The Oskaloosa herald., 1906-08-09
LETTER FROM HARRY
Former Herald Reporter Tells Of
New Home and Work.


but the phizzes of the folks in the
office, and ! get mighty homesick.
But then, if there were any OF you
within reach / should, / suspect, pat
you on the back patronizingly and
wonder how you just can stand it,
''back there"
For Oskaloosa is back east" to me
already have a sort of western
fever and as long as can keep from
thinking of my friends / haven't a
regret that came to oregon.
l can't help but feel like assuming a
pose. It's too bad for you poor folks
back there that are cooped up under
a sky bowl on fiat piece of land
with nothing around you but the same
fairness or the same sky. l had no
conception of mountains until ! left
Iowa, and wouldn't part with that
conception now for all that can lose
if do lose out here.
am just as joyous in these new
found wonders as a boy might be in
his first pair of long pants. And if
you please, by way of dispersion, the
other day l met the man who bought
me my first pair. He is travelling
man who passed through Baker. An
old friend of the family, and one who
was rather surprised to see the size
of the trousers / fill up now.
But am happy over this country
so much so that it seems puerile, and
to you who have been out in this
country, silly. Magnificent distances,
almost wondrous heights, wild weird
beauty, such as one who has seen only
the gentle quietude of the Iowa farms
did not dream in nature.
Height is an essence of it all. The
very sky is higher here. The sun
and the moon are higher and the hills
here are mountains of back home.
The mountains-one doesn't dream of
them back there, unless one has been
ont here, too. The very bills are high
er. Board is higher; rooming is
higher-and they do say they have
some high old times in this same
Baker.
l have been to the mountains twice
since / have been here. am going
to send you folks some pictures Of
the trip, show you what we saw,
where we were. l cannot begin to
tell you of them. / never felt myself
at half so great loss in writing. |
never realized how little could say
on paper until attempted to write
of those trips.
They were wonderful. We were in
the deep pine forests. Above us the
great spires with wind rushing
through them in gentle song, at our
side mountain brook.
The stream as crystal as dia-
mond, dashing upon rocks into sun
burst. of diamonds that radiated the
rainbow, whitening as it fell into a
narrow necklace of pearl, cold as the
snow itself. Pure as God made pur-
ity, and-the very limpid, living sun
shine.
Bottled sunshine" Charles Lamb
called port wine, in an essay to make
men thirsty. but this was living sun.
shine, and where it was there could
be no excuse for else.
We climbed the highest peak to the
crest of the ridge, but not 70 the
peaks summit, for l, who was expert
encing my first mountain climbing,
became dizzy and had to stop. We
were above the snow, and Louis
Streigel, our comrade, photographed
us as we climbed long bank on the
fifteenth of July.
Another time we drove over the
Sky Line trail, along the route of the
water pipes into Baker from the sum-
mits of the mountains twenty miles
away. That was trip.
We wound around the crests Of the
mountains in the deep pine forests
on one side preciplIous slope Of
green, down, hundreds Of feet into the
little canyon of the creek, and on the
other side the mountain rose above us
sometimes jutting rock, sometimes
the grasses sheer slope-always beau
tiful.
l am going to write of that some
time, and write of it soon. If you
won't publish this meagre attempt at
description / shall be glad to send
you something. We will take trip
Sunday and if l do not send you
something before l will on Monday.
was simply telling you how l liked
it here.
There are scarcely any travelling
men, none except from the big towns,
and of course we have them spotted.
have all the city work, although
Pruitt cuts in and helps sometimes.
For two weeks ! was pretty near
the push. We had Pruitt's brother,
who was green" doing the telegraph,
because all he had to do was to ampli-
fly, and / had to do the rest and help
with that. We have a corking limo
type operator and it kept me going
some to keep up with him.
1t is odd the way one runs onto
people here. Two Of the young pro-
fessional men knew Arthur Hugg in
the university Of Michigan. A rail-