I had been concentrating on Louise so much that I hadn't noticed. Claire spoke up, "You have a beautiful girl". Louise watched the baby as it suckled on her breast, a tired peaceful look on her face. She had been in labor for the last 10 hours and was exhausted. She soon fell asleep with the baby still nursing. Claire moved the baby from the one breast to the other and we moved to the kitchen.
I looked at her, "I was paying so much attention to Louise I didn't even notice anything about the baby after I cleaned her mouth and nose. Is the baby completely black or a mixture?"
"She looks at least half white. In fact, if we never told anyone she might be able to pass as white."
This slipped by me for a second and then it hit me like a dash of ice water. The race of a child had mostly ceased to be a problem in my time, except for some of the more rabid racists. Here it mattered so much to people that Claire was talking about pretending Louise's baby was white. Claire was an abolitionist, who believed that blacks should be free, yet even she unconsciously showed the prejudices of her upbringing. You were either white or you were nothing.
(Authors note: Members of the Territorial Legislature introduced laws that attempted to exclude blacks from the benefits of full citizenship rights. These efforts were unsuccessful. However, anti-black attitudes surfaced again during the Constitutional Convention of 1857. In this session anti-black delegates managed to secure passage of ballot measures that prohibited further immigration of blacks and mulattoes to Oregon, although efforts to make Oregon a slave state failed. The voters approved overwhelmingly measures that both outlawed slavery and prohibited blacks and mulattoes from residing in Oregon. Laws that discriminated against African Americans remained in place through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, despite passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U. S. Constitution.)
It simply had never occurred to me what the reaction of other people to the children of Louise and I would be. I had naively assumed that they would react like the people of my time and think of them as children first, with their race as a fact of minor or no importance. The idea that people would think less of Louise's child because she wasn't 'white' was repugnant.
"I hope none of our children ever think they're better than Louise's or I'll spank their butts." I warned. "This is a family where no one is better or worse than anyone else." Claire looked shocked that I would even bring up the subject, while Elizabeth slowly nodded.
I was beginning to understand more about Claire and Elizabeth's personalities the longer I knew them. Claire was calmer and more confident because she was so certain of her beliefs, although she could be a bit of a fanatic at times about them. She tended to look at everything through that prism of belief and ignore other facts or ideas until she was forced to confront them. Elizabeth was more of a free thinker who looked at what she believed through the lens of reasoning.
(Authors note: The 'Free Thinkers' were the secular descendants of the thinkers of the 'Enlightenment' period. They were active in many of the social reform movements of the 19th century and believed that beliefs should be examined through reasoning.)
November 23, 1847
I have got to find some easier way of bathing. Louise has been complaining about taking up her stove for heating water to bathe in and the time it takes to bring the water in. The galvanized tub we have is too small for me, although the women don't seem to mind it, having never had anything else. I need to find if the blacksmith in Salem can get enough plate iron to make a tub with legs on it so that I can build a fire underneath. I may build a bathhouse next year on the Japanese pattern with showers where we can get clean and have a hot tub to soak in. I am insisting that every adult take a bath every week to prevent disease, as well as for personal cleanliness, and that the baby is bathed daily.
Louise was quick to recover from the birth of her daughter, who we named Helen. Helen was a happy baby who suffered only minor illnesses during this period. She nursed on Louise's breasts and grew rapidly. She was a favorite of all three wives and could be seen being carried and cuddled by all of them at one time or the other.
Helen has been suffering from colic and the only thing that seems to settle her down is holding her and walking. Three wives makes it much easier for all of us, but I still have my turn every so often. She is a pretty baby, who when not suffering from colic, is always smiling and cooing. She is being spoiled by my wives as she is always being played with or held by one of them. I teased them that she would never learn to walk as I don't think she has ever touched the floor since she has been born.
It has rained every day since Helen was born and the ground is becoming soggy. The only things we can do are tasks that can be done inside away from the constant rain. Louise spends a lot of her time cleaning the house and cooking while Claire is busy teaching. Elizabeth and I take care of the chores on the farm, with me doing the heavy labor that doesn't take too much skill and her supplying the knowledge and skills that I lack. It is difficult to keep busy but we find that being together too much in such a small place creates arguments unless we do.
