05 The 13 Club

A man may pay millions of dollars to have a hospital, a library, or a museum named after him, and another who has paid nothing, done nothing, deserved nothing, and asked nothing has two of the biggest things in the World—the two continents North and South America—named after him, and people will go on forever calling them America after him—an unimportant, almost unknown man named Amerigo.

Do you know the song that begins, “My Country, 'Tis of Thee”? What do you mean by “My Country”? It is a part, the smaller part, of North America.

Have you a buffalo nickel in your pocket—a 5-cent piece? If not, perhaps you can borrow one just to look at. On the head side is the picture of an Indian with feathers in his hair. Why do you suppose our country has the picture of an Indian instead of a white man on the nickel? On the tail side is the picture of a buffalo. Why do you suppose our country has a picture of a buffalo on the nickel instead of a horse or a cow?

Well, long before there were any white men here at all, or any horses or cows, there were a great many Indians and a great many buffaloes in this country. Now there are very few Indians and very few buffaloes in America, so these pictures on the nickel are to remind us that the Indian is the first American man and the buffalo is the first American animal.

If you will look at the printing on the nickel you will see it says “United States of America.” That's the full name of our country, but it is too long for us to say United States of America every time, so we usually say just United States or just America or use just the initials U. S. A.

Have you ever seen a picture of a tall man with a suit of clothes that looked as if it had been made out of a flag, with red and white striped breeches, a long-tailed coat, and a tall hat with stars on it? There never was such a man really, but he is supposed to be the picture of the United States. As the initials of the United States are U. S., some one said they stand for Uncle Sam, so the old fellow dressed in a flag we call Uncle Sam.

The map of the U. S. looks as if it were made like a patch-work quilt of patches of different sizes and shapes. These patches are the States that are United—that means, joined to one another. As a matter of fact, of course, there are no lines between the States. The lines on the map are marked on the ground by stone posts set so far apart that you may cross from one State to another without even knowing when you are in a different State. Each State has towns and cities and country. I live in a city and the city is in the State of Maryland. You may live in a city or a town or in the country in another State. But every one in the U.S. must live in some State unless—I'll tell you later the few places he may live without being in any State.

Some of the States have straight sides and some have one, two or more crooked sides. Some are big and some are little. The biggest State is Texas, at the bottom, near the center—only we don't say bottom, we say south. The smallest State is Rhode Island, which is not an island at all. It is near the upper right-hand corner—only we don't say upper right-hand corner, we say northeast. Texas would make more than 200 Rhode Islands. That is, you could put more than 200 Rhode Islands in Texas.

Not so long ago there was no United States. There were only thirteen little States along the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. These States were so small they thought they ought to form a club. There is an old story about a man who wanted to break a bundle of sticks. He tried and he tried but he couldn't break the bundle. Then some one told him to take the bundle apart and break each stick separately; so he did, and broke them easily. The States thought that they, in the same way, might be broken easily if separate, so they tied themselves together like a bundle of sticks in order that they might not be “broken” by an enemy. And so the 13 States formed a 13 club and called themselves the United States. They took as their motto “In Union is Strength,” which means “In one bundle we are strong.”

Now thirteen is generally considered an unlucky number, but these 13 States were not afraid of bad luck. In fact, as the new country had to have a flag, they made a flag with 13 stripes— seven red stripes and six white—and they put a white star for each State in a blue corner of the flag. Other parts of North America thought they'd like to join the club too, and more and more pieces kept on joining until there were forty-eight States, and these States that were united stretched from the Atlantic Ocean on one side to the Pacific Ocean on the other—that is, from where the sun rises from the ocean on one side to where it sets over the ocean on the other. Each time a piece joined the U. S., another star was put in the corner of the flag, but the number of stripes was not changed, for there would have been too many; so now there are forty-eight stars—that means forty-eight States united into one country. That's why there are on our coins the words “e pluribus unum,” which means “one from many.”

Not all of America joined the club, however. The country north of the U. S. called Canada and the country south of the U. S. called Mexico did not join. And yet the people in Canada are Americans, and the people in Mexico are Americans, too, but both Canada and Mexico have different rulers from what we have, for they are different countries.

Though there are very few Indians left in the U. S., we still use some of their names in naming our States. See if you can pick out some of the States on the map that have Indian names. Maryland and Virginia, of course, are not—for they are girls' names. States beginning with “New”—like New York,New Jersey,New Hampshire—of course are not Indian. They are named after old places in another country. But Minnesota, which means “sky blue water”; Ohio, which means “beautiful river” or “great”; and many others are Indian.