It was decided, however, that I should go and live with Mr. and Mrs. Geiger, living on a farm adjoining the Smith's. The Geigers were a young married couple without children. Mr. Geiger came on horseback after me the day after we reached the Smiths, but I cried so hard at the prospect of leaving Mary Johnson that he went away without me. A day or so later he came back again and still I would not go, but clung to Mary. It seemed to me she was my only friend. The third time he came, I had to go and all my belongings were tied up in a little bundle. A large bandana handkerchief would have held them all. I rode behind him. His home was a one-room log house with a fireplace to cook by. I took up my life there, lonely and isolated. The nearest neighbor was a mile away. Life was primitive. If the fire was not carefully covered to keep the coals alive, we would have to go to a neighbor's to borrow fire. There were no matches in the country and sometimes I would be sent a mile across the prairie to bring fire on a shovel from the neighbor's. If there were no coals, the flint and steel had to be used and if that was not successful we would have to do without. It was not always possible to obtain dry sticks in order to make the flint and steel serve their purpose. Supplies were to be had only from the Hudson Bay Posts, for people had had to leave most of their things behind in crossing the plains. That summer a baby came to the home of the Geiger's and I had to take care of it and a good deal of the time be nurse and help with the housework. I had been taught to sew and iron and repair my own clothes and must have been a really helpful young person. In the fall of '48 discovery of gold in California made a great change. All were eager to go to the gold mines. Mr. Geiger got the gold fever and moved us away up to his father-in-law's, the Rev. J. Cornwall. This family had moved onto the place in the spring and had just a log cabin to house a large family. They did not raise much of a crop the first year and Mr. Cornwall traveled around and preached over the valley most of the time. That fall he took a band of sheep in the valley and the winter being very hard, a good many of them died and his wife had to card and spin wool, knit socks and sell them to the miners at a dollar a pair in order to help make the living. She knit all the time and a part of my work was to help pull the wool off the dead sheep and wash it and get it ready for her to use. We had to carry water quite a distance from the river, as it seemed that many of the early settlers of Oregon had a great habit of building as far from the river as possible, so we children would have more to do to pack the water and stamp the clothes with our feet. We wintered there and in the spring Mrs. Gieger, baby and I went to their farm thirty-five miles down into the valley to look after some of their belongings, as the Rev. Spalding, who had wintered there, had gone to a house of his own. Mr.