The baby's Sunday visit to the ship, the Sunday dinner in the cabin, the presents of delicacies that followed, even from the gruff mate, made me feel that under all this roughness lay a tender humanity. Away out here, three thousand miles from home, the same sort of people lived as those I had left behind me.
Dear Brother: Come as soon as you can. Have rented a house, sixty boarders. This is going to be the place. Shall I send you money?
The mate importuned me to stay until the cargo was on board. I did stay until the last stick of lumber was stowed, the last pig in the pen, and the ship swinging off, bound on her outward voyage. I felt as if I had an interest in her.
Sure enough, I found St. Helens to be the place. Here was to be the terminus of the steamship line from San Francisco. "Wasn't the company building this wharf?" "They wouldn't set sixty men to work on the dock unless they meant business." "Ships can't get up the Willamette--that's nothing but a creek. The big city is going to be here."
This was the talk that greeted my ears as I went looking about. We had carried my wife, this time in a chair, to our hotel--yes, our hotel!--and there we had placed her, and the baby too, of course, in the best room the house afforded.
One January morning in 1853, our sixty men boarders did not go to work at the dock building as usual. Orders had come to suspend work. Nobody knew why, or for how long. We soon learned that the steamship company had given up the fight against Portland and would thenceforward run its steamers to that port. The dock was never finished and was allowed to fall into decay. With our boarders scattered, our occupation was gone, and our supplies were in great part rendered worthless to us by the change.
Meantime, snow had fallen to a great depth. The price of forage for cattle rose by leaps and bounds, and we found that we must part with half of our stock to save the rest. It might be necessary to provide feed for a month, or for three months; we could not tell. The last cow was given up that we might keep one yoke of oxen, so necessary for the work on a new place.
The search for a claim began at once. After one day's struggle against the current of the Lewis River, and a night standing in a snow and sleet storm around a camp fire of green wood, Oliver and I found our ardor cooled a little. Two hours sufficed to take us back home next morning.