December 1, 1847
We have learned to live with the rain, learning by trial and error as we did so. The roads became boggy and then impassible. Wagons would sink up to the beds, and horses up to their hocks. The only way to get around was by walking. Our root cellar flooded and we lost most of the vegetables we had stored there. After rescuing the vegetables that remained unspoiled, we dried and stored them in the attic. We planted several cold season vegetables to make up for the ones that got ruined. We got seed for cabbage, peas, dandelions and carrots from our neighbors and planted them for winter vegetables. We are continuing our training in self defense but I am reaching the limits of my own knowledge. Soon I will have nothing left to teach them. We were almost finished putting in the interior walls and plastering them. The only thing that remains is to paint them. We have read every book we have and are played out on games. Now I know why the 19th century was such a hotbed of progress; they were bored stiff and tried anything to keep themselves occupied.
December 10, 1847
After the planting was finished, the townspeople had built a new schoolhouse in the town with the lumber we had donated and Claire began to teach the children who did not have chores to do around the farms. This was usually the younger children, but occasionally older children would attend for a while. With the end of the active farming season, more children were able to go to school and Claire had a classroom full of students at every level. She used Webster's American Spelling Book and his Grammar for her texts when teaching writing, McGuffey's Readers for reading and Adam's Scholar's Arithmetic for her mathematics class She had brought copybooks with her and the children have been learning to write with a quill pen. I am also learning how to write with a quill, as the ballpoint pen I have is almost out of ink. For this she received the grand total of $30 a month for the school term. She and I are campaigning to increase the time the children spend in class to at least 6 months for all the younger children and to have her salary paid by the town so all can attend not just those who can pay for it. Until farm machinery becomes more common, the older children will have to do chores on the farms.
I have served as the doctor to our town caring for the children who attend Claire's school and anyone else who comes there with emergencies. I have a small office that opens up to Claire's school house so we can share the heat from the Canada stove she took from our house. Most of the work is taking care of cuts and bruises with the occasional broken limb. I continue to worry about tetanus and other soil borne diseases as I have no antibiotics. My attempts to grow mold for penicillin have not been successful.
Many of the new births are attended by other women although I have been asked to assist three times when the child needed to be turned or the mother had problems with the delivery. I have learned to use the curved forceps and have practiced using it in case I need it. Most people still believe I am eccentric because of my insistence on having boiled water available and constantly washing my hands when I am treating people. I just wish I knew how to make a microscope so I could show some of these people what germs look like, so they don't think I'm making them up.
In my spare time I have been putting together the horse drawn disc and harrow plows for the spring planting season. I am anxious to see how they work. I am attempting to build a thresher, but I'm having a lot of problems trying to develop a working model. I will have to think on it a lot more.
December 20, 1847
Christmas is coming up and I have found out why Claire bought so many of the white cotton shirts with linen "collars & bosoms". She has given one to each child who is attending the school to wear when performing their elocution at the end of the term. She has spoken to me privately about how to give some of the children some sort of clothes for Christmas as they are wearing rags to school. I suggested that she give them some sort of chores to do so they can earn them as I didn't think their families would accept charity.
December 25, 1847
Christmas is not the big affair it is in my time. There are no public celebrations and gifts are exchanged only between family members and very close friends. We invited Willy and Ola to celebrate Christmas dinner with us. It has been almost a month since I last saw them and I was shocked at how thin they are. There has to be some way to get them to stay with us for a while, until they get their weight up at least. I asked Willy to help me around the farm while Claire and Elizabeth are pregnant to give him work for a while. I figure we can pay him with provisions that should help them get through rest of the winter in some comfort. I guess even Willy can't find game when there isn't any to be found.
Claire made me some wool socks, while Elizabeth made me several pairs of deerskin gloves and Louise baked me some cookies. I made my wives a wood chess board and gave them a carved set of black and white stone chess pieces from the Hudson Bay Company and each got several finely decorated linen handkerchiefs. I gave Willy a large bag of pipe tobacco and a clay pipe, and Ola got some linen handkerchiefs. My wives have made the dogs small straw filled beds which I quickly placed in the kitchen. They told me that Claire gave Ola a housewife's 'starter kit' of needles and thread with two small bolts of cloth, Louise gave her a set of filled food canisters and Elizabeth gave her some chickens and feed to last for the winter.
