WASH UP THERE

ONE of the first families to settle in Klickitat County was the Burgen family. Mrs. Burgen rode into Klickitat Valley on horseback just two months before her baby was born. Hence this son, Newt Burgen, was the first white child born in Klickitat County.

When I was a young woman, I taught school in the neighborhood where the Burgens lived, and sometimes visited at their home.

Their first home was located on a fertile farm on "The Swale," near Goldendale, a small stream running through the valley This cabin had port holes in it, as a safeguard against Indians.

Mrs. Rurgen told me that at the time the family first caine to the new home, the Indians were more like animals than humans, in their manner of doing things. When the Indians came to the settler house, they slipped from brush to brush, crawled through the tall grass, or when they found nothing to hide behind ran swiftly through the open space and dropped behind any bush or tree that would hide them, then crawl and hide again.

Mrs. Burgen once invited me to spend the night with her, which I gladly did.

In the morning when I came down stairs, I asked where I might wash.

Mrs. Burgen was a pioneer and not accustomed to pampering people. She gave me a towel, took me to the back door, pointed up the draw, and told me,

"Wash up there."

And even though it was the dead of winter, I took the piece of soap I found lying there, and washed myself in the icy water as it came gurgling from the side of the hill. At least, I didn't need to apply rouge for color!