Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/48



40 WILLIAM H. PACKWOOD

them for their feathers, which she sold for $1.00 a pound. In those days feather beds were very much in demand.

"Up to 1846 my grandmother had never had a cook stove. All the cooking was done in a large fireplace which had a crane with hooks on it on which she hung pots and vessels for the cooking. The crane could be swung around to bring the pots over or off of the fire. She had a large dutch oven in which she cooked all of her bread ; the loaves were round and about six inches thick, and they certainly were delicious. The sound of the dinner horn when we were called to our meals was mighty pleasant music. I remember the dinner horn par- ticularly well, for we had a large sorrel mare who, when the dinner horn was blown, would go to the end of the row, if she did not happen to be there already, and then you could not coax or beat her into doing any more work until she had her dinner.

"About three miles from my grandfather's there was a mill owned by Jimmie Lutey. It was operated by mule, horses or oxen power. Four arms or sweeps formed a circular upright shaft conveyed the power to the burrs. To each of these sweeps he hitched a pair of mules or oxen. Twice a week were mill days. Corn and wheat were the two grains that were ground. The rule was 'first come first served.' This rule was never varied from and there used to be great competi- tion among the farmers as to who could get there first.

"Jordan Prairie was skirted with timber on the north and west sides. A main road ran north and south through the prai- rie. On mill days from sunrise on you could see dust rising from the teams coming from the east and west to this main road. All of them were driving as fast as they could to get to the main road first so as to get an early turn at the mill. When they got to the main road there was usually a race for three or four miles to the mill. My uncle David was an expert with oxen. He used to begin the training of his steer calves to work when they were very young. He had one yoke of five year old long-legged rangy powerful red steers that he kept