Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/198

 180 Mrs. S. a. Long. with him and helped him to build the log house where the first happy twelve years of their married life were spent. Those were prosperous and happy years. Her younger brother shared her home much of the time. She received occasional visits from her older ones. In after years she often spoke regretfully of the Osage home, of their kind neighbors, of the beautiful forest full of wild fruits and berries, of wild game, and of the great river with its plenty of fish. Here were born five of their children; here was their first sorrow, the death of one little child, who was remembered and mourned till life 's latest day— "Poor little Milburn," she often said. In 1843 came the journey to Oregon. Her younger brother, William G. Parker, accompanied them. She never saw any of her other relatives afterwards. The journey across the plains was full of novelty and incident, the event of a lifetime. There was enough of change and adventure to make each day interesting and pleasant. But with the arrival in Oregon came sorrow and privation. The great River of the West became the grave of another child, her oldest son, Edward— a fine, manly boy of ten years of age. They found themselves sur- rounded by a strange and not always friendly people, by a new and different country, whose forests, fruits and game were unlike anything they had known. What had been common comforts in the Osage home became luxuries in this ; the roasted possum, fat catfish, and sweet potatoes, were things of the past, as well as the wild grapes, plums, paw- paws, persimmons, and nuts, of the Osage forest. Wheaten flour, and sometimes only boiled wheat, wild black berries, strawberries and bitter crab-apple were their substitute ; but the unerring rifle brought much wild game to the frontier home. The flesh of elk and deer, grouse, pheasant, wild ducks and geese, the royal salmon and the speckled trout, bear steak, roasted squirrels, pot pies of wild pigeons. She was a great cook of meats, loved to try experiments in that line. Also she made great crocks of preserves of the wild fruits that were obtainable, black berries, crab-apples, strawberries and even the little gooseberries. And the product of her dairy