USA > Indiana > Marshall County > A twentieth century history of Marshall County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 25
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It sometimes happened, however, that old bowser, a little more wakeful than usual, kept up such a yelping as to arouse the man of the house, and in that event the foragers took to their heels and ran away as fast as ever they could go. They didn't always get away without the discovery being made as to who they were, and in that event it didn't require much of an effort to effect a compromise, it being generally understood in all the country round about that the brick burners were privileged characters. On one occasion the dog caught the forager by the coat tail just as he was climbing the fence. The struggle was sharp, short and decisive. The forager tore himself loose and made his escape, but left a large section of his coat tail on the other side of the fence.
The chickens were killed, dressed and roasted by holding them on sharp sticks before the red hot arches, and those who were detailed to do the cooking soon learned the art of roasting them to perfection, and, with the other articles which went to make up the bill of fare. a supper was spread
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such as is seldom provided in these days of advanced civilization. One that is remembered consisted of roast chicken, roast squirrel, baked sweet and Irish potatoes, old-fashioned corn pone, baked green apples, "roastin' ears," new cucumbers and onions, sweet milk, new sweet cider, hot coffee, cherry pie and fried cakes. After that came the soothing corncob pipe and the delicious chew of pigtail tobacco. More relishable banquets at $50 a plate may have been partaken of at Delmonico's, but it wouldn't be believed by any of those who sat down to that midnight banquet nearly fifty years ago.
It was while here that the typhoid fever prostrated the writer to such an extent as to come near sending him to the sweet by and by. The summer was hot, the surface water full of malaria, and medicines and medical aid was almost impossible to be had. Dr. White, a long, lean, lank, cadaverous looking specimen of the genus homo, who had but recently located in Plymouth, was sent for. Of course he felt the pulse, looked at the tongue, and the first thing he did was to administer a dose of "calomel and jollup," strong enough to have killed an elephant. He said it was intended to do divers and sundry mysterious and marvelous things. It was to act as a purgative, and by producing salivation, would break up the disease and cure the patient. It did pretty much everything he said it would do, and a good many more, except cure him. It salivated him beautifully. His gums became a canker sore; his teeth loosened, and some of them fell out ; he was parched and burning up with fever, but not a drop of water would they give him to drink. For several days his life hung on a very slender thread, and the doctor, looking wise and dignified, said he didn't believe he would ever recover. One night, however, after he had gained a little strength in spite of the doctor, when the watcher had dropped to sleep from exhaustion, he managed, in some way, to get out of bed and crawl to the water pail where he drank three or four tin cup fulls of water as fast as he could pour them down. When the watcher awoke and found what had happened, he aroused the household and immediately sent for the man of the saddle-bags, supposing, of course, that the patient would die within a short time. But he didn't. From that very minute the fever was broken, and in less than a week he was up and around, and in a short time had fully recovered.
XXXII. FISH AND FISHING STORIES.
The old time disciples of Izaak Walton were not provided with silver and nickle-plated reels, silk lines and silver jointed poles as the fishermen are in these flubdub days of fine things. Those who fished with hook and line had to put up with a hickory pole, a line half as big as your little finger, and hooks-if big fish were to be caught, large enough to pull in a small raft.
On Maxinkuckee lake, boats or canoes made of sawed boards were not known. The water craft in use then were made out of medium sized poplar trees. They were made much the shape of the modern fancy canoes so numerous on that beautiful lake at the present time. They were rounded off at the ends to a sharp point, dressed at the sides and bottom, and
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dug out with an ax and adz so as to leave the sides and bottom the proper thickness. We have seen many of these "dug outs" that were, really, "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." Oar locks and oars were not known here then. A long pole was used to propel the boat, especially in the rivers, and also in the lakes until deep water was reached, when a single paddle was substituted.
