er O

LE EZRA'S

HORT STORIESFOR CHILDREN

Uncle Ezra's

Short Stories for Children

By

Ezra Meeker

AU Rigbts Reseived

Published and Printed in TacomaPost Paid 30c.

A Bear StoryA boy whom we will call Wilfred lived in

Alaska and Dawson until he was thirteen years01(1. I went with him to Seattle, Tacoma, Everettand Puyallup to show him around and to see thesights, when he came down from the North. Hehad never seen a building more than two storieshigh nor an ele\ ator When we went up to thetop of a sixteen story building in Tacoma he look-ed puzzled and said it as very nice The same

a about a street car He had never before seenone but said it didn t beat riding in a dog sled ona smoothly beaten track of snow When he sawthe big ugh looking bear at Point Defiance parkhe said it reminded him of one he had seen in EagleAlaska, that belonged to a man named

This one would stand up and as you see in thepicture, wlas nearly as tall as his master standing

by his side with his hand in the bear's mouth. I saidI didn't believe it was safe and he said he didn'teither but added that he had been in captivity eversince he was a baby bear and his master wouldn'tallow any one to tease him. You will see by thenext picture the same bear kissing the girl or thegirl kissing the bear but that don't look nice at all.

Wilfred said there were two smaller ones atDawson that would stand up and box each otherjust like boys; when they felt lazy they wouki laydown on their back and yawn. just like lazy boysbut never too lazy to take a peanut offered themand eat the nut and spit out the shell "too funny foranything ' he said

I saw one in a small opening in the brusitnear what is now Meridian street Puyallup, thatlooked to me as big as as a cow, but maybe heseemed bigger because I didn't like to be so nearhim in the woods alone without a gun in myhands, but some specimens of bears do grow toprodigious size and have been known to weigl'o er a thousand pounds The black bear in thiscountry are not likely to attack one unless he in-terferes with their young-: not so with the grizzlyand some species jn the North for they have beenknown to boldly attack a person in broad daylight.

Bears live on vegetables most of the time buteat fish greedily when they can get them in shal-tow streams. The'r kiVed some of Our pigs one

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day at Puyallup, just outside of what is now Pio-neer park, leastwise we heard the pig squealingin the brush not more than a stone throw from thecabin. Frank and Ella took a gun and went downto hunt for the squeal but could not find eitherpig, bear or squeal and, anyway, soon concludedthey hadn't lost any bear in the brush and re-turned. Hunting without dogs in thick under-brush is as the saying goes, "up hill business." taatis, it can't be done suc!cessfully, but with resolutedogs that can bring them to bay, the hear willfinally climb a tree and can then be shot. Thelarger species never climb, and so can not betaken in this way and will fight to a finish on theground

Naturalists tell us that as to their characteris-tics in their relationship they stand between thedogs and the fur-bearers but their nearest relativesare the racoons. When a boy, I hunted the racoonin the White river bottom now included in thelimits of the great city of Indianapolis but neverdreamed that a "coon" was any relationship to abear That was sixty-fi' e yeors ao when I huntedthe "possum and the coon" where brick blocksnow stand and serves as a reminder that I am noLa "kid any more in yearc however I may feel inmind and spirit.

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Santa claus"'Twas the night before Christmas

When all through the house,"Not a creature was stirring,

"Not even a mouse."

Have you youngsters each of you fixed on aplace where you will hang up your stockings SOSanta Claus will be sure to find them? Have youvet peeked up the chimney to see Just how Santacould come down that way or maybe come in atthe wrnd or crack in the floor? Bless you, lit-tle ones Santa can get in and can find the stock-ings if he is hovering around about the house, butit is so fine to be setting a trap for the old fellow.we always used to do it.

I am going to tell you a story of a time whenSanta didn't come to the homes of the little onesof Puyallup: when on Christmas Eve "all throughthe house not a creature was stirring, not even amouse" and the youngsters were tucked snugly intheir little beds, wondering hy the "mamrnc"

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had foldthem Santa was not coming until tomor-row and then in broad day light and maybe theycould see him. This was over forty years ago.All the children could not get into the old logschool house any moretoo many of themafl(lSn a new house withsure windows and a door thatdidn't screech was built; a great big one with oneroom and no upstairs to it and a great big ironstove where the teacher or big boys put cordwoodin +o burn, stood in the middle of the room. Butthe benches of the old log house had been broughtover and the old water bucket stood in the samecorner but the gourd hung on a new nail.

What would you youngsters think, if the"mammas would tell pon Santa wouldn't comenext Chrstmias Eve night! Iavbe youwouldn't care as you had already lookedinto the shop windows and told mamma whatyou wnted or maybe mamma had asked

to go with her and pick out whatwould please you best and had bought whatvon wanted and brought it home nd spoiled thedream of stockings hung up in the chimney cornerand of Santa as a real joy forever. Maybe youwould care and would like it lytter if mammawouldn't tell you. and let you wonder, like thlitt'e ones of Puvallup did, what in the world wasgoing to happen.

Marion Meeker and Charh' Ross took the oxen7

and wagon and went out on thebluff and selectedjust such a tree as they wanted, with such widespreading limbs they could hardly bring it in thewagon, so tall the top reached to the ceiling andso big around that it almost filled up one cornerof the room. On Christmas day it was plain tobe seen why the boys had brought so large a treeEverybody was to have a presenttwo presentsin fact, one a big one and then a little one soas to be sure to call everybody's name twice Thecurtain put up hid the lower part of the tree butleft the upper part in sight so that when the timecame everybody could see the tree slowly turningaround and around while all were eating dinnerbut nobotty was allowed to look back of the curtam to see what turned the tree or see the presentson It or piled up in the corner e"ccept the threeSantas dressed so that no one could tell who inall the world they- were.

The mammas and aunties all had put their1-eads together for a dinner; and such a dinner.One had baked a whole lot of mince pies: othersbig cakes, so many that a lot of them were leftover; then there were pickles and salad, besides thechickens and bread and butter and milk and cof-fee. 'with sure cream. Yes, I had nearly forgot,someone had killed a fat deer and the mannuashad roasted it at borne, so that everybody had allthe venison they wanted. I think a sack of pota-

toes had been roasted in the ashes of a fire out-side the schoolhouse, but in the woodshed, andthere were as many outside as inside the house,but all having a jolly good time, some eating outof hand, some in their wagons, some on boxes;any place no matter where. Fortunately we hada warm Christmas and so the windows could beopen and let in plenty of fresh air to the house,and make it convenient to pass the nice things tothe people outside. Two niammas poured cof-fee and one carreid around water, so that every-body could have what they wanted, and as muchas. they wanted, without moving from their place.

But "when are we to see Santa Claus, mam-ma?" more than one little one began to inquireas the dinner, was about finished and the tree keptslowly turning around, giving a glimpse of thepresents on the topmost branches, and the brightred white or blue tiny little parcels containingsomething, but nobody (except the Santa) knewwhat

Listen the Santas are taking down the cur-tain all eves are on the tree still slowly goinground and round What the mi'chief made it gothat wave But the question remained unans-wered amid the eiccitement when the first namewas called "Here" caine a quick response "Comeforward, come forward; no presents delivered toothers, come forward," and so the work of the

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Santas began. "Willie Stewart, Willie Stewart,'shouted one of the Santas in a voice as changedas the false face had changed the Santa's coun-tenance. "Here, here, here," followed liv the de-Irvery of a pair of copper toed boots. "Willie Bon-ny, Charley Ross, Carrie Meeker, Maggie Miller,Charley Boatman," and half a score of other famil-iar names quickly followed and met response fromsmiling happy faces What's that trouble in theback part of the house?" 'Olie Meeker hasfainted' Santa tried to give her a present Sheis but five years old The sight of Santa is tooreal and too much for her She Just keeled oserwhen he came" Aunt Mary said, as she dasheda cold cup of coffee in her face and spoiled hernice white dress Why, lawsie I couldn t get atany water and had to do something to bring hertoo ' auntie said when the excitement was 'fiToer and everybody laughing at her

Except to the "wee tiny little ones" almost a1 -the presents were of value for use, and many werehome made. Carrie Meeker got a pair of realnice white dancing shoes made by her brotherMarion out of buckskin uppers and light tan col-ored soles. The parson got two sacks of flour.some bacon and ,some cloth for a new suit. Smatiwonder the tree wouldn't hold all the 'presentTs.\fany new names were a1ded for presents as'strangers were discoveied 6r new faces came in.

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None too young nor any too oldall to be ro-menibered and all were remembered as the daywore on until the speaking and singing began andthe dance of the little folks in the old cabin later.

Of course, in such a gathering one could hard-ly expect but that some mischief would be brew-ingsome perfectly harmless. Frank Spinning,then a little shaver, played some jokes On the boysby smuggling into the Santa's hands some pigtailshe had saved for the purpose at his father's' recen"hog killing," and had what he called a nice dishof sport, finally one of them by mistake falling intothe hands of one of the girls, and the joke wasturned on him, for the girl was as "mad as aMarch hare," which made him, as he said, feel aw-ful "sheepish"

'Happy times, es happ times" I wonderso mans people think pioneers could not be happ)Hardships, 'he people answer Youngsters, do yourealize that a little 'roughing it" a good deal ofe-erctse and some plain food is good for youThat a long walk is better for you than sttiing onlnrd benches to see other people exercise morethan is good for theni' "Jany of the e'eopl' i

that Pnyailup school house to eat the Christma'dinner and receive the Christmas presents havegone away to a land of perpetual Christmas wherethey know the sweet gifts of joy come from God.their father and your father, and shall we not re-

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joice to know that some day we all will be reunitedin paths of peace and usefulness?

StillyJerry Stilly and Uncle John Meeker made a

trip hunting claim on the hill back of Puyallup.They came in on an old trail from Steilacoom Wa)to within a couple of i'niles of the valley and gotlost and had to camp when night. overtook them.The camp consisted simply in building a fire agansta big dry cedar stub that soon began to burnfiercely and would evidently burn down beforemorning so they were compelled to stand up andwatch, besides. rain began falling and they had noshelter.

My! but I wish I knew where we are" UncleJohn said some time during the night. "I jinkI know well enough where we are" answered Stilly"but the deuce of it it is to know where any placeelse is." Stilh- always had a ready answer and isnow one of the very few of the pioneers left.

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13

Indian War TimesIf you will go out to Steilacoom and take a

look along the front street of the town, you will seenearby Commercial street what has the appearanceof a frame building fifty feet wide and over allrearly a hundred feet long

Hidden under the weather boarding on the out-side and ceiling on the inside is the logs of a building (block house we called it) hul1et proof andwithout windows and two stories high This webuilt soon after the outbreak of the Indian war ofx855 and proved a haven of safety not only toour own families but many of our neighbors be-sides A heav' door snng at the front entranceto the lower story while an incline walk fromhigher ground in the rear enabled us to reach theupper story and a ladder served the purpose of astairway inside between the two stories.

Before telling more history of the old house. Imust tell of the happenings that caused us to build

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it. Word came out during the night of October28, 1855, that all the white people living on Whiteriver had been killed by the Indians and that next(lay the settlers of the Puyallup Valley would bemassacred. A friendly Indian had brought thedreadful news which we did not get until about2 o'clock in the morning. We were living in acabin near the edge of the heavy timber not farsouth of South Tacoma.

