poems, ** Hamlet and Ophelia'' and ** Lancelot and Elaine," can testify. Do you remember Hans Andersen's ** Picture Book Without Pictures," in which he gives little glimpses of life in many places that the moon saw in its passing? MacDowell has translated into music some of these lovely **Moon Pictures," such as *'The Stork's Story," *'The Hindoo Maiden," **The Swan," and *^The Visit of the Bear." MacDowell found delight and inspiration in na- ture as well as in books. His long tramps in the woods found expression not only in the works com- posed at this time, but also years later in *^From a German Forest. " One day, while out walking near Wiesbaden, he found, near the edge of a deep woods, a dilapidated cottage that had been built as a summer retreat for some titled nature-lover. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 166 HIGH ADVENTURERS ^^I can buy this, and the view of river and hills, for a song,'' cried MacDowell, exultingly, ** which is about all that I have to pay ; and it will be worth many songs to me.'' Here he loved to dig in the old garden, or lose himself in the cool woods that stretched invitingly near. The place was indeed worth many songs to him. He wrote here the charming group of songs, *^From an Old Garden," in which he seems to give us not only the beauty and fragrance of the flow- ers, but also their spirit and kinship to human souls. Nothing could be more delightful or poetic than **The Yellow Daisy," **The Qover," and ** Mignonette." His 'idylls" and **Poems" for piano, after Goethe and Heine; his "Lamia," sug- gested by the poem of Keats ; the two movements for orchestra, episodes from the *^Song of Ro- land"; and the unique *^ Little Poems" — ^''The Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," and "Win- ter" — ^belong to this period. We see how the stories and poems that Mac- Dowell loved soon found their way into music. His love of fun was second only to his love of the beau- tiful. Bre'r Rabbit has a place in his "Fireside Tales," and we may think that the humor of Mark Twain, which he so greatly enjoyed, gleams in more than one merry scherzo. Fame, if not wealth, found MacDowell in his Wiesbaden retreat. Madame Carreno's playing Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWBLL 167 had made concert-goers of many lands acquainted with his compositions; and to hear the ** Idylls*' and *^ little pieces'* was to love them. MacDoweU was urged to return to America and devote his gifts to the development of music and musical ap- preciation in his native land. After deciding on Boston as a home city, Mac- DoweU divided his time between concert work and teaching. As composer-pianist, he won instant suc- cess, for his power of interpretation was in perfect accord with his creative gift. His rare, poetic na- ture was felt in all his music. In speaking of his playing, people often quoted the lines of Sidney Lanier : **His song was only living aloud, His work, a singing with his hand.'^ As a teacher in Boston, and afterward as pro- fessor at Columbia University, he was an inspir- ing master, never imposing his own interpreta- tions on others, but stimulating the individual power of each student. ** Don't try to echo my playing of this," he would say. **You may find a better way than mine. ' ' When Ms pupils speak of his work and influence, they always dwell on his nobleness and simplicity. ^*He went right to the heart of things," said one. *^He was great enough to be entirely simple." **Yes," added another ardent disciple, **and Digitized by CjOOQ IC 168 HIGH ADVENTURERS how he conld, with a suggestive word or two, make you see and feel the music I ^Let those opening chords just drift from far away, or nowhere, to the world of sound,* he would say; or, *Let it be like the shadow of a butterfly/ Sometimes, when a pu- pil was too strenuous with a delicate passage, he would say, with his jolly twinkle, * You don't want to give your fairy a pug-nose, do you? * or, * Spring is not tripping over the meadows now, she is com- ing in on crutches I' ** Like all great, simple souls, MacDowell shrank from praise. He had the *^ artist's sorrow'' — ^the realization, while the crowd applauds, of how far one's best achievement falls below the unattain- able ideal. When, after a concert, he would find himself surrounded by groups of ecstatic admir- ers, he would wear an almost hunted expression. * * Do you know the way to the back door ? " he whis- pered to a friend on one such occasion. There was little time in the crowded days for rest. *^ MacDowell is temperate in all things except work," said a friend. Besides his lectures and classes at Columbia and his concerts, there were many private pupils. On Sundays, his advanced pupils frequently came to his home for special help and inspiration; and one day a week was al- ways devoted to those who could not pay. *^ Music is too often starved out," he once said Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD MACDOWELL 169 to an earnest pupil who hesitated over accepting his generosity. *^ Artists have a hard time in our practical Yankee-land; one must help where he can. You can repay me by helping some other poor chap who needs a bit of a boost.'* During these years of unceasing work for and with others, the only time for composition came in the summers, when, in the freedom of the moun- tains, his spirit had a chance to relax and breathe. * *' The city is only a place in which to make money enough to get out into the country,** he said. The country of his heart's desire in America, like the Wiesbaden retreat, was discovered by chance — a deserted farm in the Monadnock foot- hills near Peterboro, New Hampshire. Fifteen acres of farm-land and fifty acres of forest, where pines, larches, firs, and every variety of ferns grew among great gray, lichen-covered boulders, were bought for the price of many songs. He gave the old farm-house a new future as a soul-satisfying home, and built a little cabin in the woods where he could work undisturbed. In this log cabin virtually all of his later works were written, among them the ** Woodland Sketches** that we love so well: **To a Wild Eose,** **Will-o*-the-Wisp,** **From an Indian Lodge,** and **Told at Sunset.** Sometimes the poet, unable to translate all of his feelings into melody, wrote little verses to ac- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 170 HIGH ADVENTURERS company his tone-poems. These lines were written on the manuscript of ^*From a Wandering Ice- berg,'' one of his exquisite **Sea Pieces'*: **An errant princess of the North, A virgin, snowy white. Sails adown the summer seas To realms of burning light." Hill Crest, as the Peterboro home was called, with its old garden, whose sun-dial measured only happy hours, was an ideal place for rest and rec- reation. As the music-maker returned one evening, after a day of happy work in his log-cabin studio, the thought came to him that his pine-woods might shelter many such ** studios," screened by trees, each a perfect retreat where an artist could find quiet and the calm of spirit necessary for creative work. "That is just the thing!" he declared enthu- siastically to Mt. Monadnock. **A colony of rustic hermitages for errant authors, painters, and mu- sicians, *far from the madding crowd,' with a chance for home comforts and pleasant inter- change with fellow-workers at the end of the day." That evening he told his wife of his dream, and together they planned for a summer colony of ar- tists in their New England Arcadia. The plan grew into a fixed purpose, and it seemed as if the dream might indeed come true, when the shadow Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWAED MACDOWELL 171 of death fell upon the music-maker, ^^and the rest is silence.'* But ere long it became clear that his spirit was speaking through the wills of others. Many lovers of his music, longing to honor in some fitting way our New-World poet of sound, decided to raise a fund to realize his dream. Each summer now many workers find a resting-place for body and spirit in the MacDowell Colony at Peterboro. We do not need, however, to make a pilgrimage to New Hampshire to feel the inspiration of the woods that he longed to share with others. Play the **New England Idylls,'' **In Deep Woods," and **From a Log Cabin," the last of his composi- tions. It seems that ** night has fallen on a day of deeds," and we are alone among the hills in the evening glow. We fear the dark may find us far from shelter, when all at once we come upon a little log cabin with a thatch of pine-needles — *^A house of dreams untold, It looks out over the whispering tree-tops And faces the setting sun." We think that these words, which he wrote for that last idyll, speak not only for the music but also for the spirit of Edward MacDowell. Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC A MASTER PAINTEB OF ROMANCE EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY Digitized by CjOOQ IC And behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautif ol. BUNYAH Digitized by CjOOQ IC A MASTER PAINTER OF ROMANCE EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 1852-1911 He was a small boy for his age, with a round, close-cropped head and handsome, though near- sighted, brown eyes. His brow was puckered now with serious thought as he looked up at his father. He was fifteen years old, and when one finds him- self already three years in his teens it is time to consider things carefully. **Yes, Father, I know I'm beginning to be grown-up,'' he said soberly. **Why, when I'm out of my teens, I'll be a man, almost." Mr. Abbey smiled down at the boy who was looking forward to his remaining teens to make him quite grown-up, and who, with all that was in him, longed to be tall. ** You have time yet to grow in," he said. **I've seen smaller lads than you who made big men. But it isn't too early to think what you are going to do when you're a man." This seemed almost as embarrassing as the question of growing. **R-r-r-really, F-f -father," Edwin stammered, **I don't know anything I care 175 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 176 HIGH ADVENTURERS for especially but drawing and baseball. And I'd rather draw than go to the bat — ^really I '* he added in a sudden burst of feeling. **If you are going to win in the world of pictures, Edwin, you must begin to think of some- thing besides making rebuses and funny sketches for this paper and that,*' said his father. The boy had shown a clever hand at entertaining skits with his pencil, and several of his drawings had ap- peared in the columns of ** Oliver Optic's Maga- zine,'' a periodical for young folks. **Tes, Father,'* replied the young artist, hope- fully, **I'm ready to follow up any line you say if it is something that is in my line — something where I can go on with my drawing." Edwin had been nine years old at the outbreak of the Civil War, and, living in Philadelphia throughout the trying years of this struggle, he had seen much of the seriousness of life. Even the children felt something besides admiration and excitement when they saw marching men pass through the streets. All knew something of what the farewells meant and of the f earfxd cost of war. Yet the pictures that Edwin Abbey saw week by week in the illustrated papers meant more to him than anything else. How wonderful it was to be able to make people see what one woxdd — scenea Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC From a photograph by Bassano EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 177 of battle, where brave men struggled; moments of action, hope, and courage ! How those drawings of Winslow Homer's in ** Harper's Weekly'' made things live ! Edwin Abbey had the gift of seeing and remem- bering *Hhe look of things." Everything he saw — prancing horses, marching soldiers, toiling work- men, and playing children — ^lived in his memory as vivid pictures. Everything he read — ^tales of ad- venture, stories of noble knights and fair ladies — lived in his fancy as clear as if seen. But these lovely living pictures were always changing, melt- ing into each other. How he longed to be able to seize them with his pencil, to make them fixed and real — for himself and for every one else I And so he was always trying to draw, trying to catch the changing look of things in strong, lifelike lines. Mr. Abbey was, naturally, anxious to see his son properly equipped and fortified for the battle of life, and after his talk with Edwin, it was evi- dent to him that this could best be done by turning to practical account the boy's gift for drawing. So it was not long before the father found an op- portunity for him such as he sought. *^I have secured a place for you, Edwin, with a firm of engravers," he announced, **an excellent firm, where you will have a chance to learn draw- ing on wood for book-illustrations." Digitized by CjOOQ IC 178 HIGH ADVENTURERS **A11 right,'* said the boy, his eyes snapping with eager resolve, **I think I can promise to make good/' So steadily did he apply himself, indeed, that he devoted evening after evening, when he was not working in the antique class at the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts, to carrying out ideas that had come to him during the day. It was soon evident that he possessed the illustrator's gift to an extraordinary degree. His mind was stored with memory-pictures that he could evoke and reshape at will. Some of these early sketches found favor with ** Harper's Weekly." It was a proud day when his picture ** Tracking Babbits" was accepted. Is it possible that some of his own gratitude lent spirit to his next drawing of ^^The First Thanks- giving"? For that animated sketch of the Pil- grims' feast with their Indian guests also met with success. And his engagement with the engraving-firm having come to an end, after another year of study at the Fine Arts he won a place on the staff of artists of Harper & Brothers. Edwin was afraid that he would wake up sud- denly. Could it be that his dreams were going to come true? Was he really going to find that the work of life and the joy of life were one? Was he Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 179 going to be able to earn his living by doing the thing he loved best? Even the thunder of the elevated did not waken him from his dream. At nineteen Edwin Abbey had entered upon his new life in New York as a member of the Harper art department, one of a little brotherhood of six workers among whom C. S. Beinhart was the best known. And so, doing the thing he loved in company with others who cared for the things that counted with him and who spoke his language, he knew the happiness that is only to be found in work that brings out the best that is in one. It was said of Abbey that ^*he learned to swim by jumping into deep water. '^ One of his earliest drawings showed the pulling down of the Ven- dome Column by the Paris mob during the law- less period known as the Commune, in 1871. The young illustrator was able to work up the most convincing crowd scenes, such as the thrilling mo- ments of fires, election celebrations, and other oc- casions of popular excitement, often without leav- ing his desk at the office. **How can you draw in such a lifelike way what you have never seen?'^ he was asked, when a spirited drawing of a royal review of the British troops was being admired. **But I have seen it and I do see it — ^in my Digitized by CjOOQ IC 180 HIGH ADVENTUEEES mind's eye/' he declared. **A11 that I have ever known remains with me as pictures ; and when I read about a thing, I do not just hear and under- stand, I see it happening/^ It was found that Edwin Abbey could make more vivid drawings of scenes from the pictur- esque past than any of his fellow-artists. **If it is in 1776, give it to Abbey," his com- panions would say. **He has the trick of making the Colonial breathe." At one time they called him, laughingly, *Hhe stage-coachman," because of his fondness for drawing wayside taverns at that lively moment when the coach pulls up for a change of horses and mine host and his helpers stand at attention to welcome the new arrivals. When one has the gift of doing a thing easily, there is always the temptation to keep on doing it in the same way, and what was once alive and charming becomes mechanical and uninteresting. Abbey was saved from this danger by his intense longing to know more and ever more about the things that had fascinated his imagination. He was a great reader, with a particular fondness for Goldsmith and other eighteenth-century writers. It would not be true, however, to say that he knew that period like a book. He saw it in the life. He knew how the people dressed, to the last shoe- buckle, and how they felt in their clothes. So while one enjoyed the picturesque details of his draw- Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 181 ings, the lifelike people were even more interesting than the quaint costumes and furnishings. The Centennial year of 1876 was an important time for Abbey. The exhibition of pictures brought together then in Philadelphia opened the eyes of the enthusiastic young illustrator to a world of art which he had hardly dared to picture in dreams. It was plain that he must go abroad to study. But in the meantime he had eyes for the lovely and picturesque in his own world, and kept a notebook for sketches of interesting bits by the way — ^a friendly stile, a homely barnyard, a quaint rustic bridge and stone wall. His faithfulness to the exact truth of each detail in the accessories of a picture was always as marked as his instinct for seizing the glimpse of picturesque life or romantic story that it presented. **One must find his ideal beauty in the real, or he hasn't done anything but chase a will-o'-the- wisp, '* he used to say. The year before, he and a young fellow-artist at Harper's, James E. Kelly, who was destined to become a lifelong friend, formed a partnership and opened an office on Union Square. Soon after, examples of his work, notable for that time, began to appear in ^^Scribner's Monthly," which later became **The Century Magazine." In 1878, the longed-for chance to go to Europe came to him from Harper & Brothers. