Wisconsin School for the Deaf - Tattler Yearbook (Delavan, WI)

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read, with hi left hand, at the «anir time rolling up the part he hnd read. In Rome when these rolls were made, one man would dictate mid many slaves would each write one ropy. This made books a little rheaper than hofore, and there were many book shop anil public libraries in Rome. But these Jong rolls were not convenient and papyrus did not keep well, so people began to use parchment or sheepskin. This was cut in rectangular sheets and bound together at one side with thongs. So, about the 4th century after Christ, people had books which looked very much like ours. But. for a thousand years after that there were no books except those which had been copied by hand. All through the middle Ages books were made by the monks in the monasteries. Each page was lucked on a pioco of wood and it often took several years to copy one single book. The lettering was very beautiful. The beginning of each part and sometimes the first word of each page was written in bright Ink of various colors. Herr und there were initial letters with pictures in brilliant colors. These colors were ground and mixed up by little peasant boys. The cover of important works were often studded and banded with gold and •OQO- ailver and fastened with huge clasps. Most of the book were copies of Greek and Latin classics and Bibles and church works written in Latin. The monks were very painstaking in their work and through them many important books were saved for us. For more than a thousand years, a period when almost all writing was done by the monks, the quills of geese or swans were used. In the 18th century, quills were improved and hardened by dipping them into a boiling solution of alum. Book remained very scarce and expensive until after the introduction of paper made from linen and the invention of printing. When the first libraries were established in England, books were o rare and vuluablr thnt they were usually attached to the shelve. by iron chains to prevent their being stolen. Some of the books were bound in fine cloth embroidered and trimmed with gold and precious stones. W are lucky because we have more and better books to read than people used to have. The old books were hard to rend. We can be thankful that wc do not have to study our history from clay tablets or long papyrus rolls, but live In a time when everyone can read and enjoy good books and have several in his home. • o o o ALONG THE OREGON TRAIL WITH EZRA MEEKER By Elisabeth Oakland On April 10, 1830. the first wagon train started from St. Louis on its way to Oregon with thousands of men and women to make new homes. Exra Meeker, one of the later pioneers, was born that snnie year in Huntsville, Ohio. In 1852, Exra Meeker and his family left Eddyville, Iowa, to make their way by ox team over the Oregon trail to the Pacific coast. They reached Kanesville, now called Council Bluffs, where they found many wagons wuiting to cross the dangerous Missouri River. In 1852 the army of pioneers was at least five hundred mile long. Many wagons were ahead of the Meeker as they left the Missouri river for Meeker found date inscribed on Independence Rock and elsewhere along the trail. Beside the ox teams and homes there were cattle to follow behind or around the wagons. Sickness and death followed the terrible dust of the wagon train. Thl pioneer army of a great body of people and moving animals made a column about a hundred feet wide along the deep wagon ruts. Tho men on homeback scouted for Indians and game, while the women and children drove the team and stock. Sometimes the sand would be hurled by the strong wind of the prairie into their faces and hands. They suffered great loss through the wind and rain storin'', for winds and flood along the Platte River carried off many thing . Most of the river , that they had to ford, were about half a mile wide and very dangerous as they had quicksand in them. The Indians made trouble for the pioneers, for they could not understand tho white men using their lands, gross and game. One night the wagons, each chained to the one ahead, were arranged in a circle with the cattle inside. Soon after the weary pioneer had retired, they heard a great roar which proved to he a buffalo stampede of such sixe that in the morning the men shot the stragglers and saved the meat for the trail. By the time western Nebraska and Wyoming were reached, traveling was easier, for the un-

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♦ EARLIEST BOOKS By Richard Davie Many year ago then were no books, paper , pencil or pens in the world. There were no fairy tales or school books, or books that told of brave men and deeds of war and peace. But the people told stories of what happened to them. People have always wanted stories. Long ago they had to listen to their stories told by word of mouth instead of reading them for themselves. These stories were colled legend and were handed down from father to son. Afterawhile the people were not satisfied with stories. They wanted the hunter and warriors to show by pictures what they had done. So the cave men used the stone walls of their caves for drawing . Those who were listening to the tale were thrilled to see the picture of the monster with which their hero had fought. C-ave have been found in parts of France, which have pictures of mammoths, cave bears, and saber-toothed tigers on the wall . Some of these picture are colored. Scientists tell us that the people, who lived in these caves lived so many thousands of year ago that no one knows where they came from or where they went. For many thousands of years the people could not tell anything about what had happened except by drawing such picture . Then they began to use pictures for actions or time. A number of suns was a symbol meaning a number of day . The Chinese and Japanese still use such symbols to represent words in their alphabet . Later symbols were used to represent the sounds of the words instead of the words themselves. This was the beginning of the making of an alphabet. We do not know who first used uch an alphabet but some people believe the Phoenicians had one and passed it on to the Greek . However, the earliest date we can be sure of. when a real alphabet—that is, one that was not picture-writing—wo in u e, i the first part of the ninth century Before Christ. This is proved by the famous Moabite Stone on which were carved the adventures and deeds of valor of Mesha. King of Moab, who fought to free his subject from Jehoram. King of Judah. This story is also told in the Old Te tamenL This stone was discovered in 1868 and can be seen in the Louvre todav. The Babylonians impressed character on soft clay tablets or bricks, and then baked them hard in square or cylindrical shapes. The laws of Solon were carved on wooden tablets and set up on the Acropolis in Athens. The twelve tablets of the old Roman law were engraved on •tone. Plates of ivory, bronr,e, or lead were used for public records. These plates were often fastened together with hinges and looked like a modern book. For a long time papyrus which was made in Egypt was used and the book were made in rolls, being about one and a hnlf feet wide and sometimes fifty feet long. Many of these papyrus rolls have been found in the coffins of mummies in the tombs of Egypt. The people wrote on one side of the papyrus and wound it around a short stick. In reading such a roll the reader held it in his right hand and unwound it. as he

