Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/67

Rh could make up my mind what to do. My mother's bed was in the same room. She had been watching me all the while and now asked me if I were ill. I denied being sick and told her why I could not sleep. I do not remember her words, but the substance of her speech was this: that I was a good boy and there was no reason why I should be frightened; that I had done nothing to be punished for, only the wicked were punished. She told me to go to bed and think no more about it. I had confidence in mother; besides, what she said was common sense. I went to bed and to sleep immediately.

There were about twenty-five persons, men, women, and children, living in the three cabins. The three Applegate families, and three or four young men who came out with them as help. The wagons, teams and all the cattle and horses had been left at Fort Walla Walla. Much of the furniture, cooking utensils and bedding had been lost in the disaster on the Columbia River. The families had reached the place where they were to pass the winter almost destitute of furnishing goods or food supplies and without visible means of support. I am not prepared to say how nearly destitute they were, but I remember that mother did her baking all that winter on a skillet lid found in the house.

There was in the neighborhood a small settlement of French Canadians, trappers and mountain men, who had consorted with native women and become ranchers. They had cleared small farms and were growing grain and vegetables. They had horses, hogs, and chickens, and, being kindly disposed toward the emigrants, assisted them, through barter and otherwise, to provide subsistence; that is, the food sufficient to live upon, for luxuries were not thought of. The conditions were hard, and but for the unflinching perseverance of those upon whom the burden fell, there must, of necessity, have been many days of fasting.

We found a tribe of Kalapooyas living along the river at this place. They were not numerous. There were a few families of them living in miserable hovels near us, and down the river, less than a quarter of a mile, was a small village. There were a few huts at other places. But little skill was made manifest in the design or construction of their houses. These Indians were poor in every sense of the word. A few