Chapter III: At Scappoose

When young Labonte was about sixteen, and after spending about two years at Chemaway, the family was employed by Thomas McKay to take charge of his farm on Scappoose Plains, across the Willamette Slough, or Multnomah, from Sauvie's Island—McKay being one of the most energetic and intrepid captains of the Hudson's Bay Company, and being at that time detailed for special service in the Snake River country, where competition with American companies was setting in with much vigor. On this farm the Labontes raised wheat, oats, peas, potatoes, and various garden products, and had cattle and hogs, but no sheep. On the farm with the Labontes there was a Frenchman named Antoine Plasier.

It was during this period that Wyeth—whom Labonte recalls as White, from a mixture of the English aspirate and the French non-aspiration of th—made his second visit to the Columbia. It was, however, more with the trim brig May Dacre that the lad had to do. He remembers that he was at that time just as tall as a musket, which he indicates would reach about to his chin as a man. On this craft, which lay anchored in the stream not far from the farm, he was often invited to go visiting, particularly Sundays, and was well treated by the sailors and Captain Lambert. He remembers once being asked by the captain whether he could climb a mast, and he immediately proceeded to show that he could, and ascended to the topmast on the bare pole, climbing hand over hand. It happened to be a windy day, and the brig was rolling somewhat in the swell, and when the boy looked down from his lofty elevation, he was made almost dizzy by observing how small the vessel below him looked in the wide stream. But upon reaching deck again, he was complimented by both sailors and captain as being made of stuff fit for a sailor.

Indeed, Lambert seems to have been very well pleased with him, and offered him a passage on his ship to Boston, and a return, either by land or sea, and to this his parents were almost persuaded to give their consent, but at the last moment could not quite bring themselves to do this. Sometimes he was invited by the captain to take dinner, and amused the officers by his sturdy refusal to take anything to drink—perhaps as much from suspicion as from set conviction—though the better class of men on the Columbia at that time greatly deprecated the use of intoxicants and were largely temperate, and the boy very likely had imbibed these ideas.

He remembers Lambert as large and powerful, and full bodied; of dark hair and complexion, and "a good man." Nathaniel Wyeth, whom he also saw, was florid, light-haired and blue-eyed, but also large, and perhaps even finer looking than Lambert.

Game at Scappoose and on the ponds of Sauvie's Island was very abundant, consisting of deer, elk and bear, and panthers and wildcats; and beaver were still plentiful; but the waterfowl of the most magnificent kind, at their season of passage, and, indeed, during much of the year, almost forbade the hunter to sleep. Labonte remembers one winter season in particular when there was a snowfall of about sixteen inches, and in the early morning he went forth to hunt swan. These splendid birds of the white species, like the innumerable ducks and geese, assembled at the island ponds to feast upon the abundant wapatoes. On this particular morning the youth soon discovered his flock of swans upon the surface of a shallow lake, eating the roots, and being such an immense flock that they were not to be disturbed even by the immediate presence of the hunter. Then, disrobing to his shoulders,—for the water was too deep to reach the flock otherwise,—he simply waded in, bringing down two or three birds to a shot, until he soon had as many as he could carry. Indeed, the lake was so covered by the flock as almost to conceal the water. However, upon reaching home he was rather chided for his performance by his father, who told him that by such cold bathing he would be likely to get the "rheumatism," which was his first acquaintance with that term.