James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

“No matter how hard the work is, and no matter what it might be, I shall always do my task thoroughly.”

The stones that he had picked up all spring and summer finally set Jimmie to serious thinking. Every now and then after he had worked an hour or two, he would walk over to a shade tree nearby and sit down to mop the grime and perspiration from his brow. Then he would look out over the long, fertile fields that were once not so fertile and resolve that he could do anything that he should set out to do, if only he would adjust and drive himself toward it. The look in his young eyes denoted that of an adventurer. The eyes for thrills and dangers of the unknown. Even at the age of seven years, young James Oliver Curwood had begun to wonder what lay just over the brink of the next ridge.

Then, as if no such thoughts had even come to him, he would return to his task of piling stones; but as he worked he would experience a thrill, a feeling such as he had never known before as he stooped down to pick up the fragments of boulders. True, it was monotonous there in the hot broiling sun, but to Jimmie, there now was something creative in that piling up of rocks—something of which he was justly proud.

“I experienced a greater thrill when I had done three piles than I did when I had but accomplished two.”

With the arrival of fall and early winter, James Curwood saw that the work his sons and he had done had been a success. His crops had all turned out good and his farm was now a thing of beauty instead of a stone quarry. It was quite obvious that the hard labor and toil his sons and he had administered had not been in vain. Mr. Curwood being an honest and God-fearing man, thanked his Maker for his family’s salvation.

Each afternoon that winter after a hard day’s work, “the three men of the family” would trudge up to the small, white house to be greeted by the good mother and a meal of wholesome, plain, but substantial food.

The Curwood home was small, warm and comfortable, even though humble. The important item was that the little family was happy in its new home. In those days there were no electric lights, telephones, radios or motion pictures or even automobiles. So it was only natural that the fine Curwoods always were close to the “home fires.” Though meager and humble their home, no other family could have been happier.

They used the old type of Lion Brand coffee at two pounds for a quarter, and the usual stick of candy once a month or so. They had plenty of eggs and bread, for Mrs. Curwood raised hens and young chickens. Above all else, the neighbors nearby thought the world of the Curwoods and considered them “real, down-to-earth country people.”

As the winter of 1886 at last settled over them, Jimmie’s father and his family settled down to a long, cold winter, snug and secure in their own home, which by now was nearly paid for. The migration to Ohio had proved itself successful in every respect. No longer did Jimmie persist in his childish devilment, for there was neither the place nor the time for it.