Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/300

290 kitchen garden as time went on, and provided early vegetables. The girl was also impressed with the neatness and tastefulness of the table. There was a white cloth; and the sugar bowls, salt cellars and spoonholders, which were made of cardboard, were neatly covered with fancy calico. Mrs. Smith also tells how she remembered the time of the year. It was when wild strawberries were ripe, and in the afternoon the girls were given some cups and told that they might gather berries. They did so, the wild fruit growing in great abundance and of luscious flavor; all except the new girl. She, thinking this was a boarding school, did not know why she should pick strawberries. But at supper she found she was the only one who had none to eat.

Mrs. Brown, however, at once made her at home, and indeed made her a companion, sharing with her her own room. Mrs. Brown was known as Grandma to all the pupils. She was even then an elderly woman, past sixty years of age. In person she was small and slight, not weighing over 108 pounds. She also walked with a cane, one of her limbs being weakened from paralysis. Above a delicate face, with blue eyes, there was gray hair; yet in manner and expression she was always young, and made herself a companion rather than a disciplinarian. She often told Mrs. Smith of her trip across the Plains. She was from the East, and of a cultivated family, who were in good circumstances. She had married an Episcopal minister, who died early, leaving her a family of two boys and one girl. With these she went at an early day to Missouri, and there opened a school, making of it a success both educationally and financially. However, she decided to come to Oregon, partly, perhaps, on account of an uncle of her husband's, a Captain Brown, who was very old, but believed a trip to Oregon would prolong his life. The trip was made