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 182 HIGH ADVENTURERS *^We want to bring out an edition of Herrick's poems that will make his day and generation live for people/' Abbey was told. *^You are the man to put reality into the far-away scenes and make the quaint and curious a part of life. But you need a chance to be in the right atmosphere for a while. How would you like to have this commission and a leave of absence at the same time — ^go to an ideal spot of rural England to do the Herrick drawings f So it happened that Abbey and his friend Al- fred Parsons found themselves in the village of Broadway, a bit of old England nestling in the friendly landscape about twelve miles from Strat- ford. Many times Abbey chuckled over the name. **What a delightful chance it is that we have so mfuch of New York here in case we should fancy ourselves homesick I' ' he said. **And isn't it won- derful that there is nothing else in this Broadway with even a hint of the hurry and worry, the get- ting and spending, of the life of to-day I'' The village is the very place we see pictured in Abbey's illustrations of Herrick, and also in his drawings for Goldsmith's ** Deserted Village" and **She Stoops to Conquer." There is the single street leading uphill, the mossy-roofed cottages built of stone that looks washed even during the dryness of August. Everything is of stone except the wonderful English greenness of the gardens, Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 183 meadows, and hedges. There are geese, too, on the green, and a goose-girl! The happy artists secured a tumble-down house known as **The Priory,^' which must have been a necessary part of the landscape when it was built in 1563. This they converted into a studio, and here Abbey worked contentedly upon his drawings, indulging in occasional water-color sketches by way of pastime. His love for old things, for the charm and fragrance of the past, grew with the days. How he delighted in his sketches of cobblestone streets, garden walls, lat- ticed bowers, sedan-chairs, and lovely ladies! What care he bestowed on the sweeping draperies and airy ruffles! How he knew the dashing gal- lants, to the latest fashion in frills and sword- knots! The illustrations of the Shakspere comedies, too, show not only this loving attention to detail, but also a power of suggesting character. His Beatrice, Rosalind, Viola, and Perdita have a loveliness that is more than skin-deep because they have the charm of individuality. He knew how his people felt as well as how they dressed, so his humorous scenes are never ridiculous; we smile with his quaint people, but not at them. While working steadily on his illustrations, he became more and more interested in oil-painting. Groups of his water-colors and pastels had been Digitized by CjOOQ IC 184 HIGH ADVENTURERS exhibited and praised, but it was a great day when his first work in oil was accepted by the Boyal Academy. This painting, **A May-day Morning, '* is a spring song in fresh, joyous color. There never was a more delightfxd spot than the old- fashioned garden we see pictured there, with its high walls and box walks, its blossoming pear and peach trees, the glowing sky of early morning, and the light-hearted youth and maiden. **It's the happiest picture in the gallery, and the truest,*' said a white-haired critic, smiling as he leaned on his cane to linger before it. **One for- gets the years and the London fog — ^why, I know every bright-faced posy there, and every mossy stone in the old wall I'* Abbey had found in England inspiration and material for his work, and after 1883 it became his permanent home; but it could not take the place of his native land in his affections. ^*I miss America and American ways — ^partic- ularly the baseball !'* he used to say. ** Cricket tries to take its place, but it can't. I need England, though, for my pictures.'' In 1890, when he was chosen to decorate a room in the Boston Public Library, it was not alone the honor and the opportunity of the commission that gave him joy, but the fact that his work was to go to his own coimtry. The distinction of being Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 185 selected coronation painter by King Edward did not mean as much to him. In his home, Morgan Hall, in Gloucestershire, he had the largest private studio in England — a place large enough to hold the big canvases for the Boston Library and to give his friend, Sar- gent, room to work on his commission for the same building. There the brother artists painted together. Abbey, the famous illustrator, learning much from the master hand of the famous painter of portraits, who had worked almost entirely in the one medium of oil. How the studio glowed with color as the pic- tures of Galahad's quest for the Holy Grail grew in their splendor of scarlet and gold ! The months grew into years, and Abbey was still working on them, while Sargent became more and more ab- sorbed in his frieze of the ** Prophets.** **Give me a little time, and 1*11 do something worth while I** Abbey said, on being asked when the decorations would be finished. He felt like his boy self again, with a new goal ahead and the joy of working to gain a new mastery of his art. Five years after Abbey received the commis- sion, the first five sections of the decoration were exhibited in London, and in seven years more (1902), the series of fifteen panels was complete. Every one who enters the library delivery-room Digitized by CjOOQ IC 186 HIGH ADVENTURERS feels the spell of these paintings^ whose rich colors, contrasting with the deep tones of the woodwork, seem to hold the spirit of all romance and the longing for the ideal that stirs in every heart. Once some high-school students were trying to trace the story of the knight whose ** strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure/' **But one doesn't have to know it all to feel the pictures!'' one of the girls protested. **Blanchefleur and all the others in the Hall of the Maidens are lovely, no matter what they hap- pen to be doing there ; and when you see Galahad on his horse, in the castle, and in the ship, yoa feel the stir of splendid things, even if you have never heard of the quest of the Holy Grail." **I can't pretend to remember the legend, '* agreed another, **but I love the feeling of romance and mystery and holiness that the pictures give me. They make beautiful thoughts and dreams live in color just the way Beethoven's music makes them live in sound." ** Abbey has a wonderful power of observation of the remote," the critics said. **He makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange — strangely beautiful and fascinating." Abbey's studio at Morgan Hall was a place of wonder and delight. Splendid pieces of tapestry. Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 187 curiously carved panels, suits of armor, gleam- ing swords and battle-axes, rich costumes and furnishings of different periods, were gathered there. **It looks as if you would be able to stage al- most any sort of romantic situation one could think of,'' a visitor remarked. **But I often have to go afield to find the par- ticular thing I need,'* Abbey replied. **I went to Brittany, for instance, to get the groined and vaulted roof for one of the Grail pictures." ** Why are you so particular about the historical exactness of every detail 1" he was asked. ** You're the only one who would know the difference." **Did you ever learn * memory gems' when you went to school 1" Abbey queried, with a bantering smile, but with a tender light in his eyes. ** There were some lines— of Longfellow's, I believe — ^that I learned when I was a little chap and which I have always remembered: *In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part ; For the gods see everywhere. ' It's because I can't forget those lines that I must make things as right as I know how, even if no- body i5 the wiser. 'The gods see everywhere'! Sometimes it's a little inconvenient to care. After ^ Digitized by CjOOQIC 188 HIGH ADVENTUEEES I had finished the picture of Gloucester and Lady Anne, I discovered that I had the wrong quarter- ings on the coat-of-arms decoration of my lady^s dresSy and my conscience gave me no peace until I had put a new and entirely correct dress on her ladyship.*' It was rumored that Abbey's nwignificent paint- ing of the coronation of King Edward VII had won for him the distinction of knighthood from the appreciative monarch, if he chose to accept it. But the painter never gave up his American citizenship, and remained simply Abbey, the artist. Indeed, if he had ever been a worshiper of rank and pomp, his experience in painting this coronation picture would have wrought a change. He was so sorely tried by the unpunctuality of some of the hundred and more distinguished per- sonages who figured in the pageant and who had to sit for their portraits, that when he was offered the royal commission of coronation painter to his Majesty George V, he declined the honor. **King Edward and Queen Alexandra were all consideration, '^ he said, **but some of the lesser dignitaries apparently could not conceive that a painter's time had any value. *' Nothing could be more sumptuous or more im- pressive than Abbey's rich, dignified painting. A king and a queen never looked more royal. The whole scene at the crossing of the transepts of Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 189 Westminster Abbey suggests something more than an occasion of pomp and splendor. He seems to have caught the very spirit and ideal of royalty in a wonderful harmony of crimson, blue, and gold. It is interesting to note in this connection that Leslie, the painter of one of the scenes of Queen Victorians coronation, and Benjamin West, court painter to George III, were also sons of Pennsylvania. The pleasure that Abbey felt when he was asked to furnish decorations for the State Capitol at Harrisburg showed that he had a loyal affection for his native land. Into this great task he put all his heart, the varied gifts at his command, and the ripe experience of the years. The paintings show not only beauty and charm, but also under- standing and insight. The master painter is a poet and a seer. The rotunda in the center of the building is decorated with paintings that symbolize the ideal forces in the life of the people. There is, for in- stance, ** Science Eevealing the Treasures of the Earth, n^ which shows the figures of Science, For- tune, and Plenty hovering over an open shaft where we see miners at work ; there is **The Spirit of Vulcan,*' which shows men toiling in the steel- works, over which broods the mythical figure of the god of Fire; and there is **The Spirit of Light,'* where we see graceful, soaring, flame-like Digitized by CjOOQ IC 190 HIGH ADVENTUEEES figures bearing torches, painted against a back- ground of the grim, towering derricks of the oil- fields. Above the speaker's rostrum in the Hall of the House, a gracious figure representing the Genius of the State sits enthroned, surrounded by those who have had a share in shaping the destinies of the commonwealth, from the period of discovery and settlement, represented by Sir Walter Ra- leigh, Henry Hudson, and Peter Minuit, down to more modem times, represented by Stephen Girard, the founder of the school for orphan boys, and the volunteers of the Civil War under the leadership of Meade and Hancock. Many men are assembled in this great painting, and yet it is not a crowd; each is a distinct individual, and yet each belongs to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The three chief men of Pennsyl- vania, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Morris, stand in the center upon a rock on which are fittingly engraved these words from the Bible, which call to mind the lessons and inspira- tion of the past : ** Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations : ask thy father and he will show thee ; thy elders, and they will tell thee.'* When the lawmakers look toward the speaker they face this reminder that history is only the Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY 191 story of great men, and that the measure of great- ness is the worth of one's work for others. When they lift their eyes to the ceiling they see the painted dome of the heavens, around which pass in a circle the hours of the day and night — ^the former, bright, dancing figures, followed by the dark hours, gliding forms shrouded in heavy, sweeping mantles. To the left and right of the central painting are panels showing **Penn's Treaty with the Indians'' and **The Beading of the Declaration," the latter finished by Abbey's pupils after his death in 1911. **How wonderful it is that Abbey is able always to observe directly figures, scenes, and places that exist only in the fairyland of his fancy I" ex- claimed Henry James. It was, indeed, true that as he thought of things he saw them — the far- away drew near, and the veils of mist changed into lovely form and color. The ** stately palace, the name of which was Beautiful" was no unsub- stantial mirage that receded as he tried to enter it. His imagination was balanced by his sense of life, by his instinct for seeking the ideal in the real. There are those who like to think this was because he was an American as well as because he was a true artist. In the afternoons, when the lengthening shad- ows put an end to the day's work. Abbey often went out on the lawn for a game of cricket — ^the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 192 HIGH ADVENTURERS sport that tried in its conservative English way to take the place of baseball. Once, when the painter was on a visit to New York, he went into a sporting-goods house and bought a supply of baseball bats, balls, masks, and gloves, which he took back to England with him. **We*ll see what can be done about organizing a nine on the other side,'* he said. **If you really get baseball thoroughly estab- lished in your adopted country, there will be noth- ing to bring you back to America even for an oc- casional visit,** protested one of his friends. **You can't lose so easily one who was *bom and bred in the brier-patch I* ** was the laughing reply. **I*11 still be an American under the skin, you know.** It is certainly true that it was the American in Abbey that, added to his genius, made him able to clothe his dreams in such persuasive reality that when we look at his pictures we are able to enter into the spirit of the scene he presents as if it were a part of the life we know. So it is that he takes us with him into the Palace Beautiful. Digitized by CjOOQ IC * ROMEO SHALL THANK THEE, DAUGHTER, FOR US BOTH/ {From a draming by Edwin A. Ahhey) Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC THE FRIENDLY SCULPTOR HARRIET HOSMER Digitized by CjOOQ IC Of all the good gifts which ever came out of the wallet of the Fairy (Godmother the gift of natural gladness is the greatest and best. It is to the soul what health is to the body. Bliss Carman Digitized by CjOOQ IC THE FRIENDLY SCULPTOR HARRIET H08MER 1830-1908 The fairy godmother was standing by the cradle of a baby girl, born that golden October of the year 1830 in a little town of Massachusetts. It was fairy time ; all the people of the house were asleep. The fairy godmother looked long at the funny lit- tle screwed-oip face and the round fuzzy head. She smiled to herself as if she saw the happiest things I ** Nature has given her great gifts/* she said. **It is good that I am on hand to arrange things so that they will not get in each other's way and make trouble for her instead of happiness.*' Of course a fairy godmother must be first of all a fortune-teller, or how could she know just what things to take out of her wallet? **It is plain that she is one who will have the power of seeing beauty,** said the fairy godmother thoughtfully. **I will give her the power of hold- ing in her hands and making her own the beauty that she loves.** The fairy pulled back the soft white blanket and looked at the tiny pink doubled-up fists. She 195 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 196 HIGH ADVENTUBEES touched them tenderly and smiled again. **They shall have the fairy touch, these little hands/' she said. **They shall find happy adventure in shap- ing the beautiful things her heart sees into lovely forms that all may see and love.** She chuckled to herself as only a happy fairy, who knows that she has hit on a happy thing, can. Then she stood looking quietly at her favorite. **She is to have wealth enough and to spare — that, too, is plain. It must be my gift to see that while she is free she is unspoiled. Money shall mean to her not care but opportunity, and she shall learn that work and the simple things that are free to all are the best gifts.** A shadow passed over the good fairy *s face as she went on reading the fortune that the future had in its keeping. ^^She is to grow up without a mother's care, without brothers and sisters. She herself will be in danger of the same early death that carries off the rest of the little family, but — ** Here the fairy godmother threw back her gray hood for a minute and the light of her face shone on the cradle with the gleam of fairy gold. **It is true that she will be a frail child,** she cried in a voice that rang as clear as a bell, **but this shall prove a blessing in disguise. It shall nwike her father give her such a free, happy life in the great out-of-doors that she shall win health and strength such as few have. I cannot change Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMBR 197 the fact that there will be no brothers and sisters to share the days with her, but I can give her the gift of making friends, for she shall know how to be one. And, best of all, she shall have the gift of gladness — she shall have the magic cup of joy I'* At these words the room became bright with the light that shone from the fairy's face, and the fairy laughter rang out, silvery peal on peal. Then she drew the gray cloak about her quickly and the room was in shadow again. The fairy god- mother was gone. **I thought I heard something,** said the sleepy nurse who came tiptoeing in just then. She looked at the baby and drew the blanket more closely about her. ** She's a good baby. I must have been dreaming — everything is all righf As the days and the years went by, everything was indeed all right with little Harriet Hosmer, even though nobody guessed that she had a fairy godmother who had given her the best gifts that the fairy wallet held. **Did you ever see such a tomboy as Hatty is getting to bef '* sighed an anxious neighbor, look- ing up from her embroidery as a sunburned girl, dark curls flying, arms swinging, ran by, whistling to the dog at her heels. **What can dear Dr. Hos- mer be thinking of to let her run wild that wayf When she isn't racing over the country with her dog and gun or on horseback, she's down at the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 198 HIGH ADVENTUEEES river rowing or swimming. She's like a wild crea- ture! Pray when does her father intend to send her to school f **The doctor says there'll be time enough for that later on. He says he must give her body a chance to grow and get strong before he bothers about her mind," was the reply. **If it was any one but Dr. Hosmer we should be sure he was out of his senses," the lady went on, pausing a moment to thread her needle. **0f course after seeing all of his family die one after another it is natural that he should be a bit ex- treme in the way he tries to take care of this only child. It isn't possible for the best man alive to take a mother's place. How is he to know what it means for a girl to grow up like this — ^no com- plexion, no grace or elegance, no accomplish- ments!" **It's certainly a queer experiment," agreed the other. **But did you ever see a happier little monkey than Hatty is? Such a wonderful mimic! I think she could make a graven image laugh ! And by the way, have you seen the things she makes down at that clay-pit in their garden? If her mind isn't being trained, her fingers are. She molds dogs and horses and all sorts of things in a very clever fashion. *How do you do it?' I asked the other day. *0h,' she answered with a laugh, *it comes natural to me to see with my fingers!' " Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 199 And so Hatty's days were spent in happy activ- ity of one sort or another, for the most part out of doors. Her room was filled with relics of her adventures in fields and woods — ^birds, insects, snakes, lizards, and other creatures, stuffed, mounted, dissected, or preserved in alcohol. There were, too, models of other living things which showed that she could truly **see with her fingers. '' The day came, however, when her father de- cided that his happy, hardy child must go to Bos- ton to school. ** There is no longer any fear for your health,'* he said. **You must now get ready to live in the world by learning the things that other people know.'' But Hatty was a fish out of water in Mr. Pea- body's serious school, and as the city streets gave her no chance for free, happy exercise, she indulged in all sorts of mad pranks, such as slipping away one moonlight night and going for a horseback ride alone seven miles out of Boston. **I can do nothing with her," the principal told her father. **It is impossible to anticipate what she will do next. She thinks of things that it has never even entered into the heart of a perplexed teacher to conceive!" Then it was that Dr. Hosmer decided to put his daughter where she could have the freedom of Digitized by CjOOQ IC 200 HIGH ADVENTUEEES woods and hills and the best training for mind and character as well. He appealed to Mrs. Sedgwick, a woman of distinction, rare culture, and varied experience, who kept a school at Lenox, then a quiet little village among the Berkshire Hills^ which fashion had not yet discovered and trans- formed into one of its favorite summer-resorts. **What will you do with my happy Hatty t^' asked Dr. Hosmer. **She is sixteen years old, but she has never known restraint of any sort. It is hard for her to restrain her high spirits now and run in harness.'