Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/253

 Only in a fragmentary way do diaries and reminiscences give us an answer.

The first camp of the Emigration of 1843 was at Elm Grove and this was described by Peter H. Burnett in a letter which he sent from Linnton, O. T., on January 18, 1844, to the New York Herald:

The moon shed her silvery light upon the white sheets of sixty wagons; a thousand head of cattle grazed upon the surrounding plain; fifty camp fires sent up their brilliant flames, and the sound of the sweet violin was heard in the tents.... At the rendezvous, as well as elsewhere, we were greatly amused by the drolleries of many a curious wag. Among the rest was J. M. Ware, a most pleasant fellow, droll, original, like no one else.... The whole camp were constantly singing his songs, and telling his tales. Among the rest he sang—

And also—

Jesse Applegate, in his famous essay A Day with the Cow-Column, described a typical evening of the same emigration:

It is not yet 8 o'clock when the first watch is to be set; the evening meal is just over.... Before a tent near the river a violin makes lively music, and some youths and maidens have improvised a dance upon the green; in another quarter a flute gives its mellow and melancholy notes to the still night air, which, as they float away over the quiet river, seem a lament for the past rather than a hope for the future....But time passes; the watch is set for the night; the council of old men has broken up, and each has returned to his own quarter; the flute has whispered its last lament to the deepening night; the violin is silent, and the dancers have dispersed;...