The massacre occured less than 20 miles fromwhere we lived, at a point on White river nearthe present town of Auburn and for all we knew.the Indians might be out upon us any hour.Therewere three men of us and each of us had a gun (Ihave one of the guns vet. The first thing to dovas to harness and hitch the team to the wagonopen the gates so the calves could get to theirmothers, turn the pigs loose, and open the chickenhouse doorall this without light then the dm ebegan with the babies and women laying close tothe bottom of the vaon bed the men with gunsIfl hand scouting on each side the wagon but noindians were encoi ntered on the drive and we'eached the fort (Seu1acoom in safets

Ve could not in safety ston there It r'fort at tlTon1 an encampment "md alre-'th filled

ith refugees from the surrounchnz cettImentcand' o we pushed on to the town and soughtsafety as best we could, until 'the house described

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was built when we moved into it before the roofwas on. The next day after we left our cabin, thepeople from the Puyallup Valley began to arrivedestitute of both food and clothing and after a few(lays of perplexity and doubt, nineteen men pushedback into the Valley and to within ten miles of thehostile camp and escaped unharmed, bringing withthem the much needed clothing and provisions.

The disturbance was so wide-spread thatseventy-five block houses, like the present one.

ere built and great numbers of tile settlers didnot go back to their homes for years. The indiansfinally did come in force just across the water anddefied the troops and in fact prevented the land-ing from the steamer sent against them A fedays later we heard the guns at Fort Nisqtiallv.

hich howeer I have always thought at wts afalse alarm Not so however when the captivechildren came in that had been held until thehad forgoten their mother tongue then we knethe gravity of our situation but we had our troubIcc from other sources as well as with the Indians

The war had brought troops, many "f whomwere reckless men; the makeup of the army wasfar below what it is now, besides this there camea trail of gamblers and other disreputable personzto vex and perplex us. The marks of shot in theblock house could be seen that we knew did notcome from the Indians.

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The ,little drummer boy "Scotty" used to fre-quently come to see us. He was a bright littlefellow and the colonel encouraged him to do so.finding it was agreeable to us. At the fort, one ofthe married soldiers used to get drunk, and reporthad it, used to beat his wife. I could give his name,but think better not as some of the descendants areyet here with us. "Scotty" had lived with thesepeople awhile and knew the happenings. My wifeone day asked "Scotty" if it was true thathad abused his wife. "Well I can't say exactly heabused her, he only kicked and cuffed her aroundthe house sometimes." Poor-boy, he had seen somuch "roughing it" that he didn't know. -what wasor was not abuse. -

A perplexing feature came from th fact of thetwo warring camps within the counsels- of thewhites as well as with theindiáns, a large majorityof the indians were friendly and ,et how couldyou know". Atrocious murders had been com-mitted by irresponsible, viscious, white men. Thepioneers knew indians even in the war camps thatthey could trust I had the experience arid kncn

t the point known as "Flett s place' being over-taken by a scouting party of eleven tinder the eyeof Chief Leschi He said "don't you harm thatman he is our friend" Mrs Doughert and herchildren near by had the same experience Theoldest, George Dougherty, (still living) could talk

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the Indian language fluently and he will tell youthe same as I have here related, and yet, we allcarried our guns, and lived many- years in theshadow of doubt. One illustration; a child is lost;Johnny Boatman, not quite four years old. Wordgoes out the Indians had stolen him and the motheris crazed; the commanding officer ordered out thetroops to search and avenge the loss of the child;an open threat, that to irresponsible men couldeasily be interperted as license for summary actionAfter the lapse of a day, the child was found play-mg under a tree, had simply wandered off

Then came the brutal murders of prisonesright in the Governor's office at Olympia, and noone punished

Many pioneers believed that they would sufferfor the deed and so there kept up a feeling of tin-certainity and dread that hung over us as a corn-mttn?ty for many long weary- months

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A Fish StoryA man whom we will call McGee went out

fishing one day with a pitch fork and a yoke ofoxen dragging a sled. This is certainly a curiouscombination, you will say, for a fishing expedition,but as we shall presently see he had his wits abouthim and knew what he wanted. Usually, youknow, when we go a'fishing we expect to carrythe 'catch" home in our hands or at most in asmall basket with a strap over the shoulder butthis man had a large box On his sled and said heexpected to fill it before he returned I had methim in the road and when he told me the "run wason' and that he was only going over to the 'creek'i couple of miles awa what should I do but turnback and go with him. The creek referred to wasbut four miles long and emptied into the Puyallupk'iver a few miles above the mouth of the river.McGee followed a dimly marked, narrow, crooked

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trail winding around through the brush and overlogs, under leaning trees, crooked vine-maple, crab-apple and the like that compelled him to go innearly all directions so that in going the two milesto the head of the creek it seemed like he had driv-en -more than twice that far. The "head of thecreek," is what is now known as MaplewoodSprings, a large body of water running out fromthe foot of the bluff bordering the Puyallup valleyand but a few feet above the level of the valley.

McGee knew that salmon, when on the "run."go up the stream to spawn as far as they can get.and that they won't turn around and go downstream when they meet obstacles they can't overconie. We immigrants on the Oregon Trail -foundthem in Snake rner in vast numher in 1852 atSalmon Falls fully Soo miles from the sea

The story I am telling you happered nearhfifty years ago and is a true stor only I havn tgiven you the exact name.

The creek just below the springs spread outseeral rods wide, very ha1Iow and rapid, thewater running over a beautiful pebbly bed ofgravel, where the mother fish laid the eggs thatin course of tinte hatched out and became wee, tinybaby salmon. Now note this' wonder, these babysalmon know just what to do and turn their headsdown stream and go to the salt water of the sea.Another wonder: these same baby salmon, 'when

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they grow up come straight back to the channelthey ha4 traveled when they were young. Thosepeople who have studied the habit of the salmontell us the different varieties always return to thecreek or river that gave them birth.

Mr. McGee filled his great, big box with salmonall right enough, and left a lot on the bank of thecreek he couldn't take along, but before I finishthe story, suppose we inquire into the wonders ofthis wonderful species of fish.

The salmon family is composed of nearly 100species, but the great commercial food fish is con-fined to six species and produce an enormous quan-tity of food and individual specimens of large size,I saw one at Hume's fishery on the Columbia riverthat weighed 72 pounds. This was over 50 yearsago and when salmon fishing had just begun; now,the value of the salmon catch on the Pacific coastalone is over twenty million dollars annually.

It is wonderful the strength of the salmon Ihave watched them go up a fall seven feet highmany would fail but now and then one would sueceed They were simply struggling to get to aplace to die after they spawn the never return

I soon found out what Mr McGee brought hipitch fork along for The creek litteralhfilled with fishso dose together that on' could iiput your foot down without stepping on a fishnearly as long as your arm and as slippery as an

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eel. He straightway began to throw them Outwith his pitch fork and somtimes would actuallythrow out two at a time. The water was no morethan ankle deep. The only fun I could see aboutit was that sometimes Mr. McGee would step on

hsh md lose his balance and come down on hisknee before he could recover himself. Twice hesat squarely down Just as if he had grown tiredand had concluded to take a rest. It was all thefunnier because he couldnt himself see where thefun come in He had come to get some fish andthat was all he thought about

When I first came into Commencement bay inJune of 1853 the Indians were trolling for salmonI do not know with what measure of success but I(10 know that when taken direct from the salt waterthey are in the very best condition for the pan. Inever in my life had seen such fish or tasted sodelicious a morsel as those when I was campedon the beach, near where the smelter is now, butof course there was no Tacoma then nor thoughtof any city ever grownig upon the spot then cover-ed with a dense growth of timber.

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A Coon HuntThe Ferris boys came over with the dogs just

after supper. Mother knew what that meant andtook me out aside to say she didn't like to haveme go, not that she was unwilling I should get outand have some fun but she didn't exactly like thecompany. Updn my telling her that I had en-couraged them to come, mother consented, butcautioned me I had not better go with them again.Now there was nothing particularly bad about theFerris boys The worst that could be said aboutthem was they kept a lot of dogs and spent agood deal of time hunting and didn't seem to haveambition to try to get ahead in the world thoughtso of them were grown up nearly to manhoodI never vent with them again and other boys

shunned them.If the boys had turned their attention to a little

more work and not so much for sport and not lettheir love for hunting "get away" with them, they

would have grown up to respectable manhoodand would not have been shunned by the girls aswell as by some of the boys. It was a lesson Inever forgot and yet I have often thought themothers could have encouraged those boys for bet-ter ways without lowering the standard of goodbehaviour of their own boys.

old hound Tray was the leader and we hadnot gone far until he began to bay. "It's an oldtrail," Lem, the second oldest said, "better not stophere." "Ah, that's better" he said a few momentslater as the dog changed his tone. We'd betterwait here' and so we sat down and some onebegan to spin a yarn," when behold here comeTray rignt to us but he didn't stop. "He's closeto him now, the ounger boy said as the tonechanged He s got him by gol ' all three saidas the dog let out a long drawn bark almost likea howl I soon learned the boys understood the Ianguage of the dog so that they could tell mstantlwhether the trail was "hot" Or "cold," whether thedog was puzzled by cross trails, found they couldtell whether he was tracking a "coon" or "possum"or a wild cat. Upon this signal we all startedfor the dogs in double quick time but Mr. coonanticipated our coming jumped froni the small treehe was up and raced for another nearby but muchlarger. We could not see the coon but knew be'was treed by the action of the dogs and besides

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the boys said they could see his tracks in the barkof the tree, which for the ifie of me I couldn't see.So, off with our coats, three axes were makingchips fly on two curfs of a hickory as big as yourbody and which it did not take long to bring downwith a .crash. We had held the dogs from underthe falling tree but the cunning coon had jumpedbefore the tree had touched the ground. The dogssoon picked up the trail and after a short excitinghase, the little fellow took to a large Sycamore.but it was questionable whether he had managed toget into the hollow of the tree. The boys saidthey knew lie was up that tree and so again thechips were made to fly. This time it was a moreserious job than the first treemuch larger andtough, hut the ardor did not cool until the treecame down. When the dogs were loosened, We ex-pected theni to make short work of the coon or pickup the trail quickly hut they did neither and we be-gan to thi k the (logs had fooled us and that we hadcut the wrong tree. Lem said, "that ar coonthinks he's mighty cute but we'll catch him yet forhe's in that hollow" and so the axes were broughtinto play again and sure enough the coon wasthere Then came the wprk to get at him andJust when we felt sure the end was near the coonsuddenly left the hollow made a bold leap andJust got out of reach in time to go up a ezy largewalnut tree nearby It was now one o'clock

\Vhat shoud we do? give it up and go home? Justthen Tray opened up, but Lem said, "it's only apossum," lie knew by the bark of the dog. One ofthe boys went with me to the dog and sure enoughthere was the "possum" up a sappling only fairlyout of reach of the dog. A club or two broughthim down stretched out as dead. The boy thatwas with me wouldn't let the dog touch him and

we carried him over to the walnut where thework had already begun of "making the chipsfly." We all got so busy on the walnut that weforgot the "possum" and he left without our per-mission. After working a couple of hours on thewalnut, we found it a bigger job than we bar-gained for and so when the streaks of daylight be-gan to appear we all took the trail home hungrytired -md sleepy Fine was it?