^ **I have a reputation for training wild colts, and I will try this one,^^ replied Mrs. Sedgwick. With wonderful tact and patience she guided the undisciplined girl, encouraging her originality and natural love of art, and giving so much op- portunity for interesting exercise of both mind and body that there was no temptation to break bounds. The three years at Mrs. Sedgwick's school were a happy time for Hatty. Her charm and ir- resistible drollery made her the life of the house, and her warm-hearted, magnetic nature won for her lifelong friends. The people one met at the Sedgwick home- school were in themselves a liberal education. Among the visitors were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Hawthorne, who delighted in the hospitality of the Sedgwicks and the gaiety of the evenings Digitized by CjOOQ IC HAEEIET HOSMEE 201 with the young people, whom even the presence of a philosopher or a famous novelist could not awe into shyness and uninteresting formality. The madcap Hatty was ready to go on with her merry monologues and impromptu theatricals before no less a personage than Fanny Kemble. The dis- tinguished actress and writer became warmly at- tached to the lively girl whose ready wit revealed sympathy and understanding as well as the gift of natural gladness. * * Come, Hatty, do give us some fun ! ' ^ she would say. **One would think that the shades of JiUiet and Portia and Ophelia and all the rest of your other selves would rise up to put my rashness to shame when I dare to go on with my nonsense before you, Mrs. Kemble, '' Hatty said, **but somehow I don^t mind at all. It's not that I love respect less but fun more!'' Then she launched forth on a droll rendering of the balcony scene from **Eomeo and Juliet" in a French of the most original gram- matical forms and pronunciation, to the delight of all. **Ask what boon you will!" cried the great actress, who at the moment might have been pos- ing for a picture of ** Laughter holding both his sides." **Ah, lovely lady," cried the harum-scarum, dropping on one knee, **I ask only for a reading Digitized by CjOOQ IC 202 HIGH ADVENTURERS of Will Shakspere's divine tragedy next half- holidayl" True to her word, Mrs. Kemble appeared at the school on Saturday afternoon, when she thrilled the hushed circle with one of her wonderful in- terpretations. Stopping at the end of the second act, she said, **Come to see me at The Perch this evening, girls, and we'll have the rest — and a bit of a dance afterward to bring us back again to a decent love for merry living after all these woes. '* And so began a friendship between the gifted woman and the young girl that lasted through the years. Among all her mates, Harriet's particular chum was Cornelia Crow, whose father, Wayman Crow of St. Louis, became a second father to his daughter's friend. It was the ** Pater," as Harriet called Mr. Crow, who encouraged her to devote herself to sculpture. It was he who, when she was unable to gain admittance to a Boston college for the lessons in anatomy she needed (because one who models the human form must have an intimate acquaintance with every bone and mus- cle), prevailed upon Dr. McDowell, the head of the medical department of the State University at St. Louis, to admit her to his courses. **Now, in spite of having been so lacking in foresight as not to be born a boy, I am going to have a chance to go to one of their severely ex- Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 203 elusive colleges, '^ she rejoiced, **and some day make statues in a way to make people wonder where I could have learned all about the frame- work of the * human form divine\^^ That the enthusiastic young artist, who daily trudged several miles in all weathers to the col- lege in the outskirts of the city, was in lecture- room and laboratory the same happy, friendly Hatty, is shown by this extract from a letter writ- ten to her by Professor McDowell when, in token of her gratitude, she sent him as first-fruits of her work a life-size medallion portrait of himself, which is now treasured in the halls of the college : **St. Louis, October 1852. **Dear Hatty: I have called on our mutual friend J. to refresh myself with a sight of a living human body, hav- ing run off from the dead ones, hoping to re-count with her many of the happy hours I spent with you in the college and where there is a great vacuity since you left. The bench you sat on has never been filled since you were there. I often turn to the spot and think I can see the little Quaker girl in the brown sacque and close-fitting bonnet, and an eye that beamed with pleasure at the exhibition of Nature and Nature's work. . . .'* Before returning home to settle down ta work in the little studio in her father's garden, Harriet Digitized by CjOOQ IC 204 HIGH ADVENTURERS took a trip on the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans, and then north to St. Patil and the site of the present city of Minneapolis, which at that time had not began to make its appearance on the map. As the passengers were admiring the high bluflfs overlooking the river, some young men of the party boasted that they could soon reach the topmost point and said that if ladies were not such timid and awkward climbers, they would sug- gest a match. ** Nothing would please me better than a race,'* declared Harriet Hosmer. The obliging captain **tied up" his boat, the young people went ashore, and to-day the highest bluff in the Mississippi valley, near the city of Lansing, Iowa, bears the name of Mount Hosmer, because the ** timid, awkward'' girl of the party was the one who succeeded in reaching the summit first. The days of exercise in the open made it pos- sible for Harriet Hosmer to stand the exacting work that the first months at her chosen calling demanded of her. Sometimes she stood wielding a heavy mallet for eight or ten hours a day, for in the beginning she did everything herself, being unable to secure workers in marble to copy her clay models. You know, doubtless, that in most cases sculptors do the creative work in clay — ^giv- ing form to their dreams of ideal beauty — ^and Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 205 leave to skilled men whose hands and muscles are trained to the mechanical work of chipping stone the task of making an exact copy of the original in enduring marble. But in her first work Miss Hosmer had the experience of herself calling the still marble to life. The bust of **Hesper, the Evening Star^' shows a lovely maiden falling asleep. A polished star gleams on her brow and under her breast is the bow of the crescent moon. If one can borrow Madame de StaePs famous phrase and say that sculpture, like architecture, is **frozen music,*' then the perfect evening calm of this lovely bit of marble is like the music of which Tennyson tells: ** Music that gentlier on the spirit Ues, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes ; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.*' The gentle **Hesper,** evening star though she was, ushered in a new day for Harriet Hosmer. Her father saw that sculpture was to be the ad- venture of her life, and that her dream of going to Bome for study and serious work ought to be realized. In the autumn of 1852, therefore, they made the journey together and, armed with Dr. McDowell's certificate of proficiency in anatomy and two daguerreotypes of **Hesper," they ap- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 206 HIGH ADVENTURERS pealed to no less a person than John Gibson, pupU of Canova and Thorwaldsen, and England's foremost sculptor. And then the miracle hap- pened! Surely the fairy godmother must have smiled from behind the statue of Queen Victoria on which the great man was at work. He looked attentively at the pictures of **Hesper/' and then after gazing long and searchingly at the alert, earnest face of the young artist, he turned abruptly to her father. **You may not know that it is not my custom to take pupils,'' he said, **but as for your daughter — ^whatever I can teach her she shall learn." Harriet wrote to a friend of her joy in this good fortune in these words : * * The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has been resident in Rome for thirty-four years, and leads the van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished his model for his statue of the Queen, and as his modeling room is vacant he permits me to use it, so that I am, as it were, in his own studio. I have also a small room for work which was for- merly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspira- tion may be drawn from its walls." Then began a wonderful life of work, inspired by the art treasures of the past and the example of her chosen master, and lightened by the f riend- Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 207 ship of such stimulating people as Mrs. Kemble, the Thackerays, and the two poets, Robert Brown- ing and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Among the choicest spirits of the English and American col- onies at Some she was a joyous comrade beloved by all. Harriet writes of the Brownings as **both so delightful, Mrs. Browning a perfect darling !'' And the greatest woman poet of England, in de- scribing some merry picnicking excursions on the Campagna and the talk of the clever people, which was ** almost too brilliant for the sentiment of the landscape, ' ' wrote : **I should mention, too. Miss Hosmer (but she is better than a talker), the young American sculptress, who is a great pet of mine and Robertas. She lives all alone (at twenty-two), works from six in the morning till night, as a great artist must, and this with an absence of pretension, and simplicity of manners, which ac- cord rather with the childish dimples in her rosy cheeks, than with her broad forehead and high aims.'' The little sculptress was indeed such a real chum of the two great poets that we find Mrs. Browning appealing to her to settle the grave question of the name of her heroine. *^ Shall it be Laura or Aurora Leigh f she asked. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 208 HIGH ADVENTURERS **0h, Aurora — ^Laura Leigh has no backboned cried the irrepressible Hatty. It was clear that the opinion did not pass un- heededy for when the poem was published Mrs. Browning sent her a copy ** hoping that she would not find Awrora lacking in backbone.^' When the Brownings were in England or in Florence the friendship was carried on by means of long, chatty letters. Mr. Browning wrote from Paris that he had met Bosa Bonheur, **a glorious little creature with a touch of Hatty that makes one start, ^' and lamented that his little Eoman playmate had not been in London to hear Tenny- son read his **Maud^' to them, and to hear Car- lyle^s wonderful talk. During one of the winters of their happy com- radeship in Some the inspiration came to Miss Hosmer to make a cast of the clasped hands of the poets. In his romance of art life in the Eternal City, **The Marble Faun,*' Hawthorne speaks of this cast as symbolizing perfectly the beauty and strength of the ideal union of two poetic lives. Miss Hosmer ^s first years in the city of art were spent in patient study of the great works of the ages and in patient effort to try and test through copies what she had learned. One day when she had all but completed a copy of the Venus of Milo, the iron supports that held the clay figure sud- Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC From photograph in "Harriet Hosmer," edited by Cornelia Carr Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 209 denly gave way and the work of many busy hours lay in a dismal heap on the floor. **I wanted to test your correctness of eye and grasp of form when I put you at that work,'' said John Gibson, nodding approval as his pupil went cheerfully at her task again from the beginning, **but you have shown that you have something that is worth even more in winning success — patience, seasoned with a sense of humor.'' **Here I have been pegging away for two years and more and I have learned just enough to feel that I know nothing," she declared. **But we have the word of no less an authority than Socrates that that conviction is the begin- ning and end of wisdom," she was reminded by the master sculptor. At just the time when the ambitious young pupil was hesitating over leaving her fascinating studies and trying her newly won strength in original work, a sudden turn of Fortune's wheel brought losses to her father that made it impossible for him to continue her allowance. **It is probably a good thing that I am forced from now on to make my work pay," she said optimistically. **I am willing to give up every- thing but the foothold I have won here in Eome and my work." She gave up a vacation in England that her Digitized by CjOOQ IC 210 HIGH ADVENTUEEBS father had urged her to take in order to get a much-needed change and rest during the trying summer months. It was even harder to give up the horse which took her so easily and quickly to the pure air beyond the city walls, and depend on walking about the streets for daily exercise. Everything must go, however, in order that she might have the money necessary for marble and dependable workmen, for sculpture requires a larger capital than any other art. If one asks for any proof of the happy spirit with which Miss Hosmer took the step ahead into the uncertain future, he has but to look at her **Puck,^* the merry wood-elf that her imagination and her faculty for enjoying hard work called into being at this time. Some one has called it **a laugh in marble.'^ The gleeful, tricksy creature, sitting with legs crossed on a toadstool, grasping in his upraised right hand a beetle as if about to throw it and half unconsciously holding in the other a captured lizard, is nothing less than the spirit of drollery and mischief. When the original was ex- hibited he proved so generally captivating that demands for ** Pucks'' came pouring in on his creator from England, Germany, and America. In all she made thirty copies — one for the Prince of Wales of that day, afterward King Edward VII. The story is often told that when the Crown Princess of Germany visited Miss Hosmer 's studio Digitized by CjOOQ IC HARRIET HOSMER 211 she pointed with delight to the roguish upturned toe of Sir Puck. **0h, Miss Hosmer,** she ex- claimed with a laugh, **you have a wonderful talent for toes!'* The breathing life in Harriet Hosmer's marble ** children,'' as she lovingly called the pieces of sculpture that left her studio, was even more ap- pealing than her ** talent for toes," or for any other happy detail. **How wonderfully she sleeps!" said a young lady who was admiring the lovely slumbering figure of her *^ Beatrice Cenci," worn out in body and spirit on the eve of her execution. *^No, no!" cried her little sister, who had been looking at the statue in wide-eyed silence. ^*How well she dreams!" All of this success meant work. On some days Harriet Hosmer stood beside her model from breakfast until evening. ^^I sometimes begin to wonder if my skeleton is not losing that peculiar action in a certain portion which results in sitting down," she declared merrily, ^*for while I gladly stand eight hours at a time when I am interested in my work, nothing can induce me to sit for half an hour!" To a friend who remonstrated with her for working too hard, she said banteringly, ^^ Surely you wouldn't want to see a sculptor in a more shamelessly flourishing state than I am at present. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 212 HIGH AEjVENTURERS Since my flock of ^^ Pucks'^ make it umieceeeary for me to stay in Bome for the delicious August malaria, I live and move and have my being on the principle of the dome of San Marco, which is famed for its breadth and not its height/^ A jnerry heart takes one easily along a hard road where a too serious spirit soon tires and falls by the way. It was certainly Miss Hosmer^s gift of gladness that carried her through the days of unceasing toil that she exacted of herself, and kept her unworn and unspoiled by either the labor or its rewards. Her ^^ Sleeping Faun^^ and its companion **The Waking Faun,'^ expressing the repose and the life and movement of free, un- troubled Nature, won the same happy response as the '^Puck'^ and his tiny brother ^'Will-o^the- Wisp.