Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/184

 174 PETER H. BURNETT. saw in Oregon most of the time I was there. They were all honest, because there was nothing to steal; they were all sober, because there was no liquor to drink; there were no misers, because there was no money to hoard, and they were all industrious, because it was work or starve; In a community so poor, isolated, and distant, we had each one to depend upon his own individual skill and labor to make a living. My profession was that of the law, but there was nothing in my line worth attending to until some time after my arrival in Oregon. I was therefore compelled to become a farmer. But I had not only to learn how to carry on a farm by my own labor, but I had to learn how to do many other necessary things that were difficult to do. It was most difficult to procure shoes for myself and family. The Hudson's Bay Company imported its supply of shoes from England, but the stock was wholly inadequate to our wants, and we had no money to enable us to pay for them; and as yet there were no tan-yards in operation. One was com- menced in my neighborhood in 1844, but the fall supply of leather was only tanned on the outside, leaving a raw streak in the center. It was undressed, not even curried. Out of this material I made shoes for myself, my eldest son, and a young hired man who was then living with me. To keep the shoes soft enough to wear through the day, it was neces- sary to soak them in water at night. My father, in the early settlement of Missouri, was accus- tomed to tan his own leather, and make the shoes for the Family. In my younger days he had taught me how to do coarse sewed work. But now I had to take the measures of the foot, make the last, fit the patterns to the last, cut out the Ir.-itheix. and make the shoes. I had no last to copy from, never made one before, and had no one to show me how. I took the measures of all the family, and made what I sup- posed to be eight very nice lasts and upon them I made the shoes, using tanned deer-skin for the females and small boys. The shoes were not beautiful, nor all comfortable, as they were not all good fits.