But that was not all, I knew the owner of theland the walnut tree stood on. Was I willingto go and tell him I had helped to ruin his treeCould I look him in the face and say I had not?But I told mother and she told father and fathertold the owner and offered to pay for the treewhich however he refused.

But right here boys, think seriously before youdo anYthing you are ashamed of and never shrinkfrom telling your mother

The racoon is a very cunning lively little an-imal but we have trapped him when he made raids

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on the chickens. He has a curious habit of clean-ing all food before eating as though he was washingit. Watch him if you ever get a chance. Thereare but few "coons" here, but what few there areare hard to get.

'i he walnut tree we cut was on land nowwithin the city limits of Indianapolis. Indiana. Itis sixty-five years ago since the hunt took place.

Odds and EndsA man riding on the public road: met a boy.

"Your coat is too short for you my boy," he said.The boy answered "It will be long enough when Iget another" whereupon the man passed on, laugh-until he met a stranger in the road. "What areyou laughing at" the stranger asked." The mananswered "I met a boy back on the road that madethe funniest remark I ever heard. I told him hiscoat was too short for him and he answered "it

ould be a long time before he got another oneThe stranger said he "didn't see anything funnyabout that The man suddenl stopped laughingand said blamed if I do either no

MoralBe sure to hold on to the point if youtell a joke.

Satan's DreamWe used to have lots and lots of music. Uncle

John Meeker took delight in teaching the childrento sing and th children took delight in the musicas likewise in the Opportunity offered of getting to-gether and having a good time as well. Sorrre-times they would sing without accompaniment andthen again one of them or most likely "Aunty'would play on the melodian and 'steady them upin their time as well as in voice Some times Iwould join them with the violin and maybe UncleJohn would get out his flute then with three in-struments and a dozen or more voices the cabin

ould get so full of music that we would openthe windows and doors to let some of it out amsome fresh air in Uncle John had one of thesweetest voIces I ever heard and he seemingly hadfull control of it and what is as much or more tothe point he was always willing to use it, if by sodoing he could give pleasure to others.

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Later in life. I have known girls that learnedto sing and play On the piano hnt would always"hang back," and would not play or sing withouta great deal of coaxing and maybe not at all.Which way do you think is the nicest? that ofUncle John's way or that of the girl's way justdescribed; this question is particularly addressedto the girls. But what about "Satan's dream," youwill say and now. I will tell you abou± it, but mustfirst tell you a story to clear the way.

I used to play on the violin (fiddle we called it)almost any tune I came across but, somehow oranother the "Devil's dream" ws too much for me:I would miss a note here and there or perhapsget off the track and break down entirely. So neevening I went at it "hammer and tongs" andplayed it over and over again and again and gotit that is I could play the difficult parts

The 'namma" of the house got sleepy andwent to bed and went to sleep and I soon after didthe same Next morning I slipped out of bedearly (as usual) started the fire in the cook sto'eand put on the teakettle and did some other littlechores to 'start the breakfast" and then took upmy "fiddle" and began playing the 'De' il's dreamand was playing it when the "mamma" woke upand then ever after that, she told the joke on me.how I had played the "Devil's dream" all night.

And now for Satan's dream. A presbyterian29.

minister, named Sloan, came down from Steilacoom

to preach in the little ld school .house and cameover to our cabin to stay all night. I could to thisdày, I think point out the spot in Steilacoom wflereh lived. Well, the Rev. gentlemen had heard aboutthe "Devil's dream" and how I had played thtune ail night and heard sundry other talk until hiscuridsity. became excited, whereupon in a half-hearted, halting, doubting tone of voice, asked if

I would play "Satan's dream" for him. Ever afterthat the tune was known as "Satan's dream."

To school girl:Can you bake a good pie?

Boys Join the Boy Scouts

Mamma, Mamma, what is a regulitor; amanhas a big clock that is a reguelter? (regulator) soaskedthelittle boy, Marion Meeker, when the firstjeweler! came t Steilacoom and hung up his bigclotk

One G

roup of Ezra M

eeker's Hop H

ouses

HopsI once tied two drunken indians to a tree and

left them so the', might be stolen away by thetribes to which they belonged. This tree stoodnear the spot now known as the corner of Mainand Meridion streets Puvallup This point

as then cosered with standing timber and denseunderbrush Our hop business had grown to considerable dimensions and members of several tribeswere picking hops Some low down sshites wereprowhng about for a chance to sell whiskey to theIndians, which gave us a good deal of trouble; ofcourse, later on, when the hop business grew largeand some seasons we had as many as i,coo picke4at work we could organIze and handle such mat-ters better

Judge Green appointed 'lJncle John" (Meekeras United States commissioner and a deputy mar-sha?, so that when one of this kind put in anappearance we could nab him on the second day;

we had several trusty Indians that would go andbuy for us and thereby made it easy to catch theprowlers.

I used to give each woman $i whose child wasborn on the place during a hop picking season.After the rule became known I paid out severaldollars each seasonI think seven one season.usually in two days the mothers would be out inthe field at work with the little one tied to a boardleaning up against a hop pole. In the early daysof the business the Indians wanted only silver forpicking; this was before there was any banks in thecountry. The United States government, tryingto get silver into circulation, would send free otexpress charge in sums of $1,000 to any one de-positing the amount with the government agency.This we did and the silver came to Mr. Rogersat Steilacoom where the steamer from San Fiancisco then landed

One time I sent 'Fred' (Meeker) out after abag of silver containing $i 000 He was not quite14 years old but even then was a good shot Ha

mother was uneasy but no one else knew of higoing and if they had known would have been nonethe wiser as to the object of his trip Fred startede-irh aiid made the trip of i6 miles on hor-ebackin three hours stopped in Steilacom but h'lf tihour and was back home before dinner. Rogersstrapped the bag securely behind the saddle anI

covered it up out of sight, but it was a heavyload to carry that way, weighing, as it did, abouto pounds.

As 1 think of it now it does seem risky tohave sent a boy of that age so far with so muchmoney, nearly all the way on a road where therewere no houses, but Fred was equal to the occasionand didn't think of the trip as anything out of tileordinary

The first year we had hop pickers we undertookto board the Indians. We fixed up a large tableout by the woodshed and the women folk took outa great supply of vegetables fish and bread andcalled to the Indians to come to dinner lea ingthem to wait on themselves Soon there came agreat outcry a few of the Indians had secured allthe "grub" and left the others dinnerless Afterthat we put each Indian's portion On a tin plateand then we had trouble to get the plates backmany thinking the plates went with the dinnerBut by the second or third year we induced theIndians to pick by the box and board themselvesand we had no more trouble about the board.

It didn't take many years until we used ticketsfor change in paying off in the field instead ofsi'ver and although the business increased rapidly,we used less and less silver, the Indians (and bythis time white pickers had come) prefererd to

34

hold their tickets until enough had accumulated toget gold.

As time went on a wagon road was openedon the North side of the Puyallup river to the'slough" on the tide flats and some of the hopgrowers hauled their hops to the "slough" and"boated" them over to the Old Town wharf andshipped them by sail vessel; others hauled them toSteilacoom over a rough road, where it took twodays to make the round trip; all this, of course,before there was a good road to Tacoma and someof it before the name, let alone the town of Ta-coma had been thought of.

My father, Jacob R. Meeker, planted the firsthops in the valley; well, I did plant a few hillsthe same year, but he made the real start in thebusiness. As I think of the start, how ludicrousit seems! When his first fittle crop came he hadthe poles taken up and carried to the barn andtook chairs from the house for the women folkto sit an while they picked the hops then whenhe undertook to dry has second crop he closed hishouse tight at bottom and left a large space open atthe top and so when the heat was applied and themoisture from the hops began to settle like a fogover the hops he made the remark that if thehouse was turned upside down, he believed it woulddraw. He, however, instead of turning the houseupside downy reversed conditions by opening a

35

draft above, so the room above the hops wouldremain warm nd then the fog disappeared and thehops dried rapidly. After it was all over, welaughed a good deal at father about his funnyremark to "turn the. house upside down" to rnakeit draw.

Before pointing the moral to this story I wil1tell you another story. As soon as I passed the ageof i8 I joined the Sons of Temperance.. The hailappears as vividy to my mind as though it werebut yesterday though it lacks but a month ofbeing 62 years ago It was an event in m life toreach the comradeship of young people of highpurpose The hail faced on Washington streetIndianapolis, md near Meridian In my recenttrip to that city I looked for the location but thtold building was gone and a new more pretentiou'-one occupied the lot.

"I promise not to make, buy, sell or use anyspiritous or malt liquors wine or cider a a bev-erage" this in short was the pledge An young-ster boy or girl, will be the better for signingsuch a pledge, but flow to my story Twennyears have passed I have boys and girls of my ownto counsel ; we live in the Puyalliip Valley, far re-moved from comradeship with the outer world; thepioneer parents counseled 'together resulting in aresolution that we would have a temperance lodgeand that the parents would go with the youngsters.

So they did and we had a strong Good Templarlodge with the menbership of boys and girls,fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grand-mothersnone too young and none too old. Oncea week near the bank of the Puyallüp river wemet to strengthen our resolution, read essays, singsongs, make speechesanything to have a good timethat would not lower our respect for ourselves orour comrades. There came a time when some ofus planted hops. Aye, but you can't be a GoodTemplar and raise hops to nake beer. "Neithermake, buy or sell" Yes, I know, hut the spirit ofit even if you don't violate the letter. And sothe controversy waxed warm.

One of our neighbors, Mrs. Ross, bless hergood soul, born the same year and month I was,and one of the very few of the old set leftlessthan half a dozen of uscame over to "argue thequestion." In her zeal she "wished the stormwould come and destroy our hops," not that shewished us any harm, but she "knew it was wrong"and wanted to get us on the right road again. Onthe other hand attempt as made to boycott anone who raised hops and didn t drink beer and sothe contention 'sent on until the echo of it reachedLondon when I appeared there on th marketThen the Methodist conference took up the ques-tion when the report was made that "God hadcursed the hops." that the hop louse bad destroyed

the hops, only to be gently reminded the ground up-on which their church stood had been paid for outof the proceeds from the sale of hops.

All through this maze of conflict we all remained good friends, but were unable to settle the ques-tion for good and all ;so far as I know itis not settled yet; 1et you, parents that read this,settle the question in your own mind; and youyoungster, think of it, if it isn't better to go withthe crowd that is trying to better conditions inlife than to drift with others that have no care forthe future and but little for the present.

The Honey Bee"Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! I believe "old

Fred has broken my knee." These words fellfrom the lips of William Buck while he hoppedaround on one leg holding the knee of the otherleg in both hands and fairly groaning with pain.Did I laugh at him? I couldn't help it, his actionswere so comical. Why do we laugh at other peo-ple's mishaps? Will some youngster tell?