^' But it was her colossal statue of the stately and unhappy queen *^Zenobia^' that made her admirers of the two continents realize the full power of her genius. In speaking of this statue the poet Whittier said : **It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be. It tells the whole proud and melancholy story. The shadowy outlines of the majestic limbs, which charmed us in the romance of William Ware, are here fixed and permanent — a joy forever.*^ This statue was bought by Mr. Almon Griswold and presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC From a photograph in "Harriet Hosmer," edited by Cornelia Carr PUCK One of Harriet Hosmer 's well-known sculptures Digitized by CjOOQ IC HAERIET HOSMER 213 Art in New York. A copy has been plaxjed in the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Louis and other copies are to be found in England as well as in America. Harriet Hosmer was a welcome visitor at many of England's most famous old houses, and much of her work — ^fountains where sirens sing while the water plays over listening Cupids riding on dolphins ; chimneypieces representing the passing in flames of the lovely dryads whose happy nymph-lives were bound up in the trees they in- habited; and many graceful statues — ^are proud possessions of those great houses to-day. That she was ever the same fun-loving, demo- cratic American even when ^^the boast of heraldry and the pomp of power ^' were most in evidence is shown by her letters as well as by the unique place she held in the affections of her titled friends. Here is an extract from a letter written at Castle Ashby, the favorite seat of the Marquis of Northampton, where Queen Elizabeth once visited : ^^I am writing to you now from my bedroom, which is called Queen Elizabeth's room, because she came here, and left her name behind her, and I expect every night to see her ghost dangling from the crimson damask canopy which screens my humble head. Then I turn to another look- out and see the grand avenue which leads to the castle, a quarter of a mile wide and three miles Digitized by CjOOQ IC 214 HIGH ADVENTURERS long, a nice little walk of a morning down to the gates before breakfast. (Really I didn't know I was such a dabster at description!) '^ While visiting at another castle that the Virgin Queen had honored by a visit, Miss Hosmer was shown the brush and comb that had been used by her Majesty on the great occasion. At the same time a strand of three hairs was exhibited, with the regret that the souvenir was so slender. ^^Give me the brush,'' said Miss Hosmer, *^and 111 produce another !" She drew the comb through the brush and to the surprise of every one, herself most of all, drew out a long red hair ! *^0h, Hatty,'' cried one of her friends, **when you die I hope you will be buried here — ^it will be so jolly only to look at your gravel" ** Thank you," replied Miss Hosmer, ^^I would rather live, though I had to be wise." The *^ Letters and Memories" of Harriet Hos- mer, edited by her friend, Cornelia Crow Carr, give glimpses of a triumphant life, warmed by the love of many friends. With her, difficulties were challenges to new eflfort, and each day came as a call to the adventure of happy work and happier living. Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTURING FOB BEAUTY EDWARD WILLIAM BOK Digitized by CjOOQ IC Make you the world a bit more beaatifal and better because yon have been in it. ^Two Persons/^ by Edwabd Bok Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTUEING FOB BEAUTY EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 1863-1930 Edwaed Bok was not quite seven years old when the great adventure of his life began — ^the ad- venture of turning a little Dutch boy into an all- around American. He was bom in the Nether- lands, that land of thrift and courage, where strong dikes and untiring energy keep for men^s uses the land hardly won from the sea. When he played as a tiny child by the great sea-walls or watched the turning windmills that pumped water from the low-stretching fields, he began to under- stand that the world was alive with many interest- ing things. In his own home he listened to stories of high adventures of his own people. He was never tired of hearing about the rocky island where his grand- father had gone to drive away the pirates and make a place where people could live in safety and happiness. He could see the story in pictures as if one were turning the pages of a book while his grandmother told about the adventures of the strange long-ago times. 217 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 218 HIGH ADVENTURERS Five miles out from the Dutch shore in the North Sea was a bleak island where many ships were dashed up against the rocks in a time of storm. There pirates, like evil birds of prey, fell upon the shipwrecked voyagers, murdered those who were able to escape the fury of the waves, and seized their goods. Edward could picture his grandfather at the time when he was a fearless young man, who had already proved himself to be a success as a lawyer, standing in the presence of his king. **Your country is sending you to a dangerous island as mayor and judge,** said King William. ^*You are not a man to run away from a hard task. We feel sure you will prove to be a leader who is not afraid of danger or hard work.** It was soon clear to every one that the king had chosen wisely. The young man brought hope and courage to the frightened people of the island. Soon all of the robbers and pirates had left a place where lawless people -could no longer count on escaping punishment. The mayor-judge looked about one day at the place that he now called home. What a bare ugly land it was — ^no trees, no parks, no gardens ! The people thought that it was too cold for beautiful things to take root there. **We must make the best of it,** they said. **That is what I want you to do,** replied the Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 219 young mayor. **Make the best of it by making gardens and planting trees. ^^ The people, however, were stubborn. ^*We are poor people with no time or money to spare, '^ they said. **We will not waste the little we have on trees that cannot live through the winter storms/* Their mayor answered by planting a hundred trees. These were hardy pioneers that seemed to have in their sturdy growth something of the courage of the man who planted them. Each year they stretched up new branches and each year the young leader planted more trees. The once bare island was now a place of greenness, famous for its song-birds. The ** Island of Nightingales,** peo- ple called it. Travelers from many lands came to see the beauties of the island and listen in the eve- nings to the song of the birds that had found a place of safety on that once forbidding shore. There were not only nests of thriving birds, but also a large family of healthy, happy boys and girls growing up in the home nest that the mayor had built. The days for them were full of merry play and worth-while work. When any one of them was tempted to give up some hard thing as a bad job he was shamed out of it by just looking around at the proof of the way one person had persevered in the hard task of making his world a better place for all who lived there. The story of the winning of the Island of Digitized by CjOOQ IC 220 HIGH ADVENTURERS Nightingales through the work of one man was told again and again. ^^Don^t forget that good work lives and grows just as trees do. Soon happy lives make their nests in places where once there was neither shelter nor safety/' the grandmother would say; and then she would add, looking straight into the eager faces of the children, ** Always remember that each of you must make the world better and more beautifid because you have lived in if Edward Bok could not remember when he had first heard those words. It must have been long before he was really able to understand their meaning. They were a part of his earliest memo- ries of summer — a time of sunlight glancing through green branches, beneath which he and his brother used to play. Then everything was suddenly changed. The family fortunes were at a low ebb and the father and mother told the boys that they must go to find a new home across the ocean, not on a little island, but in a country much larger even than Holland — the United States of America. The big steamer called The Queen landed the family in New York, a strange place where every- body spoke a language new to the two boys of six and eight, who, the day after a place was found in Brooklyn for them to stay, were sent to a public Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 221 school. The children could not answer back when a group of lively boys plied them at recess-time with questions. These boys thought it fun to see how far one could go in tormenting the new- comers. It was evident, however, that even small boys from the Land of Pluck could take care of them- selves. We know that bullies are always cowards and quick to give way before those who have the courage to stand up for their rights. These Dutch boys were not slow in proving that they had strong bodies and quick wits, as well as a plentiful supply of grit. Pluck is understood by every one, no matter what language happens to be spoken at the moment. Edward and William Bok showed themselves quick to learn not only the ways but also the speech of their new country. It was not many weeks before the boys on the playground who called Edward **Dutchy'^ had forgotten that he was a new-comer in their midst. Life was not easy for the boy. His father had hoped that America, which had proved for many a land of opportunity, would open the way to new wealth for one who had been so unfortunate as to lose a fortune in his native land. It is hard, how- ever, to get a start anywhere, especially for those whose abilities and experience have been matched Digitized by CjOOQ IC 222 HIGH ADVENTURERS to conditions different from those they are forced suddenly to meet. Mr. Bok was no longer a young many and though he had learned to speak English in the excellent schools of the Netherlands, he was unable to find the kind of work that he was able to do. If Edward had not been the sort of boy who could find real fun in proving himself equal to hard work, he might have hated the first years of his American adventure. As it was, many times he was tired at the end of a day when, as often happened, he came home from school to help about the house. His mother was not strong enough to meet alone the many demands of the new life. She was used to Dutch cleanliness and order, but in the Dutch home there had been servants to share the drudgery. And as a good housewife who had been brought up in the ways of Dutch thrift, she often sighed and looked anxiously at her chil- dren when she saw everywhere signs of waste. **We seem to have come to a strangely reckless land,*' she said. **I believe all the poor of the Netherlands could be fed on what American women throw out from their kitchens. Don't for- get, Edward," she added, **that the person who wins in this life is the one who learns to turn things to good account, whether on a rocky island or in a wide country rich in many of Nature's Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 223 gifts. People and nations gain when they use in the best way all that they have. When we waste we lose not only an opportunity but also some- thing of real power in ourselves. ^* As she spoke there flashed before Edward's im- agination the picture of an island of fair gardens and parks for rest and play. He, too, would try to make the world a better place because he lived in it. First, there was the need of earning wherever possible, for the little family could not stop eating while a new-comer from Holland was trying to make the right sort of start for success in a new world. There were chilly mornings when there was neither wood nor coal for a fire, and the two boys went out to glean pieces of wood left on vacant lots and coal that was littering the streets near side- walks where fuel had been delivered. ''It's all right for us to get what people have thrown away or wasted," argued Edward, when his mother shook her head as her two boys brought in before school a scuttleful of coal that had been collected along the neighboring streets. *'This is America, where a person can do any sort of honest work." One morning as Edward stood looking at the fresh buns in a baker's window and wondering how he could earn the money to add food to the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 224 HIGH ADVENTURERS family store, the chance came for his first real job. The baker too came to the shop door, to admire hin display. **No one could help seeing how good your things are if somebody would wash your window for you,'' suggested the boy. "Would you like to clean itf asked the baker; and a bargain was made that Edward should come to the shop Tues- days and Fridays after school to keep the show- window clear and shining for fifty cents a week. Since an opportunity well met generally opens the way to new adventure, Edward was soon finding that the precious after-school hours might be filled with different kinds of earning and learning. The baker gave him the chance to wait on customers and take home as wages another dollar, together with some of the bread and buns that could not be sold the next day as newly baked. On Saturday afternoons as he went about de- livering a weekly paper the idea came to him of a way to get a job as a news-gatherer. He v^rote a paragraph about a party to which he had been in- vited, giving the names of all the boys and girls present, and took it to the office of the ** Brooklyn Eagle.'' **This is all right," he was told. ** People will buy papers when they can see their own names and those of their neighbors in print. You can count on three dollars a column for this kind of copy. ' ' Soon Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 225 J Edward's schoolmates were enlisted as scouts to « hand over timely items and the young reporter was *" often able to bring together enough to fill two or j three columns. The fortunes of the family were now beginning to look up. Mr. Bok succeeded in getting a position - with a telegraph-company as translator. The man who was able to read several languages had at last found suitable employment. Though there was no longer so great a need for ' help in the home, when he was thirteen Edward persuaded his parents to allow him to go to work as office-boy in the telegraph-office. "You will see that I shall not stop learning/' he said. As he worked, he watched the men in the office and tried to discover what it was in each that had helped him to win success. One day he decided that the prizes of life were won by those who could look far enough ahead to be ready to meet new oppor- tunities and make the most of them. At that time shorthand was a comparatively new art, but Edward was quick to see that if he could be equipped with this means of saving time for busy men by taking down rapidly their direc- tions and letters he would be able to advance in the office. He attended, therefore, a class in stenogra- phy at the Brooklyn Y. M. C. A., and because two lessons a week did not take him forward fast enough, joined a second class in a business schooL Digitized by CjOOQ IC 226 HIGH ADVENTURERS The instructor of each group was amazed at the ^ lad^s talent for the quick pen-strokes and encour- aged him to follow up his success. The boy did not need urging to improve the op- portunities that came his way. Indeed, he was always looking ahead for new possibilities just around the comer. He knew that it was his grand- father 's steady hard work which had brought order and beauty to the Island of Nightingales. He had heard some one say that genius is at root a great ** capacity for taking pains, ^* and he be- lieved that nothing could be won without persist- ent effort. Some of his precious savings were spent for an encyclopedia, which he hoped might give him a clue to the different ways that great men had worked for success. Evening after evening he turned the pages, but somehow the living secret did not seem to be hiding between the covers of the volumes. Perhaps one of the men who had tri- umphed over diflSculties would be willing to give a boy who had been forced to educate himself, a golden hint from the riches of his experience, which would help him to go ahead in the right way. He had read in his encyclopedia that General Garfield (at that time a candidate for President of the United States) had taken the first steps of his career when as a boy he trudged along behind Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 227 a mule on the tow-path of a canal. Edward de- cided to write a letter to the great man and ask if the book spoke the truth in so describing the first stage of his journey in life. He would ask also for a word that might help an ambitious young Hol- lander to win success in his adopted country. General Garfield wrote a cordial answer, which increased the boy's interest in the biographies of great men and also gave him a new hobby. He would add to the information that books and news- papers might furnish by writing for first-hand re- ports on points of real interest. As the months went by he assembled a most interesting collection of letters, many of which (since the typewriter was not at that time in general use) were in the handwriting of the senders. Here was a collection of autographs of real importance, which proved not only the generosity of men in high places but also the genuine interest that the boy's letters aroused in different quarters. General Grant not only answered his question concerning Lee's surrender, but enclosed a little sketch indicating the exact situation. Longfellow told the story of the writing of ** Excelsior" and Whittier wrote something about **The Barefoot Boy." Edward prized his collection of letters and auto- graphs, which were not only interesting and valu- able in themselves but led to a number of real Digitized by CjOOQ IC 228 HIGH ADVENTURERS adventures that had a great influence on his life. He watched the newspapers to learn when the writers of his friendly letters were staying in New York and ventured to call upon them. In one eve- ning he was able to talk with General Grant, Jef- ferson Davis, and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. He spent a summer vacation in Boston, where he went to see the famous group of New England poets — ^Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes. This was a time of high adventure for an ambitious boy, who was working now as a stenographer in a pub- lishing house and hoping some day to command success as an author or editor. The steps by which he advanced through seeing some opportunity unnoticed by others make an interesting story. One evening at the theater his attention was caught