There seems to be a race between Claire having the baby and finishing the school term. She is still walking the two miles to and from the school building six days a week, though she is starting to get slower as she gets bigger. Elizabeth is slowing down as her pregnancy progresses as well although she is stressing her body too much practicing self defense moves. I have spoken to her about this but she refuses to listen. Claire and Louise have agreed that they will watch her to make sure she doesn't hurt herself or the baby.
Louise and I have started having limited sexual intercourse again, but we are trying our best to avoid her getting pregnant again too soon. It is difficult as there are no condoms or sponges available in the local area to help prevent her from becoming pregnant. We have been mostly doing oral sex. Any other sexual contact we have limited to just before she has her period.
March 7, 1848
Claire had her baby today, a boy that we named Robert after Claire's father. She had a much easier time with Robert than Louise did with Helen. She was in labor only 6 hours after her water broke and had no complications during the delivery. She just barely held off giving birth before the school term ended. The term ended on February 28 when the children gave their elocutions. As a reward for their hard work on their elocutions Claire gave them the white cotton shirts they wore for them.
I am worried about Elizabeth. She is having more trouble getting around than Louise and Claire did. Her small size and thin shape make me worry that she will have a more difficult time in delivery. The effort she is putting into learning more self defense is also worrying me. I think that she is still showing the effects that the rape had on her. Corrie has been coming around fairly often and is learning the basics of Krav Magen and Tai Chi when she visits. She talks to Elizabeth frequently and Elizabeth seems calmer afterwards. I know that other women are coming around as well and getting training, but I am not involved with them. I haven't heard about any unexplained disappearances of abusive husbands so I feel better about the fact I've trained the women to defend themselves.
April 15, 1848
It's strange. I woke up this morning in a panic, sure I'd forgotten something important. That's when I realized that in my time I had to get my income tax forms mailed by today. I began to laugh but I couldn't explain why I was amused since none of my wives would have understood. They would have laughed at the idea of an income tax and the things that it paid for. Welfare, social security, a standing army of several hundred thousand, they would have been sure I was making a joke at their expense.
Willy and I have decided that we will set off to California to pick up some cattle after Elizabeth's baby is born and the snow in the passes melts. I am going to be taking him to pan for gold, though I haven't said anything about this to him. I have an advantage over everyone else in this time because I know from my California history classes where the big strikes were and what they found. I am sure we will be able to find enough gold to allow Willy to succeed as a farmer and for me to continue trying to keep slavery out of Oregon. I am really beginning to appreciate my time with Willy working on the chores as the noise of two babies crying is not to be believed until you hear it.
I have become more and more worried about Elizabeth and her pregnancy. I made her stop working around the farm and had her stay in the house as much as possible. She has become huge in the last month and waddles rather than walks. She is due in two weeks and I am considering making her stay in bed until the delivery.
We tested the harrow plow on the virgin soil and it works well, though we will have to wait for a week in order for the soil dry out more before we make new fields. We tried the disc plow in the fields we broke up last year but didn't get a chance to plant. We learned that the horses could only take about a half hour of work before we had to rest them 10 minutes. We also found that we could not plow a square field and all of them ended up as ovals. The time we needed to plow a field was greatly reduced and we learned by chance that the disc plows just rode over rocks and roots in the ground, speeding things up even more. I had to put a harrow tooth on the disc plow to keep it from going sideways. Instead of doing one or two acres a day with the walk behind plow we could do 5 or more acres without difficulty and without needing a lot of strength to guide the plow. The women could handle plowing with this plow if they needed to.
April 21, 1848
Elizabeth had her baby today and for a while I was afraid she was going to die. Her water broke this morning and she was really slow dilating. She was in labor for 14 hours and she could not dilate enough to let her push the baby out. I was in tears thinking that I was going to have to make a choice between her or the baby until Corrie showed up. She gave Elizabeth something in a drink that caused her to dilate enough to allow the baby out with the aid of the curved forceps. When I asked what it was she told me that the only name she had for it was squaw root. She stated that it could also be used to abort unwanted children or as a contraceptive.
