To John's lot also fell the task of splitting rails for the long lines of zig-zag fences. Making rails was hard work and required no little skill. Sometimes John would cut and split one hundred rails a day from short, knotty, oak timbers, swinging the heavy mallet from early morning to late at night, until his hands were sore. He was proud of the amount of work that he was able to do, but the heavy exertions of those days probably prevented his growth and earned for him the title of the "Runt of the Family."
After eight years of very hard work the farm was at last cleared. John had worked as hard as any man, often rising at four o'clock in the morning and toiling till late at night. He made the rash vow that he would do a man's work, and even when he was not well, he made good his pledge. Then, when at last the land was cleared, his father bought a half section of wild land four or five miles away, and the task of clearing, breaking up, and fencing began all over again.
Soon after the entire family moved to the new farm, which was known as Hickory Hill Farm. It was high and dry, and very good land, but there was no living water, and so a well, ninety feet deep, had to be dug. With the exception of the first ten feet of ground, was hard, fine-grained sandstone. Mr. Muir tried to blast the sandstone, but failed, and he decided to have John do all the work with mason's chisels. This was a long, hard job, with a good deal of danger in it. He had to sit cramped in a place about three feet in diameter, and chip, chip away, day after day, for months. In the morning Mr. Muir and David lowered John in a windlass, then went away to the farm work and returned at noon to haul him up for dinner. After dinner he was promptly lowered again and left there until evening.
One day he was almost suffocated by carbonic acid gas which had settled at the bottom during the night. He was almost overcome as soon as he had been let down, but managed to shout, "Take me out". He was hauled up almost more dead than alive. Water was thrown down to absorb the gas, and a bundle of hay attached to a light rope was dropped and used to carry down pure air to stir up the poison. At last water was secured and two iron-bound buckets swung, which drew water from the well for many a long year.
It was fortunate for John that he had made good progress at school before he left Scotland, for he had few opportunities to study after he arrived on the backwoods farm.
For many years nearly every waking moment was spent in doing some kind of manual work. However, he was hungry for knowledge, and eagerly read the few books which came his way. Among these were the Bible, parts of Shakespeare's poems, and selections from Milton, Cowper and others, not often read by boys of his age.
When he was twenty-three he decided to attend the State University. His father told him that he would have to support himself by his own efforts. This he did, first by living very simply, and then by seizing every opportunity to earn a dollar. He taught school and worked in the harvest fields during the long summer vacations. When in college he lived so frugally that sometimes he did not spend more than half a dollar a week.
The greatest interest of John Muir's life had always been the things he found in nature. From the days when, as a little fellow, he played around the fields and streams near Dunbar in Scotland, he had loved the open air and the hundreds of things which lived and grew there. When he did finish his course at college he suffered from eye trouble, and was even threatened with blindness. He there and then decided to live in the open and see as much of the world as possible.
He set out on a walking tour through several States. He visited Cuba, then the Isthmus of Panama, and then went straight to San Francisco, where he arrived with less than a dollar in his pocket. This distance was all covered on foot. He slept in the open most of the time and gathered biological specimens as he went. Sometimes he ran completely out of money, and when this happened he secured work until he had sufficient to proceed.
Soon after he arrived in San Francisco he visited the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from then until the time of his death he found these great hills a source of never-ending joy. He tramped among them until he knew them thoroughly. It was chiefly through his efforts that Congress set aside Yosemite as a national park. He was often called "Father of the Yosemite."