Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/200

186 man so small in stature that he was known as "Little" Osbourn. In a week we had built five cabins of legal size—16 feet square with eaves 6 feet above the ground, with doorway cut out and roof of four foot clapboards. This job finished, Clark took a rail-making contract and I went with Mr. Osbourn to seek a contract with Hon. P. H. Burnett, who led the emigrants from Missouri to Oregon in 1843-4. Within two minutes after our introduction Mr. B. was trying to learn from me how near Western Oregon resembled England in its natural growth of timber, brush and weeds. He wanted 1500 cedar rails made about two miles away, for which he would pay one dollar per hundred and furnish food for the maker while on the job. I took the contract, and my comrade, Crockett, joining me, we went at it without loss of time on a Monday morning, split out a few rail cuts into "puncheons" two inches thick and the width of the cut, rested one end of them on a large log, covering the spaces between, and with a dozen of these pieces had a roof to cook and sleep under. It began to rain and continued at short intervals during the week, but we did not lose much time. As we still had our emigrant appetites I went to his home on Friday for an additional supply of provisions and as I had to wait a few hours for Mr. Burnett, his wife put on the rude reading table some new books which Dr. McLoughlin had sent over from Ft. Vancouver with about half a bushel of ripe apples, five of which Mrs. Burnett presented to me, with the advice to save the seeds and plant them when I had selected a home for myself. While I enjoyed the apples the lady talked of her reasons for being glad of having come to Oregon, chief of which was the wonderful recreative effect it had had on herself; she had been sick for about two years before starting, unable to help herself for the most of that time, but by the time they had been on the road a month she was able to help with the cooking at the campfire, and soon was able to cook for her own family of eight and two hired men; and continued to do so until they reached Ft. Vancouver where she and her children with the exception of the eldest son had