We were camped on the Plains near the Platteriver, a few days' drive out west from the Missouri.Buck and I had fitted up at Eddyville, Iowa, tocross the plains together and, among other pur-chases had bought a cow of a farmer named Fred-erick, hence the name "Fred" given to the cow thathad kicked Buck Buck didn't know anythingabout the care of stock and I did, and so it usuallfell to my lot to take care of the team aiid theextra cow while he looked after the camp, althoughhe was a bachelor while I was the only married

39

man of the camp. A few days before this, whileI was leading "old Fred' to where I could tie herwhile milking, the cow holding back, Buck camealong and hit her a rap, whereupon she forgedahead rapidly, pulled me off my feet and draggedme quite a way before I let go the rope.

My! but wasn't I mad while Buck laughed andthe whole camp laughed. Why do we laagh atthe mishaps of others? Did I stay mad? Not atall. Nobody could stay mad long at Buck, he wassuch a jolly good natured fellowone of nature'snoble menalways willing to do his part and merethan his part; cleanly, scrupulously so; courteousto all; honest as the day is long; never swore;never smoked; always in good humor and alwayslooked upon the bright side of life. Youngsters,I wish I could impress vividly upon you thisman's characteristics, to the end that you mightfollow in his footsteps

Looked upon the bright side of life" I saidDo you realize how much that means for your ownhappiness and the happiness of others? If you willhut adopt this mode of thoughtt

But I must back to my story The incidentsrelated happened sixty years ago this last June(of 1912) and remain vivdly in my mind, Buckand I separated near the big bend of Bear river,(near Soda Springs, Idaho,) on t1ie Oregon trail,he going to California while I came on to Oregon.

40

Butwhat has all this to do with the bee? Youare asking, so now I will tell you

A few years after, I heard from Buck. Hehad been back to the "States" (as the eastern partof the country had become to be known to usfolks that lived west of the Roky mountains) andhad brought out fifty swarms of bees by way ofthe Isthmus of Panama. Well, you will ask, "whyin the world should he go to the eastern statesfor bees: wasn't there plenty of them here?". Nota bee in all the Oregon country when I came herenor in California either. Isn't that strange; not abee west of the Rocky mountains.

Of course, when I speak of bees, I mean the"honey bee" for there were literally thousands ofvarieties of bees here that were not domesticatedor did not store honey Naturalists tell us thereare 5 000 different species of bees

Buck sent me 3 swarms by steamer to Steil-acoom where I then lived, and so far as I knowthese were the first bees in the terntor of \rashington I have heard of a man but have forgotten his name who tried to bring a swarm of beesacross the plans but failed and I believe Bucksshipment was the first to reach the coast

Fossil remains give evidence of the honey been prehistoric times; by the Bible we know of thehigh value placed upon honey by the ancient tribesof Israel. By history we know the Romans ad-

41

'anced the bee with their conquests; the Colonistsplanted them over the Atlantic coast of Americaand an humble pioneer nearly completed the circuitaround the world by advancing them to the Pacific,from where, by sucessive stages, they had conicfrom their original home in Asia.

An ordinary swarm contain about half as manybees as there are people in Tacoma and as likewith people, in some respects are made up of twOclasses, the worker and the drones. The drones,like the men of some tribes of Indians won't Work.Only one queen is tolerated in a hive and lays allthe eggs from which young bees are hatched to re-plenish the daily loss of the worker. Naturaliststell us a queen will lay several hundred eggs aday Toward the last of the honey season theworkers kill off the drones The variety of foodgathered hi. the i.sorkers is not equal to that YOUchildren have on your tables, but is enough to sat-isfy the bee. The bee-bread is the fine polen ofplants and is carried into the hive on the legs ofthe bee; the honey is gathered into a sack pro-vided each worker bee and is already made inNature's Iabratory, that is, it does not undergoany change from the time the bee gathers it untildeposited in the alloted cup of the comb, -

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Homing PigeonsI hope there is not a youngster reading "Short

Stories" but has a pet of some kind. A pet is 1191necessarily an animal or a bird, or anything thathas animal or bird life it mas be a garden a mmeature machine shop or perhaps some particulaiobject to concentrate upon; such as for instance,a holly tree or a swarm of bees

After we got to the summit the birds wouldnlease us and staved close by as se come dovin thtmountain to heavier atmosphere" This was theiord Fred Meeker receised from time parts (MajorIngraharn, I think it was) who had taken someof his homing pigeons ssith them to the summit

he mountain The rare air ot neari', i5000et altitude made it ery difficult if not inipssible

for the little fellows to fly and so they stayed closeto their comTades, the mountain climbers until thelower levels were reached, after which they gath-

ered courage and came home to Puyallup.Fred had his petshoming pigeons. He could

tell every bird he had without referring to the num-ber tag on the leg. They would all look alike tome, but Fred could pick them out by their "countenence" as one might say. His cote was out nearthe foot of the hill at Puyallup and favorably locat-for "flying" young birds to teach them to comeback home Sometimes he would take some youngbirds a little may off in his buggy and turn themloose then perhaps next time send them to Taco-ma by the trainmen, then next to Lake View orHillhurst and so on by easy stretches until he act-ually had some birds come home from our hopoffice at Salem, Oregon, with a tiny message in aquill fastened to them. Youngsters, do you real-ize what exquisite pleasure such results wouldbring? What Fred Meeker did you can do if youtry. Sometimes he would lose a bird; maybe athoughtless or brutal person had killed it or per-haps it had got lost. He had one case where abird got home weeks after time In this instancehe thought some one had held it captive Carrierpigeons have been often used in times of war, par-ticular so in the siege of Paris during the last cen-tury. Now, the wireless telegraph and the flyingmachine in a measure take the place of the pigeon.yet there will always remain a fascination in thetraining of this wonderfu' bird.

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The StampedeI went over to my neighbor Carson one morn-

ing to borrow a hoe to dig potatoes with. In thosedays with the virgin soil we often got nearly abucketful to the hill I niean one of the ten quart

ooden water bucketspails the Yankee call themThe soil was so loose the potatoes ould growdown deep and we had to be careful otherwise seMould not be getting all of them You knowmost of the soil in the Puyaflup Valle% is a sandsloam and the land when first cleared as Cr'

loose and the roots of crops would go doM ii deeptithout loosening the soil with 'i plo Whit Imean by a sandy loam is where there is dec'isdvegetable matter mixed in with a sandy soil alike it was here with leaf mold that had coveredthe grund every auttnnn for centuries,

"Well what about the hoe and the stampede."you will ask and so now I will tell you but I must

45

first tell you a short storyvery short about Car-son.

Carson had built the first bridge across thePuyallup river and When that went out with thegreat freshet of i86i, he re-established his ferryand so his place was on the road leading fromSteilacoom and Olympia to the settlements in thePuyallup and White River Vallies and Seattle.

"Did you hear the news?" was the first wordCarson spoke as the ferry boat touched the shore,"No, what news?" Carson then told me howsome men had come through the Naches Pass andreported finding gold just beyond Mud mountainWind how he had been crossing people all nightthat were going to the mines and how Sam \icCaw whom we both knew as reliab1e ha I writtena letter advising friends to come, that he thoughtthe prospects good Now Mud mountain is but ashort way up White river from where Buckley has,ince been built

I knew that if I went back home, the Mrs wouldeither try to persuade me from going or else con-sume a lot of time in "fixing me up" and so I con-cluded to pay truant and go at once and try secureone of the prospective rich claims. Exacting apromise from Carson to send his boy, Frank overto my cabin which was only a little over a miledistantthe same cabin in Pioneer parkto letmy folks know what had become of me, I walked

46

to my father's place nearby where Sumner hasbeen built and told him what I had heard andasked him to let me have a horse and some 'grub"(provisions) and to be quick about it. "Well, youwill want a shovel and pick too and a pan andsome blankets," he said and began making prepa-rations at once. "Go and see Mead while I amgetting the things ready; he is an old miner youknow." Mr. Mead, referred to, then a newcomeiin the valley, acquired a valuable property after-wards which he lost and later lost his life in theNome district of Alaska while seeking to recoveihis fortune. I found Mead in a nearby clearnigpounding away trying to split a big balm log sohe could handle it. "I'll go," he said without amoments hesitation, dropped his maul, left his axs here it was when I accosted him left the wedgesand glut hard and fast in the cut and started offto his house on a brisk walk

When we arrived next day we found the woodsfull of people with claims staked after digging hereand there and others breaking off pieces of rocklooking wise over their "discovery" There hadbeen a discovery claim staked, recorder appointed.xnd a townsite selected Lo and behold the morethe people went here. andthere, the less .tbey knewand the exodus began while others were still ar-riving.

The men that come in from over the mountains47

wore boots with large brassl tacks and where theystepped onto a hard rock, left an imprint of thetacks on the rocks and that was all there was tothe "discovery' though some were so firm in theirbelief that they began building a crude machineto thoroughly try out the rock.

"Uncle John" (Meeker) had caught the 'fever'and had come with a pretty big roll of blankets'nd other 'traps and so 'shen the conclusion wareached to go home, a great big high pack ofblankets was piled on the one horse to whichadded numerous camp-kettles frying pans and thelike making an odd looking load and also not alittle noise All ent ss elI hoss ever until v e cameto a creek crossing here all the party quickllimbed oer a slippers footlog Uncle John de-

dared he couldn't cross that sa and insistednn mounting on top the pile of blankets As themare entered the creek a step down into the waterwith her forefeet and her hind feet on the bankprepared the position for what happened. Sudden-ly dropping her head down to drink, Uncle Johnlost his hold, slipped down the mare's neck andover fler head and sat as squarely down in theivnter as if he had planned to do so. Did welaugh? roar would be the better name for it.ITnete john never heard the last of it as a laughwould always follow the telling about it.

A CharivariAndy Strain,, 62 and Naiicv Heirner, 57, took

out a marriage license at the county clerk's otccat Indianaptslis on the 8th day of November. 1847.

The nes soon spread b) %olunteer cmiii .'ar*cbrought together a motly crowd of oungSteT

(and some elderh ones too) from the three centrcof adjacent neighborhoods, the Railsbacks Mc

Farland and Brimctone, bent, as the) said to ha

'some fun \ndy had been looked upon b' all aa confirmed bachelor while e erybod'. thoughNancy would never think of putting a'.'.a'. the hon

(if honor it be) of being the oldest old maid

in all the country around about. Everybody knewthe wedding would be "pulled off" the followingday and so arrangements were made accordingly.

Andy as our singing master, though he couldn'tsing much but we boys tolerated him because ofhis exeentric way that made a lot of fun and he.

cause the singing schools .tfforded an opportunity

49

to "see the girls home" and the chance for thegirls to "catch a beau" or give some one the "mitten."

The singing master, as we called him couldkeep time with his hand, down, right, left, (whichthe mischief makers would pronounce "lift,") UI),

or down, down, down, up, up, up, which latterwould become "up, pup, purp." Somehow hewould manage to keep the class together by hisgesticulations often as violent as the leader of amodern brass band. A favorite practice, to havethe different groups of singers to start in one fol"lowing another and then reach a grand final whereall were singing, gave opportunity to display hisskill pacing around the room from corner to cor-ner at the opportune time to face each group. Oneevening a mischievous lad accidently, (at least hesaid it was accidently) threw out his foot andtripped the leader while his hands were upliftedand brought him down face foremost, full lengthon the floor. Well we had had a good deal of funat the expense of the old man and it is not to bewondered at that when the word got out that hewas to be married that the spirit of mischief shouldseize us. And so at midnight everything wasready. Some had horns;. some: cowbelis, *bileothers had tin pans Lu beat 'upon, not 'forgettingthe fife and drtnñ. I' remember one 'fellow hadwhat he called a' horse fiddle thaf ni'ade 'a coin-

bined nois equal to a donkey braying, a bull bel-lowing and filing a saw. My brother had a gunbut the second loading he forgot his ramrod, fired

it away and silenced his noise. "Nell, boys, wehavn't anything to give you," the old man said,

polking his head out of the door, but that wouldn'tsatisfy us; we must see the bride and and so thenoise begun again and again after each parly tillat last the bride appeared in the shadow of a heavybark torch after which all went home apparentlysatisfied. No, not all, for there was one heartilyashamed of himself and continued to he so to this

day. True fun does not come by annoyance tothers. It's a sham.

