--A Baptism in Nature--New
Birds--The Adventures of Watch--Scotch
Correction--Marauding Indians.

III. LIFE ON A WISCONSIN FARM 90

Humanity in Oxen--Jack, the Pony--Learning to Ride--Nob
and Nell--Snakes--Mosquitoes and their Kin--Fish and
Fishing--Considering the Lilies--Learning to Swim--A
Narrow Escape from Drowning and a Victory--Accidents to
Animals.

IV. A PARADISE OF BIRDS 137

Bird Favorites--The Prairie Chickens--Water-Fowl--A Loon
on the Defensive--Passenger Pigeons.

V. YOUNG HUNTERS 168

American Head-Hunters--Deer--A Resurrected
Woodpecker--Muskrats--Foxes and Badgers--A Pet
Coon--Bathing--Squirrels--Gophers--A Burglarious Shrike.

VI. THE PLOUGHBOY 199

The Crops--Doing Chores--The Sights and Sounds of
Winter--Road-making--The Spirit-rapping
Craze--Tuberculosis among the Settlers--A Cruel
Brother--The Rights of the Indians--Put to the Plough at
the Age of Twelve--In the Harvest-Field--Over-Industry
among the Settlers--Running the Breaking-Plough--Digging
a Well--Choke-Damp--Lining Bees.

VII. KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS 240

Hungry for Knowledge--Borrowing Books--Paternal
Opposition--Snatched Moments--Early Rising proves a Way
out of Difficulties--The Cellar Workshop--Inventions--An
Early-Rising Machine--Novel Clocks--Hygrometers, etc.--A
Neighbor's Advice.

VIII. THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY 262

Leaving Home--Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville--A Ride
on a Locomotive--At the State Fair in Madison--Employment
in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien--Back to
Madison--Entering the University--Teaching School--First
Lesson in Botany--More Inventions--The University of the
Wilderness.

INDEX 289

Illustrations

JOHN MUIR _Frontispiece_

MUIR'S LAKE (FOUNTAIN LAKE) AND THE GARDEN MEADOW 62

OUR FIRST WISCONSIN HOME 100

CLOCK WITH HAND RISING AND SETTING WITH THE SUN, INVENTED
BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 132

BAROMETER INVENTED BY THE AUTHOR IN HIS BOYHOOD 164

COMBINED