[or-roots] Aunt Charotte's book

[DAVIESW739 at aol.com]

The general meeting place was at  Westport and we were there for a  couple of 
weeks before the hundred and nineteen wagons  and over a thousand  people had 
all arrived and were ready to start. Some of the wagons were   from states 
quite distant. It was a great picnic for everyone and for us  children 
especially. Each day there was new excitement. We would gather about  newly arrived 
wagons and look them  over in search of possible playmates. I  had already found 
Nancy Beagle. The friendship formed  there at Westport  endured through the 
many long years. She is gone now. When I saw her last,   there were still five 
of us left out of the thousand who gathered there. I am  quite alone now.  When 
new wagons drawn by fat oxen came up everyone talked  at once in the making 
of new  friendships or the renewing of old ones.  Everything was "spick and 
span" and the wagons were heavily loaded. We children  acted as sort of a 
reception committee to welcome the new children  and  make them feel at home. I 
remained a bit in the background and tried very hard  to concentrate upon the fact 
that if one were a lady, one stood very straight  with toes turned slightly  
out and never under any circumstances did a lady  stare at strangers without 
first remembering to  close her mouth.  
 
  Mother had been to a finishing school and she tried to "finish  me" after  
the same pattern. She almost did, but not in the way that she  intended. 
 
  She tried very hard to teach me to curtsey (Kirchy, I called  it). I could 
not see a bit of use  in it, but really wanted to please  Mother. If she 
wanted me to crook my legs when elder people  spoke to me,  very well, I would try 
to do it. But something seemed to be the matter,  maybe  something was wrong 
with my legs. They just simply would not bend in  the right place. I can see  
now that the defect was temperamental. I must  have exasperated Mother to the 
limit of her  endurance. She boxed my ears  frequently and sometimes even 
oftener than that. In justice  Mother, I will  admit that I probably needed it. I 
was very dumb and without the power of   expressing myself, and the many 
injunctions to be remembered by a real lady,  just would not stay with me. While we 
were at Westport our boys and the men were  put through a regular army  drill. 
This was with the thought in mind that  we were to travel through and into 
Indian country. Military discipline was  established and when long lines of 
wagons finally pulled into the trail of   the setting sun, it was in regular army 
formation, but in a few weeks it was  found impractical and  abandoned.  
 
  Then came the first crushing disappointment of my life. We  started very 
early in the  morning. Father had said we were to travel  straight "INTO THE EYE 
OF THE SETTING SUN" but  something seemed to have  gone wrong. The sun was 
directly behind us and our big covered  wagon and  the four oxen that pulled it 
cast long shadows before us.  
 
  Later on in the day though everything seemed all right and I  watched the 
sun and thought  of little else. I watched the bright shinny  path that it made 
in the new grass and was quite  satisfied. We were  traveling straight into 
the eye of it. I saw it settling lower and lower in  the  western sky. It was 
surely slipping away from me, something  undoubtedly was wrong. I finally  saw 
it sink entirely out of sight and in  a little while the same stupid darkness 
was upon us.  Perhaps tomorrow it  would be different. But tomorrow it was the 
same and the next day and the   next.  
 
  I must have accepted it or have forgotten it for I do not  remember asking 
about what had  happened or of understanding it.  
 
  For many years I would watch the sun low in the western sky and  wish that 
I might follow  it follow the day and leave night and wasted time  behind, but 
not any more. Now I often find  myself nodding in my chair and  losing many 
moments of the beautiful California sunshine. I am  drawing  very near to the 
eye of the setting sun. Presently it will be goodnight and  rest. 
 
Walt  Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20050214/84e1a562/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: walt%20at%2055%20icon.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2892 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20050214/84e1a562/attachment.jpg>