and addressed it to "Miss Catherine Sager, Somewhere in Oregon." He gave it to a man who was crossing the plains; he carried it some months and finally put it in a postoffice near Salem, Oregon, and the postmaster gave it to my sister. In that way we found our relatives.

I was with the Spaldings for, I think, four months, and I attended Mrs. Thornton's private school in the Methodist church. Then Mr. Spalding decided to go and live in Forest Grove and the Rev. Mr. Griffin and Mr. Alvin T. Smith came with their ox teams and moved us out.

Miss Mary Johnson came to the Whitmans in '45, wintered there and went to the Spalding's mission in '46 and was there at the time of the massacre and came down the river with us. She came with the Spalding family to Forest Grove when we moved. We were taken to the Smith home until the Spalding family could get a house and settle down.

It was decided, however, that I should go and live with Mr. and Mrs. Geiger, living on a farm adjoining the Smith's. The Geigers were a young married couple without children. Mr. Geiger came on horseback after me the day after we reached the Smiths, but I cried so hard at the prospect of leaving Mary Johnson that he went away without me. A day or so later he came back again and still I would not go, but clung to Mary. It seemed to me she was my only friend. The third time he came, I had to go and all my belongings were tied up in a little bundle. A large bandana handkerchief would have held themTwenty-Nine all. I rode behind him. His home was a one-room log house with a fireplace to cook by. I took up my life there, lonely and isolated. The nearest neighbor was a mile away. Life was primitive. If the fire was not carefully covered to keep the coals alive, we would have to go to a neighbor's to borrow fire. There were no matches in the country and sometimes I would be sent a mile across the prairie to bring fire on a shovel from the neighbor's. If there were no coals, the flint and steel had to be used and if that was not successful we would have to do without. It was not always possible to obtain dry sticks in order to make the flint and steel serve their purpose. Supplies were to be had only from the Hudson Bay Posts, for people had had to leave most of their things behind in crossing the plains. That summer a baby came to the home of the Geiger's and I had to take care of it and a good deal of the time be nurse and help with the housework. I had been taught to sew and iron and repair my own clothes and must have been a really helpful young person. In the fall of '48 discovery of gold in California made a great change. All were eager to go to the gold mines. Mr. Geiger got the gold fever and moved us away up to his father-in-law's, the Rev. J. Cornwall. This family had moved onto the place in the spring and had just a log cabin to house a large family. They did not raise much of a crop the first year and Mr. Cornwall traveled around and preached over the valley most of the time. That fall he took a band of sheep in the valley and the winter being very hard, a good many of them died and his wife had to card and spin wool, knit socks and sell them to the miners at a dollar a pair in order to help make the living. She knit all the time and a part of my work was to help pull the wool off the dead sheep and wash it and get it ready for her to use. We had to carry water quite a distance from the river, as it seemed that many of the early settlers of Oregon had a great habit of building as far from the river as possible, so we children would have more to do to pack the water and stamp the clothes with our feet. We wintered there and in the spring Mrs. Gieger, baby and I went to their farm thirty-five miles down into the valley to look after some of their belongings, as the Rev. Spalding, who had wintered there, had gone to a house of his own. Mr. Geiger returned unexpectedly from California, went up to get their things left on the Yamhill, and we settled down on the farm and life went on. I didn't attend school that year, for there was no school. The Reverend Eels came down in the spring of 50 to teach private school. I went three months, walking three and a half miles each way. Mr. Geiger paid five dollars for three months' schooling.

There were large herds of Mexican cattle owned in the valley and they would chase everything except someone on horseback. Everyone owned a few of the domestic cattle with them and they proved very useful, as the tame cattle stood guard until the others were chased away. I was in continual fear of being chased by them. They would lie down to watch you all day and I would skirt along in the bushes, working my way along tremblingly to get out and away to school without their seeing me. If these long-horned Spanish cattle chased a person up a tree they would lie under the tree all day on guard. Wolves chased the cattle, trying to get the little calves. Pigs would have to be bedded right up against the house on account of the coyotes and wolves.

While I was at the Cornwalls in '49, we lived right where the Indians passed by on the trail coming down the valley. The Indians were not on reserves then. When the men folks were gone the women were very afraid of the Indians. They were women of the South, reared with a certain fear of the negroes, and this fear extended to the Indians. When the Indians were in the vicinity they would have me cover up the fire and if any of the babies needed any attention, I was the one who would have to give it and rake out the coals and make a fire for the baby. We had chickens and had a stick chimney; and in a corner of the chimney was a chicken-roost. One night old Mrs. Cornwall spied what she thought was an Indian looking through the chinking of the log house. I said, "Oh, I think not, I don't hear anything." But they hurried me up to investigate and it was soon found to be the light shining on the old rooster's eyes.

The summer of '50 I attended school, as I have before said, going also the next year for three months to the same place, to the Reverend Eels. Then I did not go any more until the summer I was thirteen. Mr. Eells moved over near Hillsboro, where the Reverend Griffin had built a school building on his place and had hired Mr. Eells to come over and teach and he lived in a part of Mr. Griffin's house. He called it "Mr. Griffin's select school." I was permitted to go there and work for my board, but did not have to work very hard. Mr. Griffin had lots of cattle and Mr. Eells had one cow; when he was at home he milked it and when he was not the youngsters had to milk. Mrs. Griffin and her children had all their cows to milk. They did not wean the calves, but would turn them all in together and the big calves would have a fine time getting all the milk. One day I was milking the cow and I set the milk pail down in the corner and the old cow got at it and drank all the milk.

I had read of town pumps, but had never seen one until I went there and I did not like the taste of the water in this, but Mr. Griffin said it was sulphur water. Finally it got so strong of sulphur he concluded he had better have the well cleaned out; so someone came to clean it out and they found a side of bacon, a skunk, some squirrels and mice. After it was cleaned out, we had no more sulphur water, but I have never enjoyed the taste of sulphur water since.

We had a garden. I was very fond of cucumbers and my favorite pastime in summer after supper was to gather cucumbers, get a handful of salt and walk up the lane. When anyone asked about Matilda, someone would reply, "The last I saw of her she was walking up the lane with salt and cucumbers for company."

Some of our pastimes, evenings, were to sit together by the fireplace in Mr. Griffin's home with him as the leader in the story-telling. We would recount incidents in our lives and then make up stories and tell them; roast potatoes in the fire, rake them out