Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/63

Rh when we saw a light. The light was in a window at Doctor White's house. It seemed to me we were a long time getting to that light. Arrived at the house I forgot I was tired, for the Doctor, having notice of our coming, had a bright fire in the fire-place and supper on the table in the kitchen. The smell of frying pork was sweet to my nostrils. From Doctor White's place we had to travel another mile and our long journey was ended. We called this place the Old Mission. It was at this place that the first Methodist mission in the Willamette Valley was located. The missionaries must have lived here two or three years, for there were peach trees there in blossom the next spring. When another location, called "The Mill," now the city of Salem, had been made higher up the river, this place was abandoned. The town of Gervais now stands on the site of the Old Mission. There were three log cabins under one roof at this place. We went into them on the 29th day of November, 1843, and here we passed our first winter in Oregon. It was our home until after harvest of the following summer.

Previous to this we had been in the rain most of the time for twenty days. Oh! how we could have enjoyed our hospitable shelter if we could have looked around the family circle and behld the bright faces that had accompanied us on our toilsome journey almost to the end. Alas, they were not there!