For some weeks in the late summer heavy smoke-clouds from the many forest and clearing fires obscure all distant view. This last summer fires burned for at least fifty miles in length at close intervals of distance, and the dark gray pall overlay the mountains throughout. Behind the house, and in easy view from the windows on either side, are the Coast Mountains, or rather hills.
Mary's Peak rises over four thousand feet, and is snow-crowned for nine months in the year. The outlines of this range are far more gently rounded than the Cascades, and timber-covered to the top. Save for the solid line of the heavy timber, the outlines of the Coast Range constantly remind us of our own Dartmoor; and the illusion is strengthened by the dark-red soil where the plow has invaded the hills, yearly stealing nearer to their crowns. Mary's Peak itself is bare at the top for about a thousand acres, but the firs clothe its sides, and the air is so clear that, in spite of the seventeen miles' distance, their serrated shapes are plainly and individually visible as the sun sinks to rest behind the mountain.
SUNSET IN OREGON.Such sunsets as we have! Last night I was a mile or two on the other side of the river as night fell. Mount Hood was the first to blush, and then Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters in turn grew rosy red. From the valley I could not see the lower Cascades, but these snowy pyramids towered high into the sky. One little fleecy cloud here and there overhead caught the tinge, but the whole air on the eastern side was luminously pink. Turning westward, the pale-blue sky faded through the rainbow-green into the rich orange surrounding the departing sun; and the westward mountains stood solidly and clearly blue in massive lines.
One great peculiarity of the Oregon landscape, as distinguished from an English rather than a New England scene, is in the number of white farmhouses that catch the eye. We see many from our windows. I suppose it is that the roads are so bad in winter that the farmers must live on the farms, instead of in the English-village fashion. So it is that you may travel by railroad up and down this valley for two hundred miles between farmhouses every quarter or half mile all the way. Nearly every farmhouse has its orchard close by; but one big barn is all the out-buildings they boast, and farm-yard, in the English sense, one never sees.
Our own house is not a fair specimen, because of our large family and its corresponding habitation; but the regular farmhouse is by no means an uncomfortable abode.
There are three kinds: log-cabin, box-house, frame-house.
FARMHOUSES.The first, by far the most picturesque type, is fast becoming obsolete, and on most of the good farms, if not pulled down, is degraded into woodhouse or piggery. But to my eye there is something rarely comfortable in the low, solid, rugged walls of gray logs, with overhanging shingled roof; the open hearth, too, with its great smoldering back-log and wide chimney, invites you to sit down before it and rest. By the side of the fireplace, from two deers' horns fastened to the wall, hangs the owner's rifle—generally an old brown veteran—with bullet-pouch and powder-horn. Over the high mantel-shelf stands the ticking clock, suggesting "Sam Slick, the clock-maker." Curtained off from the main room, with its earthen or roughly-boarded floor, are the low bedsteads of the family, each covered with its patchwork quilt. A corner cupboard or two hold the family stock of cups and plates, and the smell of apples, from the adjoining apple-chamber, pervades the house.
Round the house is the home-field, generally the orchard, sown with timothy-grass, where range four or five young calves, and a sow or two, with their hungry, rooting youngsters. The barn, log-built also, stands near by, with two or three colts, or yearling cattle, grouped around. The spring of cold, clear water runs freely through the orchard, but ten yards from the house-door, hastening to the "creek," whose murmur is never absent, save in the few driest weeks of summertime.
Snake-fences, seven logs high, with top-rail and crossed binders to keep all steady, divide the farm from the road, and a litter of chips from the axe-hewed pile of firewood strew the ground between wood-pile and house. Here and there, even in the home-field, and nearly always in the more distant land, a big black stump disfigures the surface, and betrays the poverty or possibly the carelessness of the owner, who has carved his homestead from the brush.
But as the farmer prospers, be it ever so little, he hastens to pull down his log-cabin and to build his "box" or more expensive "frame" house. In each case the material is "lumber." By this is signified, be it known to the uninitiated, fir boards, one foot wide, sixteen feet long, and one inch thick.