CHAPTER II
PAPERS OF PERCY R. AND GEORGE E. CROTHERS

Life on Jordan Lake by Percy R. Crothers

The country schools were nothing to brag about in those days and during the hard times following the Civil War, boys were often kept out of school to help on the farm. I never got more than four months of schooling a year after I was fourteen years old.

Children on the farm were supposed to find their own entertainment. There were no movies, Boy Scouts, or organized ball teams. We used to play “three old cat” or pom pom pull away or hide and seek. I never cared for athletic sports anyway and to this day the sport pages have no attraction for me.

My uncle James’ farm was located along the south shore of Jordan Lake, one of the most beautiful of the small lakes found around Wisconsin. My home was less than half a mile from the north shore. There were lots of fish in the lake, and a neighbor boy could catch them readily, but a fish would never bite my hook. The only thing I excelled in was swimming. I was the champion swimmer in that neighborhood. Ducks and geese were plentiful on the lake during the spring and fall. In the earlier years wild pigeons came through in vast hoards.

I think it was in the spring of 1872 that the pigeons were a little late in reaching us, and the farmers were just seeding their grain. Grain at that time was scattered by hand and the pigeons would sweep over the fields as fast as we kids could run. Scarce a seed would be left. My sister and I nearly ran our legs off in the spring chasing pigeons. I think it was that spring that they nested in the tamarack swamp a few miles to the north of us. They were so thick there that they broke the branches off the trees and people would drive for miles to see them. The first game I ever shot was a wild pigeon. That was when I was 12 years old and that was the last year they ever came through. This bird has been extinct now for many years.

One of our early sports at the beginning of winter was fishing through the ice. As soon as the ice would become thick enough to be safe, it would be as smooth and clear as glass. Where the water was not more than four feet deep, one could see the fish through the ices plainly. A boy on skates with an ax in his hands and a short handled spear in his belt would skate along near the shore until he startled a fish; then away they would go. The fish could see the skater, too, and he would flee at top speed and dodge about. The skater would try to strike the ice directly over the fish so he would be skating and dodging and striking in a mad scramble. A hard blow of the ax directly over the fish would stun it, and it would remain quiet until the skater could chop a hole and spear the fish. The larger fish cold be caught this way, and it was great sport. Another method of fishing much practiced was torch light spearing in the spring after the ice would go out. I never enjoyed this method so much because being the youngest of the family it was always my job to row the boat while the older boys did the spearing.

It was the practice at that time and place for the farmers to fence their cultivated fields
and in the summer allow their cows to hunt their pasture in the woods. A bell would be placed on the lead cow and it was our job to hunt the cows and bring them home in the late afternoon. Usually they would be found within a mile or two of home, but in the late summer when the feed was getting scarce, they would often range several miles from home.

At such times it would often be dark when we would get home with them. There would come a time late in each summer when the woods would be thick with toad stools. They would last a week or so and the cattle were crazy for them. When they began to get scarce the cattle would run their legs off looking for them. That would mean trouble for the poor cow boy. Worst of all, that would occur about the time the corn was in the roasting stage, and the bears would come down from the north for their annual feast of green corn. We had a neighbor who kept a hound that was a famous bear dog and every day or two we would hear their dog chasing a bear or perhaps killing one. I began hunting the cows when twelve years old, and to a twelve year old boy in the woods after dark every bush looks like a bear. It is no wonder that my hair turned white early in life.

The nearest high school to us was the one in the village of Oxford, five miles away. My cousin, George, who was just my age, and I felt we could use a little more education, so in the fall of 1879 when we were 17 years old, we rented a small two room house of the edge of town. After moving in a few necessary articles of furniture, we moved in and were ready for school when it opened. We would move in on Sunday afternoon with our week’s provisions and on Friday after school we would hike for home if we did not get a chance to ride. In order to have a fair division of labor one of us would act as cook and the other as chamber maid one week and the next week exchange jobs. We got along fine. Our worst trouble was with our noon lunch. We did not have time to build a fire and warm things up, and in very cold weather everything would be frozen except the cake. We found that cake would not freeze.

Anyway, we got along. For that time and place Oxford school was a good school and we profited by our winter’s experience, not only by what we learned in the school but in brushing up against a lot of new young people, many of whom knew much more of the social graces than we did, which was a help to us. At the teachers’ examination in the spring, the county superintendent pronounced us qualified to teach a third grade school. I never made use of the permission, but my cousin George did and in time became a lawyer and newspaper editor, a man of influence in his state.