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274 WILLIAM BARLOW off he went, but kept out of sight of everybody he saw on the road until he got to the store. He then set his basket down on a platform outside of the store and slipped in to see if there was anybody in the store that would laugh at him. Just then a man came running in and said that there was an old sow out- side with her head in someone's basket of eggs. The boy's first thought was that he would neither claim basket nor eggs. But his second thought was that he dare not go home without the basket, so he stepped to the door and saw that the eggs were all smashed to jelly. "Well," he said, "I guess that basket is mine, but the eggs seem to belong to that old sow." But he got the tea and threw a bright quarter down on the counter with pompous satisfaction and walked out. He washed the basket clean and went home joyous that he had escaped the disgrace of selling eggs. His mother praised him for a fine boy and he had saved his money besides. The boy thought that he had done well himself in satisfying his mother and himself and to get praise he did not deserve. But now the hen and the product of the hen bring more money to the farmer than all the wheat he sells, and there is not half as much hard labor about it. Besides, this is something that can be done and is done mostly by women and children and merely amusement and recreation for them. I think this is enough to illustrate the difference between then and now. As I have already crossed the plains or great American desert as it was called, scaled the Rocky Mountains, and helped build a road over the Cascade Mountains and landed on the Pacific Coast, I will now make one bound and light down in Oregon City again and commence to do business for myself in my own way. The first thing I did was to go back with provisions to the man I had left with the wagons and goods on or near the summit of the Cascade Mountains; this was Mr. William Berry, afterwards son-in-law of Stephen Coffin, one of the proprietors of the now great city of Portland, of which I will have a good word to say before I get through these memoirs.