On the ground of what the people of PuyalluPcall the Meeker Homestead' is a holly tree oerthirty feet high, but has never borne a berry, thoughthe tree is now over a quarter of a century oldand never will bear berries for its a staminate ormale Had I planted a pistilate or female thetree would have borne beautiful holly berries allthese years and given us the same foliage as well

Later I came to realize the difference and planted the pistilate and now we have as beautifulbearing holly, I doubt not, as in all the world,While England is not the home of the holly, cer-tainly the trees grow there to perfection and sowhen we speak of our holly we call it the "Englishholly" though now in Puyallup we have as beauti-ful holly as I ever saw in England. Once I took atramp in England along their winding roads, bor-dered in so many places with high stone walls and

holly edges. It did seem like a veritable fairy landwhen shut out from long view. I thought of theholiy trees I saw on that tramp as the most beaut-iful sight in all my life and think so of it yet.

The boy or girl that will plant a holly tree andcare for it during his or her school years will everin after life hold more precious the memory of theold home and those that are left at the home-stead, will all the more intensely cherish thethought of the absent one with the reminder be-fore them. No other part of the United States canproduce as beautiful holly, as is grown here onthe Northwest coast with its mild moist climate,the counterpart of that of England.

Plant a holly tree boys or gfrls and you willnever regret it.

Chikren i Monument at Bci.e. Idaho

:4

History of a Children'sMonument

I will tell you a story first and then the historyafterwards.

More than sixty years ago, a vast throng oipeople crossed the Missouri river with their wag-ons. Estimates have been made that had these wag-ons with their teams been fastened together like arailroad train, the wagon train would ha e extendednearly or quite 300 miles or in other words abo ithalf the distance from Tacoma to San Franci oThere were two roads that came together about;oo miles out from the met but before reachingthat point the estimate is that more than a thousand wagons had been abandoned and that a I

will tell you later 5000 people had died I tra%eledwith that throng near the middle of the huge trainWv rm,lcl drive out of the road and let teams go

55

by but we could not pass teams on the road.We were camped One evening in June of 1852

when suddenily a storm came upon us and my,such sheets of water accompanied by fierce windyou can hardly imagine. It was a cloud burstanother name for the fall of water out of space todistmguish a from a heavy ramheavier fall thana heavy rain The tent was blown down and Buckmy partner, crawled out from under the wet can-sass and irto the wagon where I was sleepingHe had hardly gotten settled down until we hearda roar as of a torrent of running water intermingledwith voices and shrill outcries The camp had beenengulfed by a wave or wall of water coming do nthe hollow following the dry creek bed, sweepingall moveable things before it such as ox oke'."grub boxes," camp equipage, tents and the like.We stayed in the wagon and -escaped but some Ofthe wagons on lower ground were moved bodilyquite a way and everything in the wagon wet.Fortunately a growth of willow stopped nearlyeverything from being carried off entirety out Ofreach and most all of the property was recoverectthe next morning, much of it damaged and someof it ruined entirely. For instance, one familylost all their sugar and salt besides the damage totheir other provisions., To realize what a calamitythis was you must know the conditions on thePlains, This was in 1852. No settlement had

been made west of the Missouri river and one

could not go to a store and buy to replenish his

stock even if he had the money, which many did

not have. People that had crossed out knew theymust take enough provisions with them to lastfrom the crossing of the Missouri to the Pacific

Coast. They could not turn back for the road

was so filled with wagons all going one way thatthey could not make any headway. We had metnine wagons trying to go back, a desperate un-dertaking. These were driven by woman andchildren, the men had all died of cholera. You

need not wonder that when the loss of provisionsbecame known that strong men wept and womencould not restrain themselves for it might meanstarvation for themselves and their children. They

had not yet driven five hundred miles and had yetover ioo to go We believe now had it not beenfor the great number of deaths on the Plains that

ear (1852) that real famine conditions would ha' eprevailed towards the end of the trip As it was,many were without supplies and entirelY depend-ent on others more fortunate until the relief trainsmet us sent out from Oregon by the great heartedpioneers who had gone to Oregon 'in previous

years. Five thousand people, we believe, died

on the way, which would mean one out of everyten that crossed the Missouri that year. Manythink this estimate too low and I now think it is.

but is is only an estimate and can never be ascer-tained in exact figures, but enough is known ofthe stiffering and deaths of the pioneers and of theresults that followed their achievements to placethem in a class to be remembered by the genera-tions that have followed and are yet too follow andthis is why numerous monuments have been erect-ed to their memory.

I will flow tell you the history of a particularmonument erected by the children of Boise City,Idaho

I drove into the city with my ox team andcamped next to the postoffice and in sight of thestate house and told the people I wanted them toerect a monument in memory of the Oregon pio-neers Some one suggestd to have one erectedl'y the children The mayor of the city fa'oredthis plan and the governor of the state gave hisapproval and both of the newspapers did the sameThe school board met and gave permission to tryand so, accompanied by the superintendent, all theschools were visited, thirty-three addresses madeand in two days nearly one thousand children con-tributed and enough money obtained to erect agranite monument you see in the picture; the stateboard convened and gave permission to place it Onthe state house grounds; where it stands today asa children's monument to the pioneers.

Befoi-e the eohtrjbutjbns were taken; ordinary

letter size sheets were prepared with a headingon each with blanks where each child could signthe name, age, grade and amount contributed to-gether with the name of the school. These listswere known as the roll of honor, the sheets boundin book form and deposited with the State Histor-ical society for safe keeping. 'What a precious doc-ument this will be in later years for the grown upmen and wowen to look over the list, see theirown signatures that were written An their child-hood and point with pride to the granite monu-ment that will stand for centuries to perpetuate.not only the memory of the pioneers. yet also thenames of the actors of the later ge'ieration.

I wish the children of the state of Washingtonwould do what the children, not only in Idaho, butin other states have already done; Take up thiswork Ask your father and mother and otirteacher what the think about it

59

More Bear Stories"Oh those bears won't hurt anybody, you folks

are just Big Feard' thats all If you ha'e everbeen in camp with a lot of boys or maybe you willhave a like experience elsewhere, you may haenoticed that almost sure there is some one that issmarter than the rest at least thinks he is has donethe bravest thing of any and can tell the biggeststory of his own prowesno one else equal to hiniaccording to his own estimate of himself. Well.I knew of one "grown up" that felt that way butbefore I tell you about that, I will tell you a storyin which he was an actor. 'We will call his namiChampion, though that may not be his real nameas, for aught I know he is living around about hereyet although the incident occured 3r years ago.

Champion was with the party that was survey-ing the line for the Northern Pacific railroad overthe Cascade mountains. The work was done in

60

the winter time after the snow had fallen on thefoot hills of the mountains. The engineers couldmake better headway on the snow where the logsand brush were covered up than they could onthe bare ground where a great deal of work had tobe done to clear the line. In the latter part ofof winter the bear began to put in an appearanceafter waking up from their long sleep. I knewseveral of the men in the camp and they all saidthe same thing they never saw so many bears as

- there was on that trip nor where they were so tam.The work then was very high up in the mountainswhere white men had never been before and thebears seemed not to be afraid nor inclined to dis-t'irb the men.

One cay they were moving camp and quitea number of the men were following the trail withbig packs on their back. Champion, who was abig stout fellow, had forged ahead till he was out ofsight of the party. Hearing smething behind himhe turned to see a bear close up on the trail, sniffingthe bacon he had in his pack on his back Cham-pion didn't take time to think about the bacon butdropped his pack as quick as you could say "scat'and took to the first tree nearby The bear hear-irig the voice of the men coming up the trail moved

of iht but before Champion could get downoff the tree his companions were in sight and thebig laugh was on him The chaffing that followed

61

was too much for Champion and he left the caifll)soon after ;moral, don't brag.

Another funny incident occured in this samLcamp. J. C. Taylor, who, I think lives in Orting.yet was one of the party.

A bear had become troublesome around thecamp attracted by the camp fire and food. So themen would throw him a hot biscuit and laugh athis antics, pawing on the ground to cool it. Tay-

lor became tired of the bears' company and sentto :another camp for a gun and could obtain onlya big "horse pistol." Soon after, early one morn-ing, Taylor discovered the bear lying near theembers of the camp fire and began to "pepper"away at bruin which, of course, roused the wholecamp and thirty-five men followed Taylor s e'cample as to dress, or rather undress, gathered holdof anything in sight such as butcher knives clubsanything, and struck off after Taylor up the trailand they actually did kill the bear 'shich was ayoung one only half grown What a funny pic-ture that would makethirty-five men withoutclothes running on a trail barefoot in the snow

If these stories were not so thoroughly authen-ticated by different men that I know, I wouldhesitate to print them, but I have no doubt theyare true. -

Many people in Tacoma will remember Dr.Wing. I knew him well. Later in this same sea-

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son, the Dr. went up to the survey camp "a fish-ing." The cook put the beans on to cook and wentwith him. Upon approaching the camp, when re-turning, they spied a bear eating the beans. Some-how in the hurry to get away, the bear caught thecamp kettle on his head and out he went with iton his head bang-it-a-bang as far as they could seeor hear him for they could hear the "banging" along time after they lost sight of the bear. Thekettle was not found and they never knew howlong the bear remained muzzled.

There were eleven of these surveying, campsand over 300 men and every camp had its bear storyto tell. This was when the survey for the North-em Pacific railroad through the Stampede Pass establjshed the line over the Cascade mountains.

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The Ivy VinçA Puyallup Pioneer Story.

