Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget SoundDenny, Emily Inez
History
Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
Denny, Emily Inez
Indians of North America -- Northwestern States; Oregon Territory -- History; Washington (State) -- History
At the first stop out from Olympia, the Tilley's, famous in the first
annals, entertained us. At a bountiful and appetizing meal, one of the
articles, boiled eggs, were not cooked to suit Grandfather John Denny.
With amusing bluntness he sent the chicken out to be killed before he
ate it, complaining that the eggs were not hard enough. Mrs. Tilly made
two or three efforts and finally set the dish down beside him saying,
"There, if that isn't hard enough you don't deserve to have any."
The long rough ride ended at Warbass' Landing on the Cowlitz River, a
tributary of the Columbia, and another canoe trip, this time on a swift
and treacherous stream, was safely made to Monticello, a mere little
settlement. A tiny steamboat, almost microscopic on the wide water,
carried us across the great Columbia with its sparkling waves, and up
the winding Willamette to Portland, Oregon.
From thence the journey progressed to the falls below Oregon City.
At the portage, we walked along a narrow plank walk built up on the side
of the river bank which rose in a high rounded hill. Its noble outline
stood dark with giant firs against a blue spring sky; the rushing,
silvery flood of the Willamette swept below us past a bank fringed with
wild currants just coming into bloom.
At the end of the walk there stood a house which represented itself as a
resting place for weary travelers. We spent the night there but Alas!
for rest; the occupants were convivial and "drowned the shamrock" all
night long; as no doubt they felt obliged to do for wasn't it "St.
Patrick's Day in the mornin'?"
Most likely we three, the juveniles, slumbered peacefully until aroused
to learn that we were about to start "sure enough" for grandfather's
farm in the Waldo Hills.
At length the log cabin home was reached and our interest deepened in
everything about. So many flowers to gather as they came in lively
processional, blue violets under the oaks, blue-flags all along the
valley; such great, golden buttercups, larkspurs, and many a wildling we
scarcely called by any name.
All the affairs of the house and garden, field and pasture seemed by us
especially gotten up, for our amusement and we found endless
entertainment therein.
If a cheese was made or churning done we were sure to be "hanging
around" for a green curd or paring, a taste of sweet butter or a chance
to lift the dasher of the old fashioned churn. The milking time was
enticing, too, and we trotted down to the milking pen with our little
tin cups for a drink of fresh, warm milk from the fat, lowing kine,
which fed all day on rich grasses and waited at the edge of the flower
decked valley for the milkers with their pails.
As summer advanced our joys increased, for there were wild strawberries
and such luscious ones! no berries in after years tasted half so good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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