So the long, long summer passed by, and the autumn, and the Indian summer; and at last the great winter came, and it snowed and snowed, and it was so cold that the snow wasn't off by the Fourth of July; and then it snowed and snowed till the snow never went off at all; and then it got so cold that it snowed all the time, till the snow covered all the animals, and then the trees, and then the mountains. Then it would thaw a little, and streams of water would run over the snow; then it would freeze again, and pack it into solid ice. Still it went on, snowing and thawing and freezing till the ice was a mile deep over Wisconsin, and the whole United States was one great skating rink.
So it kept on for about a million years, until once when the spring came and the south winds blew, it began to thaw up. Then the ice came sliding down from the mountains and hills, tearing up rocks little and big, from the size of a chip to the size of a meeting house, crushing forests as you would crush an egg-shell, and wiping out rivers as you would wipe out a chalk-mark. So it came pushing, thundering, grinding along slowly enough, but with tremendous force, this mile-deep glacier, like an immense plow drawn by a million oxen.
So the ice plowed across Oconto County, and little Favosites was rooted out from the quiet place where he had lain so long; but, by good fortune, he happened to slip into a crevice in the ice, where he wasn't much crowded, else he would have been ground to powder, as most of his relatives were, and I shouldn't have had this story to tell.
Well, the ice slid along, melting all the while, and making great torrents of water which, as they swept onward, covered land with clay and pebbles, till at last it came to a great swamp, overgrown with tamarac and cedar. Here it stopped and melted, and all the rocks and stones and dirt it had carried with it, little Favosites and all, were dumped into one great heap.
Ages after, a farmer in Grand Chote, Michigan, plowing up his clover field, to sow for winter wheat, picked up a curious bit of "petrified honeycomb," and gave it to the schoolboys to take to their teacher, to hear what he would say about it. And now you have read what he said.
HOW THE STONE-AGE CHILDREN PLAYED
By Charles C. Abbott
Not long since I wandered along a pretty brook that rippled through a narrow valley. I was on the lookout for whatever birds might be wandering that way, but saw nothing of special interest. So, to while away the time, I commenced geologizing; and, as I plodded along my lonely way, I saw everywhere traces of an older time, when the sparkling rivulet that now only harbors pretty salamanders was a deep creek, tenanted by many of our larger fishes.
How fast the earth from the valley's slopes may have been loosened by frost and washed by freshets, and carried down to fill up the old bed of the stream, we will not stop to enquire; for older traces of this older time were also met with here. As I turned over the loose earth by the brook-side, and gathered here and there a pretty pebble, I chanced upon a little arrow-point.
Whoever has made a collection, be it of postage stamps or birds' eggs, knows full well how securing one coveted specimen but increases eagerness for others; and so it was with me that pleasant afternoon. Just one pretty arrow-point cured me of my laziness, banished every trace of fatigue, and filled me with the interest of eager search; and I dug and sifted and washed the sandy soil for yards along the brook-side, until I had gathered at least a score of curious relics of the long-departed red men, or rather of the games and sports and pastimes of the red men's hardy and active children.