Tales of Nature and Adventure By Charles Allen McConnell Publishing House of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI 1913 Copyright , 1913 Publishing House of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene...

To the memory of my brother Robert, one of the “Boys of the Old Sea Bed,” who, though passing out into the Great Beyond while yet young, wrote his name high up among those to whom the world accords fame, this little volume of boyhood tales is affectionately dedicated. The Author....

These tales are at last put upon paper, after having served the demands of a generation of little folk—now grown tall—for stories of “when papa was a boy.” All the tales are founded upon facts, and many are incidents and experiences reproduced as faithfully as memory paints the pictures. The red men are gone; the great forest is no more; railroads and cities and farms occupy the bottom of the “Old Sea Bed.” But the same courage and hardihood and clean living which marked the pioneers of near a h

Men of science who have made a study of the earth’s surface, say that Lake Erie, from which flows Niagara river northward into Lake Ontario, will, in a certain, or uncertain, number of years, go dry, and what is now a wide though shallow sheet of water become a plain, through which may meander a slowly-flowing river. The reason for this prediction is that Niagara Falls, which have cut their way back from Lewiston through a gorge some seven miles, and are still eating their way through the limest

The first winter after the Allen family moved to their new home on the Necedah river was unusually severe and long. While in that section of Wisconsin deep snows were not uncommon, this year they had started in about the middle of October, and by Christmas lay piled in great drifts, like small hills, in places, while on the level even the top rail of the “stake-and-rider” fence about the buildings was covered, and over which the boys, Rob and Ed, hauled loads of hay in their sleds. Between the h

“Dauph,” said Robert Allen one morning in early spring, “I saw a pair of wood ducks over in Cut-off Slough yesterday, and the drake had the handsomest plumage I ever saw on a bird. He would make a fine specimen for your collection.” Dauphin was a “born naturalist,” as his father called him, which meant that the lad had a sense of the beauty and wonder of nature, and went about with his eyes open. From the furred and feathered dwellers of the wilderness into which the family had moved, when Dauph

Those who were boys and girls in the Middle West in the year 1871, will have a vivid remembrance of the great comet that moved across the northern sky during the month of August. It was so large and brilliant, that before the sun had been altogether hidden in the west, the fiery orb of this celestial stranger could be seen glowing and as night came on the long tail would appear spreading out in a fan of light half way across the heavens. Mr. Allen was an educated man, whose favorite study in his

The question of food supply is always an important one where there is a family of growing children, but especially is it so in a wilderness of forest, far from stores and the supplies of towns and cities. The question is not so much one of variety as of quantity, as the vigorous out-of-door life of the pioneer gives an appetite which dainties prepared by a famous chef would not tempt from the generous dish of “pork and beans,” or roast beef and potatoes. This question became a pressing one to ou

When the Jesuit Fathers, those early French path-finders for civilization in the central region of the American continent, pushed down from Canada over the lakes and by the rivers into the great forest that stretched from the inland sea to the great river, they found a people warlike, indeed, yet hospitable and kindly; reserved and shy, yet open-hearted and unsuspicious; uncivilized according to Old World standards, yet wise in the great secrets of nature; poor as to stores of gold, yet rich in

In settling up some business affairs, Mr. Allen had come into possession of a tract of two thousand acres of swamp land lying toward the western side of the bed of the ancient sea. At the time of which I write there were vast tracts of such supposedly valueless land owned by the state, and which could be purchased for ten dollars per “forty,” twenty-five cents per acre. Timber scouts had ranged over it, and selecting the forties upon which there were sand knolls covered with a goodly amount of p

“Uncle Henry,” said Ed, as the boys were enjoying themselves in the pleasant living room of the Thompson home, “what kind of a mound is that in front of Slater’s tavern? It looks like a grave right there in front of the house. I noticed it when I was going to Lisbon after cranberry barrels last fall, and I started to ask Mr. Slater who had been buried there, but one of the teamsters stopping there for dinner with me looked scared, and hushed me up.” “Ruth can tell you the story; it’s mighty sad,