by the restlessness between acts of the women in the audience. Als his eye fell on the awkward, badly printed sheet that contained only the program and a few advertisements, an idea took shape in his mind. **I believe an attractive booklet, easy to handle, and giving some lively items of interest, would be profitable because it could carry considerable space for advertising at a good rate,'^ he said to himself. Following this gleam of inspiration, he obtained from the theaters exclusive right to furnish with- Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 229 out cost programs in the general form that is still in use. The little publication launched in this man- ner with a guaranteed circulation brought in from the start a dependable income through its adver- tisements. Next there was a venture called **The Brooklyn Magazine,^* which was materially helped through a policy already tried out in the collecting of auto- graph letters from celebrities. Edward appealed directly to some of his generous correspondents for contributions to the columns of his paper and often secured without cost letters and articles of general interest. He thought of such topics for dis- cussion as ** Should America have a Westminster Abbey t'* The next move was to write for the opinions of a group of prominent people and as- semble their answers in a way to seize the eye and provoke debate. The paper for which he wrote was moved to New York with the new name of the ** Cosmopolitan Magazine,'* but about this time Edward Bok decided to turn his efforts in another direction. He thought that articles of general interest might be sold to a number of newspapers for publi- cation in different cities, thus helping both pub- lishers and writers. He soon learned, however, that he was not the first to take up the idea of ** syndicate '* news-material, and that he would have to furnish something novel, and better than Digitized by CjOOQ IC 230 HIGH ADVENTURERS that which two news-agencies were already put- ting out. He looked over different papers and magazines to see if he could supply something of importance that was lacking. In a flash he made a discovery. There was nothing of especial interest for women. That was the reason, he felt sure, that women did not read newspapers as much as men did. If he could provide material to fill columns that would appeal especially to home-makers he was sure it would meet a real need. For several years he divided his time between providing ** Women ^s Page*' features and adver- tising. Then came the offer from Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the publisher of **The Ladies Home Journal,'* to take the position as editor of that paper. This was in 1889, when the young man was twenty-six years old. At once he determined to take hold of the work as a new adventure and make of the magazine something that would be really worth while. **I must discover what the readers of the * JoumaP want and then give them something in that line but just a little bit better. It is a good rule to find out the kind of room a person likes and make him comfortable there but also to see that the windows give him a view of something beyond,'* he said to himself. Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 231 He offered prizes for the best answers to three questions : 1. What do you like best in this magazine and why! 2. What do you like least, and why? 3. What feature or department would you like to have added! The thousands of answers that came into the editor *8 office were a great help to him in making plans for his magazine. Years after in telling his story, Edward Bok said: **I learned that I was right in believing that the public expects its leaders to keep a notch above or a step ahead. People want something a little better than they ask for, and the successful man in cater- ing to public demand is he who follows this golden rule.^' Perhaps he remembered at this time his grand- father's adventure for beauty in his island home. When he planted the first trees there he was giving the islanders something a little better than the things that they knew they wanted. This policy, we know in advance, made the magazine a success and also opened the door to new opportunities for adventure. **Why is it that builders of small houses give no thought to what is beautiful or homelike f he said to himself, as he looked out of a train window one Digitized by CnOOQ IC 232 HIGH ADVENTURERS day. "Nature has given America a rich and beau- tiful land, but the people do not seem to care for beauty in their homes. ^ * He decided to oflfer prizes for the best plans for houses that would not cost more than five thousand dollars. The winning plans were given a promi- nent place in the magazine, which also offered full descriptions and estimates so that any builder would be able to use the plans. In this way thou- sands of people who were unable to pay for the services of an architect could secure well-planned and attractive homes. The magazine next went on a crusade for more beauty within the homes. Pictures were shown of well-planned rooms in contrast with furniture that was poorly chosen and arranged. The reader was told, **Look on this picture and then on thatl^' There could have been no better way of driving a point home. Other campaigns in behalf of ** Beautiful Amer- ica^' followed, to make people realize the extent to which signs and bill-boards had been permitted to spoil the charm of the country-side. Again pic- tures, of the bef ore-and-af ter sort, told the story. Another series of pictures showed up ** dirty cities,** and while anger was aroused, together with threats to boycott the magazine, clean-up and paint-up drives became the order of the day in many places. Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 233 These are only a few of the ways in which Edward Bok was able to make his work as editor a real service to the cause of beanty and better liv- ing for many. It was, therefore, a great surprise to his friends, when, after thirty years of work with the magazine, the editor declared that it was time for him to retire. **You^re not an old man,** they said, **and you*re not ill, are you? Why should you give up such successful work when you're only fifty-six years youngt'* ** Because others are ready to carry on this work,** was the reply, **and they should have a clear field. I, too, want the chance, while I am still young enough, to set out on a new trail. People spend many years in making a living, but often forget to take time to live,** he added. **What may I say you are planning to dot** asked a young newspaper reporter. **If you must say something,** replied Bok, with a smile, "you might inform your readers that I am planning nothing more than to be a citizen of Philadelphia.** It was soon evident that this citizen had only been waiting for the opportxmity to do a number of interesting things. He wrote the story of his life, which he called "The Americanization of Edward Bok.** He said that all of the events of the years since he came as a little boy to this coun- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 234 HIGH ADVENTURERS try were adventures in the making of an American citizen. America had given him a chance to do worth-while work and he had been happy in the doing of it. He wished now to give to his adopted country some special service in return for the op- portunities that he had enjoyed. The idea came to him that most people were too much taken up with their special concerns to think about others who were doing different kinds of important work for their city. He decided that he would do something to make everybody wake up to the worth-while things that were going on around them. Prizes were provided each year for a policeman and a fireman who had done some out- standing service. This was, of course, a fine thing for the man, who was given an award of a thou- sand dollars, together with the recognition that he deserved from his fellow-citizens. It was an even better thing that all of the people stopped to think about those who were doing important work for the city. The idea of a prize came to Bok as a means of leading many to take active part in work that would benefit all the people. He put the idea to the proof in several ways. A prize was offered each year for the citizen of Philadelphia who was voted as the one who had done during the preceding twelve months some- thing of outstanding worth for the whole com- Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 235 munity. One year the prize was given to the leader of the Philadelphia Orchestra, whose concerts were among the most important musical events in America; another time it went to the manager of the baseball league team who had helped his men win the championship for that year. These two in- stances will illustrate the way that the prizes en- couraged many kinds of work for the city's wel- fare and happiness. After the Versailles Treaty, which brought an end to the World War, had been signed, the people who had lived through the years of frightful de- struction and suffering said there should be some way to stop the madness of wars between nations. Edward Bok hoped that his idea of an award might set thousands of people to working on plans for keeping the peace of the world. **If the nations prepare for peace as thoroughly as they have prepared for war, the greatest men- ace to the safety and happiness of people every- where will be conquered, *' he said. Soon all of the papers and magazines in the country told the important news of the prize of $100,000 that Edward Bok was offering for the best plan by which America might "cooperate with other nations to achieve and preserve the peace of the world. '* Early in January, 1924, the winning plan was published, together with sug- gestions that other people had brought forward. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 236 HIGH ADVENTURERS Many minds had been put to work, and millions of people were made to realize the need for making plans to prevent war. It is clear that Edward Bok was using his time and his money to good purpose. As we have seen, he was trying in different ways to show his grati- tude to America for the opportunities that had been given him in this land. During the last years of his life he was able to show his love for his adopted country by a wonderful gift to his fellow- countrymen. The story of that gift had its beginning long ago in the making of a bleak island into a place of beauty and in the message which he felt had been sent to him to carry on that work. The Dutch boy who came to the New World never forgot the splendid adventure of his grandfather across the sea. Always as he went on from one kind of work to another he knew that he was adventuring for beauty. The great opportunity to make the thought of the Island of Nightingales take root and blossom in America came to Edward Bok while he was on a vacation in Florida. He chanced one day to see the bodies of some song-birds lying near the beach. **Many birds that are migrating from the North to Cuba or South America lose their lives here every year/* he was told. ** Often when they are caught in a storm their strength does not hold out for the Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 237 long journey that they make every spring and autumn/' In a flash then Edward Bok remembered the storm-driven birds that had found a refuge among the trees of the Island of Nightingales. Now he knew that he must make an island of rest and safety for tired birds and people in America. It should be a place of beauty and peace where many in need of renewal of strength and joy could come. In the center of Florida, about midway between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, is a place three hundred and twenty-four feet above sea- level — ^the highest ground in the State. This stretch of land, barren save for a growth of noble pine- trees, Edward Bok selected for his island of beauty. A year was spent in providing the needed system for insuring a supply of water. Trenches were dug and pipes laid. Then a landscape archi- tect began to transplant to the high ground trees and bushes, that grew in abundance in near-by swampy districts. Bushes with berries for the birds and underbrush for shelter were planted. Among the trees that were introduced were the dogwood, magnolia, live-oak, wild plum, and mul- berry. There were also masses of feathery golden acacia, hundreds of brilliant azalea plants, and everywhere the Florida blueberry bushes making a soft background with their dull gray-green foliage. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 238 HIGH ADVENTURERS Two lakes were dug and surrounded with lilies and iris. Here wood-ducks, herons, and flamingoes were made welcome. A dozen nightingales were brought from England to found a colony in this bird paradise. In the midst of Nature's gifts, rising more than two hundred feet from the hilltop, is a lovely Sing- ing Tower. The base is made of the Florida co- quina rock — ^the same mellow, light-tan stone that was used by the Spanish settlers in the building of the ancient fort at St. Augustine. Above this, built of pink Georgia marble, is the tower, which holds a wonderful carillon of sixty-one bells. The name ** Singing Tower'' comes from Old- World times when the people of Belgium and Hol- land built watch-towers from which sentinels could look out over the land and give warning of a break in the dikes or of danger from an enemy. A horn was blown in time of need as a signal from the watchers. Later on, bells placed in the tower sounded instead of the horn. In the seventeenth century famous carillons of bells pealed with the passing of the hours. The music of the bells that Edward Bok had heard as a child echoed in his memory with the quaint stories of long-ago times. That is the reason it came to pass that a Singing Tower was built in the heart of the bird sanctuary at Mountain Park, Florida. The bells from the tower are played at sunset each day and at noon Digitized by CjOOQ IC EDWARD WILLIAM BOK 239 on Sundays. There are, besides, special programs on Christmas Eve, New Year's and the birthdays of the three great Americans, Washington, lin- cohi, and Lee. At the entrance to this place of beauty, which was dedicated by President Coolidge at the time Edward Bok presented it to the American people, is placed this sign : The Sanctuary For the Humans and the Birds **I come here to find myself. It is so easy to get lost in the world. ^' In January, 1930, when Edward Bok came to the end of his earthly journey, his body was laid to rest in a crypt under the Singing Tower. The last of his adventures for beauty led to this sanctuary where we may hear echoed in the songs of birds and of pealing bells the message: **Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have been in if Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC A CHAMPION OF LABOR MARGARET BONDFIELD Digitized by CjOOQ IC When you ronse yourself and realize the possibilities now lying dormant within you, you will be filled with that spirit of enthusiasm and unselfishness, without which you cannot become a real trade unionist. Your heart will be full of love for human- ity, you will recognize in the man in the street your brother, your sister; and your life will be made beautiful by the love of comrades. Mabgabet Bondfield Digitized by CjOOQ IC A CHAMPION OP LABOB MARGARET BONDFIELD 1873- WoMBN and workers the world over may well point with pride to Margaret Bondfield, the first woman to be chosen as a cabinet minister in Eng- land. ** Saint Maggie/' or more frequently **Our Maggie/' the workers call her with admiring af- fection. ** Think of it — a shop-girl in a small-town dry- goods store at fourteen! Her day was from half after seven in the morning till eight at night, with one afternoon holiday a week, for which she made up by staying late two evenings until ten or maybe eleven. Yet she found time to grow and plan ways to make things better not only for herself but for thousands of others in shops and factories. And now she's Minister of Labour!" The Scotch girl who brought in our tea and muffins responded thus whole-heartedly to our questions concerning the career of Margaret Bondfield. **How do you account for her extraordinary success?" we wondered. ** She's most rarely fit and capable both in mind 243 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 244 HIGH ADVENTURERS and body,'' was the prompt rejoinder. **Have you seen hert She's as bright and homey as an old- fashioned garden — ^and as endurin', too." We remembered these words when we saw Miss Bondfield for the first time. It was in America, where a great audience followed her clear, vigor- ous speech with eager attention. For a moment the sea of faces was blurred away, and we saw an Eng- lish cottage set among bright rows of garden fa- vorites. She reminded one of a particularly vivid and energetic robin, with her short plump figure, alert dark eyes, quick movements, and dress of reddish brown. As she explained the program of the Labour Party with direct force and with power to quicken interest and understanding, it was evi- dent that her keen intellect and ready wit were balanced by instinctive sympathy and generous appreciation of others. Once more the question presented itself : What was the source of her amazing power and in- fluence! Surely there was in the making of that whole- some, competent woman, who was both the com- rade and the leader of an army of workers, some- thing of the abundant vitality that belongs to the English country-side, where stalwart men and women take joyful pride in the work of their hands. The world she knew as a little child was a country of great natural beauty. There were haw- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDPIELD 245 thorn hedges where birds made their nests, and orchards with fruit-trees made to climb on walls, surrounding the farm-house two miles out of the town of Chard, in Somerset, where she was bom. There was a friendly ash-tree standing guard be- fore the house, and roses formed archways of bloom over the doorway and gate that opened into the old-fashioned garden. Beyond were swift-flowing streams and fertile rolling country surrounded by wooded hills. From the high ridge, where Margaret loved to climb on a clear, breezy day, could be seen on one hand the waters of the English Channel, on the other those of Bristol Channel. Margaret did not wonder that the lively rivers were eager to reach this beckon- ing blue water where it melted into the skyey dis- tance. Beyond the hills stretched a lovely unex- plored land, but nearer there was much to see and enjoy. There were strange legends, too, about many of the near-by places. People said that the mysterious stone circles outside the town of Chard belonged to days long before written records ; and everybody knew that the old town could trace