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<DIV>There were a number of poor, harmless, unsettled creatures, who came from
time to time to the ferry. Father was very good to them. I wonder now why there
should have been so many of them, all out of proportion to the few settlers that
were in that great wilderness. Of course, there were many things that might have
contributed to it, loneliness, exposure, starvation, fright, and many, many
other things that went into the making up of the pioneer life.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> One of these unfortunates was a boy by the name of Goodhugh.
One morning we discovered that our hymn book had disappeared during the night.
Mother had awakened Father and told him that she thought she heard someone come
into the house, but Father was too sleepy to bother about it, and in the
morning, Mother discovered that her hymn book was gone. Something led us to
suspect Goodhugh, so one of our boys asked him about it. He was quite frank and
explained that hymn books were very scarce, so he had come in when everyone was
asleep and had taken ours and planted it. He explained that he intended to grow
such a crop of hymn books as would supply everyone in the whole country. He even
told where it was planted, under a big fir tree a mile or so beyond the river.
The boys went over looked where he told them to. The hymn book was there, but in
a very poor state of repair. A herd of wild, impious hogs had found and
desecrated the hymn book garden and had torn and scattered the leaves around
everywhere. They picked them up and Mother mended the book as best she could,
but after that, she often closed her book when the preacher gave out some
special hymn. A herd of wild hogs had eaten that particular page. It did not
bother me, for I had learned to read out of that book and I knew "by heart"
every single hymn in it.</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.MA1.1142405645@aol.com" height=93 width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1142405645" ></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>