Wisconsin in Story and Song - Various

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I have laid my flesh to the rain;

       I was hunter and trailer and guide;

       I have touched the most primitive wildness again.

      I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer,

       No eagle is freer than I;

       No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appall.

       I defy the stern sky.

       So long as I live these joys will remain,

       I have touched the most primitive wildness again.

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      His eyes are bright as burnished steel,

       His note a quick, defiant cry;

       Harsh as a hinge his grating squeal

       Sounds from the keen wind sweeping by.

       Rains never dim his smooth blue coat,

       The cold winds never trouble him,

       No fog puts hoarseness in his throat,

       Or makes his merry eyes grow dim.

      His call at dawning is a shout,

       His wing is subject to his heart;

       Of fear he knows not—doubt

       Did not draw his sailing-chart.

      He is an universal emigre,

       His foot is set in every land;

       He greets me by gray Casco Bay

       And laughs across the Texas sand.

       In heat or cold, in storm and sun,

       He lives undauntedly; and when he dies,

       He folds his feet up one by one

       And turns his last look on the skies.

      He is the true American. He fears

       No journey and no wood or wall—

       And in the desert, toiling voyagers

       Take heart or courage from his jocund call.

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      Out on the snow the boys are springing,

       Shouting blithely at their play;

       Through the night their voices ringing,

       Sound the cry "Pom, pull-away!"

       Up the sky the round moon stealing,

       Trails a robe of shimmering white:

       While the Great Bear slowly wheeling

       Marks the pole-star's steady light.

      The air with frost is keen and stinging,

       Spite of cap and muffler gay;

       Big boys whistle, girls are singing—

       Loud rings out, "Pom, pull-away!"

       Oh, the phrase has magic in it,

       Sounding through the moon-lit air!

       And in 'bout a half-a-minute

       I am part and parcel there.

      'Cross the pond I once more scurry

       Through the thickest of the fray,

       Sleeve ripped off by Andy Murray—

       "Let her rip—Pom, pull-away!"

       Mother'll mend it in the morning

       (Dear old patient, smiling face!)

       One more darn my sleeve adorning—

       "Whoop her up!"—is no disgrace.

      Moonbeams on the snow a-splinter,

       Air that stirred the blood like wine—

       What cared we for cold of winter?

       What for maiden's soft eyes' shine?

       Give us but a score of skaters

       And the cry, "Pom, pull-away!"

       We were always girl beraters—

       Forgot them wholly, sooth to say!

      O voices through the night air ringing!

       O, thoughtless, happy, boist'rous play!

       O silver clouds the keen wind winging;

       At the cry, "Pom, pull-away!"

       I pause and dream with keenest longing

       For the starlit magic night,

       For my noisy playmates thronging,

       And the slow moon's trailing light.

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      From "BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE." Published by permission of Harper Bros.

      Life on a Wisconsin farm, even for the older lads, had its compensations. There were times when the daily routine of lonely and monotonous life gave place to an agreeable bustle for a few days, and human intercourse lightened toil. In the midst of the dull, slow progress of the fall's ploughing, the gathering of the threshing crew was a most dramatic event.

      There had been great changes in the methods of threshing since Mr. Stewart had begun to farm, but it had not yet reached the point where steam displaced the horse-power; and the grain, after being stacked round the barn ready to be threshed, was allowed to remain until late in the fall before calling in a machine.

      Of course, some farmers got at it earlier, for all could not thresh at the same time, and a good part of the fall's labor consisted in "changing works" with the neighbors, thus laying up a stock of unpaid labor ready for the home job. Day after day, therefore, Mr. Stewart and the hired man shouldered their forks in the crisp and early dawn and went to help their neighbors, while the boys ploughed the stubble-land.

      All through the months of October and November, the ceaseless ringing hum and the bow-ouw, ouw-woo booee-oom of the great balance wheel of the threshing-machine, and the deep bass hum of the whirling cylinder, as its motion rose and fell, could be heard on every side like the singing of some sullen and gigantic autumnal insect.

      For weeks Lincoln had looked forward to the coming of the threshers with the greatest eagerness, and during the whole of the day appointed, Owen and he hung on the gate and gazed down the road to see if the machine was coming. It did not come during the afternoon—still they could not give it up, and at the falling of dusk still hoped to hear the rattle of its machinery.

      It was not uncommon for the men who attended to these machines to work all day at one place and move to another setting at night. In that way, they might not arrive until 9 o'clock at night, or they might come at 4 o'clock in the morning, and the children were about starting to "climb the wooden hill" when they heard the peculiar rattle of the cylinder and the voices of the McTurgs, singing.

      "There they are," said Mr. Stewart, getting the old square lantern and lighting the candle within. The air was sharp, and the boys, having taken off their boots, could only stand at the window and watch the father as he went out to show the men where to set the "power," the dim light throwing fantastic shadows here and there, lighting up a face now and then, and bringing out the thresher, which seemed a silent monster to the children, who flattened their noses against the window-panes to be sure that nothing should escape them. The men's voices sounded

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