Spearing, or "gigging," as everybody then called it, was the favorite mode of fishing for many years. This kind of fishing had to be mostly done at night with a light made of shell bark from hickory trees carried in an iron holder on the front of the boat, or in hand by an assistant. The glare of the light seemed to blind the fish, and also enable the fishermen to see large fish at a considerable distance. It required a good deal of practice and excellent judgment as to how far away he was to hit a fish, even if he happened to be only a short distance from the boat. An inexperienced "gigger" was a good deal more apt to strike under or over, than to hit where he intended. An expert with the spear, however, seldom missed his aim, and before morning generally went to shore with as many fish as could be carried safely in the boat.
Among the most expert "giggers" was Charley Logan. If he got sight of a fish he seldom ever failed to take him in out of the wet. It was a common saying among the people in those days that, when he took his boat and "gig," and started out on the river or lake, the fish were so sure their last days had come that they actually jumped into the boat and gave up.
The lake and river was, at that period, as the saying was, full and running over with all kinds of the finest fish imaginable, such as grass pike, black, yellow and rock bass, river salmon, cat fish, besides all the different varieties still making these waters their home.
Seining was followed to considerable extent for many years. A com- pany was formed and a seine over one hundred feet long was made, for use, mostly, in Maxinkuckee. It was a good deal of work to draw the seine, but the labor was generally rewarded with a barrel or two of fish at each drawing. It was more difficult to catch fish with a seine in the rivers than in the lakes, on account of the roots, logs and limbs. But fish were very plentiful in the deep holes, and it required but a short time to catch all that were needed for food, and that was all they were caught for, there being no sale for them. A great many fished with hook and line, generally using frogs for bait.
Another way of catching fish in the rivers was by building a fish. trap from one bank to the other. One that is remembered was built across Yellow river below what was then called the "Shirley Ford." Several fishermen went up stream half or three-quarters of a mile, and with sticks and clubs drove the fish down into the trap. Among the lot caught the first drive were about forty pike, not one of which weighed less than five pounds, many of them would weigh as much as ten pounds, and a few of them even more than that.
Among the numerous varieties of fish that were caught at that time were fresh water eels. They were all the way from one to two and a half feet in length, and resembled a very large black snake. They had no fins or scales and propelled themselves through the water by a "wiggling"
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motion, something like the movement of tadpoles. In dressing them the skin was peeled off, and they have been known to show signs of life for some time after that operation was performed, and it has been declared by those who professed to know, that pieces of eels placed in a frying pan to cook have been known to jump out into the fire, and this, it is believed, is how originated the expression, "out of the frying pan into the fire." The writer does not vouch for the truth of this statement, but if old Bill Jones was alive he would swear to it. This species of fish has become almost extinct. Only now and then one is caught, and a few years more and all will be gone.
The gar was another fish quite numerous then. There are still some left, but they have greatly decreased in numbers during the past half cen- tury. They are said to be the oldest species of fish now in existence, having come on down through the ages from the earliest times to the present. They are from one to five feet in length, and the body is covered with smooth enameled scales, arranged in oblique rows, and they are so hard that it is impossible to pierce them with a spear. This enamel is like that of teeth, and the scales contain the ordinary properties of bone structure. It has a long mouth or snout, the upper and lower jaw being provided with numerous fine teeth. They are beautiful fish, but are not fit to eat. They frequent shallow, reedy places, basking in the sun like the pike and devouring living prey with great voracity. They are often seen apparently sleeping on the surface of the water, and some have been picked up with dip nets and other fishing tackle on Maxinkuckee lake by fishermen passing near by in boats. In this way the writer caught one with a troll line a number of years ago that measured exactly four feet. A string was tied around his gills and fastened to the boat, and while still fishing without being anchored, the fish began to pull, and having succeeded in getting the boat in motion actually pulled it more than half a mile to the shore, as "witness my hand and seal this . day of 189. .. "
XXXIII. HUNTING BEE TREES.
Wild honey was one of the table comforts in the early days. Bee trees were numerous everywhere through the thick woods, and it was no trick at all for an expert bee hunter to find enough bee trees to keep the neigh- borhood in honey the year round.