I had to have Corrie handle most of the birth although I did insist that she wash her hands throughly before she did. I was so rattled by almost losing Elizabeth that I was unable to do much more than sit next to her and hold her hand. I did manage to strip the cord of blood and cut it after the baby came out, but until I saw the baby I remained afraid that something was going to go wrong. Elizabeth gave birth to a girl, who we named Harriet for her mother.
May 02, 1848
We began our plowing of the new fields with the harrow plows a week ago. By the end of the week we had plowed 60 acres of new fields. We are planning to plow a total of 200 acres and then loan out the plows to the neighbors. Our deal is that they can use the plows for their fields as long as they agree to provide two workers to handle our field work while we go to California to purchase cattle. I am ready to go soon, as I now have three babies in the house. The noise three babies can make is amazing when they all get upset at once. My wives trade off the children indiscriminately between them. If a baby is hungry, then the nearest breast is offered. A diaper changed? Whoever is closest is responsible for changing it, including me. Ola is going to be coming over to stay with them at night while Willy and I are gone on our trip. Elizabeth is responsible for running the farms while I'm gone and will be directing the people working the fields. I told my wives that I expect to be gone for two months or three at most.
I have made arrangements with the doctor in Salem to handle any emergencies in this area until I return. I was happy to learn that he had gone to medical school in London before he moved here, so I trust him more than most. We have had several discussions about washing before seeing patients and using antiseptics and I think he is beginning to see that they are effective in preventing diseases and infections.
We have been calling the new town simply the �'Town�' but we are getting new people coming in to buy items instead of going to Salem. We have been talking about it and the favorite seems to be Cincinnati as several of the families lived near that city before they left to come to Oregon. I expect that it will be decided by the time we get back.
May 25, 1848
We are leaving today for California. I have told Claire and Elizabeth about the soon to occur gold rush and what happened afterwards and they suggested that I really buy the cattle. This will allow us to rapidly increase our herd and then we can sell beef to the miners. I am going to try and get Willy to pan for gold before we buy them, so he can buy some too. The news of the gold find should be out by the time we get there but I know where the big strikes were made. I figure when we get to the Klamath River we can pan enough gold for him to have a better chance of making it as a farmer and I could use more money to do the things I am planning to do.
We will be traveling the Siskiyou trail on horseback to California. Neither of us have ever gone that way, except when I drove to Oregon over I-5, so we don't know what we will be facing. We have been told it has been marked and we can pick it up around Skinner's Mud Hole (Present-day Eugene).
I have left my .22 pistol with my wives and I am now using the Walker Colt as my primary weapon. I spent the winter making a holster patterned after my old one and practicing my quick draw, more out of boredom and the need to have something to do than anything else. I hope I don't need it, but I feel safer since I have practiced. I took out 400 dollars for the trip and to purchase cattle. I tried to loan Willy some money to buy cattle as well, but he refused to accept it.
I am taking a pick and shovel and have insisted that Willy bring one too. He is convinced that I am nuts, but to humor me he is willing to do so. My wives wanted me to take one of them with us, but each was reluctant to leave her baby and I refused to take a baby with us. I think the main reason is they don't think that mere men know how to take care of themselves. Ola is remaining to take care of their claim and to keep squatters out.
I would never have believed it before the winter but it will be pleasant to go somewhere without my wives. I love them, but so much time together in such a small place makes me dream of solitude or strictly male company for a while. Although Willy hasn't said anything I think he feels the same way, since he seems as impatient as I am to get going.
May 26, 1848
We picked up the Siskiyou trail near the Long Tom River and have been following it through rolling hills. So far the weather and the terrain have been good and we have made 25 miles daily. We set up camp and made a dinner out of smoked meat and journey bread. We managed to pick up some sulfur matches in Salem so we don't have to use a flint and steel to start a fire. I'm glad about that, because I still haven't mastered the knack of using them yet.
The further south we go, the less settled the country appears to be. I don't think we have seen more than twenty farms since we left the Eugene area. Willy insisted on bringing his mule as a watch guard. He told me that the Indians in the area we are headed toward are unfriendly and they will attack small parties.
