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“July 19th.
“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s. We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s. 3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen [[263]]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.
“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.
“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d. per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.
“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.
“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”
* * *
“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.
“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.
“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.
“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.
“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.
“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”
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[[264]]
“Alder Point (so called because we’re ‘all dere’),
“Sept. 4th.
“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s. 2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”
* * *
“The Alder Point Mansion.
“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up. [[265]]
“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.
“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”
* * *
“Sept. 17th.
“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.
“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here [[266]]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.
“I remain yours, etc.”
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