<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=3>
<DIV>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.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> I must have accepted it or have forgotten it for I do not
remember asking about what had happened or of understanding it.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> 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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><B>Walt
Davies<BR>Cooper Hollow Farm<BR>Monmouth, OR 97361<BR>503 623-0460 <BR></B><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1108407146@aol.com" height=93 width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1108407146" ></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>