I'm glad Willy came, because he is a font of wisdom when it comes to moving quietly through an unknown country. He is showing me some tricks to use. I was wondering why he chose halter broken horses instead of bit broken ones, and he explained that bright metal is easily seen from a long way. He had chosen buckskins and insisted that I don mine as well. He told me that he wished I had a beard since this breaks up a persons outline, but since I didn't have one, he used dirt to camouflage my face. He used a buckskin cover over his rifle barrel to break up the outline and showed me how it disappeared in the brush. There were several other tricks he showed me about how to chose a campsite and other things I would have never thought about.
May 27, 1848
We have left the Willamette valley and will be entering the mountains tomorrow. I figure it will take us about 2 to 3 days to reach the Klamath River. I am stopping every time we reach a good size stream to pan for gold and I am driving Willy crazy. He still believes that I am treating this as more of a camping trip than a serious business trip. I can't tell him that I know where gold was found from my history of California studies in the future. I have to let him believe that we have found it on our own.
May 28-June 1, 1848
We have arrived at the Klamath River after going through some of the steepest terrain that I have ever seen. I am going to the river tomorrow and have Willy come with me so when I find gold he can see it. I just hope he loves Ola enough to go back and doesn't get gold fever like Claire and Elizabeth had.
June 3, 1848
Struck gold in enough quantity to excite Willy. He is panning for gold, but I have to show him how to do it so he doesn't wash out most of the gold. We managed to collect about 3 ounces today of placer gold. I had to get Willy to stop and go back to camp to eat since he wanted to continue panning through supper. After I get Willy experienced enough to pan on his own, I'm going to go hunting for meat, while he pans for more gold. I guess finding that pocket of gold in Wyoming spoiled me, because I don't find it very thrilling to pan for only a few ounces. I want to get Willy to go with me to an area that will later be called Happy Camp for the ease with which gold was found in the area. We will be prospecting down the river for a while and checking to see what kind of color we find.
June 7, 1848
I shot a fair sized elk today. I have gotten much better about skinning and cutting up game over the last year. Things that would have taken me several hours before now only take me about 30 minutes. I am beginning to become accustomed to doing things the way people here do them. I no longer am looking for modern conveniences such as electric lights and flushing toilets. Gradually I am turning into a 19th century man as far as abilities, but I don't think I'll ever really understand their mindset sometimes. I just can't understand why these people want to be rich so much.
When I got back to our camp I cut up much of the elk into strips for drying and put a roast in the dutch oven to cook for supper. When I went back to where I had left Willy I found him setting on the bank with a dazed look on his face and a handful of nuggets in his hands. He had found a small pocket in the gravel where gold had accumulated and had pulled over a pound of gold from it. I managed to convince him to come back to the camp and eat before he went back to panning.
I walked around and found another bar about a hundred yards upstream where a smaller stream came into the river. I quickly found color and began to find gold nuggets as well. Between Willy and myself we found about 4 pounds of gold that day. I figured that in five more days we should have enough gold to do anything we wished to the farms.
Willy started acting strangely that night, constantly looking at the gold and holding it. I finally got pissed off enough to ask him if he wanted it for breakfast, since he seemed to think it was of some use, �"You can't eat, drink, smoke or fuck gold, and you can't wear it except as jewelry. The only thing it's good for is to trade to other idiots who think it has value.�" Willy looked at me like I was totally crazy, then after a while he began chuckling.
�"Alex, if it was anyone but you, I'd think he was joshing me. I have to admit, you don't seem to think of money like most people do.�"
�"I like money for what it can provide me. Otherwise it's not good for anything.�"
He calmed down and we began discussing what we should do next. I told him that we came here to buy cattle and that's what we should do. We'd take the gold we could find in five days and buy cattle with it, then on the way back we could pan for more gold if we wanted to since we knew where it was. He argued about continuing with our trip.
I asked how we were going to explain his sudden wealth if we returned now. It would be better, I argued, to have people believe that he had won it somehow in California so they wouldn't follow him back to his claim. Finally he agreed and we decided to continue to Sutter's Fort to buy cattle.
I'm always glad to hear from my readers, and want to know what you like as well as what you don't like. Without constructive citicism no writer can improve.