\\rhen you go to Puyallup, go to Pioneer parkand see the ivy vine. It does not noW cover thecabin like you see in the picture but instead, thereare eight cement columns that support cementbeams that in turn support the mass of vinesabove the whole, providing a nice little bowersith a fountain in the centre

'But what about the ivy vine?" you will saydfld that in part is what I am going to tell youbut its a pretty long story and a good deal elsein it for the 'Grey Beards" to read and that I hopewill also interest "mother" as well as you young-4ers. The ivy vine stands close up to where thecorner of the cabin stood and marks the spotwhere we lived in pioneer days. It is over fortyyears old. The ladies of Puyallup took a notioi

65

to mark the spot as a land mark in the history ofPuyallup where the first cabin stood and conse-quently where the first settlement was made inwhat originally was "Puyallup Town." Now YOUknow the town is spread otit in area to fully sixsquare miles with pretentious signs of a city,brick blocks, paved streets, cement sidewalks andthe like, where, when the cabin was built a denseforest around about covered the land and a partof it a swamp On one of the supporting beams iSa tablet inscribed

Site of the first home of Erza Meeker whopresented this park to Puyallup in 1889 Erected1911

The ladies inyited me to be present at thededication services Being then on my second tripover the Oregon trail I could not attend and instead talked into a phonograph so that my voiceas well as my words, might be heard but an un-expected large number (over a thousand) attending all could not hear and so what I had to saywas read. As this address contains a history ofthe cabin, besides a good deal of pioneer life, Iwill print it here although quite too long for a shortstory and quite too "old" for the little ones unlessthe mamma might conclude to read it aloud tothem. -

"Your purpose to on this day dedicate an en-during monument on the site of the old cabin iii

Pioneer park appeals to me with peculiar force, re-viving as it does precious memories of the almostforgotten past. My mind harks back to the virginforest surrounding the cabin; to the twilight con-cert of the bird son gsters; to the dripping dews ofthe dense foliage of the trees; to the pleasantgatherings within the cabin; to the old time musicof the violin, flute, melodeon, and finally the piano,mingled with the voices of many now hushed andhidden from us; to the simple life of the pioneer:to the cheerful glow of the double open fires withinthe cabin; to the more cheerful glow ofcontent-ment notwithstanding the stern battle of life con-fronting the inmates of the cabinall these visons,vividly arising before me not only intensify myinterest in this occasion, but bring uppermost in

mind the importance of the work"Let me now speak to you as though I were

present in person a well as in voice Let me joinith ou to read the lessons of the hour It is the

pioneers themselses who are to be dedicated to anewer realism f the meaning of pioneer life as wellas for later generations that have followed and arevet to followlessons of patience industry, con-tentment in a word what we may call for the lackof a better name the homely virtues of the pioneercLet us review these lessons and compare them withthe lessons of present every day life, not with blindzeal for the ways df the past or blind prejudice

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against present conditions. Herein lies the greacentral important point of this and kindred oc*casons whereby to build up better citizenship, in.tenser patriotism, love of country and the flag andgood will among men. As we better understandeach other or the ways of each generation, We aresure to profit by their failures on the one hand aswell as by their successes on the 9ther. The dif-ference between a civilized and untutored peopletles in the application of this princple, and we per-haps build better than we know or can realize inthe furtherance of such work consummated heretoday if we walk in the experience of the past wedispel the clouds of doubt that may hover before0 ir vision of the future

This cabin sas built in 1864 another of likedimensions stood immediately east of it a doublefireplace built with soft lava rock found near theforks of the river, gave out cheer for the longwinter evenings; a lean-to on the south side thewhole length of both cabins added 6o per cent morespace; the well, 84 feet deep (a driven six-inch?1Pe) is about a rod south of the cabin, and vhileit never yielded the coveted pure water, it devel-oped the fact that we had a soil of unfathomabledepth.

"May we not for a few moments indulge insome old-time reminiscences? When we enteredthis cabin we were without a team, withont a

wagon, without money and but scant supply ofhousehold goods or clothing; seven cows and asteer (Harry), a few pigs and a dozen or so ofchickens comprised our worldly belongings, albeitthe bears divided the pig wth us and the skunkstook their share of the chickens. The loss of thesteamship Northener had carried all our accurnula-tions with it, and also the revered brother. OliverMeeker, who, had he lived, was destined to havemade his mark in the annals of the history of thisgreat state. One cow traded to Robert Moore fora steer (Jack) to mate the one we had gave us ateam

"If the walls of this cabin had had ears andcould speak we could hear of the councils whenthe shoes ga'e out of the trip to Steilacoom fortwo sides of leather a shoe hammer, awls threadand the like of the lasts made from split cedarblocks, of shoe pegs split with a case knife andseasoned in the o en of how the oldest pig sufferedand died that se might hae bristles for the wa'rends of hov. v ith a borrowed auger and with ourown ax a sled was made and isork in earnestin the clearing began of how in tso \e1r thetransplanted orchard began to teld of hov theraspberries 1!ackherries and other small fruit cameintá full bearing and the salmon berries were ne-glected and slivash muck-a-muck had lot its at-traction: of how the steamed lady-finger potatoes

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would burst open like popcorn, and of how themeat of the baked kidney potatoes would open aswhite as the driven snowsmall things, to be sure,.but ve may well remember that the sum of life'shappenings is made up of small things, and that askeen enjoyment of life exists within the walls of acabin as in a palace

'Kind greetings to all."

Take a ChairMr, Huntington, who lived near the mouth of

the Cowlitz river in 1852, went out a hunting andaccidently shot himself in the leg Pioneers neveriked to be inle and so he concluded to make somechairs while confined to the house His neighbora Frenchman (I have forgotten Ins name) camein one day to see him Take a chair Mrtake a chair Mr Huntington said Looking a lit-tie puzzled, the visitor took one in his hand andinstead of sitting down on it, deliberately walkedoff home, leaving Mr Huntington laughing andwondering whether or not the Frenchman (lid itfor a joke or whether he thought his neighborwanted to make a present to him.

The Frenchman kept the chair, and as therewas never, afterwards anything said about it, Mr.Huntington never knew which. What do youthink it

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JimI hope there iSn't a boy or girl that reads the

story of Jim' but has a pet of their own I wel1knew that if the) have then the story will be

more fully appreciated. Imagine my feeling whenI awoke in the car on the morning of August 2oth

(192) to find that Jim was gone. We had beenclose friends for over six years and a half, travel-ing most of the time with the ox team. Jim hadnot been only a friend but a body guard as weUand watchman of the tent or wagon You willsee by the picture that Jim was a collie, an ex-ceptional intelligent breed of dogs. He was an eXceptional fine specimen of his breed. His oddname came in this way. I got him from a mannamed James, si4io lived in Puyalltip, and calledFim "James"Jnn for short He was as Intensein his dislikes as in his friendship. The ox Davehooked Jim with his straight horn early in the trip

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and ever after Jim manifested an intense hatredof the ox and seemed always ready to anoy him.Jim and the ox Dandy were better friends but laterin the trip as Jim got older he concluded he hadno use for the friendship of either ox. I do notdoubt but Jim traveled three times as far as theoxen did. He would run away ahead on the roadnearly out of sight and then come back as fast ahe could run to the wagon; then the next momenthe would be off to one side or the other runningafter birds, rabbits or anything that had motion.I do not doubt but Jim ran fai enough on thattrip to go clear around the world; the oxen trave1ed 8000 miles.

We ran across a big ratlesnake one dayfourfeet long and eleven rattles and Jim narrowlyescaped the fangs of the poisonous reptile. I musthowever tell you first how it came I lost Jim.Going back a little, we encountered a cloud burstin the Rocky mountains and very, very roughroads. Dandy lost nearly all his shoes and becameso lame I couldn't use him at alt and so I conclud-ed to ship home from Cheyenne. \Vvomin. I putthe wae-on 'md Dave and Dand in a bo car andcame with them in the carJim of course withme I left the car door open for s entilation Jimslipped Inc head out of the collar during the nightand at one of the frequent stops got o'it of thecar and couldn't et hick, and so. after nearly

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seven years of travel together when we were with-in four days of home he was lost and I now fearfor good and all. I yet have faint hope as I haveoffered a handsome reward for intelligence thatwill lead to his recovery. If Jim is found he willgo into the park with the oxen and later into theglass case.

One day in Wyoming on my first trip ('906)a wolf crossed the road just behind the wagonand Jim tackled him but by the time I got out ofthe wagon the wolf run and Jim after him, hp-a-te-cut, if you know what that means,I calledJim back and as soon as he turned, what shouldte pesky. wolf do but turn also and run Jim a tightrace to within twenty feet of the wagon, afters hich the wolf gave up the chase and put off up

the slope of the hill to the ridge near by, and outof sight and we drove on. We hadn't gone aquarter of a mile before we saw the wolf peekingat us from the ridge and again and again he woulddisappear and then shouv. himself and kept ths UT)for at least t%o miles Our un was out of orderor he 'wouldn't ha'e been allowed to do this thesecond time as he was within easy rifle range

Jun youldn't get out of the wagon when leftalone with it and would not let an) one ifl itwhen Mr. Mardon, the dirver, and myself wereabsent. In some way one night on the east sideof New York City Jim was caught and I lost track

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of him for thfee days and only recovered him byadvertising and paid twenty dollars reward, nodoubt, to the thief who had stolen him.

Jim was a great fighter and would tackle anydog that came along, no matter how big, and Inever knew him but once to get the worst of thefight. One day in Kansas City he got into a fightand a big loaded truck going down hill came alongand run over both dogs and killed the other dogas the saying goes, "dead as a door nail," whateverthat may meananyway the dog was dead andJim was bleeding so that I thought sure he would

die. I took him to a veternary surgeon and hadhis icosened teeth removed but his throat was soswolen he could hardly swallow and Mr. Mardonfed him soup and milk, with a sp000n and would

hold his head up till the soup would "go down."Then one day, (I think it was in Buffalo) a negrodog catcher threw his net but didn't quite catchJim and attempted to take him by hand. hut soonlet go as Jim not only showed his teeth but usedthem. My, but wasn't that darky mad? But bythis time Jim was in the wagon and Mr Mardonwho would fight at the drop of a hat, stopped the\egro and there came very near being a not rightthen and there the street speedih filled up with

excited men ready to take Jim's part 'nothertime Jim came along in the road where a cow

hooked him over a wire fence where the calf was.

but Jim didn't bOther the calf as he was gladenough to get away without a broken rib. Oneday he got his foot under the wheel of our ownwagon and I made sure it was broken but it wasnot, yet he nursed it for a week by riding in thewagon. He never would ride in the wagon ex-cept during a thunder storm. One day a sharpclap of thunder firightened Jim so that he jumpedfrom the ground clear into the wagon while inmotion, and landed on my feet; how in the worldhe could do it I never could tell. At one placewhere we were crossing a bridge with a rapidrunning river fully twenty feet below, Mardonsuddenly seized Jim and threw him into the r9ar-ing torrent I didn t like it a bit, and Jim cameout showing he too resented the act and wouldn'tmake friends with Mr Mardon for several daysJim would sleep On the ground close by the footof my cot in the tent and sometimes tinder the

and woe betide an Intruder unless bid to bestill. Mardon had a way of talking cross to Jimwhen in fact he didn't mean anvthingonh thabit but Jim didn t like it and totild often comearound close by me and often root his, nose againstrue in token of friendship. He would often comein the morning to wake me up and then go 0111and run around the tent and bark as if too say"T'Jl give you no chance to sleep" and then comeback to see whether r had gotten out of bed. I

have often said Jim understood the English lan-guage better than many men I knew and wasmore willing to mind me than some boys I haveheard of that didn't want to mind their mamma.I always spoke to Jim in a low tone of voice andknow to a certainty that he perfectly understoodthe meaning of many words. I have seen himsitting on his haunches looking intently into myface when conversing, sometimes turing his heada little to one side with a look as if to say "Ididn't quite catch that." Oftentimes I would walkahead of the wagon for miles at a time, some-times for exercise, sometimes looking out aheadfor a camping place, or maybe to get away fromthe dust. Jim always would accompany me. Onthese walks he would he full of his nic some-

times one way and sometimes another. A favoritepastime upon returning from a long run aheadwould be to get in the way and bother rue aboutwalking and would hardly ever desist until 1would hit him a sharp rap on his nose with myI nuckleshalf in fun and half in earnestoftenhowever soon followed by a tug at my trouserleg or maybe my hand from a rear attack by Jimwho had not forgotten the rap but wanted to ocn-

Ltinue the fun. I do not now remember havingever struck Jim to chastise him during the almostseven years we were together.

