James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

For many weeks Jim thought about his problem. At last he reached the decision that he would earn just enough to take care of himself for the first year and let the other three years take care of themselves. He had not as yet completed his high school course at Central School, and the job of doing so was also of prime consideration, since a diploma was an essential requirement to entering a university.

Even as the century neared its end, Central School remained a combined grade and high school where students from six and seven mingled with boys and girls of seventeen and eighteen years of age. It was a beautiful school surrounded by trees and sat in the center of a large common wherein lay a wonderful playground. Despite the fact that it was a combined school of all grades it had everything to offer the children of that day. It remains very much the same today as it was almost fifty years ago.

Without choice Jim set to work doing anything in the line of odd-jobs. He beat carpets, mowed lawns and yards and raked leaves in the fall months. He also shoveled snow from neighbors’ walks and porches during the long, cold wintry months. He even scraped mortar from bricks at an old building that was being destroyed. Also, during the winter, he ran innumerable traplines and from these he managed to save quite a few dollars. He realized to the utmost that all of this was work, but since it was for “the cause” he did not mind. For Jim thoroughly enjoyed his trapping in the blustery winds of the cold, northern winters, and his shoveling of snow from sidewalks and porches. He enjoyed the scraping of mortar from bricks, the mowing of yards and the beating of carpets, for through this work he was coming nearer and nearer to his goal.

With the arrival of early fall, the time came when cord wood would have to be put up, and here again Jim proved himself efficient. Cord after cord of wood he cut up for neighbors and friends. For each cord he received ample payment. Then, when he learned that there was a shortage of firemen, Jim promptly signed up as a volunteer. All these jobs Jim picked up over a period of one year.

In early September of the fall of 1897 Jim went back to Central School, and it was not long before the faculty as well as his fellow students learned of his desire and determination to enter college, a desire which they regarded as being absurd and futile.

All this, however, only made Jim dig in all the harder and made him fight more gallantly against the odds that were pitting themselves against him. For the young man was absolutely determined to show them all up now. He felt that by actually attaining that for which he was striving, he would be showing them all just how small and insignificant they really were.

Adding injury to insult there came a blow to Jim’s dignity and pride that hurt and touched him deeply. For Professor Austin of Central School once asked him:

“How are you going to get into college, James, without a diploma—break in with a set of burglar’s tools?”

Throughout all those hectic schooldays Jim was constantly being urged by a great many people to give up his childish passion for writing, and turn to something that would prove itself more profitable and worthwhile in years to come. Since Jim was rapidly becoming quite an expert with a rifle, he was told that there was an excellent field in rifle matches which would bring him good money. Likewise the prospect of bagging big game was proposed as a means of earning considerable money. Fortunately for Jim none of these ideas appealed to him.

There was but one teacher in all of Central School who firmly was convinced of Jim Curwood’s future. Her name was Miss Boyce and her loveliness always made Jim’s heart beat faster. At that time she was a lovely young woman, not many years his senior and she possessed one of the most lovable characters that Jim had ever known. She was constantly urging him onward as only very few others in all of Owosso were doing. She even went so far as to arrange a schedule whereby she could have Jim alone and thereby instruct him privately. The private teaching took place in her own home and Jim was sincerely moved by her earnest interest in his career.