The wild heart

"The Wild Heart" by Emma-Lindsay Squier is a collection of nature sketches and true animal stories written in the early 20th century. Told from a child’s perspective on the shores of Puget Sound, it follows a girl and her brother as they befriend, rescue, and observe wild creatures—encounters that celebrate kinship with nature while facing the tenderness and cost of loving the untamed.

The opening of this collection begins with Gene Stratton-Porter’s introduction, praising the book’s sincerity, plain style, and deep attunement to the wild, urging parents to honor children born with “wild hearts.” The first pieces recount rescuing Skygak, an oil-soaked gull who heals, bonds with the children, and finally answers the migration call with a circling farewell. A baby rabbit, U-Chu-Ka, is gently tamed with apples and play—only to be killed by a passing hunter, leaving a small memorial on the trail. In Sanctuary, a frightened fawn dashes to the cabin; the children mislead the hounds with meat, shelter the fawn, then release him when his mother returns. A moonlit “faery night” brings quiet wonders—a bear, rabbits, skunks—and a trapped fox they free at a forest pool, flinging the cruel trap away. Next, an injured heron, Henry, recovers and strikes up an odd friendship with a bantam rooster until jealousy from a hen drives Henry back to the sky. A seal pup, Alfred, becomes an affectionate, trainable pet but starts raiding nets; with regret, the children send him off with fishermen, and the section closes by evoking the Hill Trail and the quail’s call that leads into the next vignette. (This is an automatically generated summary.)