CHAPTER Vc.
ONE OF THE COURAGEOUS YOUTHS.
William Richard Boren was one of the boy pioneers. He was born in Seattle on the 4th of October, 1854.
The children necessarily shared with their parents and guardians the hardships, dangers, adventures and pleasures of the wild life of the early days.
When his father, Carson D. Boren, went to the gold diggings, William came to the D. T. Denny cottage and remained there for some time. As there was then no boy in the family (there were three little girls) he stepped into usefulness almost immediately. To bring home the cows, weed in the garden, carry flowers and vegetables to market, cut and carry wood, the “chores” of a pioneer home he helped to do willingly and cheerfully.
Every pair of hands must help, and the children learned while very young that they were to be industrious and useful.
It required real fortitude to go on lonely trails or roads through the dark, thick forest in the deepening twilight that was impenetrable blackness in the wall of sombre evergreens on either hand.
Some children seem to have little fear of anything, but it was different with William; he was afraid; as he graphically described it, he “felt as if something would catch him in the back.” But he steadfastly traveled the dark trails, showing a remarkable quality of courage.
His sensations cannot be attributed to constitutional timidity altogether, as there were real dangers from wild beasts and savage men in those days.
He would often go long distances from the settlement through the great forest as the shadows were darkening into night, listening breathlessly for the welcome jingle of the bells of the herd, or anxiously to snapping twigs and creaking of lodged trees or voices of night-birds. But when the cattle were gathered up and he could hear the steady tinkle of the leader’s bell, although to the eye she was lost in the dusk in the trail ahead, he felt safe.
He calmly faced dangers, both seen and unseen, in after years.