Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/209

158 dressed herself in trim, becoming style for the eyes of her affianced husband. This neat and gentle maiden, who would gladden the heart of any lover, happened upon Cyrus Shepard in the brown linen frock he wore about housework, and which did not by any means set off his tall symmetrical figure to advantage. It was a trying situation, but though Shepard deeply blushed in his embarrassment, he did not entirely faint away, and finally recovered himself sufficiently to welcome the ladies, after which he proceeded to lay the table with a brown linen cloth and tin plates, and to prepare dinner for the hungry travellers. The fare was venison, sausages, bread of unbolted flour, butter, cheese, and fried cakes, with wild strawberries and cream for desert. The Mission must have done well, indeed, to have been able to offer supplies like this in the third year of its existence, it being too early in the season for a garden.

How sixteen new-comers were accommodated with beds when even the floors were occupied by the sick, not one of the chroniclers of early events has told us. Fifty-four, and for a short time fifty-seven, inmates found lodgment in a building forty by eighteen feet, the space increased by a flooring overhead, which was converted into an attic under the rafters.

Thus we see in the chemistry of west-coast adventure an adaptation of self to circumstances, not unlike that of sulphuric acid and water, which when mingled are contained in less space than they separately occupied.

In apparent enjoyment, the missionary recruits and their guests explored the country by day, and slept under the same roof at night; until, after a few days, Captain and Mrs Hinckley returned to Fort Vancouver. Dr White, on looking about for the cause