Wild bees made their home in the hollow limbs of trees, or in the hollow places in the trunks of trees, if they were not too large and were properly protected from the sun and the inclemency of the weather.
By watching the direction of the working bee, after he had secured his load of honey extracted from the flowers, it was not much trouble to find the tree, as the bee, after arising from the flower beds a short distance in the air, circled around a time or two as if to find his bearing, when he would fly away in a straight direction as if he had been shot out of a gun. After starting he never varied in the least from his course, and this is how orig- inated the saying, "as straight as a bee line." If the bee hunter could follow a straight line he could usually find the tree. If he lost his course
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all he had to do was to go back and try it over again. If he was careful he could keep in the direction by getting two or three trees some distance apart in line and continuing in this way until the tree was found, or until he had given up the hunt.
Often bee trees could be found by walking through the woods on bright sunny days and looking into the tops of the trees and watching for the bees coming and going.
When a bee tree was found it was marked and the way to it blazed so that it might be found when the time came to cut it down. When the tree was felled it wasn't quite safe to go near where the bees were until they recovered from their fright and settled down to business again.
Securing the honey was, so far as the innocent, industrious bees were concerned, a cruel piece of business. About sunset, after the bees had all returned from their daily labor, the entrance to the hive, generally a small knot hole, was fastened securely except a small space into which the stem of a common clay or cob pipe was inserted. The bowl of the pipe was gen- erally filled with pulverized home-grown tobacco leaves and lighted. A thin piece of cloth was fastened over the bowl and the "robber" blew the smoke in among the bees, which, within a short time, had the effect of making them deathly sick so that they were unable to offer resistance. The limb was then chopped into and the honey comb removed, deposited in wooden buckets and carried home.
Sometimes most of the bees would die from the effects of the smoke, but many of them, after the effects passed off, would recover, and if there was a sufficient number with the necessary officers, a king, queen, etc., they would congregate, hold a consultation, and generally fly away in search of another home to begin life over again.
Sometimes the bees would get after the robbers with their "business end" and sting them severely. To some the sting of a bee was rank poison, and if inflicted on the face, frequently the eyes would be swollen shut in a few minutes. It was also, in most cases, the death of the bee.
The sting which is found at the end of the abdomen, is a very formid- able weapon. It consists of a sheath enclosing two needle shaped darts of exceeding fineness, placed side by side. Toward the end they are armed with minute teeth like those of a saw, whence it happens that it is frequently unable to withdraw the sting from the enemy it has pierced, causing its own death. When the sting enters the flesh the poison is squeezed into the wound from a bag near its base by a powerful muscular action. It is of so active a character that, it is said by those who profess to know, a single sting will kill a bee or other insect within a very short time. Animals have been known to be killed, and men nearly so by enraged swarms of bees whose hives had been accidentally knocked over.
With the possible exception of the ant, no other insect shows such won- derful knowledge and skill in the orderly manner in which they prepare their hives with honeycomb cells, fill them with honey extracted from flowers, and hermetically seal them for use when wanted.
The bee has been a prolific subject for poets and authors time out of mind, and has been pointed to as an example of industry for the young to follow. You remember, of course, when you first began going to school "in yander," when you didn't get your lessons, how the teacher told you that
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you were lazy and good for nothing, like the drone in the bee hive that couldn't be made to work, and how he complimented the busy bees by repeating for your edification these well remembered lines:
How doth the little busy bee, Improve each shining hour, Gathering honey all the day, From every fragrant flower!
Shakespeare, who seems to have had knowledge of almost everything, has this to say on the subject :
"Bees, by a law of nature, teach the art of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts ; where some, like magistrates correct at home ; others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; which pillage they, with merry march, bring home to the tent royal of their superior ; who, buried in his majesty, surveys the singing masons building roofs of gold; the civil citizens kneading up the honey; the poor mechanic porters crowding in their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; the sad-eyed justice with his surly hum, delivering o'er to executor's pale the lazy yawn- ing drone."
