A Son of the Middle Border | Page 5

into the
pine woods which covered the entire upper part of the State, and my
father, who had been a raftsman and timber cruiser and pilot ever since
his coming west, was deeply skilled with axe and steering oars. The

lumberman's life at that time was rough but. not vicious, for the men
were nearly all of native Amer ican stock, and my father was none the
worse for his winters in camp.
His field of action as lumberman was for several years, in and around
Big Bull Falls (as it was then called), near the present town of Wausau,
and during that time he had charge of a crew of loggers in winter and in
sum mer piloted rafts of lumber down to Dubuque and other points
where saw mills were located. He was called at this time, "Yankee Dick,
the Pilot."
As a result of all these experiences in the woods, he was almost as
much woodsman as soldier in his talk, and the heroic life he had led
made him very wonderful in my eyes. According to his account (and I
have no reason to doubt it) he had been exceedingly expert in running a
raft and could ride a canoe like a Chippewa.
I remember hearing him very forcefully remark, "God forgot to make
the man I could not follow."
He was deft with an axe, keen of perception, sure of hand and foot, and
entirely capable of holding his own with any man of his weight. Amid
much drinking he remained temperate, and strange to say never used
tobacco in any form. While not a large man he was nearly six feet in
height, deep-chested and sinewy, and of dauntless courage. The quality
which defended him from attack was the spirit which flamed from his
eagle- gray eyes. Terrifying eyes they were, at times, as I had many
occasions to note.
As he gathered us all around his knee at night before the fire, he loved
to tell us of riding the whirlpools of Big Bull Falls, or of how he lived
for weeks on a raft with the water up to his knees (sleeping at night in
his wet working clothes), sustained by the blood of youth and the spirit
of adventure. His endurance even after his return from the war, was
marvellous, although he walked a little bent and with a peculiar
measured swinging stride the stride of Sherman's veterans.
As I w r as born in the first smoke of the great conflict, so all of my

early memories of Green's coulee are per meated with the haze of the
passing war-cloud. My sol dier dad taught me the manual of arms, and
for a year Harriet and I carried broom-sticks, flourished lath sabers, and
hammered on dishpans in imitation of officers and drummers. Canteens
made excellent water- bottles for the men in the harvest fields, and the
long blue overcoats which the soldiers brought back with them from
the south lent many a vivid spot of color to that far-off landscape.
All the children of our valley inhaled with every breath this mingled air
of romance and sorrow, history and song, and through those epic days
runs a deep-laid consciousness of maternal pain. My mother's side of
those long months of waiting was never fully delineated, for she was
natively reticent and shy of expression. But piece by piece in later years
I drew from her the tale of her long vigil, and obtained some hint of the
bitter anguish of her suspense after each great battle.
It is very strange, but I cannot define her face as I peer back into those
childish times, though I can feel her strong arms about me. She seemed
large and quite middle-aged to me, although she was in fact a hand
some girl of twenty-three. Only by reference to a rare daguerreotype of
the time am I able to correct this childish impression.
Our farm lay well up in what is called Green's coulee, in a little valley
just over the road which runs along the LaCrosse river in western
Wisconsin. It contained one hundred and sixty acres of land which
crumpled against the wooded hills on the east and lay well upon a ridge
to the west. Only two families lived above us, and over the height to the
north was the land of the red people, and small bands of their hunters
used occasion ally to come trailing down across our meadow on their
way to and from LaCrosse, which was their immemorial trading point.
Sometimes they walked into our house, always with out knocking but
then we understood their ways. No one knocks at the wigwam of a red
neighbor, and we were not afraid of them, for they were friendly, and