its history from the time when the Bomans built roads and walls in Britain. The magic of the past was interwoven with the charm of Nature's ever-nenewed loveliness in the first memories of Margaret Bondfield. When she closed her eyes she could see the clump of woods Digitized by CjOOQ IC 246 HIGH ADVENTURERS that often took on the shape of a bear to her child- ish fancy. She could see fields where the gold of daffodils and broom was mingled with the purple of periwinkle and foxglove. She could see in her mind's eye, too, as in a picture, the great snow that came during the winter when Napoleon was con- quered by the cold in Russia. How often she had heard the story of drifts so high that the doctor rode over the hedges to their house on the night that her father was born. It was not to be wondered at that Margaret Bondfield's father, who was the seventh son to come to the farm-house, took up his share of the daily toil by learning to mind the cows as soon as he was able to walk about the farm. When he was nine years old he was put to work with the bobbins in a lace-factory at Chard. His day began with a three-mile walk, which was often the only day- light he knew. The little mill that depended upon water-power was kept busy whenever the stream served its ends. Sometimes work went on at night with tallow candles set on the machines, and the lad would make the journey home between two and three in the morning. His hands developed wonderful skill, while his mind was crowded with interesting fancies, for somehow he managed to seize the odd moments, which others would have let slip by, for reading and study. Soon he was applying original ideas to Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDPIBLD 247 his work. He introduced new patterns with grace- ful designs of fern, clover, acorns, or cobwebs. He also invented a labor-saving machine that brought a great change to the lace industry and led to an offer of employment at a much larger salary from a Nottingham firm of lace-makers. **I can't leave the business here. They need their old workers more than ever. Why, I Ve worked for these people at Chard since I was a boy,*' said William Bondfield. **They know what IVe done and what my work is worth. '^ Then came a great change, and a shock from which the loyal worker never recovered. The pro- prietor died, the business was sold, and after sixty years of service, the skilled artisan and inventor found himself in the ranks with all the other work- ers. He was paid his wages, and that was the end of the matter. After this he sought a refuge in scientific experiments and in his books. The chil- dren found that he was never without something worth telling concerning the things that aroused their wonder and interest. He could give explana- tions for natural happenings no less than for the queer turns of business and politics. It was evident that while his hands had always been busy his mind, too, had been active. The practical man who has learned to use his wits as he works is a power to be reckoned with. A power, too, was Margaret Bondfield 's mother. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 248 HIGH ADVENTURERS She it was who suggested that the growing family should leave the town for a house in the country, where the children would have the joy of outdoor life and where vegetable-garden, orchard, and chicken-yard would help in supplying wholesome food. She was a woman of boundless energy, quick wit, and unfailing sympathy in little things as well as in the great affairs of the busy round. Though she ran the house — ^which meant cooking, washing, sewing, and mending for her family of seven boys and four girls — she also made butter and cheese and attended to the daily care of the cows, pigs, and barnyard fowls. The wide cottage with its clustering outbuildings was a community in itself, full of challenging work and play for the growing children. It was necessary, however, that each child begin to fend for himself as soon as possible. Margaret Grace, who was bom in 1873, did not remember when she could not read. She somehow ** picked it up,'^ as she did ways of helping with the household tasks, from the older children. She recalled her brothers' complaining that she was ready to read anything from their ** Boys' Own Paper'' to their grandfather's old sermons. **I don't believe, myself, that I had much fancy for the sermons," she said. ** There were too many fascinating rambles and adventures in fields and woods with my brother, Frank, who was next to me Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIELD 249 in age. I was always an outdoor child, who knew the notes of the birds as well as where they hid their nests. I could climb orchard trees and on our woodland walks reach the branches that only needed shaking to bring down a shower of nuts. There ^ere, besides, caves and hills to be explored, not to mention the calling water on days fit for swimming and fishing. '* Her adventures into the world beyond the meadows and hills where she played began when, at the age of eight, she was allowed to make the journey alone to Brighton, where a brother and sister were living. **They stitched a label on my coat so that the guard would remember to put me off at the right station,'^ she explained. At the age of fourteen she declared herself ready to face the world unaided and unlabeled. She was eager^to begin to earn, confident that there might be chances ahead to learn more than her brief terms in the elementary school had been equal to imparting. As for those days of schooling, she must have proved an apt pupil, since there are records to show that the school board declared it- self ** willing to engage Maggie Bondfield as a teacher in the Boys^ School for two or three months, or until a boy can be found for a teacher, and at the wages of 3s. per weef She kept this place for a year, rewarded not alone by the three shillings that she received weekly, but by dinner- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 250 HIGH ADVENTURERS hour instmction from the head-master, no less than by her success in passing to the next class thirty-eight out of forty-eight pupils, few of whom had even been able to read at the beginning of the term. The next experience as a wage-earner came soon after in the town of Brighton. Here she began as shop-assistant, counting herself fortunate in being employed by kindly people : **I was apprenticed, '* she wrote, when asked by a magazine for some account of her early experi- ences, **to one of those old-fashioned businesses where the relations between customer and server were the most courteous and friendly; and the as- sistants, of whom I was the youngest, were treated like members of the family. There was an adopted baby in the household. Being country born and bred, I seized every opportunity to get out of doors, and jumped at the chance of wheeling the baby out in the pram whenever asked to do so.'' The retirement from business of the first em- ployer brought new opportunities as well as first- hand experience of the hardships of a working- girPs existence. While learning from an efficient and friendly buyer the art of ** window-dressing, stock-keeping, sales, etc.,'' so that she was soon rated as a well-equipped young business woman, she came to know what the dormitory life of shop- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIBLD 251 workers entailed. The *4iving-in'' system, as it was called, was at that time universal in England; and Margaret Bondfield discovered that shop- workers were required to lodge in barrack-like places under the most unwholesome and depress- ing conditions. • ** There would have been no chance for a bath,*' she said, **if I had not discovered that the public baths were kept open late enough on one evening each week for us to get there after work. A group of us set off at the moment of closing and after running at top speed for more than half a mile, had just a quarter of an hour for undressing, the great bath itself, and getting into our clothes again be- fore the attendant was obliged to turn us out.'' One of the bright patches on these dark days was the friendship of a woman of unusual character as well as social gifts. She invited the ambitious shop-worker to her house and made her at home both at her tea-table and in her library. The books that Margaret borrowed were food both for mind and spirit. The girl was now reaching out eagerly for light in more than one direction. She found expression for her ideas and longings through writing stories and articles, which appeared in a paper called the **Shop Assistant'' that was published by a branch of the labor-union. Soon the shop-workers who Digitized by CjOOQ IC 252 HIGH ADVENTURERS read the magazine began to look forward to her page^ which was signed **Orace Dare/^ Could it have been that she had some thought, when choosing this pen-name, that she was at the time living as much by daring as by grace? In one of the few articles that give particidars of her own life, she set forth the di£Sculties that all but de- feated her desire to put her thought into written words, while ** living in^^ under the hard rules and conditions of her bleak lodging: **It was quite impossible for me to write in the presence of anyone who might know what I was doing, and as I had not one inch of space that I could call my own, I would wait till one or two of my room-mates were asleep, and then stealthily, with the feeling that I was a conspirator, and the knowledge that I was committing an offense, for which I would be heavily fined, I would light my halfpenny dip, hiding its glare by means of a towel thrown over the back of the chair, and set to work on my monthly article. If my room-mates woke, they were kind enough not to remember it the next morning; and although this surreptitious writing was kept up for about two years, I do not think my breach of rules was ever reported to the firm.^^ In her stories, there are many passages that give glimpses of that love of natural beauty which had become part of herself and which we cannot doubt sustained her during many dreary days of Digitized by CjOOQ IC MAROABBT BONDPIELD 253 routine shop-work. We can imagine her saying with Wordsworth: **. . . Nature never did betray The heart that loved her ; His her privilege Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy . . .** In one of her stories we come across an appealing character who has, we suspect, much of the child Maggie Bondfield in her make-up : **An odd child was Jean; she chose her play- mates from the cows, the birds, and the flowers by the wayside, and would lie motionless curled up at the foot of a tree, gazing dreamily at a lark as it circled and rose up, up in the blue, listening to its joyous burst of song with an answering smile on her face/' Sometimes an article in the **Shop Assistant would describe a rare holiday spent in the country. She seemed trjdng to relive her quiet joys in words, and to share them at the same time with other city workers. ** There is a pine copse alive with the twitter of birds and the snapping of twigs by the squirrels ; between the tall bare trunks of the pines are short bushes of bright green, tall tree ferns, and gorse with its bright yellow blossoms. To the right is the boat-house all moss covered, with a huge black- berry bush trailing round its base and the sleepy Digitized by CjOOQ IC 254 HIGH ADVENTURERS water gently lapping against its barred gate.'^ The active interest that Margaret Bondfield took in helping on the cause of her fellow shop- workers did not end with the articles that she wrote for the union paper. She early became con- vinced that the only way the evils against which they struggled could be conquered was through the united eflforts of those most vitally aflfected. She had not merely become a member of the Shop As- sistants ' Union, but had herself organized a branch among the shop-workers in her neighborhood. In her enthusiasm for the cause she was proving her- self a power as a speaker no less than as a writer. She had now, in spite of discouragements, ob- tained employment in London, where her enthusi- astic work for the trade-union led to her selection as representative of the branch from the great city at the annual national conferences in 1896 and 1897. The fact that she was the only woman delegate did not keep her from taking a prominent part. An article in a London paper noted that **one of the delegates was a lady who spoke excellently several times. ^' In the **Shop Assistant'^ appeared this comment: ** Grace Dare completely dispelled the idea that women never know when to stop talking. She was always brief, matter of fact, and to the point. '^ When the Women's Industrial Council decided to make a survey of the conditions that sales- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIELD 255 women faced in London shops, they chose Mar- garet Bondfield to carry forward the inquiry; and the report that she presented of long hours, pitiful wages, fines, prison-like lodgings, and generally sordid, unsanitary surroundings, aroused wide- spread indignation, and the determination on the part of some aggressive leaders to work unceas- ingly for a better state of things. In 1898 Margaret Bondfield accepted the position of assistant secre- tary to the Shop Assistants' Union, and for ten years all her powers were consecrated to the task of communicating to other workers something of her own zeal for the common welfare, and firing them with the determination to put to the test their collective strength in demanding the wages of a decent existence. During this period, office work was varied by frequent journeys to other cities and towns where help was needed in the organization of new units of workers. She was in constant demand as a speaker. At a Trades Union Congress in 1899 where she was, as frequently happened, the only woman delegate, **she surprised and delighted the assembly with her stirring speech. '' One paper gave this picture of the impression she made, which had, indeed, proved the outstanding event of the conference : **Mi&s Bondfield 's simple, earnest and heartfelt home thrusts were the feature and the discovery Digitized by CjOOQ IC 256 HIGH ADVENTURERS of the day. • . . Miss Bondfield is the only lady delegate. She is only a girl in years and as she stood up among the bronzed, hard-handed work- men, her slight, girlish figore, clad in a simple light gray frock, made her look younger, even more girl- ish, than she is. But her voice, as clear as it was unostentatious, was heard distinctly in every part of the hall. **And while she said clearly what she thought and felt, there was no trace of nervousness or con- ceit. It was a striking picture, this slip of a girl standing out and lecturing three hundred or more men, who soon discovered that the only lady dele- gate was a speaker of unusual power and courage, and every voice and hand applauded her when she finished.'^ The champion of labor met her success calmly. She seemed to be reflecting upon something vital but intangible in the response of the people. ** There was,'' she said, **a wave of deep feeling that passed through the room which made me realize, as I had never done before, the strength we unknowingly possess and rarely use." After active service of fourteen years for the union she resigned for a wider field of influence as representative of the Independent Labour Party. The whole army of workers needed to be awakened to a consciousness of the strength that they pos- Digitized by CjOOQ IC © Underwood <£ Underwood MARGARET BONDFIELD Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIELD 257 sessed and all too rarely exercised. Margaret Bondfield journeyed from one place to another, constantly speaking in behalf of the Labour Party, in an effort to enlist intelligent cooperation and support for a campaign to provide old-age pen- sions, proper lodging-houses for workers, effi- cient health service, and other means of enlarged life and usefulness for many. Often in her talks she would bring forward some bit from her own experience that showed how deeply she was stirred by the need for which she was pleading. **I remember,'* she said, **when I was a child that the last years of my old father's life were darkened by his fear of the workhouse. Young as I was, I felt it was one of the irons that enter into the soul, and I made up my mind I would fight to get a decent old-age pension for the aged of this country.'' She often recalled the night when on arriving in a strange city she looked about in desperation for a place to stay. She appealed to a policeman. **Can you direct me to a cheap, clean lodging- house?" ** There's a hotel for girls down that way, miss," he said, pointing. She found the house, roused the matron, and ex- plained her need. **My train has just arrived. I am a stranger in your city and have no place to go. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 258 HIGH ADVENTURERS Can you not let me have a bedf*^ she pleaded. The woman looked through the narrow opening of the door that she held forbiddingly, and eyed the girl from head to foot. Then, perhaps deciding against the applicant because of her worn clothing, she answered by slamming the door in her face. It is not strange that the girl who later became Minister of Labour never ceased her efforts in be- half of women workers. She does not forget the years when she worked seventy-six hours of every week for about twenty-five pounds a year; nor weary days spent in hunting employment in Lon- don, when after a long bus-journey to apply for a job she found herself in a line of some two hun- dred other hungry applicants ; nor the wave of dis- couragement that passed over the crowd as they read the notice: **No good waiting any longer: places filled.'