Letters from an Oregon Ranch/Chapter 1
LETTERS FROM
AN OREGON RANCH
I
You write, my dear Nell, that you were amazed to hear we had sold our comfortable city homes, bundled our household possessions into a freight-car, and whirled off to Oregon with the foolish and pastoral notion of locating on ranches; and thereupon you had indignantly remarked, “The whole quartet must be as mad as March hares to do such a reckless thing at their time of life.” The allusion to lunacy may be forgiven; to age, never. We may not be so young as we used to be, but we are not yet quite in our dotage. Don’t you know, my friend, that monotony is stagnation and death to the middle-aged? They need change of scene, and the novelty and excitement that come with it. The tonic of fresh fields and pastures new is both stimulating and rejuvenating, and the Oregon air is an intoxicant like wine,—pure, fresh, and exhilarating. We drank it in with praise and thanksgiving.
You ask if we have found our ranch. I answer, Yes. Do we like it? We are delighted with it. How did we find it? It happened rather strangely. Last summer, in a purely accidental way, there drifted to us a little pamphlet from a real-estate agent, in which we learned more than we had ever known of the beauties and attractions of Oregon. We read of her glorious snow-capped mountains, of great dim forests, of sparkling trout-laden streams, of wooded hills and blossoming valleys, swiftly flowing rivers, and fern-shaded springs of delicious cold water gushing from rock and hillside. From that hour the madness was in our blood. We said, Let us act at once, and not stand shivering on the brink. And so the leap into the unknown was taken, landing us in a small town here in the height of the rainy season. Then, “under skies that were ashen and sober,” in prosy fact as well as poetic figure, began the search for our new homes. It was like searching for the Golden Fleece.
In response to an inquiry concerning real-estate agents,—strange coincidence!—the first name suggested was one already familiar to us as the author of the little book whose beguiling eloquence had led us across mountains, plains, and desert to the promised land. Under his monitions we at once took possession of the only vacant house in the town,—a small leaky-roofed cottage in an advanced state of decay,—unpacked a few goods, merely enough with which to do “light housekeeping,” while our lords were searching for the new Arcadia. Day after day they went forth, clad in brand-new glistening rubber suits, almost as hideous as a diver’s outfit, we tossing old shoes after them for luck. Night invariably brought them home, tired, hungry, and disappointed. There was always something wrong with the places they had seen: the ranches were either too large or too small; not enough tillable land, or too much tillable land and a scarcity of timber; either no water on the place, or a deluge of it, submerging a good portion of the estate. So it went on day after day, week in and week out, until we began to compare ourselves to Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley in search of their Eden in the Indiana swamps.
But at last, one glad day, capricious Fate, relenting, led our brave scouts straight up the green and shining hills of Paradise into the country of the Pointed Firs, where in a little emerald basin they found the enchanted land. The place was large enough to be divided into two ranches, each provided with both tillable and wood land. There was great rejoicing, a hurrying to and fro, a hasty repacking of goods, and much searching for means of their transportation. It was difficult to find men willing to brave the horrors of the mountain roads with loaded wagons during the rainy season. But after a delay of two days, three men with teams reluctantly consented to come to our rescue, which they did, but bringing no tarpaulin or any kind of protection for our goods. We had one outfit of our own; and when the four wagons pulled out, Mary and I could not but look a bit regretfully after our household treasures, exposed to both rain and mud during a drive of twenty miles. Owing to the almost impassable condition of the roads, only light loads could be take; consequently eight long days were spent in this herculean task.
The men drove up one day and back the next, passing the intervening night in the old deserted home. Finally came the glad morning of our release from the leaky, dismal, and now plundered cottage. The last load was vanishing down the street. At the door stood our newly acquired surrey,—a second-hand one, a queer-looking old thing, not unlike a palanquin on wheels. It was loaded to the guards. As we stowed ourselves away within its gloomy interior, the school children, at the risk of tardy marks, halted to witness the imposing start, nudging one another and giggling furtively.
We started out, with Tom holding the reins and a yard of breakfast bacon, while his knees clasped a five-gallon can of kerosene. Bert was clinging desperately to a cuckoo clock, a sugar-cured ham, and a huge sheaf of rose-cuttings. He sat so embowered in green leaves that he resembled a May Queen. Mary breathed heavily under the burden of eight pounds of creamery butter and a kerosene lamp with a very large shade,—a most aggressive thing, with javelin-like points. Forming a sort of barricade in front of me were piled a dozen loaves of baker’s bread, four boxes of shredded wheat biscuit, and two roasted chickens. Add to these things three umbrellas, two satchels, a lunch-basket, and a horse-collar, and do you wonder the children giggled? Why that horse-collar was with us remains a dark mystery to this day.
As we left the village, a dense fog prevailed, for which we were rather grateful, as it proved an effective screen for our disreputable exit. We were hoping it might lift later, as we knew there were fine views of Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, and the Three Sisters en route; but instead of dissipating it gradually thickened, until we were enveloped in a heavy gray vapor, giving us a strange sense of isolation. All landmarks vanished; the world slipped away; we seemed afloat on a “wide, wide sea.” We could see absolutely nothing except our patient toiling horses, and occasionally the dim outlines of an old rail-fence. Upon a fence-post we saw, like a lone sentry, a great brown owl, as motionless and rigid as if cast in bronze. Once from a near-by field came the clear voice of a meadow-lark. Strangely sweet were those divine notes floating up from that misty obscurity.
We had started out in the morning quite hilarious; but as the difficulties and dangers of the road increased, our talk grew desultory, and at last we rode in grim silence. The mud seemed bottomless, and the never-ending hills were so steep as to appear almost perpendicular. With locked wheels we slid down their precipitous sides, only to crawl up others that seemed steeper still, lurching into yawning chuck-holes with such violence that the kerosene splashed and the green bower swayed from side to side. At such times Mary’s lamp-shade showed its evil nature. Glancing her way, I saw that it was useless to protest against its murderous attacks. Her feet were planted on the horse-collar, her lips closed with Napoleonic firmness, her hat jammed over one eye, the other blazing with a high resolve to carry that lamp-shade to its goal though her every living friend and relative should fall by the wayside. As we advanced, the woods grew denser, the road curving around narrow mountain ledges, above deep dark canyons, where, crowding close, tier upon tier, in watchful guardianship, stood the sombre sentinel firs. A slip of a foot or two, and we would have been hurled into the bottomless pit. A native Oregonian may pursue his serpentine way nonchalantly on the edge of these craters, but to a tenderfoot they bring pimples of gooseflesh, as night brings out the stars. For miles our advance seemed characterized by a succession of shudders. Twice did we ford mountain streams swollen by recent rains until they had become tumbling, boiling cataracts, with currents dangerously swift. These streams had rocky beds, and our old ark quivered and creaked on its stormy passage through them. As the foaming waves leaped for us, I shut my eyes, doubled up my
Copyright, Kiser Bros., Portland, Ore.
HOOD RIVER, OREGON
"Tier upon tier, in watchful guardianship, the sombre sentinel firs” (page 14)
toes, and thought that at last the end had come. When the rush of water ceased, I felt rather than saw that we were scrambling up the opposite bank, and, opening my eyes, saw the dripping horses once more upon terra firma.
I am sorry to take leave of you in the fog and gloom of the forest, with night coming on. But the night of this day is coming also, and with it comes Tom, striding down our woodsy hill like a hardy Norseman, upon his shoulder his shining axe gleaming as did “Excalibur” of old. That he is ravenously hungry goes without saying. So I must lay aside my pen and prepare our evening meal.