Читать книгу The Busy Life of Eighty-Five Years of Ezra Meeker - Ezra Meeker Meeker - Страница 17

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THE ARRIVAL.

About nine o'clock at night, with a bright moon shining, on October 1st, 1852, I carried my wife in my arms up the steep bank of the Willamette River, and three blocks away in the town of Portland to a colored man's lodging house.

"Why, suh, I didn't think yuse could do that, yuse don't look it," said my colored friend, as I deposited my charge in the nice, clean bed in a cozy little room.

From April until October, we had been on the move in the tented field, with never a roof over our heads other than the wagon cover or tent, and for the last three months, no softer bed than either the ground or bottom of the wagon bed. We had found a little steamer to carry us from the Cascades to Portland, with most of the company that had floated down the river from The Dalles, in the great scow. At the landing we separated, and knew each other but slightly afterwards. The great country, Oregon, (then including Puget Sound) was large enough to swallow up a thousand such immigrations and yet individuals be lost to each other, but a sorrier mess it would be difficult to imagine than confronted us upon arrival. Some rain had fallen, and more soon followed. With the stumps and logs, mud and uneven places, it was no easy matter to find a resting place for the tented city so continuously enlarging. People seemed to be dazed; did not know what to do; insufficient shelter to house all; work for all impossible; the country looked a veritable great field of forest and mountain. Discouragement and despair seized upon some, while others began to enlarge the circle of observation. A few had friends and acquaintances, which fact began soon to relieve the situation by the removals that followed the reunions, while suffering, both mental and physical, followed the arrival in the winter storm that ensued, yet soon the atmosphere of discontent disappeared, and general cheerfulness prevailed. A few laid down in their beds not to arise again; a few required time to recuperate their strength, but with the majority, a short time found them as active and hearty as if nothing had happened. For myself, I can truly say, I do not remember the experience as a personal hardship. I had been born of healthy parents. I know of my father working eighteen hours a day for three years in the Carlisle mill at Indianapolis, Indiana, for 75 cents a day, and as an experienced miller at that. If his iron will or physical perfection or something had enabled him to endure this ordeal and retain his strength, why could not I, thirty years younger, hew my way? I did not feel fatigued. True, I had been "worked down" in flesh, but more from lack of suitable food than from excessive exertion. Any way, I resolved to try.

My brother, Oliver, who had crossed the plains with me—a noble man and one destined, had he lived, to have made his mark—came ahead by the trail. He had spied out the land a little with unsatisfactory results, met me and pointed the way to our colored friend's abode. We divided our purse of $3.75, I retaining two dollars and he taking the remainder, and with earliest dawn of the 2nd found the trail leading down the river, searching for our mutual benefit for something to do.

Did you, reader, ever have the experience of a premonition that led you on to success? Some say this is simply chance; others say that it is a species of superstition, but whatever it is, probably most of us, some time in our lives have had some sort of trials to set us to thinking.

As we passed up the Willamette, a few miles below Portland, on the evening of our arrival, a bark lay seemingly right in our path as we steamed by. Standing upon the lower deck of our little steamer, this vessel looked to our inexperienced eyes as a veritable monster, with masts reaching to the sky, and hull towering high above our heads. Probably not one of that whole party of frontiersmen had ever before seen a deep sea vessel. Hence, small wonder, the novelty of this great monster, as we all thought of the vessel, should excite our admiration and we might almost say, amazement. That was what we came so far for, to where ships might go down to the sea and return laden with the riches of the earth. The word passed that she was bound for Portland with a cargo of merchandise and to take a return cargo of lumber. There, as we passed, flashed through my mind, will be my opportunity for work tomorrow, on that vessel.

Sure enough, when the morrow came, the staunch bark Mary Melville lay quietly in front of the mill, and so, not losing any time in early morning, my inquiry was made "do you want any men on board this ship?" A gruff looking fellow eyed me all over as much as to say, "not you," but answered, "yes, go below and get your breakfast." I fairly stammered out, I must go and see my wife first, and let her know where I am, whereupon came back a growl "of course, that will be the last of you; that's the way with these new comers, always hunting for work and never wanting it" (this aside to a companion, but in my hearing). I swallowed my indignation with the assurance that I would be back in five minutes and so went post haste to the little sufferer to impart the good news.

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.