Early one afternoon, we made camp by a stream.  People said it was called Green River.  I thought it was very well named, for it truly was beautifully clear and green.  It was not a large stream, but it looked to me to go clear to China.

     A number of the younger women and children were going fishing and I wanted to go.  I do not remember ever wanting to do anything quite so much.  I did distinctly remember that I seldom wanted anything that I did not feel pretty certain about before hand.  I guess that was because I had learned how needless it was to try and talk Mother out of anything, once she had said, "No."  Whatever Mother's "No" was, it certainly was final.  I almost knew that she would say it this time, but I wanted to go with every fiber in my small body.  Sure enough she said: "No, you are to small to fish and besides, you have no fish hook."  That part about the fish hook was quite true, but it had not occurred to me and I suppose it would have settled the matter, if Aunt Rachel had not come up in time to hear it.  Aunt always did understand small folk amazingly well, so she saved the day for me by saying, "Oh Polly, do let the child go.  I will fix her a fish hook and go along with her."

     Dear me, but I was excited.  She bent a pin and tied it to a strong thread, then with a willow pole from the bank of the river, I had as good a fishing tackle as anyone could ask for.  I knew that it was extra good, because Aunt Rachel had fixed it.

     She found a deep, dark pool under the edge of the bank where the willows hung over it, a cool shadowy looking place, and said, "Now, Lottie you drop your hook right there and keep very quite."  I suppose she must have put a worm or something on the hook for bait, but I was too excited to notice.  Anyway, she told me that when I "felt my line bob" I was to "jerk it just as hard as I could."  It was not long before I felt it wobble and I jerked as hard as ever I could, so hard that it completely upset me, and I caught my first fish.

     It was sixty or more years later when I caught my second and last fish.  I had a handmade rod split bamboo and wrapped with gay colored silk.  I suppose it was fine they said it was.  I caught a five pound salmon trout, but there was no thrill in it for me.  It was just a fish.  I could not get it off the hook, and had to call for someone to help me I never fished again.

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     People began to count the sacks of flour and sides of bacon that remained in the wagons, and to count the days till they would reach the valley.  The oxen were growing thin and jaded.  Some of them had died and some of them had become so exhausted that they had been left along the trail.  The nights were cold and frosty, though the days were warm enough, sometimes entirely too warm.  People, as well as cattle, were worn and tired.

     We camped on the Snake River near American Falls.  The Indians were fishing there and drying their catch.  There was rotten fish everywhere, the stench was unbearable, I hated it and could not eat the dried salmon that Father bought from them, even though I was hungry for something different.  But when there, I found a handful of ripe wild strawberries.  They were such a wonderful delicacy.  How they happened to be ripe so late in the summer, I don't know, I did not question it then.  They were picked and eaten eighty years ago and more so why waste time in questioning it now?

     Our men tried to catch salmon, but they were not so very successful.  The Indians caught them in traps built of willow twigs.  They looked like great baskets overturned in the water.  When we forded the river, Niniva Ford caught a forty pound salmon in his wagon wheel.  Before it could get away, he pulled it in with his bare hands.  It flopped about in the wagon box, till he finally killed it.

     We had quite a lot of trouble at this crossing.  Several of our wagons were upset on the Indians fish traps, but no great damage was done.  The water was very swift and dangerous, so the families were crossed in Indian canoes.  The flock swam over, then the wagons were tied together and pulled across, like barges.