CHAPTER IX. Pioneer Days, Chapter IX

did that dry ground, with the drenching rain overhead. The temptation was too strong for a youngster like me to endure, so without considering the penalty of breaking into a dwelling, I went to the wagon and got an ax, and in much less time than it takes to write it, I bad a place cut for a door. Firewood being handy, I soon built a fire against the side of the chimney. I quickly improvised an Oregon bedstead (one-legged) and conveyed my invalid charge into the house, and placed her in a comfortable bed. I then turned the teams loose on the grass, which was very plentiful. All these charges were made before my cousin returned and reported that we could occupy the house. I knew I could when I cut a hole in the wall, and there were not men enough in Oregon to put me out till it quit raining. I am sure that a king in his palace never felt better or enjoyed himself better than we did the first night in our new habitation.

CHAPTER IX

In my last letter our party had arrived at our new home. In the surrounding vicinity we soon located permanent homes, not known to us at the time, but this became our final destination.

Our first night under shelter, with beds arranged on dry ground, and the rain pattering over our heads, was a joy and comfort that none but persons in our weary and exhausted condition can possibly imagine. Oh, how sound we slept! The rain pattering on the roof sounded sweeter than any music from the finest quartet of today.

Morning came, and we all arose refreshed from the effect of our night's rest, with knowledge that this was the first morning in almost eight months without hurry and discomfort incident on preparing to move camp. This morning there was nothing to do but to partake of our simple repast. If the average person was to be summoned to breakfast now with nothing in sight but what we had that morning, he would turn away in disgust, inwardly ejaculating: "No breakfast for me, if you please!" But not so with us; all fared sumptuously.

Attention was now turned toward making our new home as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The wagons were stripped of their covers, one was used to make a door shutter, the two tents were spread out and made protection on three side and served as ceiling inside; rough, uncouth seats were improvised, nails driven in walls to adjust clothing, and in a word our new home was made comfortable, compared with that of our long, tedious journey. It must be remembered that we were two days, and part of the third, making the journey from Mary's River to this place, which is about eight miles. This shows how fast our jaded teams could travel.

Our house being completed without, and furnished within, we now had the opportunity of looking around so as to ascertain where we were. Our party, or rather family, consisted of three men, two women and five small children.

In our reconnoitering we found game plentiful, consisting of deer, geese, ducks

and almost every kind of wild animals, also the rare mammoth white swan, with his beautiful flute-like voice. We three hunters, all "crack shots," procured enough meat in this first effort to last several days. It required quite an amount of supply the family, as not a particle of anything else could be procured, not even salt to season the meat.

In relating our condition and what we lived on in those pioneer days to the men brought up since, they have frequently remarked: "How could you live on such diet?" I know it appears impossible to them, but if they could have seen we ten people commence on a kettle full of this wild meat of different kinds and never cease until the bottom of it was reached, it would have been explained. The splendid sport of killing game continued for a time, and now another difficulty presented that appeared, under the circumstances, impossible to surmount.

For the last two months no washing had been dome, for the lack of material to wash with. The writer had a dozen shirts, and I overhauled them, picked out the cleanest until that would look as though it had been in close contact with terra firma, but in this case the old saying held true, "Where there is a will there is a way." I walked six miles to where G. B. Smith and his brother were "baching," (Afterwards he became known all over the state.) He butchered a beef occasionally, and I bought a small cake of tallow that cost 25 cents, half the money I possessed, and, to all business appearances, all I ever expected to have.

I returned to camp, burned a large pile of logs, improvised a leach, put the ashes therein and drained out the lye sufficient of wash the clothes of the family. This accomplished, my cousin concluded to make the effort to get flour so as to make bread for the children. The mill was twenty-five miles away, with two streams to swim. It was near the present city of Dallas, the county seat of Polk County. Blankets were arranged, out pockets filled with meat, and the writer and my cousin struck out. I went for the purpose of looking at the country, and to be company for the boy. He carried his gin, took a horse to carry the flour, and, to make a long story short, lest i become wearisome, the fourth day we arrived at camp with the flour, all rejoicing more to see the flour than the party. Many inquires were made as to who and what we had seen. The gun came in good play, as wild geese were plentiful, and they were our principal diet on the trip, except on our return, when we had bread mixed with goose meat. We brought back 100 pounds of flour, and that was all the ten persons used until the first of April. You may judge the amount the grown ones of the party ate. As to myself I never tasted the dark mixture of dirt and anise seed since my experience recorded in this journal.

We had nothing to do now but prepare wood for the fire. There was plenty of fuel handy, so the intention now was to spend the remaining part of the winter in the woods. Some might suppose that, situation as we were, with nothing in sight to better our condition, only privation and misery could present itself in the future; but I have never, in all my life, enjoyed myself better than during the remainder of that winter. Perhaps it was different with men and families, but I then, as now, try to make myself happy, whatever my environment may be; and strange to relate, I never was in a condition during the entire long and tedious journey that I would have changed and gone back from whence I came.

I was "Where rolls the Oregon," as the poet, Bryant, expresses it, where naught is heard but the dashing of the waters; no neighbors nor associations of any kind except the aborigines of the country. Our nearest neighbor was eight miles away, with the exception of Mr. Reed, the philanthropist above mentioned.

Each day was spent in the woods with the rifles, laying up food for the winter, which consisted of different species of game. Whatever kind we produced was dressed, cut in pieces and hung up to dry, without salt, and as our dwelling had no chimney, but with fire built near the wall, there was an abundance of smoke to prevent the meat from spoiling. And, strange to say, with this meat diet alone it was soon apparent that our entire family was gaining in flesh, and, still more strange to relate, I have never spent a winter since that I enjoyed more than the one here mentioned.

The excitement produced, the real fun in hearing the report of the deadly rifles of the three hunters and fleeing game of the fowls or beast as they came in range of each other's guns, caused the day to pass and compelled us to return to camp only half satisfied with the day's sport. And now, after these long intervening years, your scribe would gladly pass such another winter.

Not many days after we were located I wandered off some three miles from home. I caine to the place that from then till now has been my home. A fine spring was gushing out at the edge of the valley, and about all I knew of selecting a home was that it should possess water, and I fancied that this place, when improved, would make a good one, so I resolved to locate it for that purpose.

On returning home and making known my discovery and intention of locating it for a home, the pertinent question was asked, "What are you going to do with it?" Of course, in my condition, I had no answer to that question, as at the time it appeared as though I could never aspire to own a pig, there being no pig to own.

With the dark future in view, my brother and I returned next day; laid a foundation for a house, near the spring, drove stakes at the corner, which filled the requirements of the organic law at the time. Good luck came my way, as this narrative will show, so that I retained my place, and it is my home today. Without giving occurring incidents, I will say that after a time my cousin purchased a claim a short distance from mine, built a house and all hands moved to his place. It was a beautiful location, and he made it afterwards a lovely home.

This brings us to the first of March, 1847. About the middle of the month arrangements were made to go to mill, at Salem, now the capital of the state, and thirty miles away. There being no road, the trip had to be made by water. Parties living ten miles up the river (our places were located near the Willamette River) had made a large canoe for the purpose of bringing supplies from Oregon City, seventy miles away.

This canoe was borrowed and brought opposite our place. Myself and brother and two other men boarded the boat, with camping outfit for the trip, and made it to Salem the first day. I had money to buy our supplies. The other parties had to go into