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The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

John Muir

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The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | John Muir

The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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“The only fire for the whole house was the kitchen stove, with a fire box about eighteen inches long and eight inches wide and deep,- scant space for three or four small sticks, around which in hard zero weather all the family of ten shivered, and beneath which in the morning we found our socks and coarse, soggy boots frozen solid.” Thus, with perceptive eye for detail, the American naturalist, John Muir, describes life on a pioneer Wisconsin farm in the 1850’s. Muir was only eleven years old when his father uprooted the family from a relatively comfortable life in Dunbar, Scotland, to settle in the backwoods of North America.
nothing he could say could cloud our joy or abate the fire of [55]youthful, hopeful, fearless adventure. Nor could we in the midst of such measureless excitement see or feel the shadows and sorrows of his darkening old age. To my schoolmates, met that night on the street, I shouted the glorious news, "I'm gan to Amaraka the morn!" None could believe it. I said, "Weel, just you see if I am at the skule the morn!"

Next morning we went by rail to Glasgow and thence joyfully sailed away from beloved Scotland, flying to our fortunes on the wings of the winds, care-free as thistle seeds. We could not then know what we were leaving, what we were to encounter in the New World, nor what our gains were likely to be. We were too young and full of hope for fear or regret, but not too young to look forward with eager enthusiasm to the wonderful schoolless bookless American wilderness. Even the natural heart-pain of parting from grandfather and grandmother Gilrye, who loved us so well, and from mother and sisters and brother was quickly quenched in young joy. Father took with him only [56]my sister Sarah (thirteen years of age), myself (eleven), and brother David (nine), leaving my eldest sister, Margaret, and the three youngest of the family, Daniel, Mary, and Anna, with mother, to join us after a farm had been found in the wilderness and a comfortable house made to receive them.

In crossing the Atlantic before the days of steamships, or even the American clippers, the voyages made in old-fashioned sailing-vessels were very long. Ours was six weeks and three days. But because we had no lessons to get, that long voyage had not a dull moment for us boys. Father and sister Sarah, with most of the old folk, stayed below in rough weather, groaning in the miseries of seasickness, many of the passengers wishing th

Dougie 12/10/2018
So as well as being the father of the national parks, a fearless wanderer, a raconteur, a force for all that is good in the world, John Muir was also Caractacus Potts. This book recounts his childhood from his earliest days in Dunbar, Scotland, the family's move to Wisconsin where they set up their
CHRISTOPHER 01/31/2018
Work hard, and notice everything.
Tanvika 04/22/2017
What a soul stirring and uplifting, even spiritual experiences I had while going through the wondrous and magical moments of young Muir.
His strict, Christian upbringing, thrashing at home and school couldn't kill the wildness and spirit of living, the young lad had. The thrill of running around, pla
BAM (Post-menopausal grandma for Harris) 09/22/2016
After reading Alaska Days with John Muir, written by his friend and traveling companion Samuel Young, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Muir's own account of his early life: beginning in East Lothian, Scotland, where he was born in 1838; immigrated with his father and brother to America in 1849; settled

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