* Margaret Bondfield's influence arises in no small measure from the fact that she knows through personal experience the problems with which she deals. She never attempts to speak on a subject that she does not thoroughly understand. She once declared : **I regard the years of work for the Shop Assist- ants' Union and for the Women's Co-operative Guild as perhaps the most formative years of my life, in which I gained from the movement far more than I gave: that power to weigh, balance, Digitized by CjOOQ IC MABGABBT BONDFIBLD 259 consider, and guide, which is the chief qualification for public work.' ^ Balph Waldo Emerson once said of an ambi- tious orator: **My dear Sir, what you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. ' ' The per- sonality behind a speech is always the most con- vincing part of the message. In regard to Miss Bondfield's campaigns, one who knew her well remarked: **She always was, to the men as to the women with whom she worked, in herself the strongest argument for the full admission and recognition of women as equal comrades, sharers, and servers. When she spoke on the suffrage plat- form she made converts as much by what she was as by what she said — ^though what she said was always very much to the point.'' Boundless health, humor, human warmth, and alert understanding are clearly important ingredi- ents of Margaret Bondfield's efficient personality; but more important than any or all of these are her keen appetite for work and her genuine en- thusiasm for the cause to which she has devoted herself heart and soul. She is resolved that the thousands who do the heavy work of the world shall have better living-conditions and more abun- dant life, through a wiser employment of natural resources and a fairer distribution of national wealth. Her unique power as an industrial and political Digitized by CjOOQ IC 260 HIGH ADVENTURERS leader seems to lie in her ability not only to speak convincingly and persuasively, but also to com- municate something of her own faith and courage. Vast audiences kindle and are ready to attack the most perverse economic problems with the zeal of crusaders. Commonplace people and events seem to take on color and significance in her compre- hending survey. The working-people look to her with loyalty and confidence. They know her interest in the little things that make up life as well as her power in dealing with great issues. She numbers many of them as real comrades, for no one could have a readier gift in the matter of making and keeping friends. Above all she has the knack of keeping on good terms with herself and the world. She admits that there is only one grudge she has against fate, and only one point at which she finds herself envying the better fortune of others, as she speaks wist- fully of the education that she longed for in vain. Yet there are those who may find themselves wish- ing that the envied products of our best schools were as truly educated as is Margaret Bondfield. Her speeches and articles show that she has been a wide and discriminating reader since the days of her apprenticeship in Brighton, when she found her way to a friendly library; and she was always an independent thinker, keen to learn from Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIELD 261 her contacts with people and the challenge of everyday affairs. Her mental vigor, like her most uncommon common sense, is no less than her rare * physical strength and energy a part of her herit- age from her parents. **I owe very much to my home-keeping mother and to the wholesome experiences of a country childhood, ^^ she once said. Miss Bondfield has been chosen as representa- tive and spokesman of the labor cause at many conferences not only in Great Britain but also in other countries. In 1918 she was fraternal delegate to a meeting in Paris and in 1919 she was sent to the conference of the American Federation of Labor at Washington. In America, the influence of her vital person- ality and clear vision was electrical. There was eager and whole-hearted response to her plea for international good-will and cooperation in meet- ing the problems of the reconstruction of labor after the World War. Five years later, when speaking of the dark period of reaction and suspi- cion that followed the frenzy of war, she said: **At that Washington Conference there was a wonderful spirit. We were still on the crest of emotion, with a sense of the earnestness and seri- ousness with which we ought to face our responsi- bilities, and employers, workers, and governments were all represented by men and women who had. Digitized by CjOOQ IC 262 HIGH ADVENTURERS at that time at any rate, a very great hope that in- stead of being, as it were, on the top of the wave, we were merely at the bottom of an incline up which we could climb steadily year after year. Life does not seem to go like that, somehow; it is more like a scenic railway. You go up a slope and then slump down, and the slump down is a horrid sen- sation. Sometimes a slump down in national good- will is a thing that hurts a nation very much indeed/* Miss Bondfield's interest in international affairs not only extended her field of experience and in- fluence, but also intensified her activities in behalf of labor at home. She brought back much from the League of Nations Labor Conferences that heart- ened her party. In 1924 she was sent to Geneva as representative of the British Government. She was also chosen as member of a delegation commis^ sioned by British labor to study and report im- partially on the Eussian experiment in govern- ment by groups of workers. About the way in which she went out to meet the duties and oppor- tunities of this adventure into a new world, an interested observer made this comment: **Miss Bondfield never stopped working from the moment she came into Russia to the moment she went out, and asked questions with a sense of responsibility to the people who had sent her there, in order to find out (with no thought of condemna- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIBLD 263 tion or of praise) and to try to understand exactly what these people whom she had been sent to see were trying to do. It was said of her, * That is a woman to whom it is not waste of time to ex- plainM^^ When Margaret Bondfield was made chairman of the General Council of the Trade Union Con- gress, she became the elected leader of six millions of men and women workers. She accepted this ** greatest honor in the power of the Trade Union movement to bestow'' gratefully, as a recognition of the value of women's cooperation in industrial affairs. **I regard this appointment," she said, **as a signal proof of the reality of the claim made by Labour that they believe in equality of oppor- tunity for women. That does not mean privilege, but it does mean recognition of the capacity of women to share the burdens as well as the pleas- ures of office." It was well for the cause of organized labor that a leader of Miss Bondfield 's confident courage and influence was in command at this time. A serious strike had for nearly six months defied all at- tempts at settlement. No one seemed able to break the deadlock. Then Miss Bondfield began her work as peacemaker. A new attitude of reasonableness and conciliation was evident on both sides. Re- newed confidence between employers and workers resulted in a compromise that was accepted by Digitized by CjOOQ IC 264 HIGH ADVENTURERS both sides. One newspaper announced jubilantly that ^^ Labour's staunch woman leader has suc- ceeded where mayors and all other intermediaries have failed/' Another paper gave this summary of her achievement: ^^A woman has settled a devastating strike which has paralysed industry for seven months, defying the attempts at mediation of the best brains in the country. **It is Miss Bondfield, Labour's woman leader, who has put an end to the boilermakers' strike, a national calamity which has cost £10,000,000 and involved 70,000 workers." It was natural that Margaret Bondfield should be chosen as candidate of the Labour Party for a seat in Parliament, and in face of a bitter fight put up by the two leading political parties, Conserva- tives and Liberals, Margaret Bondfield was elected by a majority of 4,036 votes. Soon after taking her seat she received the appointment as parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of La- bour, and in 1929 when Bamsay MacDonald was called upon to form a new cabinet she was made Minister of Labour, the first woman to hold such a position of leadership in the British Government. Since her election to the House of Conmions in 1923, Miss Bondfield has worked with unflagging zeal for the women workers who have suffered through the widespread unemployment that fol- Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARQAEET BONDFIELD 265 lowed the change from wartime conditions. Par- ticularly she has worked for home-training classes for women. Eloquently she pleaded for those who had grown up during the war-darkened years that made normal home activities impossible. These young people needed a chance to learn the essen- tials of efficient home-making and of building up that rounded home life which is the backbone and mainstay of a nation. Those who list her outstanding achievements remind us that Margaret Bondfield did important work in securing for women equal political privi- leges with men ; that she was also a driving power in the work done for old-age pensions, for child welfare, care of mothers, and prevention of infant mortality; that she has been largely responsible for the Trade Board Act, and for peaceful settle- ment not only of the disastrous boiler-makers' strike, but also of other industrial disputes that threatened the welfare of thousands. The readjustment that Miss Bondfield has ef- fected in the routine work at the Headquarters Department of the Ministry of Labour gives evi- dence of her genius for home-keeping details, no less than for large-scale undertakings. She has introduced a new Employment and Training Bureau with a directory of service. In general it has been noted that the eflforts of this practical, efficient woman have resulted in simplifying and Digitized by CjOOQ IC 266 HIGH ADVENTURERS humanizing the work of a departmental organiza- tion consisting of 700 offices and a staflf of 15,000 workers. She is direct and unassuming as she looks up from her desk in the great room with its long win- dows overlooking Whitehall. There are usually flowers at hand to give a hint of outdoor joys through the workaday hours, while showing also that she is a friend to the flower-vendors. Perhaps the secret of her unflagging energy and unfailing courage is that she has kept her faith in life as a struggle but not as a warfare, where an all-seeing Power directs all things and where we reap what we sow. She has time for the little things, time for flowers and a word in passing with a flower-girl, time to be well-dressed and gracious, time to be merry and friendly in spite of the over- whelming demands of weighty affairs. ** Happi- ness,'' she once said, '*is too much perhaps to expect in a life where the price of growth is strenu- ous effort ; but joy can come through service and truest gain comes through giving the best that is in us." In one of her campaign speeches she has sounded the keynote of her faith and the ground of her reasonable hope in a triumphant outcome of the most perplexing difficulties. **It is righteousness that exalts a nation — ^it is in the degree to which Digitized by CjOOQ IC MARGARET BONDFIELD 26T we can bring our politic^ in line with the Golden Eule that we shall be judged by the generations to come/^ Mary Agnes Hamilton, who has presented with rare understanding the story of this champion of labor, says in her summary, ** There is much in Margaret BondfiiBld that resembles Joan of Arc. Easy to see her leading an army, though her weapon would b© the Cross, not the sword/* Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVBNTUBES IN EVERYDAY LIVINa DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER Digitized by CjOOQ IC Loveliness, magic, grace, They are here ! they are set in the world, They abide; and the finest of souls £[a<h not been thrill'd by them all, Nor the dullest been dead to them quite. Matthew Arsold Digitized by CjOOQ IC ADVENTURES IN EVERYDAY LIVING DOBOTHY CANFIELD FISHER 1879- She could never tell when she first made the dis- covery that each day gave chances for real adven- ture. There had always been a wonder and a thrill in everyday things. Swinging, for instance, when you felt the push of the whole earth against you, as you kicked the ground vigorously enough to send you forward and back, faster and faster, until you could feel the joy of flying as you went for- ward, up almost into the heart of the tree itself. All sorts of things came to you with the rush of the wind in your face. It seemed as if you could feel the answers to some of the puzzling questions that you never could think out. Perhaps that was what the wonder of life meant. You could feel things inside yourself that you never could under- stand. What does it mean to be alive? How did you happen to be just Dorothy Canfield, a little girl swinging there in a friendly back yard, and not somebody else? Did other people feel the same bubbling-up wonder inside themselves that you did? 271 Digitized by CjOOQ IC 272 HIGH ADVENTURERS There were always many questions that didn't seem made to be answered. Why wasn't there an answer for every question! What is the sunshine! Well, it seemed that it was light and warmth sent from the sun, that hurt your eyes when you tried to look at it and yet was farther away than you could think. It hurt you when you tried to think it. That was one of the things you could only feel — millions and millions of miles away and very much bigger than the world itself. Why can we see and feel sunshine, but can't smell it or hear it! Why does sunshine go through the window of this room but not through the wall! But the grown people did not pay much atten- tion to the questions that came knocking at the door of a little girl's House of Wonder. **When I'm big enough to know the answers to children's questions, I'll surely take time to tell them the things they want to know," vowed Doro- thy more than once. She did not forget this resolve and years later often had much to say about the grown-ups who fail to satisfy the hunger of active minds. **The worst part of it all is," she once said, *Hhat the * Children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup' Digitized by CjOOQ IC Photograph by Bachrach DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIBLD FISHER 273 turn away from us and our world — ^as we do when we no longer look for anything interesting to hap- pen. They lose their first belief that everything has meaning. The sense of wonder is starved out before it can lead them to the great adventure of living.'* **What is the great adventure?'' a friend asked. *'The adventure of discovering that nothing is common and meaningless. The joy of finding that each day is a room with windows opening on a wide world of beckoning chances for happy work and play." ** Would we all have that fine start in life if somebody had tried hard enough to keep up with our never-ending questions?" somebody ventured. **The best start is certainly the one which gives us faith that it is worth while asking questions," was the prompt reply. **I think the best thing in strengthening this faith is the learning to find the answers for ourselves. That is why it is more im- portant for parents to provide a home with books — encyclopedias, dictionaries, and books that are guides to ways of doing and making things — ^than it is to invest in fine new furniture. The invest- ments that bring real dividends are those that mean more living, thinking, and doing." ** Maybe the reason you seem to have time for so much worth doing is that you have never bothered about things the way so many of us have." The Digitized by CjOOQ IC 274 HIGH ADVENTURERS friend spoke as if she had just seen a ray of light that cleared up a particularly dark corner. **It is quite true I discovered early that life was more worth while than things,'* replied Dorothy Canfield. ** Perhaps I found this out through liv- ing and going to school in different places and learning to see with the eyes of different people,'' she suggested, as if thinking aloud. ** There was an English word and a French and an Italian word for the same thing and what seemed important in one place had a way of shrinking out of sight in another. If we stay too much in one place we are apt to think too much of that one spot and of our- selves. There is all the difference between spend- ing your tinie in a room hung with mirrors and looking out from the top of a mountain. I admit it is seldom warm and cozy on the mountain-top, but the view is perhaps on the whole finer than any- thing in the looking-glass." What were some of the places from which Doro- thy Canfield learned to look about her and get something of the large view that "sees life stead- ily and sees it whole"? Part of her early years were spent in college towns where her father was a professor — ^first at the University of Kansas, later at the University of Nebrajgka and Ohio State University. There was always plenty of active life and play to keep Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER 275 the alert young body and mind occupied. An Army oflScer serving on the staff of the war college near her Kansas home found the school-girl ready alike for lessons in horseback-riding and a special in- troduction to the fascinations of mathematical problems that were, it seemed, the young man's pet hobby among indoor sports. Years afterward at the time of the World War the acquaintance was renewed in France. The friendly officer was now General Pershing. Some of Dorothy Canfield's early years were spent in France, where she played about in her mother's studio. While her mother made pictures she made friends with French speech and French people. She was interested in words as her mother was in color. ** Always we see what we are looking for," she used to say. **In all her sojournings in France my mother never took to the French tongue. So it was not from her that I got my love for languages. Perhaps this was one of the things about me that wasn't bom, but, like Topsy, just growed." The love of languages certainly grew with her growth. When in college she devoted special at- tention to French and Italian. The first book that she wrote was a study of the great French drama- tists, Comeille and Racine. After her graduation from Ohio State University, it was her thorough- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 276 HIGH ADVENTURERS going study of the French masters that won for her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Co- lumbia. During the years of study at Columbia, where her father was at that time the head-librarian of the university, she was doing the work of secre- tary at the Horace Mann School. There she saw children at work and at play, remembered her own child ways, and thought about plans for making school-days a better preparation for happy living. *' Variety is what life needs to keep us well rounded, ^^ she used to say. **We're all apt to get one-sided by going too much in one direction. Dif- ferent experiences take off the comers that make life difficult" She was sure that many of the most valuable things she had learned as a young girl had come to her not from books, but from people. It was dur- ing a year spent with a French family that she made the discovery that for certain grown people, life was more than work and earning a living, and that they had live interests and pleasures such as music, reading, the theater, study, art, conversa- tion, thinking, which could not be enjoyed or even understood by people who had not been trained in the right way. Money could not open the way to this good life. Only those might enter in who held the keys. * *I discovered in my school days in France, ' ' she Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER 277 said, *'that real study is tremendously worth while. I saw that the most stupid of all stupid things was to waste time, because with all possible haste and effort, one's childhood was scarcely long enough to learn how to handle the keys which opened the door of the world/' She more than once found herself remembering certain dull grown-up neighbors in the Kansas town where she had lived as a child. There seemed nothing for them to do but to sit in their porch rockers on summer evenings, their eyes fixed on newspapers or on nothing at all. For them life seemed to be all work, as for their children it was all play. When the work-day was over it was as if they stopped living. The affairs of store, work- shop, or office were all that they knew. **Life for some of us is nothing more than a squirrel-cage," she said. *'We keep running with all our might to turn the wheel of our petty little concerns of business or housekeeping, never stop- ping to think of what the free life outside the whirl may be like." Years later she wrote the story of two young people whose lives became so cluttered with things that there was no chance for taking stock or mov- ing freely from one day to another. There was no time to think or look about, no time for real living. She called the book **The Squirrel Cage." Many people read the novel. **This writer un- Digitized by CjOOQ IC 278 HIGH ADVENTURERS derstands the problems of our American home life and helps us to understand some things we have never stopped to think about before/' they said. Three years later she wrote **The Bent Twig.'