'4

The Last DriveI will now tell you about the last drive with the

oxen Two months more and seven years Willhave passed into history since I made the firstdrive on the trip just ended This drive I willnow write about was only forty miles I had before driven with the oxen over eight thousandmiles and quite a stretch of it over mountains andmany miles of rough roads besides

When the arrangement was made to put theo-cen and wagon in Point Definance Park Tacomafor good and all, Dave was in Seattle and Dandyin Puyallup. Dandy was lame and couldn't work,(he is well nofl) and so I had shafts made for thebig wagon and Dave hauled it alone I thoughtat first I might have trouble with him as he hadbothered me a good deal white breaking him in,but he didn't and took right hold of the work inthe shafts alone, the same a he had done along-side of Dandy with the wagon tongue between

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them. I had a short yoke made for him so that thedraft came on his neck the same as it did whenthe two oxen worked together in the long yoke.

The first few miles out from Seattle the roadswere good and Dave walked briskly along as fastas he and Dandy walked when working together,

but long towards night he began to slow up, puffa little and put his tongue out. The big wagonwith consdeirable load in it was rather too much

for him. I could not find shelter without drivingdown a hill. I thought while going down one

steep pitch that I might have trouble with it. Loand behold rain began to fall and I didn't get outSfrom this place for a week although it was buteight miles out from Seattle. Sure enough whenwe did come to the steep pitch we did have troubleDave always was a fool about going up hillwanted always to go on a runhile Dandwould take it more moderate and sensible \VellDa'ie s feet slipped from under him and down hecame nearly rolled over on his back, broke one ofti e si afs and split the other and p1a 'd hobgenerally This was the first bad break I had hadon my long trip of 8000 miles Well in a coupleof hourse we, (two nearby neighbors helped) gotthings fixed up and a passing team pulled the

wagon up to the road but I only had time to drivesix miles to Kent-8 days gone. Next day raincame again and I could 'nly get to Auburnan-

other stretch of six miles. Nearby Auburn iswhere the dreadful Indian massacre of the whitepeople took place fifty-seven years ago. I knewall the people that were massacred and many ofthe Indians, but I cannot stop now to tell you thesad story. We, (Dave and I) have now been outfrom Seattle ten days and I thought we will surelyget to Puyallup tonight, but lo and behold, whenI arrived at Frank Spinning's place near Sumnerword was passed that the road to Puyallup was"all torn up" and that it was utterly impossible todrive through Then came prolonged rain andother work thick and fast upon my hands andblessed if it wasn't another week before I reachedPiilliip with the teami7 days from SeattleDid Dave and Dandy know each other2 Indeedthey d'd as could he seen b their salutation intheir actions as well as by voice Dand was,00n lick ng Da'e's neck as like he c' often didon the trio 'nd Dave stretched out his head as ifto say "that feels awful good." Although separ-ated but two months they seemed rejoiced to hetogether acain. Then the shafts must be takenoff and the tongue put in; the short yoke put awayand the old one hunted up ready for the finalstretch from Puyallup to Tacoma. Only to thinkof this nine mile drive without incident to finish upthe eight thousand and more within the last sevenyears. Did my mind go back to many incident

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on that trip; of the time we landed at The Dal1eafter dark and the storm that followed; of thelong hill where Dave gave out and we could gobut twice the length of the wagon and oxen withcut stopjing to rest; of when the ox kicked meand nearly broke my leg; of how I was lame for

two months or more from the effects of the kick:of how we floundered in the snow on the Bluemountains; of the sand storm on Snake river toblind us; of the cloud burst that overtook us?

Yes, its all ended now, and Dave and Dandy willhave a long rest in the park before they go into theglass case for good and all.

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ReminiscencesWhen ve only had the ox team the trips to

Steilacoom meant two days away from home.These were times before we had much of anythingto sell and to stop overnight in town drew tooheavy on the small store of silver and so it cameabout that we would drive Out part of the way.drive in early the next morning and get out oftown before night and sometimes camp again ormaybe drive home after night. Steilacocm thenwas as big as Seattle and did as much trade aSeattle and the people had great confidence in thrfuture of the city. On one trip a wild cat ran rightclose up ta me before discovering my presence.I had stopped in the road and gone to the head oithe team when the little fellow came aroundshort turn of the road and almost bumpedagainst me, but almost as quick as lightenine.!eaped off into the brush and out of sight. I hac.teard sm tiogs harking but quite a way off an(

presume they were on the track of the cat. At an-other time in the Stuck river valley I ran acrossa couger or rather he ran across my track, but thatwas a very different thing from a wild cat. Thisfellow, the cougar, slipped out of sight as soon ashe saw me and probobly made off from me as fastas he could though he was coming in my directionon a log when I last saw him. I didn't stay thereto look him up. I had no gun with me and WSwilling to put all the distance possible betweenhim and myself and in the shortest possible timeHowever, the couger, in this climate seldrm at-

tacks a person and not unless pressed by hunger.I kneu of a case on the Cowlitz ' alley wherethree had chased a man who barely escaped intohis cabin but who afterwards killed all three tofind they were in a starving condition My neigh-bor D M Ross once with his dog ran one up atree and staid by the tree until one ofhis boys could get a gun and which tooko er ts o hours to accomplish He un-

doubtedly ran a great risk though the animal wasnot hungry having killed and dragged off one ofRoss' sheep; but he made movements several timesto come down and seemmgly was prevented fromdoing so by the noise Mr Ross would make pound-ing on the tree and halloing at the top of bicsoice r tell you it takes nerve to do that and Iam free to say I havn't lost any couger that I 'is ant

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to find and corner in that way. Finally BobParker, who lived nearby where Sumner now is.picked the couger off, the first shot. Bob was acrack shot and a great bear hunter. He has re-cently aied making one mote missing of the veryfew of the real old set left. which you can now al-

most count upon the fingers of one hand. I onlyknow of three of the old pioneers left of the Steil-

acoom set, unless we count Steve Judson, whowas a boy when he came to StePacoom in 1852. Jthink.

An amusing incident occurred on one of thetrips to Steilacoom, Frank Meekei, then an un-

sophisticated boy of nine years had accompanied

me. 1jVe were then clearing land quite a way from

the house and needed a dinner horn I told Tha-er, with whom we were dealing, what I wanted.He showed me I is stock all sl'ort I told him Iwanted a long horn & man standing by told methat I could get one from Shafer( at the brewery)Several bystanders heard the talk and all e'ceptmyself saw the joke but being bus) fortunateI(lid not go and later after the% had gi en up catch

ing me and had dispersed what shouTd I do but goto the brewery for a "long horn" ' long hornShafer responded in astonishment and in such atone of voice that light was let into my brain andwe had a good laugh over it under promise of notgiving it away. The jokers though missed their

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quarry and were none the wiser as to the outcomeof their trap until my next trip when I gave itawaytoo good to keep. It was on this trip orthe next one to it that the great wind storm over-took us, the wind breaking off limbs and branchestill the air seemed to be filled with them; timberfell all around about, lightening struck a tree andset fire to it and the rain fell in torrents. Afterthe storm abated a little we started on but en-countered numerous fallen trees, either to cut out,bridge up to or go around. The lightening strucka t nearby and set it on fire. The bolt followedthe grain of the wood nearly around the tree peel-ing out a deep wide sliver leaving a spiral flame,a unique spectacle I had never seen before or sinceThe tree stands or did a few years ago about amile northwest of the station on the Puyallup oldline electric road known as Midland Finally V. ereached the alley where the alder la' in rows andin some places two or three dee and so afterV. orking until near 2 o clock we finailv gave it UPunhitced the team left the wagon standing in thewoods and made our way as best we could to thecabin, to a cheerful fire, a loving welcome backedby a hot supper to make us forget all bother of theday and think of the pleasures of a real abiflhome. A few years after this (I think in 1872)we experienced an earth quake that shook tip the'alley in great shape and threw down or broke off

hundreds of trees both in the valley and on thehill. We at first could hear the trees breakingnearby, then the larger timber on the hills untilthe sound mingled until merged in a roar to striketerror in the minds of all. The oxen broke loosein the stable, the chickens flew off the roosts andconfusion reigned supreme for awhile. This wasabout ten o'clock at night after which there cameseveral lighter shocks followed by a trembling of

the earth for the remainder of the night. An 1ndian washer-woman "Old Sail," we called her,camped nearby, ran away and we did not hearfrom her for two days, to find her a few miles upthe valley with some Indian friends. There is noth-ing more terrifying than a heavy shock of an earth-quake to bring the feeling of utter helplessnessthat follows.

The "Old SaIl" mentioned as running awayfrom the earthquake was much married but alwaysto the same man four times before the% becamesatisfied First they were married according to theIndian custom Then Sloan (the same that calledfor Satan's dream) while teaching and preachingat the reservation persuaded them they ought tobe married in the church they had joined whichthey did Then some one told them that tint cere-mony was no good and that they mtist go to a jus-tice of the peace and so up came "Old Sill" andhr sppuse to Uncle John Meeker, (who was then

87

justice) to be married again. A little later theywere persuaded to join the Catholics and were toldall they had done before was wrong and so for he.

fourth time and final, they were married by thepriest and both now lie in the Puyallup Indiangraveyard near each other.

The Ox"Jack" kicked me while .1 was in a stooping

position with my bacl to him, in the exact spotto send me over a complete summersault to landin the brush nearby. The boys laughed as Igathered myself up to say I didn t see anythingto laugh about, whereupon they laughed all themore hearty and so long I had to join themWhy do we laugh at other people's mishaps? Wehad cleared out a fence row on the north line otthe homestead which is now Main street Puyallupand had unloaded some crooked alder rails off thesled when the ox kicked me Jack was the offox and we all the time had to watch him like Ihave had to watch the Dave ox, now soon to bein Point Definance park. Hafry, Jack's mate,never lifted a foot to kick. Dandy, Dave's mateis like Harry, never kicked or hooked hut alwaysin good humor. He too is to be in the park, wherehe 'will remain with Dave, having a good timeuntil in the course of time both die when both will

8s

'be mounted and take their accustomed place a1ong-

side the tongue of the wagon, to remain in the bigglass case, for nobody knows how longmaybeuntil all now living in the world has gone to join

the great majority and another generation besides.

"Jack, when he kicked me, could hardlyproperly be calld an ox. We had just begun to

"break him in." At that time (46 years ago) wedidn't have a horse team nor for that matter, awagon either and we took a couple of wild steersand yoked them up for a team. A steer, whentrained to work, is then called an ox; not so withcows. When we trained a cow to work on theplains, we still called her a cow but when we train-ed a steer to work then we called him an ox.Harry and Jack became noted oxen and as one of

the neighbors said would "pull anything that hadtwo ends' Harry and Jack never had any shoes

on, because their 'worked most of the time on thesoft bottom land that did not wear their hoofc

down to the quick Not so ith Da e and Dandthat I droe oer three ranges of mountains fromPuvallup to Washington City by the way of NewYork and other trips, eight thousand miles in all

here we encountered long stretches of rock or

sharp flinty gravel roads I think Dase was shodfourteen times and Dandy eleven times and theyalways struggled to get away: once, on the sum-mit o'f the Rocky mountains we had to throw Dave

89

and tie him hard and fast before we could shoehim.