Those who have made a study of the habits of bees have ascertained that a hive consists of three kinds, females, males and workers. The females are called queens, not more than one of which can live in the same hive, the presence of one being necessary for its establishment and maintenance. The males are called drones and may exist by hundreds in a hive. The workers, or neuters, as they have been called, from the supposition that they belonged to neither sex, are the most numerous. The queen lays the eggs from which the bees are perpetuated. After impregnation takes place, she is capable of laying eggs within thirty-six hours. Before depositing an egg she examines whether the cell is prepared to receive it and adapted for its future condition, for queens, males and workers have cells specially constructed for them. When the cells are ready, the queen goes from one to another, with scarcely any repose, laying about 200 eggs daily .. The eggs first laid are said to be workers for ten or twelve days, then follows the laying of male eggs from ten to twenty days, less numerous than the workers in the proportion of about one to thirty. When the cells for queens are constructed she deposits a single egg in each, and her work is done. When the bees are hatched the queen departs with a swarm, and a new queen is liberated to take her place. The males do not work and are of no use except in the performance of their duties in procreation, after which they soon die, or are killed. The workers collect the honey, secrete the wax, build the cells, and feed and protect the young.
XXXIV. PIGEONS AND PIGEON ROOSTS.
As long ago in the mystic mazes of the past as the writer can remember there was what was called a pigeon roost in a tamarac swamp not far from Wolf creek mills. There were thousands of pigeons then where there are only dozens now.
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The history of the bird now called pigeon is very interesting, and in many of its details is quite wonderful. The pigeon is very gentle and peaceable, entirely harmless and even timid by nature.
Accurate and experienced "birdologists" who have made the history of the pigeon usually found on this continent a careful study, give accounts of vast flocks covering many square miles of territory in various places in the United States which occurred about this time. During the mating season they describe vast breeding places in western and southern forests, many miles in extent, where as many as ninety nests were counted on one tree. In these breeding places, which were different from the roosting places, thousands and hundreds of thousands of nests were built on the limbs of the trees wherever one could be fastened. The nests were carelessly made of sticks and grass and twigs; sometimes some of them were so porous that, when empty, one could see through them from the bottom.
Only one egg is usually hatched at a time, never more than two, but they make up any deficiency in that respect by repeating the operation several times during the season. The male and female take turns in covering the eggs until they are hatched. At first, and until they are ready to leave the nest and take care of themselves, they are fed on a sort of milk from the old birds which they "belch up" and feed to the young by inserting their bills into their open mouths. They grow rapidly and soon fly away, leaving the old birds to raise another and probably several more during the season.
The pigeon roost in question was in a dense growth of tamarac trees, and for some distance away from the swamp, oak and other trees were nightly full of these birds. They moved in immense droves or swarms, and looking in the direction from which they came they had the appearance of a heavy dark cloud coming up. As they flew through the air they made a great noise, reminding one of a hard gale passing through the limbs of the trees.
After the roost had been established, and its location had become generally known, the people for miles around turned out in great numbers to see the almost miraculous wonder and secure what birds they needed for food. They were provided with torches, poles, sticks and guns, and sacks and baskets in which to carry them home, and camp fires were built at different places around the roost which embraced several acres of ground. The birds began to arrive about sundown, and all did not get in until several hours later. As darkness came on many of them flew against the trees and limbs and were knocked down, crippled and killed. As they passed over where our camp was located they produced, with the motion of their wings in their flight, a very strong current of air that was remarkable. The birds came in by thousands and alighted everywhere, side by side, one above another until solid masses were formed on every tree in all directions. Here and there the limbs gave way under the heavy weight with a crash, and falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every limb was loaded.
It was a scene of the utmost uproar and confusion. Talking was out of the question, and only the sound of the guns could be heard above the great noise. Men and boys with long poles knocked the birds from the lower limbs and struck and killed many as they came flying in low down in great numbers to the roost.
