There were so many things to talk about that we could scarcely tell where to begin or when to stop. Much of the conversation naturally centered on the question of our moving to a new home.
"Why, at Olympia, eggs were a dollar a dozen. I saw them selling at that. The butter you have there would bring you a dollar a pound as fast as you could weigh it out. I saw stuff they called butter sell for that. Potatoes are selling for three dollars a bushel and onions at four. Everything the farmer raises sells high."
"Who buys?"
"Oh, almost everybody has to buy. There are ships and timber camps and the hotels, and—"
"Where do they get the money?"
"Everybody seems to have money. Some take it there with them. Men working in the timber camps get four dollars a day and their board. At one place they paid four dollars a cord for wood to ship to San Francisco, and a man can sell all the shingles he can make at four dollars a thousand. I was offered five cents a foot for piles. If we had Buck and Dandy over there we could make twenty dollars a day putting in piles."
"Where could you get the piles?"
"Off the government land, of course. All help themselves to what they want. Then there are the fish and the clams and oysters, and—"
"But what about the land for the claim?"
That question was a stumper. The little wife never lost sight of that bargain made before we were married. Now I found myself praising a country for the agricultural qualities of which I could not say much. But if we could sell produce higher, might we not well lower our standard of an ideal farm? The claim I had taken was described with a touch of apology, in quality falling so far below what we had hoped to acquire. However, we decided to move, and began to prepare for the journey.