OUR LANDING AT CORVALLIS. As ill luck would have it, just as we arrived, the sheriff had returned to town with an escaped prisoner, and had been set upon by the brother, and a pistol had been actually presented at him. I should say in a whisper that the sheriff, worthy man, had proposed to return the assault in kind, but had failed to get his six-shooter out in time from the depths of a capacious pocket, where the deadly weapon lay in harmless neighborhood, with a long piece of string, a handful or so of seed-wheat, a large chunk of tobacco, a leather strap and buckle, and a big red pocket-handkerchief. So I fancy he had not much idea of shooting when he started out.
But the incident was enough to give a blood-color to all our first letters home, and I dare say caused a good many shiverings and shudders at the thought of the wild men of the woods we had come to neighbor with.
The worst of it was, that it was the only approach to a tragedy, and that we have had no adventures worth speaking of. "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Still we did know ourselves to be in a new world when we stepped ashore from the large, white-painted, three-storied structure on the water that they called a stern-wheel river-boat, and in which we had spent two days coming up the great river from Portland. It was the 17th of May, just a month from leaving Liverpool, that we landed. The white houses of the little city of Corvallis were nestled cozily in the bright spring green of the alders and willows and oaks that fringed the river, and the morning sun flashed on the metal cupola of the court-house, and lighted up the deep-blue clear-cut mountains that rose on the right of us but a few miles off.
When we got into the main street the long, low, broken line of booth-like, wooden, one-storied stores and houses, all looking as if one strong man could push them down, and one strong team carry them off, grated a little, I could see, on the feelings of some of the party. The redeeming feature was the trees, lining the street at long intervals, darkening the houses a little, but clothing the town, and giving it an air of age and respectability that was lacking in many of the bare rows of shanties, dignified with the title of town, that we had passed in coming here across the continent.
The New England Hotel invited us in. A pretty plane-tree in front overshadowed the door; and a bright, cheery hostess stood in the doorway to welcome us, shaking hands, and greeting our large party of twenty-six in a fashion of freedom to which we had not been used, but which sounded pleasantly in our travel-worn ears. The house was tumble-down and shabby, and needed the new coat of paint it received soon after—but in the corner of the sitting-room stood a good parlor-organ. The dining-room adjoining had red cloths on the tables, and gave a full view into the kitchen; but the "beefsteak, mutton-chop, pork-chop, and hash" were good and well cooked, and contrasted with, rather than reminded us of, the fare described by Charles Dickens as offered him in the Eastern States when he visited America thirty-nine years ago.
The bedrooms, opening all on to the long passage upstairs, with meager furniture and patchwork quilts, the whole wooden house shaking as we trotted from room to room, were not so interesting, and tempted no long delay in bed after the early breakfast-gong had been sounded soon after six. Breakfast at half-past six, dinner at noon, and supper at half-past five, only set the clock of our lives a couple of hours faster than we had been used to; and bed at nine was soon no novelty to us.
The street in front was a wide sea of slushy mud when we arrived, with an occasional planked crossing, needing a sober head and a good conscience to navigate safely after dark; for, when evening had closed in, the only street-lighting came from the open doors, and through the filled and dressed windows of the stores.
THE BARBER'S SHOP.Saloons were forbidden by solemn agreement to all of us, but the barber's shop was the very pleasant substitute. Two or three big easy-chairs in a row, with a stool in front of each. Generally filled they were by the grave and reverend seigniors of the city—each man reposing calmly, draped in white, while he enjoyed the luxury, under the skillful hands of the barber or his man, of a clean shave. At the far end of the shop stood the round iron stove, with a circle of wooden chairs and an old sofa. And here we enjoyed the parliament of free talk. The circle was a frequently changing one, but the types were constant.
The door opened and in came a man from the country: such a hat on his head! a brim wide enough for an umbrella, the color a dirty white; a scarlet, collarless flannel shirt, the only bit of positive color about him; a coat and trousers of well-worn brown, canvas overall (or, as sometimes spelled, "overhaul"), the trousers tucked into knee-high boots, worn six months and never blacked. His hands were always in his pockets, except when used to feed his mouth with the constant "chaw."—"Hello, Tom," he says slowly, as he makes his way to the back, by the stove. "Hello, Jerry," is the instant response. "How's your health?" "Well; and how do you make it?" "So-so." "Any news out with you?" "Wall, no; things pretty quiet." And he finds a seat and sinks into it as if he intended growing there till next harvest.
We all know each other by our "given" names. I asked one of our politicians how he prepared himself for a canvass in a county where I knew he was a stranger this last summer. "Well, I just learned up all the boys' given names, so I could call them when I met them," was the answer. "I guess knowing 'em was as good as a hundred votes to me in the end." It was a little startling at first to see a rough Oregonian ride up to our house, dismount, hitch his horse to the paling, and stroll casually in, with "Where's Herbert?" as his first and only greeting. But we soon got used to it.