We found the way to the opening in the woods, where in the midst thereof, grandfather sat making cedar shingles with a drawing knife. Huge trees lay on the ground, piles of bolts had been cut and the heap of shingles, clear and straight of the very best quality, grew apace.
Very tall and grand the firs and cedars stood all around, like stately pillars with a dome of blue sky above; the birds sang in the underbrush and the brown butterflies floated by.
Among all the beautiful things, there was one to rivet the eye and attention; a dark green fir tree, perhaps thirty feet high, around whose trunk and branches a wild honeysuckle vine had twined itself from the ground to the topmost twig.
It had the appearance of a giant candelabrum, with the orange-scarlet blossoms that tipped the boughs like jets of flame.
Many a merry picnic we had in blackberry time, taking our lunch with us and spending the day; sometimes in an Indian canoe we paddled off several miles, to Smith’s Cove or some other likely place.
It was necessary to watch the tide at the Cove or the shore could not be reached across the mudflat.
Once ashore how happy we were; clambering about over the hills, gathering the ripe fruit, now and then turning about to gaze at the snowy sentinel in the southern sky, grand old Mount Rainier.
How wide the sparkling waters of the bay! the sky so pure and clear, the north wind so cool and refreshing. The plumy boughs stirred gently overhead and shed for us the balsamic odors, the flowers waved a welcome at our feet.
In the winter there was seldom any “frost on the rills” or “snow on the hills,” but when it did come the children made haste to get all the possible fun out of the unusual pastime of coasting. Mothers were glad when the Chinook wind came and ate up the snow and brought back the ordinary conditions, as the children were frequently sick during a cold spell.
Now the tenderfoot, as the newcomer is called in the west, is apt to be mistaken about the Chinook wind; there is a wet south wind and a dry south wind on Puget Sound. The Chinook, as the “natives” have known it, is a dry wind, clears the sky, and melts and dries up the snow at once. Wet south wind, carrying heavy rain often follows after snow, and slush reigns for a few days. Perhaps this is a distinction without much difference.