Vancouver. Later they used whipsaws, and with them a small amount of lumber was laboriously cut by hand. Flour mills were much more numerous, as there was one at Vancouver and another at Colville. Myron Eells wrote that the latter proved a great convenience, for while they lived among the Spokane tribe they could make the trip there and back in five days. The plows were home-made, the singletrees were strengthened with rawhide instead of iron, from which their ropes were also made. For nine years the wheat was cut with a sickle. [Parenthetically—In the early fifties, in the Willamette valley we had advanced to the use of cradles to cut the grain, but most of our threshing was still done with flails, or by having it tramped out by cattle or horses. This was done by first spreading out the grain about a foot deep over the corral ground, which had been hardened by countless hoofs and which had been carefully cleaned by sweeping it with brooms whittled from ash or hazel saplings. When the grain was ready cattle or horses, preferably the latter, were turned into the corral and driven around the circle until the grain was separated from the straw. It is one of my pleasant recollections how proud I was when I was permitted to help drive the animals which it was necessary to urge along with whip and goad to prevent them from taking too much toll while engaged at their task.] The flour sacks were of buckskin, as were many of the garments in everyday use. Cattle were scarce, and nearly all of them belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, which would not part with any of them for love nor money. Beef was the chief article of diet, especially in the winter, but the animals from which it was made neither "chewed the cud nor parted the hoof." They were Indian ponies, and for several years each family salted one down every winter.
These conditions were not all confined to missionary life. Many of you old pioneers have either personally known them or have heard your parents relate similar experiences of their pioneer life. At the Whitman mission, in its early days, a small allowance of bread was baked and enjoyed once a week, and then boiled wheat and corn were the staple diet the rest of the week. Flint and tinder were relied upon to start the fires, matches being unknown until many years later. Mails usually came twice a year in the Hudson's Bay Company's vessels by way of Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands. These vessels brought the merchandise used by the company in its trading with the Indians and trappers for furs and peltries, which made
