FOOTNOTES:

[29] See illustration on [page 247].

[30] Now over a hundred and fifty.

CHAPTER LVI.

PIONEER LIFE IN PUYALLUP VALLEY.

The immigration of 1853 through the Natchess Pass settled in the Puyallup Valley. Although they had been on the Plains all summer and needed rest, imperative necessity compelled them to immediately make a road through the forest to the county town of Steilacoom, sixteen miles away and situated on the borders of Puget Sound.

Soon after the road was built one of them, John Carson, established a ferry and later built the first bridge across the Puyallup. He was an enterprising, intelligent man, yet nevertheless exceedingly careless in business as likewise of his person. Eighteen months before I moved to the valley, I crossed the river at his place and found him nailing on the third course of shingles to cover a new house that he had built. He came down off the roof and I remained with him for a couple of hours, most of the time in the orchard, for even at that early day we were both deeply interested in fruit culture. I willingly acknowledge that he could teach me a great deal on the subject. A year later I visited him again. The row of shingles, the nail bag and even the hatchet remained as he had left it on the occasion of my first visit, notwithstanding he and his family were living in the hovel of one room and a loft—the remains of a block house that had been erected in the Indian war times. The lower story was so low that his wife, who was a tall woman, could not stand up straight except between the rough hewed joists, as attested in numerous places by the red hair from the lady's head coming in contact with slivers from the rough-hewed logs. Not much difference existed between the two as to personal habits of cleanliness, or rather lack of cleanliness, and yet I never knew a more altruistic worker than this same Emma Darrow Carson. When, in early days, we established a Good Templars' Lodge, for the sake of the children, Mrs. Carson, rain or shine, would always attend and always do her part to make the meetings interesting.

Nearby lived my neighbor, Walker, who though very strict in religious matters, nevertheless would not join in upbuilding the lodge for the reason he and his wife both were opposed to secret societies. One could readily see that Mrs. Walker believed "cleanliness was next to godliness" by a look into her house, where I often told her it would seem she was looking after the invisible dirt, so persistent she seemed in the care of her house. She was an industrious, religious, conscientious lady and was always welcomed in our own cabin, where she often came to spend an hour with another pioneer's wife who likewise practiced the time-honored proverb.