The thunder crashed, the lightning flamed, sheets of rain came down, but there was no escape.
A halt was called at an open space in a grove of tall cedar trees, a fire made and the horses hitched under the trees.
The two children slept snugly under a fir bark shed made of slabs of bark leaned up against a large log. Father and mother sat by the fire under a cedar whose branches gave a partial shelter. Some time in the night I was awakened by my mother lying down beside me, then slept calmly on.
The next morning everything was dripping wet and we hastened on to the Duwampsh crossing where lived the old man who stood on the bank at Seattle when we started.
What a comfort it was to the cold, wet, hungry, weary quartette to be invited into a dry warm place! and then the dinner, just prepared for company he had been expecting; a bountiful supply of garden vegetables, beets, cabbage, potatoes, a great dish of beans and hot coffee. These seemed veritable luxuries and we partook of them with a hearty relish.
A messenger was sent to Seattle to apprise our friends of our return, two of them came to meet us at the mouth of the Duwampsh River and brought us down the bay in a canoe to the landing near the old laurel (Madrona) tree that leaned over the bank in front of our home.
The first Fourth of July celebration in which I participated took place in the old M. E. Church on Second Street, Seattle, in 1861.
Early in the morning of that eventful day there was hurrying to and fro in the Dennys’ cottage, on Seneca Street, embowered in flowers which even luxuriant as they were we did not deem sufficient. The nimble eldest of the children was sent to a flower-loving neighbor’s for blossoms of patriotic hues, for each of the small Americans was to carry a banner inscribed with a strong motto and wreathed with red, white and blue flowers. Large letters, cut from the titles of newspapers spelled out the legends on squares of white cotton, “Freedom for All,” “Slavery for none,” “United we stand, divided we fall,” each surrounded with a heavy wreath of beautiful flowers.
Arrived at the church, we found ourselves a little late, the orator was just rounding the first of his eloquent periods; the audience, principally men, turned to view the disturbers as they sturdily marched up the aisle to a front seat, and seeing the patriotic family with their expressive emblems, broke out in a hearty round of applause. Although very young we felt the spirit of the occasion.
The first commencement exercises at the University took place in 1863. It was a great event, an audience of about nine hundred or more, including many visitors from all parts of the Sound, Victoria, B. C., and Portland, Oregon, gathered in the hall of the old University, then quite new.