Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/69

made our way there and Henry asked his uncle for a job for us both. Henry's uncle threw him out bodily and told him to beat it, so we had our walk for nothing. I went to the hotel and told the proprietor I was broke and wanted to stay with him and would pay as soon as I got a job. He told me that he could get me a job and that I could board at his hotel. He sent me to the manager of a match factory there, which manufactured these old-fashioned sulphur matches, you remember the kind—there were 100 of them in a block. The manager gave me a job and told me to report for work next morning. That night I was awakened by a lot of excitement, and getting up I found there was a big fire. I dressed hurriedly and when I got out on the street, I was told that the match factory was on fire. It was a total loss and I was out of a job. I went down to the wharf where I found a sloop called the Harriet Lane was about to sail for San Francisco. I asked the captain for a chance to work my way to San Francisco. He said that he was loaded with potatoes and that I could go to San Francisco with him and that he would give me a job unloading the potatoes and pay me for it, so I got aboard. When we reached San Francisco an officer was waiting for the boat and attached it for debt, so tht job went glimmering. I began to think I never would be able to get work. I began a systematic campaign for a job and finally landed a job with a pick and shovel on the site now occupied by the Palace Hotel. We were paid $1 a day for ten hours work. A Chinaman brought us our lunch in a big pan, which we set on the sidewalk and each man dipped in and helped himself. The sand we were shoveling away was loaded on cars and hauled off to make a fill. A rather interesting thing in connection with my job here was that the engine used in hauling the sand away that I was shoveling onto the cars, was later sent to be used as the first engine on the portage road at the Cascades. It was a small engine and the rails used on the portage road were wooden rails with iron