“Listen, boys,” said Mr. Allen, one night in November, as he looked up from a letter which a passing tote-teamster had left at the farm. “Here is a letter from my old friend Taylor, out in Minnesota, and he wants me to send him a ‘likely boy’ to work during the winter.” Mr. Taylor was a miller whose old-fashioned grist mill, run by its large waterwheel, situated where the Des Moines river flows out of Lake Cheteck, its source, was flour-headquarters for the hardy pioneers of a large section of t

Occasionally cows seem to be like folks—that is, possessed with the thing which, in despair of classifying, we call “human nature.” A manifestation of this trait appeared several times in the spring, as each patch of tender, green grass seemed to say to the wandering cows, “It is just a little sweeter and juicier in the next swale, further on. Don’t stop here.” And so they would wander, like folks, on and on, never quite satisfied with the present good, but always expecting to reach the goal of

In one of their cow-hunting expeditions, the Allen boys went some seven or eight miles to the west, where they came to a deep but narrow little river, running down through a broad marsh, or wet prairie, which was more than a mile in width. The water in the little river was clear and quite cool. Up and down the stream, as far as the eye could see, the marsh was covered with luxuriant, nutritious “blue-joint” grass, in many places growing to a height above the boys’ heads. Of the purchase money re

“Father,” said Ed one evening, as he came in from a short hunting trip, “were there ever any armies encamped here, or battles fought in this part of the country?” “No, son,” replied Mr. Allen, “not that history gives account of. There may have been some fighting between the Indian tribes and the voyageurs who accompanied the Jesuit Fathers as they explored this land, in the early days of settlement of our country, but nothing like armies or battles have been known here.” “Well, I found some old

As Robert and Ed Allen had no elder sisters, and the health of their mother was far from robust, they were early trained to the simple duties of the home. Rob, especially, prided himself that “there was no woman who could beat him in plain cooking,” and, indeed, his bread was voted, even by Mr. Allen, to be “almost as good as Mother’s.” As the frosts began to increase, and November clouds hung gray and heavy, tote teams, with their winter supplies for the camps in the big woods, would frequently

When Mr. Thompson proposed, as an act of kindness, to take the cook, Peter Lateur, back to Necedah that he might receive proper attention for his broken arm, he did not know that it would prove to be an opening to a profitable winter’s contract, but so it was. As he stepped into the office of the Medford Lumber Company, “Old Man” Medford, who was in earnest conversation with a keen-eyed, brisk-appearing gentleman, looked up, and as his eyes fell upon Mr. Thompson, he exclaimed, “The very thing.

Following the river trail, and being welcomed freely to the temporary camps of the gangs of “brow-breakers,” at a little past noon of the second day, Ed and his companions of the winter’s logging camp came to the head of the drive on North Fork. The heavy rains had set in, and the river, swollen by the floods of melted snow, was already a torrent of crashing, grinding ice cakes. As the ice went out, the river would be filled with the booming logs, which floated loosely, often banks full for mile

The wages from Ed’s winter’s work at the logging camp, together with the sixty dollars each had earned on the drive in the spring, enabled the Allen boys to purchase a fine span of half-blood, two-years-old Norman colts, from “Old Man” LaDauger, a half-woodsman, half-farmer, whose capacious cabin was a stopping place for rivermen, and for teamsters going to and from the lumber camps. The colts, though huge fellows, were as gentle, if as playful, as kittens, and Ed soon had them well broken to su

Notwithstanding the strenuous work of the summer, the boys got together frequently to talk over their plans for the future. Dauphin and Rob would begin together their studies in the preparatory department of Carlton College, while Ed would look forward to the time when he would be older and could join them. Professor Hodge had written Dauphin that the college would accept his Natural History collection at a price which would enable him to finish his preparatory course and enter college, by worki

Had you met him as he trudged along the dusty road on that day of early September, you would have little suspected that you had come into the presence of a hero; but the stuff of which heroes are made is not carried in the way of outward observing, having its place within. Records of the world’s great deeds give the place of honor and fame to those who have taken cities and subdued peoples, but the Book of books says that a greater hero than he who conquers a city is he who rules his own spirit.