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Our party remained until well on towards morning. After midnight the noise subsided to some extent, but in the early morning long before objects were at all distinguishable, the pigeons began to move off, in a different direction from that in which they had come the evening before. By sunrise all that was able to fly had disappeared. Hundreds were unable to get away, from having been hurt flying against trees, by the falling of trees and limbs, from exhaustion and other causes. A circuit was made by our party around and through this wonderful roost, and everywhere, from the lowest limbs to the highest, the view through the timber presented a per- petual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber. It was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions from the frequent fall of large branches broken down by the weight of the multitudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed large numbers of the birds themselves, while the clothes of those who made the excursion were completely covered with the excrement of the pigeons falling like snow flakes upon them.
A week or so after the roost had been established, the pigeons had broken camp and gone, no one knew whither. During the time they remained, where they went for food during the day no one could tell. They may have gone ten or twenty miles away, or even one or two hundred, as it is thought by those who have investigated the matter that they can. fly for many hours at the rate of a mile a minute. Their power of flight enables them to survey and pass over an astonishing extent of country in a very short time. An instance is recorded of pigeons having been killed in New York with their crops full of rice which they must have collected in the fields of Georgia or Carolina, these states being the nearest in which they could possibly have procured that kind of food. As their power of digestion is so great that they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours, they must, in this case, have traveled between 300 and 400 miles in six hours.
After they left the roost it presented a scene of desolation and destruc- tion hard to picture. Many of the limbs on all the trees were broken, hun- dreds of trees had been felled by the weight of the pigeons roosting on them, and the ground was covered completely with the excrement of the birds, as were also the trees and limbs. Vegetation was killed, and even to this day evidences of the destruction of the multitudes of pigeons that roosted there at that time are still visible.
XXXV. COURTING AND MARRYING.
Of course, in order to keep up the population, it was necessary to marry and be given in marriage that the earth might be multiplied and replenished, and therefore there was "courting" among the young folks, and when a wedding was announced, until it finally came off the country for miles around was on the tip-toe of expectation, for everybody of respecta- bility knew that they would be invited to the wedding and "infair."
Before the wedding occurred, to the high contracting parties the most
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important feature in connection with the interesting event was-getting ready, or in other words, "courting," or "sparking," as it was generally called in those days. Spelling schools, singing schools, corn huskings, quilt- ing bees and the like through the week furnished opportunities for meetings when the expectant groom would accompany his best girl home through the woods along the Indian trail.
Don't you remember those evening strolls with her who was to be your partner for life leaning gently on your arm, her face upturned, wreathed in smiles of perfect satisfaction, her pouting cherry red lips ready for the osculatory greeting that was sure to be forthcoming? Of course you do. On one of these occasions, after the first part of the night had been nearly spent in arranging the details for the wedding, if our information is correct, about the time the roosters were crowing for the midnight hour, the expectant groom bade his fiancée good night at the gate and started home alone through the woods. After leaving the cabin and getting into the dark forest he was not long in becoming' convinced that he had made one of the greatest mistakes of his life. The night was in the darkest hours, and soon the angry, howling wolves were collecting in large numbers. He knew his life was in danger, but he took his chances and went along blundering and stumbling over brush, stumps and logs, until he came in sight of a cabin a half mile or so in the distance, and on arriving there he climbed up on the shed for horses and cattle. The pack of wolves were but a few rods behind him. Finding they were unable to capture the fugitive, they gave up the chase and apparently retreated back into the woods. He climbed down and resumed his journey through the woods with all pos- sible speed. He had not gone far, however, until he heard the wolves coming again. They were a considerable distance away, and he hurried on as fast as his legs would carry him until he reached another cabin. Here a new trouble confronted him. Two or three savage dogs came out of their kennels and seemed to be determined to tear him to pieces, but the wolves coming within hearing distance they started after them, leaving our hero to make the remainder of his way home unmolested.
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