* **As the twig is bent so the tree is inclined/' runs the proverb. In telling the story of Sylvia and Judith, daughters of a college professor, during their growing-up days, she shows in this book the importance of childhood experiences in giving di- rection to one's whole life. That thought seemed to be always with her. She told the story later of another girl eager for the adventure of living who said, **My days must be full of interesting things — ^like a cup brimming over with the fullness of life." That book is called **The Brimming Cup" and its story of beauty- loving, talented Marise, with her husband, Nedle Crittenden, and their children, in a Vermont vil- lage, gives some vivid chapters of high adventure in everyday living. The characters in that book had become, as often happened, even more real to the author than the actual flesh-and-blood people that she knew. She found herself pondering about them and what they might be expected to do under different cir- cumstances. All at once the notion of a new sort of sequel presented itself to her imagination. **It will be fine to tell the story of what hap- pened to them before the time of the other book. I Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANPIELD FISHER 279 shall write, then, not a f oUow-np novel, but a sort of bef ore-the-curtain account of their eariy years and how they happened to be the sort of young people that we discovered them to be in *The Brimming Cup/ '' The new book was called ** Rough-Hewn,'^ a title suggested by a passage from Shakspere : ** There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Rough-hew them how we will.'' The way in which all the circumstances of eariy childhood and youth had their part in shaping the minds and characters of Marise and Neale was the central idea of the narrative. All the little things that were soon forgotten, their first impressions of the world and the people about them, became powerful forces by which their natures were rough-hewn. **The dim six-year-old thoughts that are mostly feelings stir about at the roots of our lives," she said. **The glory of a bed of tulips, that suddenly fills the world with color where just a few days before there was nothing but a few skimpy rolled- up leaves, becomes part of ourselves and of our sense of the wonder of life. No less we find our- selves trying to pick our way about in the maze of grown-up talk. We decide that conversation is talk that is intended to cover up what people are really thinking. We learn how to hide and dim and Digitized by CjOOQ IC 280 HIGH ADVENTURERS dull our natural wonder about the wide world of which we can glimpse only a tiny comer. We somehow conclude that everybody stops trying to understand what is hard to grasp, and only learns how to use it. This seems to be common sense. It is common sense to shut off parts of life from other pjirts and live in bits and pieces of existence. So our ways of thinking and feeling are scrapped and scrambled — or we may say roughly shaped, rough-hewn — ^by the chances and changes of child- hood impressions.'' In **The Deepening Stream'' there is an account of the great moments of play that make the chief zest of living for all healthy children : ** After supper, *Can-I-go-out-to-play?' rose in every dining-room. It was a mere formula. It meant, *I am going out to play unless I am stopped,' and it was followed — ^in spite of occa- sional grasping but usually futile grown-up ef- forts to get some chores done by the children — ^by a running dive out of the kitchen or dining-room door into enchantment. ** There were always children around, who met like meeting drops of water. To the yelling and shouting of the game which they instantly started, flocked all the other children as soon as they were freed— freed from sitting respectably at table to eat, from helping wash dishes or mind the baby, Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANPIELD FISHER 281 or from a spelling lesson to make up. Encountering in the twilight a group of children madly scatter- ing, a new-comer needed but to shout, *Who*s itl' and * Whereas the goal?* and he was ready to turn and to race as madly as the others. **They had more games to play than there was time for, because like the gods on Olympus they wearied not of familiar joys. When they had run through all the ones they knew, they started over again, with as sharp-toothed an appetite as though they had just begun. But they seldom needed to start over. **Thcre were great games that needed a dozen or twenty children, loud dramas lil^e, *Eun, sheep, run!^ or prisoner's base, and *Eed rover, come over!' In these each child, shrieking and running with all his might, felt his single personal excite- ment magnified by the screams and agitations of his fellows beyond anything he could have achieved alone. In others the excitement ran deep and si- lent, as in mumble-de-peg, and jackstones and mar- bles, played by a silent group squatting or kneel- ing on the earth. There were in-between games, like duck-on-a-rock, in which moments of hover- ing suspense alternated rhythmically with explo- sions into the same sort of conmiunal screeching and racing about which made the children so love * What '11 you do when the Black Man comes!' **For rainy days when play must be carried Digitized by CjOOQ IC 282 HIGH ADVENTURERS on under cover, in bams or attics, there were eerie games of ghost-like silence, variations on blind-man 's-bnff. *Still-pond-no-more-moving- I-give-yon-three-steps!* screamed ont the blind- folded *it,' all in one many-syllabled word. At the end of the formula, the other players, fleeing. for their lives, halted in their tracks. A barn full of children scattered about, and not a sound. As far as the senses of the blindfolded player could tell him the world was as empty as before Creation.^' There were other books about these matters. One called ** Mothers and Children'* discussed se- riously the vitaj importance of the first years of childhood, with its questioning, whims, fears, and fancies. **Now is the chance to give the right start to the adventure of living,*' says the author. An- other book was a book of plays, games, and pas- times for indoor and outdoor occasions, summer and winter holiday fun, and solitary occupations. This book of recreations was called **What Shall I Do Next?*' **A11 my life I have loved to play. Children grow and grown-ups let go in play," says Dor- othy Canfield. **0f course our play changes with the years. There is a time when we can be happy catching a bouncing ball but later we need the glow that comes with team play, as in tennis and baseball. Play, like life itself, led on from one in- Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIBLD FISHER 283 teresting thing to another. There was never a look- ing back with longing for vanished joys/^ ** Wouldn't you like to be one of those young folks, when it comes to skating weather like thisf she was asked once. **No, why should I? I seem to enjoy skating even more than when I was so young that the most important thing as I whizzed over the ice was whether I was able to skate as well or better than the best. There was then always the need of prov- ing myself. Now I can have the same enjoyment of the knife-edge poise and gliding speed together with a new delight in the tingling air and the beau- ties of the frosty trees. I don't envy that boy his speed and skill any more than a certain whimsical unde of mine envied the cat that he allowed to have its nap out in his favorite chair. *A cat has so few pleasures compared to those open to me,' he said." There are many people who feel that Dorothy Canfield's books give them an insight into real living, an understanding of the people about them and of themselves. When Lord Grey, British Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited America at the time of the World War, he said to a group of Harvard students: "Since I have been in your country I have read a book by an author new to me — ^Dorothy Canfield. I am sure that this book, *The Bent Twig,' is Digitized by CjOOQ IC 284 HIGH ADVENTURERS true and enduring literature as it is a true and searching study of some of the more important chapters of our common experience.'* What axe some of the more important chapters in Dorothy Canfield's own story that may explain her sympathy with different kinds of people and her zest for the adventures of everyday life? First in importance, perhaps, is her American heritage. The family came to America in 1636 and in 1764 were among the hardy hill-loving people to take up land in the Green Mountain State. Like all Vermonters she glories in the stories of Ethan Allen and his championship of the cause of the pi- oneers who had given their lives to make homes in the wilderness. When Dorothy Canfield was married in 1907 to John Redwood Fisher, they surprised their New York friends by going to live on the acres of moun- tain land that the bride had inherited from the Vermont Canfields. The young woman who had won honors at Ohio State University, in Paris at the Sorbonne, and also at Columbia University took up the life of a home-maker in the country. There you may find her to-day if you climb a rather steep mountain road that winds up for about two miles from the little town of Arlington. The house, to which wings have been added, clings close to the ground, as firmly established as one of the neighboring boulders that is anchored to earth Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER 285 by the persistent growth of scrub-pine and gen- erations of wild-grape and blackberry tendrils. Here Dorothy Canfield Fisher took root, through a daily round of wholesome home tasks, within doors and without. The ** within ^^ tasks were those of a simple living that was free of concern for things as ends in themselves. All of the household gods had to prove their claim to respect as they served the ends of unfettered happy living. The ** without ^^ claims included an active interest in the affairs of the town and of the world, no less than attention to the well-being of pine-trees and an enterprising sawmill. There were, too, the joys of outdoor life — Ahorseback-riding, mountain- climbing, tennis, and skating. When the young heroine of ** Understood Betsy ^' is beginning to see her small problems in a setting of a much larger world than that of the farm and village, we watch her as she waxes her cup of maple-syrup on a clean white snow-bank under a pine-tree. ** Elizabeth Ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrup out on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured. It stiff- ened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it, threw her head back and let it drop into her mouth. Concentrated sweetness of sum- mer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot Digitized by CjOOQ IC 286 HIGH ADVENTURERS and aromatic^ part of it icy and wet with melting snow. She crunched it all together with her strong, child's teeth into a delicious, big lump and sucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of Hemlock Mountain, high above her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight. Uncle Henry had promised to take her to the top as soon as the snow went off. She wondered what the top of a mountain would be like. Uncle Henry had said the main thing was that you could see so much of the world at once. He said it was too queer the way your own house and big bam and great fields looked like little toy things that weren't of any account. It was because you could see so much more . . . **The sun had gone down over Hemlock Moun- tain by this time, and the big slope above her was all in deep blue shadow. The mountain looked much higher now as the dusk began to fall, and loomed up as though it reached to the sky. No wonder houses looked small from its top.*' **One idea," says Dorothy Canfield, *4s worth a million facts, because with the idea you can gather facts for yourself." We find in her books that rare power of bringing out into the open some of our vague, half -formed ideas and setting them to work for us. One of the ideas that she brings to the fore is the truth which Betsy glimpsed, that a large view of life makes us **see things in proportion." Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANPIBLD FISHER 287 Another idea is that which makes us realize that variety is not only the spice of life, but a safety- valve. We need to know country life as well as city life and people of different countries and differ- ent ways of looking at things. We need to learn through active life that we gain only as we give — that the brimming cup must be emptied before it can be filled again. In 1916, when her son Jimmy was two years old, Mrs. Fisher took him and her small daughter Sally with her to join her husband, who was serv- ing as an ambulance-driver in France. Some months later when he was put in charge of a training-camp for ambulance-workers, Mrs. Fisher was made camp housekeeper. We may gather from her book **Home Fires in France** glimpses of her experiences. While connected with a home for blinded soldiers she helped to organize an establishment for printing books that could be read by touch instead of sight, and for a year edited a magazine for blind French soldiers. When little Sally, who had been put in a French school, became ill with typhoid, the mother took her south to Biarritz, where she might grow well and strong again. Even then she was helping in a Bed Cross home for refugee children. At the end of the war when, in 1919, she was once more back in the Vermont home, there was an uphill struggle for a time to regain normal health Digitized by CjOOQ IC 288 HIGH ADVENTURERS and strength. The book **Rongh-Hewn^^ was fin- ished in Italy, where she went for some months of much-needed sunshine. **But above all things I love our Vermont winters/^ she said, when an- other year found her returning with restored vigor to the home acres. ** There are no joys quite equal to those of skating and snow-shoeing when every breath means renewed life.'* She finds also op- portunity for uninterrupted work when snow- drifts shut her away from the demands of the out- side world. In addition to her novels and stories, Dorothy Canfield has written many works dealing with problems of education. She has also made a trans- lation of Papini's **Life of Christ'* from Italian into English. These labors, however, have not pre- vented her writing for the Vermont Parent- Teachers Association articles to be printed in the local papers, and a play for the Arlington Comr munity Players in which she herself took the part of a lively old lady and even danced a jig for the cause. As a member of the Vermont State Board of Education she has done active work for improving the schools of the country districts. When she in- herited a large brick house in Arlington she promptly turned it over to the town for use as a Community House, reserving only one wing for Digitized by CjOOQ IC DOROTHY CANFIBLD FISHER 289 lodging guests whom she and Vermont alike de- light in honoring. The poet, Eobert Frost, another high adventurer in everyday living, is perhaps first among such sojourners in the little com- munity. **How is it that you manage to get so many things donel^* she is frequently challenged. **I have a little way of thinking about some problem that is uppermost before I go to sleep,'' she once said whimsically. **In the morning, some- how the tangled threads straighten out as if by magic. You may remember that Stevenson speaks somewhere of the way the * Little People' of dreams bring things to pass as if by magic. I be- lieve, too, in that white magic." Again she said in all seriousness: **When we begin to measure life by what we put into it, not by what it gives us, many things fall into place. The active life is really the free, happy life. The hankering for an easy time is like an *01d Man of the Sea ! ' Once you let him persuade you to have him on your shoulders, you are lost, his slave — forced to go the way he wishes and not where you would like to go yourself. You cannot do this thing which all your higher self longs to do be- cause you would be uncomfortable." Many people learn with surprise that Dorothy Canfield has worked with a handicap. Since the Digitized by CjOOQ IC 290 HIGH ADVENTURERS age of fourteen she has been partially deaf— bnt ever on the alert to see the words of conversation that elude her dulled hearing. **Have you a message for the deafened readers of our magazine? '' she was asked by a writer who was preparing a sketch of her life for a paper de- voted to the interests of the deaf. **Yes, tell them to learn lip-reading,*' she re- plied, with characteristic common-sense direct- ness. But difficulties are challenges to new endeavor to this courageous wcnnan. Face a problem fairly and then go out to meet it squarely. That is the way of life for Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Her days are invested in enterprises that bring returns in enduring satisfaction and the joy that comes to those who find that difficulties may turn into opportunities if the challenge of everyday living is met in the spirit of high adventure. Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC Digitized by CjOOQ IC