It takes two shoes to one foot for an ox insteadof one as for a horse, though the fastening is thesame, that is by nailing into the hoof. OnceDandy's hoofs became so worn that I couldn'tfasten a shoe on him and so I had what we calledleather boots put on that left a track like an ele-Ihant. but he couldn't pull well with them on.

I have often been asked how old an ox will liveto be. I never knew a yoke over fourteen yearsold, but I once heard of One (a yoke) that livedto be twenty-four. Oxen, like cows are turned offfor beef before getting very old andyounger onestake their place, not so in this country with thehorse but in some parts of Europe horse meat isused and I presume horses are not kept untii oldage renders them useless, like they are in thiscountry.

The ox has had much to do with the settle-ment of the country. The pioneers could takecare of an ox team in a new settlement so muchcheaper than a horse team that that fact alonewould have been conclusive, but aside from thisthey. were better for the work in the clearings orin breaking up the vast stretches of wxld prairiesod, We used to work' four or five yoke to. theplow and when night come unhitched and turnedthem on the unbroken sod o pasture for the night.

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The ox is patient and usually quite obedient,1)-It when they get heated and thirsty they becomeheadstrong and reckless and won't mind at alt.Dave and Dandy one day took off the road toa water hole and apparently nothing could stopthem until they had got into the water and mudso deep it became a puzzling question how to getthem out, but of course, I did get them out elsethey would not now be here ready to go into thepark to have the "time of their lives."

We work them in this country under a woodenyoke and without lines to guide them; not so insome countries where the draft falls to the headinstead of the neck as where a yoke is used.

The ox is perhaps one of the earliest beasts ofburden, dating back more than 4,000 yeatS, andis protected by the Mosiacal law Thou shalt notmuzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn'

I will close this chapter on the ox by tellinga story of one of m"y boyhood pranks We boysused to think it was rare sport to yoke up calvesand "play farming" We made onr own yokesoften out of a piece of fence rail arid bows ofhazelthat grew abundant where we lived Sornetimethe calves would "turn the yoke" by throwing theirhind parts apart and puting their heads together,when lo, and behold, the yoke would be undertheir necks instead of 'on top' so one day we"righted them up" and tied their tails together and

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which prevented them from turning. One of thebows coming out left the calves free, each to gohis own way, when to our dismay one of themlost his tail, and ever after that, was known as"bob-tail." Father then put a stop to our "pranksand the fun was off but we soon found other fieldifor mischief that did no harm yet opened the wayto spend the surplus energy within us.

- "As dumb as an ox" is a very common expres-sion dating back as far as my memory goes. Infact the ox is not so dumb as a casual observermight think. Dave and Dandy know me as far asthey can see sometimes when I go to them ifl

the morning, Dave will Ifit his head, bow his neck.stretch out his body and sometimes extend a footas if to say good morning to you glad to seeyou" I think Dandy has been driven on the streetsof a hundred cities and towns and I never knewhim to be at a loss how to return to the stableor watering trough once he had been there andwas started on a return trip

The Prairie SchoonerDid you ever read the Story of the "one boss

shay?' If ou never have, get the book "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" and read it it adelightful story. Of the building as the authorputs it:

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' 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,"Is only jest

"T make that place uz strong"Uz the rest."

Then when the critical time came, the storygoes on to say

"How it went to pieces all at once"ALL at once, and nothing first"Just as bubbles do when they burst."

Now this is the way the Prairie Schooner in thebig glass case in the park was built. The ideawas to make all parts equally strong and the work-men were so successful that only 50 cents repairwas made on the whole drive from Puyallup toNew York and to Washington a distance of 40(10miles and occupying 22 months to finish the trip1vVhether the "Schooner' in the park nil fall topeces 'all at once" like the parson's one-hoss shanone of us will me long enough to see

t will tell you about the building First we hadthe remains of three old -v agons that crossed theplains nearly 6o y ears ago to draw from for ma-terial You can see in the near front wheel theI ub that my neighbor Jimes used in his wagonin crossing the plains in 1852 then there are thtirons of three old wagons in use on the plains thatsame year; then we supplemented this with select-ed material and had the wagon 'made over" again.this time with steel tire and new bed. rc you visitthe park, look carefully to see the difference from

the wagons you can see on the streets. This onehas a wooden axietree. Did you ever see one be-fore with a wooden axle? I doubt it. See thelinch pin near the end of the axle to key the wheelon. Why do you use tar? Because if we usedgrease the spokes would soon come loose and thenthe wheel would go down like the "one-bossshay." or maybe "just as bubbles do when theyburst."

But when that time comes with this "schooner"(wagon) all the people now in this world will havegone and a new generation will have come.

Now then, why do we call them "prairie schooners?" I can't say; probably it is because the bedis boat -shaped. Why do we make the wagon bOxcrooked? I don't know. This type of wagoncame to us from England and I suppose the pio-

neers continued to build this way because theirgrandfathers did.

Look again closer and on will see oarlocks 01ach side. I crossed a big river 70 rods wide i

this box. Then look for the photograph on theglass and you will see an illustration of the crosS-ing. On my trip to Washington I came very neatgetting into a bad scrape crossnig Little Sandy.i narrow stream not far from the summit of theRocky mountains. It looked too deep to ford butwasn't wide enough seemingly to warrant unload-ing to ferry over in the wagon box and so I said

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"here goes." The down grade pushed the wagonalong. Dave and Dandy got into swimming waterand kept oing long enough until the oxen got afoot hold and pulled the wagon out without wet-ting much of anything.

At another time, on this same trip, we encount-cred a doud burst that wet a lot of our things.This also was in the Rocky mountains and beforewe knew what was happening the water was allaround about the wagon and up to the axle treesand we had to hustle to get away to higher ground.One gets into all sorts of scrapes in a trip like thisdrive across the continent, but somehow or anotherby watching he can get out of them and feel justas good as if nothing had happened; in fact, it isscrapes that sharpen one's wits and puts him onhis mettlewhat a humdrum drone this life wouldbe if we didn't have some obstacles to ovecome!

In crossing the river referred to e did get intoa sure enough scrape you can see the snap shotof it on the glass I have moving pictures of italso We ran hard aground out in the middle ofthe rrer or rather On a bar of quicksand and h-id toget out of the boat 's soon as one steppedon the sand his feet sould begin to gie anas froirunder him. [f he stood still he would soon sink

down so deep that his boots wou'd stick in thesand. If he pulled hard he would pull is feet outof them unless he was very careful. To make

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matters worse the dog gOt out in the middle of theriver and we were afraid to leave him on th sand

bar. I finally got out of the boat (wagon box) asdid two men with me and got afloat again.

I remember fording this same river ( the Loiipfork of the Platte) in 1852, along with a largenumber of wagons, fastened together with ropesor chains so that if a wagon got into trouble, theiams in front would help to pull it out. Thequicksand would cease to sustain the wagon wheelsso suddenly that it would drop a few inches with

jolt and up again the wheel would come as newsand was struck then down again it would goup and down precisely as if the wagons were pasing over a rough corduroy road that nearly joltedthe life out of us" as the women folk said after

was over and no wonder, for the river at thispoint was nearly half a mile wide

Many of the pioneers crossed rivers in theirwagon boxes and very few lost their lives n doingso The difference in one of these prairie schoonerwagon boxes from that of a scow shaped flat bot-tom boat is that the wagon box has the ribs on theoutside, while in a boat they are on the insde.

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Uncle Ezra Gets an OfficeI run once for office and succeeded in get-

ting elected. That was when there were two townshere on Commencement bay and no city. The

name of one of the towns first was "Commence-ment Bay City" afterwards changed and calledTacoma, and then came the second town and called

"New Tacoma" and after the new town was es-tablished then the first town came to be known as

"Old Tacoma"Well, when the new town came into existance.

most of the people in it lived under the hill wherethe terminals of the railroad used to be and mostthe business of the town was transacted thereMost all the people came to town either by the rail-road or by boats, in fact that was about the onlyway they could get there. Pacific ave. was full ofstumps and mud holes and some of them

so bad it was about all a team could do to pull anempty wagon through especially along about zthstreet where the ground was springy and soft.

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Some frame houses had been built at the head ofthe street near the Headquarters building but downon Eleventh street was consdiered out of town. Iremember coming along one day and saw IsaacPincus digging stumps on the corner 01

Pacific avenue and Eleventh where the PacificNational bank used to be and asked him whys hecame out there in the country to build a houseHe has often laughed at me about the remark andI suppose he will yet if his attention is called toit. I think he told me he had paid $350 for the lot.I know I bought one on the avenue next to theDonnelly hotel for $200; and afterward sold it toEben Pierce for $350. At that time the road dis-trict of the Puyallup valley extended down to thebay and took in the new town as nell and thequestion came up as to who should be electedroad supervisor for the district The town folksdidn't want the country Jakes' to have the officeand the 'countr' Jackes" didn t want the townpeople to have it The country Jakes' said ifthe town people gets the office they wouldput allthe work on the streets and the town people saidif the "country Jakes" got it they would put allthe work on the roads in the valley and so therewas a genuine clean cut split between the twoparties and both had seemingly lost sight ol thereal point which was to get a road, opened fromthe valley to the town. And so when the election

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day approached, the "country Jakes" were all astirto agree on a candidate, when lo and behold, theywere divided among themselves, one party want-ing to have the road working done on the northside of the river, while the other party wanted ion the south side. We of the south side stood firmand I became a candidate for an office. Then thenext thing ws to get out the vote. We coulrldrive our teams down to the tide flats on the northside of the river, but couldn't cross the river tndif we could have crossed no road led around thehead of the bay. So two men came ahead andchartered three canoes to ferry the "Jakes" over,and the teams. were left on the tide flats whilethe owners crossed over to vote. Lo and behold,the tide went out before some of them could getpassage over Some floundered around in the mudwhile others got across the riser and followed theIndian trail to the creek and then as best theycould to the wharf where the electron was heldWe Jakies didn t lose a ote and carried theelection by a narrow majority but some of ourcrowd didn't get across the tide flats until afterdark and home after midnight. I call this pioneer-inganywny it was strenuous work but, after all.we had a jolly good time and went home in goodspirits.

Its too long a story to tell much of the detailiof what followed: of how we established a road

working camp near Clear creek; how as supervisotI assessed an additional poil tax of ten dollarsand an additional property tax of two dollars tothe thousand; how the transient men "kicked" (andI didn't blame them) and the property owners pro-tested;- how men's wages were garnisheed andproperty threatened until most all had paid; howone case was carried into court and after the taxhad nearly all been collected and expended, JudgeGreen decided the law was invalid. But the roadwas open, the mud holes of Pacific avenue filled upand some roots cut out, the money gone, and so-the query came to the kickers, "what are you go-ing to do about it?" and, after much grumblingand a good deal of threatening, nothing was doneabout it.

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