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marked graves along the trail bore mute testimony of those who would never reach the coast. They passed through the Rocky Mountains by way of South Paw an easy gateway to the West. When the Meeker porty reached the Snake River, cholera broke out again in the terrible dust. They had a hard time crossing the river in its deep canyon. On socing an enterprising young man calking his wagon box with tar, the Meekers did likewise and soon their goods were safely across. For several days Mr. Meeker helped people across the river in his wagon box. thereby earning at least a hundred and ten dollars of which only two dollars and seventy-five cents remained on his arrival at Portland. Five long, tiresome months of travel had brought them about eighteen hundr«d miles from the Missouri River. After reaching The Dalles, they found a great crowd of weary and worn travellers. Some went by boat down the Columbia to Portland. A few of them were thinking about their old homes or their dear ones who slept in graves along the trail, but most of them were hopeful of what the future held for them. Soon after the Meekers were established in their new home in the Puget Sound Valley, a letter came from his parents asking when someone could come for them. Mr. Meeker’s brother wont to work in the timber to earn enough money for the trip to Iowa that winter. Some months later hearing that his fumily was in want on the trail not far away, Mr. Meeker left his wife and child and went out horsoback through Notches Pass to holp his parents over the mountains. One day he saw many wagons being lowered over a steep clilT. The travellers had not enough rope to reach the bottom so they killed three steer and cut up their hides into strips to lengthen the rope. Twenty-nine wagons were safely lowered down the cliff, only one being broken to pieces. On reaching hi father’s camp Exra Meeker learned that his mother and brother had died and were buried along the trail. Cutting log , roots and rolling stone away to make a road for the wagons through the forests, the pnrty reached Puget Sound. In a covered wagon drawn by an ox team u he had traveled west in 1862 Mr. Meeker planned to follow the old trail to Washington to enlist President Roosevelt's aid and that of Congress in marking the Old Oregon Trail In memory of the brave women nod men who had endured the hardship of travel. He left Puyallup. Washington, on January 29. li»Ort. for Seattle to raise funds for his trip. At Olympia where the old trial was about two miles from the city, he placed a stone marked The Oregon Trail: 18-13—67.’ Collecting money where he gave addresses, he bought monuments to place on the old trail. Some towns had already put stones in place. On stopping ut South Pass Mr. Mt-efci-r planned to place a monument there later. A few miles on. the Devil's Gate and Spl'.t Rock were old landmarks. A monument was erected in the beautiful city of Kearney, which had been known as old Fort Kearney. Passing through farms and wheat fields which had been a desert In 1862, he found towns where none had been in the old day . New roads, not curved or winding but intersecting each other at right angles, marked township lines. After many hardships Omaha was left behind and his route led him to Indianapolis, New York, Trenton. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington where Mr. Meeker received warm welcome. One day, driving hi- ox team through the city of New York, a policeman sent him to the station, and tried to drive the team, but being ignorant of oxen, he had to free .Mr. Meeker who went on through New Jersey where he visited relatives. At last he reached Washington. President Roosevelt was very much Interested in .Mr. Meeker’s idea and was willing to help build the new highway to the Columbia called The Oregon Trail.” Mr. Meeker shipped hia outfit most of the way back to Portland aa he was longing for his home life after being gone for twenty-eight months, lie had succeeded in covering the old trail. The ox team trip was repealed in 1911, and in 1915 he made the trip in an automobile. Nine years later he flow across the continent in an airplane. In the summer of 1928 once again this undaunted pioneer of almost ninety-eight started East in a Ford cur but wan taken ill in Detroit where he remained in a hospital for two months. In December he passed away in Seattle where he had been taken. Had Exra Meeker lived to be one hundred year old, he would have been the central figure in the celebration of the Covered Wagon Centennial which was observed by the American people from April 10 to December 21 In 1930.