The Baraboo news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1884-1911, 1905-07-12

| ioAg IIlngeS OF waving teelers
about their broad mouths dis
ported themselves in plain sight
about the entrance of the little
streams, but only to tantalize the
wondering eyes Of the small boys
who could scarce get their elders
to believe what were too often
stamped, fish stories.
Then the feathered tribe was not
missing. In the early springtime,
mornings, the whole valley was
not only flooded with sunshine
driving away the last lingering
traces of winter, but the song of
the grouse or prairie chicken in
mating season fairly flooded it with
music also. The continuous bass
notes of the male stacatoed with
the piping of the hens kept up this
strange, weird entertainment till
long past sunrise. One spring,
the passenger pigeons visited US
in such multitudes as to not only
threaten the wheatfelds newly
seeded with having tobe done again,
but at nightfall, filled every grove,
often to breaking down large
limbs under the great weight.
Every old shot gun and musket
capable of throwing shot or fine
gravel was brought into use, and
how anxiously the assembled neigh
bors, boys and all, armed like the
embat tiled farmers who fired the
shot heard round the world, waited
breathlessly in ambush the coming
of the feathered host, when upon
an agreed signal, a whole volleY
was fired, each on his chosen cluster
of victims, whereupOn deafening
f1utter of wings, and the vast null
titude had gone leaving the ground
strewn with the fallen. Many a
toothsome dinner the next day
rewarded the effort which was
mostly sport after all. And I must
not forget bob white ia the winter
time, and how a common wagon Or
sleigh box, inverted, served as a
trap when a long rope was pulled to
let it fall over many dozen of these
plump little, white meated creatures
SO rare always 10 the palate. Of
course every boy had his dead fall
and figure four trap in the rabbit
runs which afforded enough sport
for the trouble, and likewise some
what protected the apple trees
from the depredations of these
rodents.
And there was other open air
recreation in the winter season.
The German bluff dweller had no
meadows or hay, so they went to
the great marsh to the north. In
the winter mornings long process
ions of OK teams drawing sleds with
hay racks could be seen going after
! the hav that had been cut and
stacked on the great marsh. At
such times these German farmers
would often sing some familiar song
| of the Fatherland, for they were
all good singers. No chorus OF. the
latter days has ever to me ap-
preached the excellence the melody
of that symphony heard in the
bright winter mornings swelling up
through the frosty valleys of that
hill country. The performers were
! not doing it for pay, but from the
fullness of their happy hearts which
even in those days were quite salts
fed.
Portage City was the market
town in those days. We could hear
the long drawn out whistle of the
Ilocomotive on the St. Paul line
coming over the great marsh to
the north, even before we had ever
seen how d locomotive looked. It
was profusely Ornamented with
brass trimmings as bright as burn
| 1ished gold, and in the glistening
sunshine was something of marvel
Gus beauty to behold.
AS l close this imperfect and de
sultory chronicle of the old days in
| Greenfield, should some inQuisitive
reader inquire where all the bad
people we're in those days, my
answer is, not in Greenfield. Some
| they did have over in Columbia
county, but very few crossed the
| Wisconsin river in those days on
| o,,+ of +ha risky ferry ? nd Ia I pr