Put yourself in my place, you land lubber, who never came under the domination of a brutal mate of a sailing vessel fifty years ago. My ears fairly tingled with hot anger at the harsh orders, but I stuck to the work, smothering my rage at being berated while doing my very best to please and to expedite the work. The fact gradually dawned on me that the man was not angry, but had fallen in the way of talking as though he was, and that the sailors paid slight heed to what he said. Before night, however, the fellow seemed to let up on me, while increasing his tirade on the heads of their regular men. The second and third day wore off with blistered hands, but with never a word about wages or pay.
"Say, boss, I'se got to pay my rent, and wese always gets our pay in advance. I doesn't like to ask you, but can't you get the old boss to put up something on your work?" I could plainly see that it was a notice to pay or move. He was giving it to me in thinly veiled words. What should I do? Suppose the old skipper should take umbrage, and discharge me for asking for wages before the end of the week? But when I told him what I wanted the money for, the old man's eyes moistened, but without a word, he gave me more money than I had asked for, and that night the steward handed me a bottle of wine for the "missus," which I knew instinctively came from the old captain.
The baby's Sunday visit to the ship; the Sunday dinner in the cabin; the presents of delicacies that followed, even from the gruff mate, made me feel that under all this roughness, a tender spot of humanity lay, and that one must not judge by outward appearances too much—that even way out here, three thousand miles from home, the same sort of people lived as those I had left behind me.
"St. Helens, October 7th, 1852.
"Dear Brother: Come as soon as you can. Have rented a house, sixty boarders; this is going to be the place. Shall I send you money?
O. P. M."
The mate importuned me to stay until the cargo was on board, which I did until the last stick of lumber was stowed, the last pig in the pen, and the ship swung off bound on her outward voyage. I felt as though I had an interest in her, but, remembering the forty dollars in the aggregate I had received, with most of it to jingle in my pockets, I certainly could claim no financial interest, but from that day on I never saw or heard the name of the bark Mary Melville without pricking my ears (figuratively, of course) to hear more about her and the old captain and his gruff mate.
Sure enough, I found St. Helens to be the place. Here was to be the terminus of the steamship line from San Francisco. "Wasn't the company building this wharf?" They wouldn't set sixty men to work on the dock without they meant business. "Ships can't get up that creek" (meaning the Willamette), "the big city is going to be here." This was the talk that greeted my ears, after we had carried the wife, (this time in a chair) to our hotel. Yes, our hotel, and had deposited her and the baby in the best room the house afforded.
It was here I made acquaintance with Columbia Lancaster, afterwards elected as the first delegate to Congress from Washington. I have always felt that the published history of those days has not done the old man justice, and has been governed in part, at least, by factional bias. Lancaster believed that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well, and he lived it. He used to come across the Columbia with his small boat, rowed by his own hand, laden with vegetables grown by himself on his farm opposite St. Helens, in the fertile valley of the Lewis River. I soon came to know what Lancaster said of his produce was true to the letter; that if he told me he had good potatoes, he had, and that they were the same in the middle or bottom of the sack as at the top. And so with all his produce. We at once became his heaviest customer, and learned to trust him implicitly. I considered him a typical pioneer, and his name never would have been used so contemptuously had it not been that he became a thorn in the side of men who made politics a trade for personal profit. Lancaster upset their well laid plans, carried off the honors of the democratic nomination, and was elected as our first delegate in Congress from the new Territory of Washington.
One January morning of 1853, the sixty men, (our boarders) did not go to work dock building as usual. Orders had come to suspend work. Nobody knew why, or for how long. We soon learned the why, as the steamship company had given up the fight against Portland, and would thenceforward run their steamers to that port. For how long, was speedily determined, for the dock was not finished and was allowed to fall into decay and disappear by the hand of time.
Our boarders scattered, and our occupation was gone, and our accumulation in great part rendered worthless to us by the change.
Meantime, snow had fallen to a great depth; the price of forage for cattle rose by leaps and bounds, and we found that we must part with half of our stock to save the remainder. It might be necessary to feed for a month, or for three months, but we could not tell, and so the last cow was given up that we might keep one yoke of oxen, so necessary for the work on a new place. Then the hunt for a claim began again. One day's struggle against the current of Lewis River, and a night standing in a snow and sleet storm around a camp fire of green wood, cooled our ardor a little, and two hours sufficed to take us back home next morning.
But claims we must have. That was what we had come to Oregon for; we were going to be farmers. Wife and I had made that bargain before we closed the other more important contract. We were, however, both of one mind as to both contracts. Early in January of 1853 the snow began disappearing rapidly, and the search became more earnest, until finally, about the 20th of January, I drove my first stake for a claim, to include the site where the town, or city, of Kalama now stands, and here built our first cabin.
That cabin I can see in my mind as vividly as I could the first day after it was finished. It was the first home I ever owned. What a thrill of joy that name brought to us. Home. It was our home, and no one could say aye, yes, or no, as to what we should do. No more rough talk on ship board or at the table; no more restrictions if we wished to be a little closer together. The glow of the cheek had returned to the wife; the dimple to the baby. And such a baby. In the innocence of our souls we really and truly thought we had the smartest, cutest baby on earth. I wonder how many millions of young parents have since experienced that same feeling? I would not tear the veil from off their eyes if I could. Let them think so, for it will do them good—make them happy, even if, perchance, it should be an illusion—it's real to them. But I am admonished that I must close this writing now, and tell about the cabin, and the early garden, and the trip to Puget Sound in another chapter.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST CABIN.
What a charm the words our first cabin have to the pioneer. To many, it was the first home ever owned by them, while to many others, like myself, the first we ever had. We had been married nearly two years, yet this was really our first abiding place. All others had been merely way stations on the march westward from Indianapolis to this cabin. Built of small, straight logs, on a side hill, with the door in the end fronting the river, and with but little grading, for the rocky nature of the location would not admit of it. Three steps were required to reach the floor. The ribs projected in front a few feet to provide an open front porch, with a ground floor, not for ornament, but for storage for the dry wood and kindling so necessary for the comfort and convenience of the mistress of the house. The walls were but scant five feet, with not a very steep roof, and a large stone fire place and chimney—the latter but seven feet high—completed our first home.
The great river, nearly a mile and three-quarters wide, seemed to tire from its ceaseless flow at least once a day as if taking a nooning spell, while the tides from the ocean, sixty miles away, contended for mastery, and sometimes succeeded in turning the current up stream. Immediately in front of our landing lay a small island of a few acres in extent, covered with heavy timber and driftwood. This has long since disappeared and ships now pass over the spot with safety.
Scarcely had we